#it's what he did for his dad its what he would do for you

[insipid-drivel]

THERE IS A REAL REASON ODYSSEUS DIDN'T GET HOME FOR 20 YEARS AND IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ODY BEING SHIT AT SEA TRAVEL. PLEASE PAY ATTENTION FOR THOSE ENJOYING THE EPIC ALBUMS AS MUCH AS I'VE BEEN BECAUSE THIS WILL ENHANCE THE EXPERIENCE:

At the very beginning of "The Iliad" (aka the story of Helen of Troy and the Trojan War), the only main characters on the Greek side of the war that don't want to help are Achilles and Odysseus. In the "Epic" Albums, the story starts off at the very end of the war, where Odysseus is forced by his fellow Kings of Greece to kill Hector's newborn son and heir, Astyanax, by dropping him from the city walls after the battle is over and the city is burning.

Odysseus was even more desperate to avoid having to go to war. When he was young - before meeting the Morticia to his Gomez, Penelope - an oracle revealed to Odysseus that, if he were ever to leave Ithaca for any reason, he wouldn't return until 20 years later, and he would return alone and poor.

This is why, for those of you that are familiar with the beginning of The Iliad, Odysseus dresses himself as a peasant farmer, yokes a donkey and a bull to the same farming plow, and begins to drive the animals around a field outside of his palace while sowing soot into the soil when the other Greek Kings come to call on him and the forces of Ithaca to join their war on Troy. Odysseus knew, the moment he saw soldiers and ships approaching his island, that the prophecy set for his life was unfolding.

Odysseus was also the grandson of Sisyphus, who was notoriously clever and crafty, and was cursed with the pushing-the-boulder-uphill hex by Zeus because the fucker kept outsmarting the gods and finding loopholes in his deals with them and ultimately driving Zeus bananas. So, the whole "trying to outsmart fate" thing may have been genetic for Ody. However, he did absolutely love and adore Penelope and their infant son, Telemachus, and Odysseus was forced to stop malingering when Diomedes snatched the newborn Telemachus from Penelope's arms and put him directly in the path of the hooves of the bull and donkey pulling Odysseus' plow. Being a loving dad, Odysseus immediately stopped everything to rescue his son, but he'd been found out and was forced to leave for Troy.

The Trojan War alone was a siege war that lasted 10 YEARS on its own. The Iliad literally takes place over the course of an entire decade of war. Odysseus wasn't even responsible for how long the war lasted. Agamemnon and Menelaus were so stubborn about getting Helen back that they waged a fruitless siege war on the city for A WHOLE ASS DECADE. That accounts for the first decade.

Decade #2 was the one Odysseus spent trying to get home to Ithaca, but 10 years of desperate siege warfare had resulted in the gods themselves starting to fight amongst each other, and take their quarreling out on the Greek and Trojan troops. Odysseus ultimately winds up being an accessory to pissing off Poseidon in particular multiple times, but clinches Poseidon's notorious grudge-bearing rage on himself when he orders his men to help him blind the cyclops Polyphemus after Odysseus and his crew become trapped by him.

Because Odysseus refused to kill Polyphemus and only blinded him so he and his men could escape and get the FUCK off The Island Of Poor Depth Perception, you'd think he'd get brownie points for being merciful. Sadly though, Polyphemus and the other Cyclopes were the children of Poseidon, and if Odysseus had just killed Polyphemus while the cyclops only believed his name was "Nobody" (Nemo), then Poseidon would never have known who had harmed his son.

But that's not what happened. Odysseus and his men were bloodsick from 10 years of gruesome, bloody, traumatizing warfare, and Odysseus showed Polyphemus mercy and let him live. Polyphemus learned Odysseus' name as a result, and cried out to his father, Poseidon, that Odysseus be "made to suffer more than any mortal yet alive".

And in comes Contract Law. Poseidon just wants to kill Odysseus and his crew and be done with it, but Zeus is the one who gets final say over it as King of the Gods, and is also just as sick to fucking death of the wars and bloodshed. So, Zeus takes Polyphemus' request literally: Odysseus would SUFFER more than any mortal man alive, but he would not DIE because of it.

So, Zeus, Poseidon, and Athena worked together to help, hinder, and ultimately force Odysseus and his crew on an extra 10 years of strife and death being blown around the Mediterranean Sea before Zeus finally decided enough was enough and let Odysseus return home. 20 years later, alone and poor, just as the Oracle had warned him.

Was curious how far Ithaca was from troy today while listening to epic the musical and rereading the illiad and I found this map

I think odysseus would have been better just to walk😭

[roosterforme]

Aim for the Sky Part 28 | Rooster x Reader

Summary: You start to realize there could be a reason to worry when your exhaustion won't let up. Bradley is so focused on what's happening in Texas, he doesn't even realize he's missing out on what's happening at home.

Warnings: Angst, adult language, body image, DILF Roo

Length: 3200 words

Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Female Reader

Aim for the Sky masterlist. This was written to accompany my series Is It Working For You? along with a bunch of my one-shots and other series, but it can be read on its own! Check my masterlist for the reading order.

Texas in August was hot as fuck. And the humidity left Bradley wishing he could jump in a pool. There was no cool, coastal breeze. There was no temperate climate. It was gross. It had him vowing to never move from San Diego for the rest of his life.

"How did I live in Virginia for so long?" he grumbled, getting dressed for his first day on base. He had the air conditioner blasting in his small room in the barracks, but he was still sweating at seven in the morning. He considered texting to see how you and Rose fared overnight without him, but it was even earlier at home, and he didn't want to wake you unnecessarily. 

He could picture you curled up on his pillow drooling, and it made him smile. But you had to do everything this week without his help, and that made his smile falter. He always tried to alleviate some of your stress by holding Rose when she fussed or walking around with her until she fell asleep. Mostly he was just in love with being a dad and wanted to spend as much time with his daughter as possible.

"Shit," he muttered when he checked the time, realizing he needed to get out of here before he was late. As soon as he stepped outside, the heat had him convinced he would sweat through his khaki uniform before he got to meet the rest of the recruits. Well, other than the ones he'd met at the bar the previous night.

LTJG Brooke Jeffries, call sign "Indigo", came to mind right away. It was no wonder how she'd earned her moniker. Her eyes were the most shocking shade of blue he'd ever seen. She tried to buy him a drink before insisting he meet several of the other aviators who were part of the program over at the pool table. Bradley stayed for a little while, careful not to let a single one of them buy him a drink. In fact, he only had the one beer with his dinner which would go directly to his expense report. The last thing he needed was one of them trying to get the upper hand or complaining that he was playing favorites.

With no clear idea of where he needed to go, Bradley wound his way along a few corridors before finding the classrooms. The facility was a lot smaller than those of North Island or even Oceana, but the rigorous training protocol at this particular airbase held a lot of promise. He was almost shocked at times that he'd been selected to decide who would advance to Top Gun.

"Lieutenant Commander Bradshaw!"

Bradley turned toward the voice and was greeted by a few Admirals. After some saluting and some chitchat, he was led to the appropriate classroom, the presence of superior officers silencing everyone in attendance. There were some more introductions before he was given control of the group, and if he was sweating because of the heat a few minutes ago, now it was because of nerves. Shit. He wanted to be as successful as possible in this role.

"Good morning. I'm Lieutenant Commander Bradshaw, and I'll be spending this week observing you in the air as well as reviewing the extensive files that have been compiled for each of you. Out of three dozen aviators in attendence, a maximum of eight will be invited to join the training program at Top Gun in September. I look forward to working with you."

He could feel piercing blue eyes on him as everyone stood, adjusting their flight suits as they headed out to the tarmac to get started. Before making his way up to the tower for the duration of the day, Bradley took a few minutes to identify each aviator and answer some questions. It didn't seem to matter where he was standing, Indigo was always nearby, but her questions were pertinent. She seemed like a bit of a teacher's pet, which had never been his style, but to each their own.

Then he sent them up in the air individually and in groups so he and the admirals could take some notes as a group. It was obvious even very early on who the standouts were. After just one day, there was very little question who would be joining him in San Diego.

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

You felt terrible. Almost like you had the flu. But every time you checked, there was no fever accompanying the constant exhaustion. Of course Rose decided this week would be the opportune time to have a blowout diaper every hour all night long, leaving you in a state similar to a zombie at work.

"Come here," you whispered, picking her up at daycare after work and giving her kisses. "Your godmother is coming over for dinner, and I want you to be on your best behavior. No pooping," you told her as you pushed her through the parking garage in her stroller. She simply laughed at you in response, which was not a great sign.

It wasn't even hot out. It was beautiful weather, especially compared to what Bradley was enduring this week. Yet you still felt unbearably hot, and you had a headache. "Maybe it's a good thing we didn't go with him," you mused as you situated Rose in her car seat. "You'd be poopy and sweaty, and that's not a combination that I really feel like dealing with at the moment."

While you tried to drive home, your headache just got worse, and you really didn't now how you were going to handle making dinner. Perhaps you should just start taking some cold medication as a preventative. It wouldn't hurt anything. You changed direction to make a quick stop, because a snack sounded nice, too. Maybe you could coax Rose to go to bed right after Nat left, eat some candy and pass out yourself. At least Bradley wasn't at home to stress you out. Recently, he seemed to put you right on the edge of irritation a lot of the time, and it was nice to get a bit of a break.

You were pushing the stroller down the last aisle in the drug store when you saw something which made you freeze in place. "No," you whispered, palms starting to sweat along with the rest of you. The vague awareness that you still never got your period after Rose was born washed over you. As soon as you got back from La Jolla, where you were pretty sure Bradley pulled out, you started back on the pill again. But there was no way for you to tell if you were ovulating.

You grabbed some pregnancy tests and went straight for the registers, freaking out inside before you remembered to double back for some cold medicine just in case. Your fingers were shaking as you used your credit card to pay for everything, including two candy bars. The cashier was making a fuss over your daughter, but the sudden loud ringing in your ears was preventing you from formulating a coherent response. You grabbed your items and rushed back outside.

When you got home, Nat was already there, and tears stung your eyes when she walked across your driveway to help you carry everything inside. "How's my sweet Rose?" she asked, picking her up gently from her car seat and peppering her cheeks with kisses. Then her eyes widened briefly when she what you'd purchased at the drug store. But she didn't say a word about the pregnancy tests, and you didn't have the energy to mention it or try to make an excuse.

"I'm thinking of making spaghetti for dinner," you told her, settling on the easiest combination of pasta and store bought sauce.

"I didn't want you to have to cook for me, so I brought some hot sandwiches from the diner," she replied. "One roast beef and one turkey. You can pick the one you want, because I like both."

Your mouth was instantly watering, and when you opened the bag on your kitchen counter, it smelled so good, you could have kissed her. "Thanks for getting these," you said, quickly unwrapping both sandwiches and pulling out plates. "I'm really tired this week without Bradley here."

"I figured as much. You've got to keep this little love bug fed and played with and read to all on your own." She sat down on the couch with your daughter in her arms. "I don't understand how something that looks like Bradley can be so adorable. Logically, it doesn't make sense to me."

You snorted, cutting both sandwiches in half to share them evenly. "He insists she doesn't look anything like him."

"Oh, he's so full of crap. I mean, he's lucky your kids will also look like you, because you're beautiful."

You didn't miss the way she used the plural of the word, and you felt your anxiety spike again as you cleared your throat. "Do you want to sit in the dining room? Or at the kitchen island?"

"Whichever is easier," she replied, giving you a lingering look before shifting her attention back to Rose.

You knew it was better to take a pregnancy test first thing in the morning, but after Nat left, you couldn't stop looking at the packages on the kitchen counter. Since you bought several, you didn't see the harm in taking one of them before bed. What's the worst that could happen? You'd stay up all night in a state of nervous energy? You were barely getting any sleep this week regardless, so why not just take it?

Burping Rose and reading her bedtime story were two things your husband readily volunteered to do, but you fumbled your way through both tasks as your heart beat a little faster. You were about to take a pregnancy test. It wasn't that you didn't want to get pregnant again, you just didn't want to get pregnant again right now. Not while your firstborn was still so young, and not when you hadn't been feeling like your normal self again yet. The idea of two babies to care for was also so daunting,  you found yourself close to panicking.

You had to leave Rose in her crib to cry for a few minutes before she fell asleep, because you couldn't wait any longer. Not only did you want to pee on the stupid test just to see a result, you also felt like your bladder was going to burst if you didn't go now. You made a beeline back to the kitchen where you grabbed the boxes and your candy bars before running to your bathroom.

When you tore into the foil wrapper, you accidentally cut your finger. "Damn it!" you gasped, wrapping it up in toilet paper before you got the test ready with your other hand. You didn't know what to think as you finally let your bladder feel so much better. Chances were strong you'd need to take an additional test in the morning if you wanted to double check a negative result. You knew your hormone levels would be stronger then.

"This is pointless you whispered to yourself as you put the test on the counter and set a timer on your phone. You snatched up the candy bar, ripping the packaging open with your teeth and climbed into the empty bathtub to wait. The chocolate tasted delicious. Just as good as the sandwiches Nat brought. You wrapped the toilet paper tighter around your finger when you realized you could smell the metallic tang of blood in the air.

What were you going to do? Bradley would most certainly be pleased if it was positive. He indicated he that he couldn't care less if you were on birth control at all. If the test was negative, you wouldn't even tell him about it. You'd simply take everything out with the trash, and he'd never see it. Unless Nat said something. But you didn't think she would. Especially since you didn't metion any of this to her. That would be breaking girl code. But she was his best friend, so you weren't sure.

You took another big bite of your candy bar and thought about how long it took you to get pregnant with Rose. It was too easy to recall all of the months where you had yourself nearly convinced that it was never going to happen. How much anger and hurt you felt, wanting something your body just wasn't letting you have. And your daughter was perfect. She really was. But now you were scared for a different reason, and you only had yourself to blame for being so horny when you forgot to take your birth control pills away with you.

The fact that this candy bar tasted so good to you was becoming alarming. You could eat about ten of these in a row right now, no problem. You desperately needed to stop with the junk food and lose more weight, but you were starting to worry that there was a reason for this as you did some quick math. If you got pregnant in La Jolla, you would be about nine weeks along by now. You almost choked on the chocolate. That was practically the end of the first trimester. Maybe there was a reason you were so fucking bloated.

When your phone alarm sounded, you carefully chewed up the last of the candy as you eased yourself out of the tub to silence it. Your movements felt like slow motion as you unwrapped your finger to find just a small cut before tossing the toilet paper in the trash. You turned to look at yourself in the mirror, pausing to examine your expressionless face. And before you even looked down at the test on the counter, you knew what the result was.

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

Being in a different time zone than you was annoying as hell. Bradley missed a call from you last night when he passed out as soon as he got back to his room after hitting the gym and taking a shower. Once again, he was afraid to call or text you too early and wake you this morning. Besides, he had to be in the tower soon to discuss some of his frontrunners with the admirals since he only had two more days before he flew back to San Diego. At that point, he would start planning the training exercises he would implement with these aviators come September.

Two pairs of Super Hornets were working through a dogfighting scenario when the radios in the tower crackled to life with voices. Once again, Indigo and Rex seemed like the top prospects for permanent roles at Top Gun. "They look really good," Bradley mused, scanning their list of accolades. "They're at the top of my list."

"Agreed," one of he admirals replied. "They are both a bit ruthless in the air, but they get the job done every single time."

The fact that it sounded like they were talking about Jake from five years ago almost made Bradley laugh, but that was probably the energy he needed to bring back with him. He could work some of the ruthlessness out of their systems.

"Who else do you think would fit with the program?" the other admiral asked, and Bradley was pleased to find that his notes and thoughts on all of the aviators were met with respect and agreement. His shoulders loosened, and a rush of confidence filled his veins. He'd been trying not to acknowledge how much this new role was filling him with anxiety. There was the fear of failing at his job, but he also wanted to be successful for his own personal growth. At the end of the day, knowing he was leading a well rounded team was important to him.

It was also important that he hit the gym again, or maybe go for a long run. The last few times you'd ordered pizza for dinner, he came home and inhaled half of the pie like it was nothing. When he looked in the mirror, there was definitely some more weight hanging around his middle. When he texted you, asking for some new pictures of Rose, you told him you were still at work but needed to call him as soon as you were done. He had about an hour, so he got changed and turned on his This is what a gym playlist should sound like, Bradley playlist that you made him so long ago, and he started a long run.

You were so much better at making playlists than he was, it was laughable. However the summer heat here was not laughable. Nobody else looked as beet red and sweaty as him. Maybe he was just conditioned for San Diego at this point. He wasn't really sure, but by the time he put a few miles in, he doubled back toward his barracks. When he sat down on some concrete steps at the side of the building, he held onto his phone, ready to answer your call whenever it came.

He was mopping his forehead with the hem of his UVA tee shirt when the door behind him swung open. 

"Lieutenant Commander Bradshaw."

Indigo's voice was now familiar to him from several conversations and the comms in the tower. "Lieutenant Jeffries," he replied as she stepped past him, also dressed for a run. He simply couldn't understand how these people weren't always pouring sweat.

"I meant to ask how you're enjoying Texas."

Bradley laughed and set his phone down on the step between his feet as she stood on the cement before him. "I'm ready to go back to San Diego and escape the heat. Not sure how you all manage here."

She smiled and ran her fingers through her jet black ponytail. "It's not so bad. I'm from Virginia, so it almost feels familiar." Her eyes slid down to his chest, reading his shirt before continuing to his left hand. "You went to UVA?"

"Yeah," he replied with a nod. "I grew up between Norfolk and Virginia Beach."

Her vibrant eyes lit up. "What a small world, Sir. We would definitely have a lot to chat about. After I run my five miles and hit the shower, I'm heading to the bar with Rex and the others. You should meet me there."

Bradley's brow furrowed as he examined her face. She was young. He knew exactly how young from poring over the individual files all week. Her expression held no trace of uncertainty, like she was expecting him to agree without question. She was one hell of a self assured pilot, but he wasn't going to start playing favorites.

"Thanks for the invitation, but I'm waiting for a phone call."

One dark brow quirked up over her blue eyes. "From your wife?"

He nodded slowly, voice deep and raspy when he spoke again. "Yeah. Hopefully my daughter, too."

Her gaze lingered on his face as she backed away from him with a soft laugh. "I'll be looking for you at the bar later."

Then she was off and running, leaving Bradley squinting into the setting sun and her retreating form. When he picked up his phone, he realized he missed your call again. 

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

Bradley, please focus on your family. One more chapter of him in Texas, and then we'll see what follows him home. Thanks @beyondthesefourwalls

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[all-pacas]

a list of all the times foreman and chase actively shaded one another in s1-3, because i think it's very funny,

histories:

PATIENT: [Foreman] doesn't like me. I can tell. CHASE: That's okay. He doesn't like me, either.

sports medicine:

CHASE: House says you were lying. I believe him. FOREMAN: …What’s that? You got a little wet smudge at the end of your nose!

control:

CAMERON [to Chase]: He’s not gonna fire you. FOREMAN: I’d fire you. Bye bye. CHASE: If I screw up, the patient dies… I’ll never get another job. FOREMAN: So go stick your head between your legs and lick your wounds in Gstaad.

mob rules:

CAMERON: Chase has a big mouth. FOREMAN: Yeah. He's probably the one who ratted to Vogler. [of note: Chase did obviously rat to Vogler, but Cameron spends these same episodes defending him and sure he isn't the rat; Foreman immediately jumps to "fire Chase"]

heavy:

PATIENT: I’m thirsty. CAMERON: Just a little bit longer [with this procedure], and you’ll be done. FOREMAN: Like Dr. Chase.

[later, House asks who Foreman would fire:]

FOREMAN: Chase. HOUSE: What — because he screwed up an angio a month ago? FOREMAN: Anyone can make a mistake. HOUSE: Right, it’s the money. You resent it, but you’re going to tell me he doesn’t need the job. FOREMAN: He doesn’t appreciate the job. HOUSE: He was ready to go three rounds with Cameron for it. FOREMAN: He wants the job. He just doesn’t appreciate it. There’s nothing wrong with just wanting to hang out, but this is not the place to do it.

babies and bathwater:

FOREMAN: [under his breath] Here, pussy, pussy, pussy. CHASE: I didn’t do anything. FOREMAN: Exactly my point. CHASE: You wanted me to yell at him? What the hell would that have achieved? What, is he going to jump into his time machine and fix everything? FOREMAN: When a dog dumps on the floor, do you pat its head and call it a genius? No, you smack it in the nose with a newspaper! CHASE: Dogs can learn things, House can’t. FOREMAN: Coward. CHASE: Child.

acceptance:

FOREMAN: If someone asks you to describe me to them, what’s the first thing you’d tell them? CHASE: Insecure.

tb or not tb:

CAMERON: I wrote your people a check last month. PATIENT: Oh, well… write us another one. FOREMAN: Talk to Chase, he’s rich. CHASE: My dad, not me. [i think offering chase's money to a stranger counts as shade]

the mistake:

STACY: Why did Chase screw up? FOREMAN: Because he doesn't give a crap about patients. STACY: He always gets positive patient reviews. FOREMAN: Yeah. He smiles all 84 of his teeth, tells them his tonsil story. STACY: It's a nice story. FOREMAN: He still has his tonsils! As soon as he's out of the room, which is as soon as he can be out of the room, he starts in on the trash talk. Thinks not giving a crap makes him like House. Like it’s something to aspire to. Am I going to have to testify? STACY: I… won't be encouraging them to call you.

failure to communicate:

CHASE: Even if he fell, drug use is far more likely. I’m ordering a tox screen. FOREMAN: Chase, we're not done with the differential. CHASE: You're not my boss. FOREMAN: I'm House's boss, House is your boss. The math is pretty simple. CHASE: Are you signing my paychecks? Are you hiring or firing? FOREMAN: This is not about that. CHASE: The only thing you've been asked to do is supervise House in case he does something insane.

distractions:

FOREMAN: Plug it in. CHASE: You plug it in. FOREMAN: Fine, give me the cord. [under his breath:] Wuss.

who's your daddy?

[during a procedure] HOUSE: Chase, high right atrium, please. CHASE: Her heart’s fragile after that last attack. The chances of tachycardia – HOUSE: You have my permission to blame Foreman at any negligence trial. [chase does as he's told]

cane and able:

CHASE: How could I screw up a simple bleeding time test? FOREMAN: Maybe you were abducted; lost time. [later:] HOUSE: So you’re saying Chase did screw up. CHASE: Or Foreman screwed up. FOREMAN: Big hand points to minutes. Maybe you got them mixed up? [later:] CHASE: We’ve had three results that haven’t been consistent. One of them must be wrong. FOREMAN: Or two of them.

fools for love:

[house is trying to bet foreman on wilson's new girlfriend. foreman hasn't accepted the bet:]

HOUSE: We could spend all day arguing whether we bet or not. Give me the hundred bucks. CHASE: Come on Foreman, pay up. He won! Or we could just never finished the DDX.

[later:]

HOUSE: Aha! Brochure to a jazz festival in the Poconos this weekend. CHASE: Wilson likes jazz. Foreman, pay the man.

[later:] CHASE: If [the patients] can live here without killing each other, they must really be in love. It’s tiny. FOREMAN: Then how come it’s taking you so long to search it? CHASE: Box of condoms in his jacket. FOREMAN: I know you’re poor now, but buy your own.

[later:]

CHASE: Hey, Foreman, can you wear the beeper for a couple hours this weekend? [off his look:] What? FOREMAN: We just destroyed two peoples’ lives. CHASE: I’m not allowed to run errands any more? FOREMAN: I’d like to see some sign that it affects you, or that you recognize that it affects other people. CHASE: So are you going to wear the beeper or not?

finding judas:

CHASE: I wasn't kissing his ass. FOREMAN: It just looked that way from our angle. You on your knees, House bending over. CHASE: He predicted the pancreatitis. CAMERON: It's his dad's fault. CHASE: My dad was an ass. CAMERON: But you did everything he wanted you to and, in return, you got everything you wanted. CHASE: Yeah! It's that simple. CAMERON: His strategy worked. Dad got him a cushy job, paid for his cushy life. CHASE: Cut me out of his cushy will. [cameron looks surprised/apologetic here; foreman continues:] FOREMAN: I told you, just his nature. Poor guy's hardwired to kiss ass.

[later:]

CHASE: Tritter finally froze my accounts. FOREMAN: Really? CHASE: You surprised? Why wouldn't he? FOREMAN: I figured if he was singling you out, you must have done something different. CHASE: What? Like talking? FOREMAN: Yeah. And now that he's frozen your accounts, you probably will. You need the cash, right? CHASE: He doesn't freeze my accounts, I'm guilty. He does freeze my accounts, I'm guilty. [foreman shrugs]

top secret:

FOREMAN: House would do Wilson before you'd do Chase. CAMERON: No, you would do House and Wilson before I do Chase. Now can we get back to work? CHASE: She did me once! FOREMAN: [laughing] She was stoned!

act your age:

CHASE: For the record, Cameron's the one who broke it off. FOREMAN: Not interested. No masses in the hypothalamus. CHASE: I wanted more. She didn't share my feelings. FOREMAN: I feel like I'm in a similar position.

resignation:

CHASE: So, why are you leaving? Or is it just some sort of power play? FOREMAN: You can have my parking space. My locker. CHASE: Is it about House? FOREMAN: Let me get all sensitive and confide in you. CHASE: Why wouldn't you want to tell me? FOREMAN: I don't like you. Never have, never will. You want me to share some more?

the jerk:

FOREMAN: I'll do it. But I've got a job interview after work. Anything comes up later, you guys handle it. CAMERON: Need a peer recommendation? FOREMAN: Thanks. [he looks at chase, who sort of shrugs] CHASE: Cameron's should suffice.

[later:]

CAMERON: Foreman's interview in New York got screwed up. CHASE: I heard. CAMERON: Foreman thought it was House, House thought it was Cuddy. Cuddy thought it was Wilson, Wilson thought it was me. CHASE: And you think it was me? [chuckles] God… you think I… sabotaged Foreman? I don't even want him here. CAMERON: I know. CHASE: Then why would I do…? CAMERON: I think you sabotaged Foreman just to sabotage Foreman.

[saintsenara]

thank you very much for this, anon!

the diadem is probably the most interesting horcrux narratively, because it's the only one which doesn't connect to the narrative arc of one of the series' main characters, which is also why it's the only one which is destroyed indirectly - as collateral to goyle burning down the room of requirement, which means there's fiendfyre present for it to be yeeted into - rather than by somebody directly.

as i've said above, the the trio each destroys a horcrux which they have a particular narrative connection to. the same is true of the other three horcruxes which are actively destroyed.

the ring

dumbledore - whose narrative role is to teach harry about understanding what is true [which is what the series thinks the power of love is - love is the universe's one great truth] - destroys the ring, which serves, across all of its canon appearances, as a metaphor for the corrosive power of wishful thinking, seeing what you want to see, and refusing to accept the truth.

in the tale of three brothers, the resurrection stone drives the second brother - who has refused to accept the truth that his lover's death is permanent and she won't come back - mad with grief, causing him to take his own life. marvolo clings on to his ring as a symbol of the gaunts' former grandeur and influence, using it to claim that bob ogden should regard him as his superior, even though he's a violent, squalid man living in a rotting shack. dumbledore puts on the ring in a desperate attempt to apologise to his sister, convincing himself that - unlike the second brother - he'll meet the real ariana, that his desire to use a hallow in this case isn't connected to his and grindelwald's earlier obsession with them, and that voldemort won't have left anything nasty on the ring which might kill him.

harry - who internalises the lesson that "it does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live", who is remarkably free of the shackles of his past, who doesn't tend to get bound up in trying to reclaim things which are lost - drops the stone in the forest, causing it to be lost forever.

the ring-horcrux's creation is also connected to this corrosive wishful thinking. voldemort clearly travels to little hangleton expecting to find his maternal line living in ancient luxury - harry hones in right away on the fact that he looks "disappointed" to find morfin living in filth. voldemort also undoubtedly believes - since his view, expressed in his first meeting with dumbledore, that a parent who doesn't matter would be dead - that his irrelevant muggle father isn't alive, and he's not pleased to hear morfin reveal otherwise.

[since - of course - this hammers home that his dad abandoned his mother, never wanted him, and never tried to find him.]

he's also not pleased to hear morfin say that he looks near-identical to tom riddle sr. - which is another way that the books, which tend to have all members of pureblood nuclear family units look alike [hence why narcissa malfoy is blond while her sisters aren't - it's to emphasise her connection to lucius and draco], show voldemort's inescapable connection to the muggle world.

and so he wipes out his paternal line, sheds any connection with or affection for his identity as "tom riddle", and vanishes behind the mask of "lord voldemort" who is free from such messy human experiences as "wanting to be loved by your father".

but the entire arc of the series is about how he can't outrun his humanity, his heritage, or his former identity. just as dumbledore can't outrun his past mistakes, he can only seek to be forgiven for them. in destroying the ring-horcrux - and then passing the resurrection stone over to harry - dumbledore is doing what voldemort never does, and recognising that the things he did in the past were wrong and he's sorry for them, but that they nonetheless shaped who he was and he should acknowledge them, instead of trying to suppress them.

the snake

neville destroys nagini, who demonstrates voldemort's descent from slytherin [since the locket, as noted above, is primarily about his grief over his mother - and his immediate heritage - rather than his distant ancestry].

nagini is made a horcrux after the adult voldemort - in a frightening, inhuman form - returns to his father's house, with his relationship to it completely recontextualised. any grief, humiliation, or anger he felt towards tom riddle sr. when the ring was created is now completely irrelevant to him - the riddle line has been eradicated, the riddle house is rotting from the ground up, frank bryce's loyalty to the riddles means nothing to him. voldemort takes over it by force - he's not the son and heir coming to meet his father, he's a superhuman stranger, who has no emotional connection to the riddle family whatsoever.

[this is why he's happy to use his father's bones in his resurrection ritual - he no longer thinks of them as related by anything other than a technicality, his dad's grave is nothing to him except a tool.]

nagini is destroyed - just after voldemort has announced that the house system will be disbanded and all students forced to be in slytherin - by neville pulling the sword of gryffindor from the sorting hat. this proves him to be - along with harry - the series' "true gryffindor", which transforms him from someone who spends the earlier books as comic relief [awkward and a bit cowardly, unlike the trio; a character the child-reader is supposed to see themselves as braver, smarter, and cooler than] into a chivalric figure, who encapsulates all the virtues [courage, loyalty, steadfastness, faith, defence of the lowly, purity of heart, and so on] which the doylist text values above all others.

and which it exclusively associates with gryffindor and gryffindors, [hence dumbledore claiming that snape demonstrating courage is evidence "we sort too soon", rather than assuming that sytherins could be courageous as well...] - in destroying nagini, neville destroys voldemort's belief [which the doylist text regards as empirically wrong] that slytherin is the superior house.

the boy

voldemort himself destroys harry, thus allowing the prophecy - and, especially, its line that "the dark lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the dark lord knows not" - to be fulfilled, via his failure to acknowledge and respect the power of love [which saves harry from death but condemns him to it], the thing he has spent his entire life committing evil in an attempt to outrun.

the diadem

the diadem, in contrast, is associated by the text with independence and solitude.

[hence why it's the only horcrux which dumbledore doesn't identify.]

voldemort learns of its existence by getting close enough to helena ravenclaw to manipulate her - which is presented in canon as no mean feat, since she keeps apart from all the other ghosts, is clearly disinclined to chat to students, and isn't particularly visible in hogwarts as a social structure.

he then travels to retrieve it alone - and he does this after he's also separated himself off from society by leaving his job, fleeing the country, and [presumably] abandoning his social circle - and we know nothing from canon about what he does during the ten years he spends away from britain.

we don't know when he finds the diadem or who was killed to create it [as with the locket, jkr has said that he used a random murder - that of a family of albanian peasants - to make it, which again contradicts dumbledore's statement that he tends to use murders which are significant to him].

voldemort brings the diadem to hogwarts on the night of his job interview, when he definitively rejects any alternative path [and, in canon's eyes, rejects any chance of doing "good", since he rejects dumbledore's way] and strikes out alone as the singular embodiment of evil. his separation from group society is heavily emphasised throughout this scene - dumbledore calls him a liar for claiming the death eaters are his friends ["i was under the impression that they are more in the order of servants"], his appearance is starting to become inhuman ["he was no longer handsome tom riddle"], and he no longer wishes to be known as tom riddle [and, as i've said before, we do need to recognise that what dumbledore does is deadnaming... especially given who jkr is...].

and he hides it in the room of requirement, which is similarly a place of separation and solitude - it's where things which aren't wanted or needed are hidden away - and which he believes [nonsensically] he is the only person to have discovered.

[although it is worth saying that dumbledore doesn't know the room exists - voldemort's belief that he alone knows about it is basically canon, pretty clumsily, drawing this distinction between someone who's part of society and someone who's separate from it: the castle's headmaster, who is integral to its functioning as a social system, doesn't know something which the self-made outcast does.]

and on the basis of this, i suppose we could say that the diadem is the least social horcrux - the version of voldemort least interested in exploiting the human desire for socialisation, the object which would be the least successful at manipulating somebody who comes into contact with it. which would even make it possible to say that the diadem is the least dangerous horcrux, on account of lacking that desire to take advantage of people.

we could also say that the diadem is the horcrux voldemort thinks of as least important to him - he lacks any personal connection to it, chooses it as an object primarily for completionist reasons, checks on it last when he works out that harry is destroying his hoard, and doesn't hide it somewhere of any real significance to him.

[because - yes - he hides it at hogwarts, his beloved castle, but if he'd wanted to create somewhere elaborate and special to hide it, as he does with his mother's locket, i can see no reason why he wouldn't have put it in the chamber of secrets.]

but i think we can say something much more interesting about it...

that it doesn't represent freely-chosen independence, separation, and solitude. it represents unwilling isolation.

after all, the initial presentation of helena ravenclaw's separation from the rest of the castle as being because she's a bit up herself is revealed to be wrong. she refuses to answer questions about the diadem because she's ashamed of stealing it. she doesn't like socialising with the castle's other ghosts because the man who murdered her is one of them.

and she also says that her separation from society in life wasn't a deliberate choice. she is forced into hiding because the baron is hunting her down. when she attempts to refuse him - to make a free choice either to be alone or to form other relationships in which he doesn't feature - he kills her. while the mechanics of where ghosts spawn isn't entirely clear - my assumption is that she ends up back at hogwarts because she has so much unfinished business with her mam - her death also separates her, against her will, from something which is precious to her: the diadem.

while i don't think we need to throw the baby out with the bathwater - i never think, for example, that the teenage voldemort was bullied by his fellow slytherins - we also know that he stood out from the crowd the second he arrived at hogwarts, for both positive [his looks, his talent] and negative [his secondhand possessions] reasons. the text is explicit that he never had any relationships with his cohort which were equal, and while it presents this as a deliberate choice on voldemort's part, since he understood himself as superior to everyone else - dumbledore's description of him as a "gang leader", or harry's observation that he "was by no means the eldest of the group of boys [at the slug club], but they all seemed to look to him as their leader" - we don't have to take this as fact.

indeed, despite dumbledore's insistence that voldemort has never wanted a friend, he does seem - throughout canon - to be someone who's quite lonely, and who would value a relationship which provided him with some sort of peer experience. it is entirely plausible, then, to imagine that he manages to worm his way into helena ravenclaw's confidences because they have a shared experience of being separated - against their will - from something they desire.

similarly, while we know nothing of voldemort's first time in albania, we know something significant about the second one - that he thinks about it as a miserable period of isolation, spent hiding from social connection ["i dared not go where other humans were plentiful, for i knew that the aurors were still abroad and searching for me"] which took place very much against his will, after his death eaters abandoned him:

"I remember only forcing myself, sleeplessly, endlessly, second by second, to exist... I settled in a faraway place, in a forest, and I waited... Surely, one of my faithful Death Eaters would try and find me... one of them would come and perform the magic I could not, to restore me to a body... but I waited in vain..."

and - therefore - perhaps his first stay in albania was somewhere "other humans were plentiful". perhaps he had friends and connections there which he valued, but which aren't important to the narrative of the doylist text and therefore aren't mentioned.

after he turns the diadem into a horcrux, voldemort then brings it "home" - he reunites it with hogwarts. i don't think for a second that he did this for helena ravenclaw, but i do think he did it because he would understand the founders' relics as being pair-bonded to the castle [with himself, or possibly the basilisk, standing in for the locket as slytherin's relic]. in bringing it to his job interview - which, i think it's worth emphasising, he really does seem to think is genuine [however ridiculous that is] - he's involving it in his long-awaited homecoming.

the fact that he places it in the room of requirement lends credence to this. after all, the diadem-horcrux is almost always mentioned - in both half-blood prince and deathly hallows - alongside something else: the broken vanishing cabinet.

and what is the entire point of the vanishing cabinet in the latter books of the series?

to be reunited with its pair.

and so the diadem should have a mirror-character, like all the rest of the horcruxes.

and this mirror-character should be someone whose separation from the narrative arc of the horcruxes' destruction initially appears to their choice, but is then revealed to be something imposed upon them against their will.

someone who's lonely; who is - perhaps - popular but doesn't seem to have any actual close friends.

someone who has spent years wanting to be perceived as an equal by a specific person - and who longed for that person to recognise that they'd changed from the person they were as a child.

someone who was excited to go to hogwarts, only to discover that they stood out from their peers because of their secondhand possessions.

someone who had a formative relationship which was entirely transactional - even if they were the person being manipulated, while the pre-teen voldemort's experience is as the person doing the manipulating.

someone who, like helena ravenclaw, attempted to flee the person hunting them down - and nearly died as a result.

someone who panics at the thought of being separated from a precious object.

someone whom the text understands as part of a pair, but who is still kept at arm's length by their other half for the vast majority of the series.

someone who bravely accepts the ending of a relationship, even though they're not given a choice in the matter, so that the more important narrative of the horcrux hunt can begin.

someone who's not only excluded from the horcrux hunt [and, indeed, isn't told anything about the horcruxes full-stop], but is excluded from the fighting when the battle of hogwarts begins [the only main character this happens to].

someone who is excluded from the fighting by being told to stay - on their own - in the room of requirement.

someone who - therefore - is kept so separate from the narrative of voldemort's destruction that they don't even get a chance to destroy their horcrux-mirror.

that is to say...

ginny.

One thing I find really compelling about ronmort is that the horcrux which targets ron is the one most "maternal"-- tom's mother's locket, which you so cleverly pointed out was also the one which he erected a complicated defense for in a place that was meaningful to his childhood. Everything the locket says to Ron just feels so charged? Wym you've seen his heart and it's yours? Wym you've seen his dreams and his desires? The fact that Ron can hear the locket's heartbeat before anyone else... I don't know how to explain it except that the locket's antagonism of Ron feels almost intimate in a way. The shenanigans would be sexy. Not least because Ron can apparently do a passing imitation of parseltongue (hot).

that each of the trio destroys the horcrux which most connects to something fundamental about themselves is a detail which obsesses me.

the diary

harry - an orphan, desperate to meet someone else who can understand the strangeness and isolation of his experience; searching for the truth about himself, and what in his life is inherited, but unable to ever fully uncover it - destroys the diary, not only the sole horcrux which is an explicit link to lord voldemort's upbringing as an orphan in the muggle world, but also a metaphor for the state of orphanhood itself.

the diary is a quasi-palimpsest - an object which has to be written in; an object in which a layer of text is written and then overwritten by another; an object in which these layers of text can be stripped back until only the original layer remains only with extraordinary difficulty - just like the orphan's search for meaning, trying to decipher the layers of themselves which were inherited from their parents, but only ever being able to see these partially, with the text missing or corrupted.

voldemort's creation of the diary-horcrux is explicitly connected in canon to him coming to learn who about himself, his parents, and his heritage - and, connected to this, to him refusing to sit with the grief of orphanhood, refusing to understand his parents as whole, complex people, and refusing to embrace his "real" identity [which, as the text understands it, is that of a half-blood named tom marvolo riddle] by creating a fake one [that of lord voldemort].

harry destroys it after rejecting voldemort's self-constructed view of his own exceptionality - "the greatest wizard in the world is albus dumbledore" - his refusal to acknowledge the complexities of lineage and orphanhood, and his refusal to embrace his muggle heritage - "my mother died to save me. my common, muggleborn mother". he does this using a tool directly connected to voldemort's rejection of all but his slytherin heritage - the basilisk's fang - in a location similarly connected to voldemort's rejection of his muggle blood - the chamber of secrets.

the cup

hermione - an outsider, whose place in the wizarding world is unstable - destroys the cup, one of the horcruxes to which voldemort has the least personal connection, but which he selected to hide his soul because of its historical significance, anchoring him to a millennium of wizarding history and culture he was otherwise brought up disconnected from.

voldemort's creation of the cup-horcrux comes at the end of a period of his life in which he is disadvantaged in wizarding society purely on the basis of his name and background. he rejects the ministry jobs which would have made him dependent for the rest of his life on slughorn's patronage - and, therefore, pressured him to do what slughorn wanted - and ends up, as he himself puts it, as "a poor shop assistant". hepzibah smith is a pureblood, who is also descended from one of hogwarts' founders - yet she doesn't make use of this superiority ["all sorts of powers it's supposed to possess too... i just keep it nice and safe in here..."], and she doesn't realise [and he can't prove to her and hope to keep his job] that voldemort is someone she should think of as her equal [or even superior]. she - as harry observes - essentially treats voldemort as doll she can play with, posing him with her treasures and pretending his glacial politeness is really repressed affection, she speaks to him like he's an idiot, and she evidently considers him to be her social inferior.

hermione destroys the cup after seven books in which the discrimination she faces on account of being muggleborn are explicit. obviously, she's the victim of violent bigotry - she's petrified, she's called a mudblood, she's the only one of the trio who also has to worry about the muggleborn registration commission - but she's also the victim of seemingly benign, genial bigotry too - the muggle world is treated as a quaint side-show, even by characters like the weasleys; she's praised for her intelligence by slughorn, but this intelligence is still considered in some way unusual for someone with muggle heritage. she gets spoken to by many wizards in ways which aren't far removed from the way hepzibah speaks to voldemort.

as a result, she - like voldemort - spends a lot of time trying to acquire enough knowledge of the wizarding world that she appears to be native to it [this is why she's so obsessed with hogwarts: a history]. but - unlike voldemort - she then embraces her heritage and refuses to hide it - "mudblood and proud of it!".

and - shortly after this - she destroys the cup, in a place - the chamber - and using a tool - the basilisk's fang - which are both directly connected to the bigotry she experienced, since they're part of slytherin's belief that people like her should be driven out of hogwarts and out of the magical world more broadly, and therefore send a big "fuck you" to voldemort's blood-supremacy.

the locket

and ron... whose greatest desire is to be recognised for his individual achievements, who has a complex and uneasy relationship with his place in his family [simultaneously longing to be something other than "one of the weasleys" and fiercely loyal to his parents and siblings], who is the only pureblood of the trio, whose childhood we hear the most about in canon, and whose childhood appears to have been happy...

destroys the locket, which is voldemort's only link to his mother, and the only horcrux for which he constructs an elaborate defence in a place meaningful to him from childhood.

we don't actually know who voldemort kills to create the locket-horcrux [jkr has said in interviews that it was a muggle tramp, although this contradicts dumbledore's statement in half-blood prince that voldemort created his horcruxes from murders which were significant to him], which is a neat metaphor for how little he knows about merope - since he doesn't know morfin's name, for example, we can assume he doesn't know hers; everything he ever tells harry about her is something he's invented [especially his belief that his parents' marriage was consensual, and that tom riddle sr. abandoned her because she was a witch].

the horcrux attempts to torture ron with his insecurities about being a mammy's boy who's always been afraid that he's a bit of a flop at the task - especially when compared to siblings like ginny, bill, and percy. and ron is so susceptible to it because voldemort is also an inherent mammy's boy [ronmort nation, rise up] who never got a chance to have a mam, and who responded to the grief this caused him by suppressing it, pretending it never existed, and convincing himself that the only viable thing to be is unique.

ron destroys it after he returns to the trio - having attempted to strike out on his own [the thing he's wanted since philosopher's stone, when he sees himself standing alone in the mirror of erised] - and accepts his place as part of a group. he does so using the sword of gryffindor, which again represents him embracing not being exceptional - his entire family have been in gryffindor, something he's shown to feel simultaneously proud of and uneasy with right from his first appearance.

[cakepoppresent]

Let Me Beat His Ass

A few things

Lol poor Daisuke his future wife is going through it and hasn't been returning his texts or calls

Malcolm truly is a big baby. Since Malcolm has been told "no" by Luna he doesn't know how to react. He's taking her wanting to see Andre as a personal attack against him rather than his sister just wanting to find out the truth.

Love Veronica and Luna, in an alt time they would have been GREAT

Transcript under the cut ~

Luna: She’s looking into it, she trying to find this “source”, Chantel isn’t saying who told her

The comments under the pic (it's much smaller on a phone than a computer)

@toucanman - I fucking knew it a rich girl like her would never actually be nice, she was just hiding her bitch ass attitude

@coochielicker - This isn’t the Luna I stan! All SMZ does is lie lie and LIE. Shes been acting for years and its only now shes a diva? Stop playing with my good sis!

@flo- Hmmm...I can see it tho, shes from a super wealthy family its probably her way or no way but who cares was anyone even hurt?

@fruitysims - LOL ive been waiting on something to come out on this hoe. Her nice girl shtick was so overbearing now her true colors are coming out. Thank god

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

Veronica: What did Destiny say? Is she gonna do anything about this?

Veronica: You should send her bitch ass a lawyers letter or something. Can’t be legal to spread malaious rumors like that

Luna: I dunno. I’d rather find this source

Veronica: Where the hell is that man of yours? He must have connections he can use

Luna: Probably... he’s been calling but I don’t even have the time to deal with him right now. Malcolm that bitch still won’t talk to me and now Andre’s face is all over the news and my bitch Dad hasn't even called. It's...a lot right now

Veronica: Let’s travel then, How about Tomarang or Tartosa? Just until everything dies down and you figure out what to do next

Luna: No...I don’t want to leave Andre to deal with this alone and Malcolm is gonna crash out once he sees this online...I can’t leave right now

Veronica: Get off your phone babes. Reading all these comments is going to make you feel worse.

Luna: This is fucking awful and I miss Malcolm, can’t believe his ass won’t talk to me. Benji gives me updates but I’d like to meet Andre with Malcolm.

Veronica: Malcolm is the biggest fucking baby you gotta force him to see reason. If you don’t he’s just gonna pout and mop all day. Let me talk to him

Luna: What are you gonna do? Beat him up?

Veronica: Yes? Beat him up verbally at least. You’re hurting and he needs to get over himself, I'll help him see reason

Luna: He really does listen to you. Don’t be too harsh on him

Veronica: Hush. It's important you guys deal with this Andre thing. Malcolm needs to at least hear him out and stop punishing you for wanting to talk to Andre

Luna: Hahaha Malcolm has always been so sensitive, I wonder where he gets his bitch ass attitude from

Luna: V... it's been hell these past few days. It means a lot that you’re here with me now

Veronica: Babe. You’re basically my sister and I love you. Whatever is happening now will pass I know it will.

Luna: Feels like it's never going to end everything is going to fucking shit. I’ve never fought with Malcolm like this and Benji doesn’t know what to do he hates being in the middle of all this

Veronica: Sleep it off. I can’t help with what's going on online but I can and I WILL speak with Malcolm okay?

Luna: Okay...

Veronica: No more tears babe. I’ll beat his ass up if I have to. Just wait for my call okay?

Veronica: Love you too babes

Luna: Love you V

[knight-says-nanana]

An analysis on Ed’s comic childhood, how that impacted his OCD*, and how that translated to the Gotham TV show

Alternatively: GTV Ed’s Biography

*(and also how it very clearly gave him cptsd but they don’t explicitly Say that bc DC is full of cowards)

Normally I’d say comics don’t impact tv continuity, especially for a show like Gotham where so many things are changed, but the thing is? Cory Michael Smith specifically went out of his way to read the riddler comics when he accepted the role of Ed Nygma. He acted accordingly and did an amazing job trying to salvage the show’s poor writing. There are many tiny moments where he does things that reference Ed’s typical backstory despite the show, in all its 5 seasons, never bringing it up

Childhood wise there are typically two widely accepted routes

1 - his mom was around but neglectful and off her head with drugs n alcohol

2 - his mom left when he was a toddler due to not being able to handle his father anymore, which kinda kickstarted the abuse being focused onto Ed instead

I will be continuing this analysis with #2 because it is the most popular and explains his abandonment issues

Comic Based Childhood

So this guy basically grew up with Only his father. His father who is a dumbass, an alcoholic, blames Ed for his mother leaving, incredibly abusive physically, and couldn’t accept that 1) his kid is smarter than him or that 2) a kid so Weird cough traumatized and neurodivergent cough is anything but an idiot

A major sticking point was that he always thought Ed was lying, constantly, about everything. This will be important later.

And when Ed finally started going to school and getting A’s?? Yeah no Obviously he had to have been cheating so Mr Nashton just got More angry with him. Could Ed have dropped his grades on purpose to avoid this? Yeah. Did he? Absolutely not. Academic success was the one thing he could be proud of and the only thing that gave him any sort of praise or validation. He was clinging to it for dear life.

No matter the universe, this is a guy who craves attention.

There is difference between academic success and school life itself, because Ed is awkward n dorky n, especially at this point in time, anxious n quiet. So he didn’t have friends. In fact it’s usually written as either him having been bullied or being ignored entirely

The boy was not doing ok at all. So understandably he ran away as soon as possible and changed his name.

Now, this is the first point where Gotham’s canon ties into this in a Very interesting way

We know Ed’s official birth year from the ID card in the show. It’s canon. In season one he is 26. We know this. And it’s is insane for a few reasons!!

He is So Much Younger than his coworkers holy shit

Bullock is old enough to be his dad and he’s not nice, no wonder Ed doesn’t like him

He works in forensics. At 26. And he’s implied to have been working there a year or two before Jim joined the precinct.

Now, I had GENUINELY assumed that he was in his 30s like Jim. BECAUSE HE WORKS IN FORENSICS. But no he’s just actually a botched Spencer Reid because he’s 26 in season one.

A degree in forensic science takes 4 years.

If you want a masters it’s an extra 2 years.

Factoring in the time he would’ve needed to spend interning and working just to QUALIFY for a job at the GCPD???

If we assume he ran away n got into college at age 17 and got his bachelor's he’d be 21 by the time he graduated, 23 if he got his masters which of course he would, and then that leaves us only 3 or 1 year/s for internships and stuff before he joins the GCPD. What. What.

No wonder his apartment is so shitty!!! This is a man with hella student loans

But yeah! Hes only 26 and his 40 year old coworkers are bulling him for being weird. I’d hate my job too.

Bullock is 48 and I’m fully convinced he, like me, thinks Ed is at least 32 (Jim’s age) because. What.

So yeah that’s his general backstory, NOW the ways that plays into his mental state and how his actor managed to fit it into the show

So, you can reasonably assume he’s traumatized.

And!? There are so many subtle moments in the show where Cory acts his character accordingly for this. He flinches when people raise their voice, he’s visibly spooked when men in the GCPD get huffy (usually it’s Mr James Anger Issues Gordon). He’s skittish as a mouse. In the watermelon scene, when Gordon busts into the room, Ed immediately falls over himself to explain what he’s doing in there. The guy was terrified. Of James. Who’s never done a thing to him.

Beyond that? CPTSD -beyond the regular symptoms of flashbacks, triggers, and hyper awareness- also includes difficulty regulating emotions, feelings of shame/guilt, and trouble staying in relationships.

Ed Nygma is a damn textbook case. He has meltdowns, he falls into substances, he does ANYTHING but cope when he’s overwhelmed. He is constantly trying to prove he’s smart, there’s a gut deep shame when he doesn’t hold up to genius standards. And you’ve seen his relationships.

Basic info ab OCD: it’s an anxiety disorder and the two main things are obsessive compulsions and intrusive thoughts, both of which are present in Gotham but not handled nearly as well as they are in the comics

Compulsions first!

These tend to stem from subconscious thoughts and people won’t always know Why they have a compulsion but they’re generally a way of preventing a vague yet all consuming Bad Thing.

Now, with Ed one of his major sticking points in comics AND the show is he cannot tell blatant lies, especially not with yes/no answers.

This is part of why he compulsively leaves clues for absolutely everything and tries to be so vague when he is lying. He also jumps through hoops so that he won’t need to lie.

Lying = incredible all consuming dread and anxiety, so he just Doesn’t and uses his little hints and clues as a loophole. Very obviously from his father’s influence.

In the show this is shown multiple times but just for a few:

Lucious asking if Jim is at Ed’s house and when Ed tries to say no he seems almost forced to correct himself

The compulsive clue in “Tom’s” note, even when no one had asked him if he knew anything he still couldn’t keep it entirely to himself. The note is a loophole. Technically he told on himself. They just didn’t figure it out. (Well. Kristen kinda did but denying it aka lying sent him into an anxiety attack the moment she left. So.)

When Sofia Falcone was torturing him to find out where Oswald was, he told her. He just told her via a riddler he knew she didn’t understand! No need to lie!

In the car ride to the docks Oswald also calls him out directly by saying he’s so predictable because he’s driven by obsessive compulsion. This is the most the show acknowledges it.

Beyond his compulsions he’s got explicit intrusive thoughts regarding a few big things. (Should be noted that these tend to drive compulsions but not always.)

being viewed as stupid

Ergo his criminal history just being a big show to prove how smart he is. Again, his fathers influence.

being actually stupid

Not knowing things stresses him out So Bad and he takes it So Personally. He NEEDS to know everything. The world is a puzzle and he is Going to solve it.

Side note: That’s why I do LOVE that Gotham made him a forensics specialist!! He’s always had, to quote a DC podcast where he’s talking to Batgirl “-and you have that terrible all consuming pathology which comples you to find answers” “AnD i HaVe tHaT tErRiBlE aLL cOnsUmiNG PaThOLoGy wHiCh coMpELs mE tO FiNd AnSwErS- Yes.”

Biggest for last: being like his dad

This one is specifically fun because it was almost represented so well. ALMOST. His entire relationship with Kristen was downright molded by it, as shown in the file room anxiety attack. Yes that’s what I’m going to call it.

He is constantly fretting over being like Tom, even when he clearly isn’t because he is disgusted by Tom. No mysoginist is going to see someone with the same thoughts as gross. No guy who thinks women should be “put in their place” is going to have such a physical reaction to hearing that be said. No abusive pos is going to have that reaction at all. At least, not in the way that situation went down or in the way Ed’s afraid of being. We aren’t discussing emotional harm or Nygmobblepot today. But he frets anyway. And if we chose to interpret his riddler hallucination as a Really poor way of representing intrusive thoughts? Yeah. Yeah. His brain is making him panic about doing exactly what he hates so much.

*it should be noted that compulsions are often reinforced by intrusive thoughts. specific example: if he lies he will be saying something wrong, he can not be wrong, everyone is going to think he’s an idiot if he’s wrong. You can see how the two things connect. This applies to the majority of compilations in some way.

Now, a moment where I deviate from discussing what Did happened because I’ll forever mourn this particular writing fuck up:

His thing with Kristen could’ve been perfect. It could’ve been the best live action riddler origin to date. Because this is a guy with OCD who’s very traumatized and would have a strong personal reaction to finding out a friend is facing domestic abuse. That would make his relationships complicated too because of the thought loop it would create off the risk of “turning out to be the type of person he hates” or “what if I hurt her like I was hurt.” That would have been so compelling? AND? AND YKNOW WHAT? MY BIGGEST GRIPE? HIS FIRST PUSH INTO VIOLENT CRIME BEING STABBING AN ABUSER WOULD BE PERFECT. It would be on point. Exceptional foray into crime and murder. BUT THEY DIDNT PLAY IT LIKE THAT. No instead it’s highly tainted by “who gets the girl” and I just. N o. Ugh. They fumbled it!! They fumbled it So Hard. THEY MAKE HIM CREEPY AS FUCK TOWARDS KRISTEN. Like- physically blocking her into small spaces and imposing on her and talking over her when, if they HAD actually leaned into the OCD on purpose, he would probably be hyper aware of not doing.

[skunkes]

[naggascradle]

[atoriv-art]

older designs for my specialest guy

[mamawasatesttube]

yknow i gotta say. lex luthor can be a really fun and interesting villain, but sometimes it does just take me aback the way some people talk about him when trying to make him funny and cool, as if his biggest and most infamous shtick is not extreme, violent xenophobia.

[merrysithmas]

me when someone says luke is a bad teacher and made grogu "choose" btw being a jedi and his dad:

what he did was ensure grogu could one day be a jedi AND have his dad now!!!

[flareboi]

what if purple never calls him dad

[novella-november]

Is this fanfic friendly? I feel like an outlier.

I guess this is my sign it's time to throw together a FAQ post to link to lol.

Yes, every event for this blog is fanfic friendly :D

Though as I mentioned on my Ominous October post, for events that include multiple short stories, I encourage everyone to flex their creativity and take one of their planned short story fanfics, and at least *attempt* to turn one of them into something entirely original; rebuilding a character and story from the ground up to stand on its own two legs is no easy feat, and that is what makes it so fun!

It really gets your creative gears turning, to make an "au of an existing material" to be something entirely original, and you can be pleasantly surprised about the things you come up with!

As a few people say, its not just a matter of "filing the serial numbers off" -- you have to add in just as much *or more* as what you take out when you are turning a fanfiction into something that is original and completely divorced from its original source material / inspiration, and that is a hard, but very rewarding challenge!

Obviously, this is not a requirement (there's no hard requirements for any of the challenges, other than no cheating, including no using AI),

but if you would like an extra challenge for the short story events and you're planning on doing entirely fan-fiction, I highly recommend trying it out at least once, and seeing where it leads you--

you may find yourself pleasantly surprised by what you find down that rabbit hole!

[hanzajesthanza]

this looks like a long time but initially it said 1 MONTH 15 days

[puhpandas]

thinking abt the ggy easter eggs rn

[thecrowsart]