#now I get why even though I was freaking the fuck out spiralling from trauma whenever bb was brought up lev was still like

[blackvahana]

SItting here thinking "Wow. suddenly all that practice w bb pcp things has come back"

nms shut up. also why did youtube pull the "are you still watching?" as soon as I hit the screenshot button

[faetaiity]

As much as I adore yan/turtles, Casey doesn't get as much love as he should. So may I kindly request a yandere casey one shot?

<3 anon

HELLOOOOO I AM BACK (hopefully) FROM THE UNDERWORLD CALLED BURNOUT I wasn't truly able to make a one-shot bc I actually haven't thought about what kind of Yan Casey is, so I think this'll prolly be a Headcanon post with a small story at the end kjgfjlklkgt, sorry :')

✩ Yan! Casey Jones Jr x Gender-Neutral! Reader ✩

Story Format: Mostly Headcanons

TW: Manipulation, Guilt-Tripping, Panic Attacks, Yandere (Obv-) and Mentions of Trauma for Casey

✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩

I feel like Casey would be an (Unintentional) Manipulative, Isolating, and Paranoid Yan

He's heard so much about you from Future! Leo and Mikey in the bad timeline...

You probably let him stay at your apartment while the Turtles set up a room for him

I also feel like the first signs that he's slowly downwardly spiraling into toxic love is when you try to leave the apartment for work/school/errands

He flips his shit, still in the Apocalypse mindset of 'Don't go alone, you'll fucking die via the Kraang'

He has a panic attack, and you have to stay to help him because he is sobbing and begging you not to leave

He calms down after a bit, clinging to you as he begs you to stay for a bit more, or take him with you

He can keep you safe, you say you can defend yourself but he's adamant

He doesn't tell you why he freaks out when you leave specifically, but it's traumatic for him knowing you died in his timeline

If you end up staying, it's kind of like when you reinforce a dog's bad behavior, they'll do it more, thinking you will comply

Anytime you try to leave without him now, he sobs crocodile tears and begs you not to, it's gotten so bad that he doesn't even have the panic attacks anymore, he's faking it knowing you'll stay if he makes you believe he is.

He finds you trying to comfort him a euphoric situation, furthering his "love"

If you call his bluff, he'll immediately go back to actual panic attacks though

He gets defensive if you have any friends over that aren't April or the Turtles

He doesn't trust them, his memories of the Apocalypse made him wary of almost everyone, he's seen other survivors kill those he loves or knew from the Resistance

He can't let you meet a similar fate in this timeline

If you're a push-over, this can boil over into him being wary of everyone except Michelangelo and Leonardo

It's awful at that point, he has bad panic attacks (Both real and Faked) if anyone comes into the house that isn't Leo or Mikey

Once his room at the Lair is ready, he refuses to go, freaking out that he won't be with you and you will be alone

at this point, it's clear to everyone that he's extremely dependent and attached to you, almost to the hip at this point

He didn't have time for relationships in the Apocalypse, this can both be an Advantage and a Disadvantage

He doesn't know what's the "right" way to love someone romantically and is immediately overbearing and panicky

But he also doesn't have the belief that you would lie to him, you're someone who can be trusted, why would you lie to him?

You'd have to come up with a good lie, like needing to take a shower alone (This is especially good if you have issues with sensory input regarding showers)

Better hope your Bathroom has a window if you use that lie.

If he finds out you lied to him, game over, he's throwing an absolute FIT

Sobbing, screaming, hyperventilating

The whole nine yards man

He won't believe you ever again, even if what you're saying is true

Goodluck, bro is gonna be watching you pee or something, yuck.

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You had lied to Casey, you don't know how he didn't deny your request, but you aren't complaining

You see yourself as one lucky bastard right now.

Turning on the cold water as a distraction, you stare at the tiny window, also known as your ticket to getting the fuck out of here,

Climbing on top of the toilet, you part the small private curtains blocking creeps from seeing you do your business, opening the window you try to find a good way to fit through it while making as little noise as possible

Hard task when you're trying to fit through a window the size of two desk drawers.

You fit your head through the window, eagerly pulling your body through until you hear Casey knocking on the door

Fuck.

"{Y/N}? Are you alright?" He asked, his voice sounded concerned and mildly bored, like he wanted to be in there with you.

You don't know what to say, as a heave of air would give away what you're doing.

Trying to get through the window quicker, his knocks become more frantic, as he attempted to turn the doorknob, but was stopped halfway due to the lock

Halfway through the window, you hear him trying to beat the door down, you panic and try to hurry up your pace, abandoning the attempt at being quiet

As you get your knees on the hard steel of the fire escape, you scream as you feel him yank you back into the bathroom, you didn't realize quick enough, and were dragged onto the hard tile floor within seconds before you could attempt to resist

Crying from the stinging pain of hitting the tile floor, you look up and see Casey, his face red with anger and tears streaming down his face

"Why?! Why were you trying to run?! ARE YOU TRYING TO GET YOURSELF KILLED?!" he screeched, he's shaking from the anger and hysteria he's feeling

You flinch from his loud voice, unsure of what to do now, he's staring at you before grabbing your hand and trying to gently get you up, which seems out of character as he's literally crying in anger

You don't get up willingly, which makes him resort to just picking you up and walking into your bedroom, setting you on the bed as he pulled out a pair of cuffs, panic jolts through your body as he cuffs you to the bedpost, he heaves a sigh

"Now think about what you've done, what you've done to damage our relationship.... I need to go cool off...."

He walks out of the bedroom, leaving you there for what will feel like hours.

You just had to listen to him, and would've been happier, now look at what you've done

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[bigdickevans]

i watched smile and wrote down my live reaction if anyone cares lol. long story short it was better than i thought it would be, the death/spooky effects were fun but it was kinda heavy handed with the mental health commentary

i went into this thinking it would be funny bad but. goddammit. ok i liked the opening.

the fucking back and forth shots of the main lady and the college girl’s faces, it set me up!!

then when it showed college girl had gotten up. idk man something about how empty and sterile the office is wigged me out even more.

and her cutting her neck was neato

at the title card now and alright goddamn it didn’t have to flash like that yeesh

oh also it sounds like this is just gonna be it follows but with suicide instead of sex

lord they’re trying to do mental health commentary. great.

ugh if i end up liking this movie i’m gonna be embarrassed

that cat’s dead. and nooo i don’t know that because i checked doesthedogdie.com

i was hoping the cat would smile lmao

WAIT THE BOYFRIEND

WHO IS HE

SLKJFLKSDF IT’S A-TRAIN

i’ve decided this takes place in The Boys universe

sorry i got so distracted by a-train that i forgot to say that main lady seeing the dead girl in the dimly lit kitchen did freak me out.

we’re back to the mental health commentary.

why does the cat have such a big fucking bowl

Young cop(?) dude gives me the creeps.

Haha sassy black coworker!! very funny and cool el oh el

ooooo i liked her passing the rooms and having to backtrack

bro is vibing stop snapping

im so sorry but this carl actor has a really silly voice

i feel like this boss also looks familiar

oh he was in designated survivor ok

actually i’ve been kinda constipated so maybe if i watch this on the toilet i’ll shit myself and finally be free

jesus this lady just can’t stop breaking glasses

none of this would’ve happened if you just KEPT YOUR HOUSE WELL LIT

WAIT STOP EVERYTHING

YOUNG COP CREEP IS THE EMO GUY FROM JENNIFER’S BODY

wow what a cast

i sorta missed the whole bit where she listened to the recording and heard stuff, i was unclogging my toilet

main lady and blonde bitch are sisters?? wow that went straight over my head until now. i knew they had to be related in some way? but i kinda thought the husband and the main lady were siblings

dead cat moment

love that they felt the need to clarify it was her cat lmao

when the boy picked it up it looked like really bad cgi

DAMN

TABLE SLAM KO

yeah babe sometimes you just gotta yell it out

SLKDFJLS THE PAIN ASSESSMENT CHART

im sorry… mental health preachy message aside, are you telling me the fiance had to look up the fact that mental illness can be hereditary??

for some reason i feel like the main character’s spiral happened way too fast

but to be fair i guess she does have that trauma with her mom, so maybe even though she works in healthcare she’d still be more susceptible to this line of thinking?

the number of times they say “crazy” in this movie is getting ridiculous

love a good smashed in head, i appreciate they didn’t add a loud noise with it considering the amount of jumpscares in this fucking thing

thank god horrible events always happen to artists so we can have ooky spooky drawings

these “coincidences” are so obviously connected it’s ludicrous that literally nobody noticed until now

I mean cops being inept is nothing new i guess

main character is being? unbelievably unreasonable here?? yes, calling a mental health professional is what you’re SUPPOSED to do when someone around you starts acting like this

i thought one of the whole points of this smile demon thing was that it could look like anyone? they haven’t really been utilizing that as much as i assumed they would which is a bummer

OOOOOOOOOOOOOO

loved that moment with the sister at the car

it is kinda neat that the death has to be super dramatic so it inflicts as much trauma as possible

but also couldn’t you just do something traumatic that doesn’t involve murder or suicide?

like pretend you murdered someone or killed yourself in a crazy violent way in front of someone so they believe it happened, orchestrate a big practical joke

the demon voice is goofy

putting a knife that big up your sleeve seems like an atrocious idea

LMAO AWESOME DREAM

it’s like in chainsaw man. the whole door thing with denji. i’m not elaborating bc i don’t wanna spoil anyone.

the mom is kinda hot

lol i like how slowly rose closed the door

ooooooo!!!! suddenly tall mom!!!

i’m a tad disappointed with the monster design :/

HELL YEAH you thought a house fire could kill a demon?? lmaoooo

I TAKE IT BACK THE MONSTER DESIGN LOOKS RAD

rose the throat goat

hell yeah love a good person burning

[dankusner]

Manifesto

“To the Feds, I'll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country.

To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn't working with anyone.

This was fairly trivial:

some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience.

The spiral notebook, if present, has some straggling notes and To Do lists that illuminate the gist of it.

My tech is pretty locked down because I work in engineering so probably not much info there.

I do apologize for any strife of traumas but it had to be done.

Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming.

A reminder:

the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy.

United is the [indecipherable] largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart.

It has grown and grown, but as our life expectancy?

No the reality is, these [indecipherable] have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allwed them to get away with it.

Obviously the problem is more complex, but I do not have space, and frankly I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument.

But many have illuminated the corruption and greed (e.g.: Rosenthal, Moore), decades ago and the problems simply remain.

It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play.

Evidently I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty.”

milwaukee

I've always been a quiet kid I'd say, or at least that's what everyone else around me has said and never really had the brains for most things because I wasn't smart enough for people around me even though I'm good at science and some stuff.

Nobody really looked at me in a good way in elementary or middle school nor even highschool right now, doesn't matter much cause I like being alone.

Sometimes I just hate being picked on but yet I mourn for friends but sooner than later they'll leave.

My therapist sucks, he's just some weak and fat guy who doesn't deserve everything he has now, nobody deserves anything good.

My so-called family never included me because I was too weird for them, my father never treated me with respect.

My father will always make me stand out in the worst possible way yet, bring up how I fail school or can't get out of bed simply because I don't want to leave.

He makes me look like a freak to his family and friends, he says so much but look at his bad side.

My parents divorced quite a few times which didn't help me at all but not did it really affect me it just made me a little lonely because nobody was there for me and never really has.

My mother tried overdosing when I was around 12 or something, I don't care if she would have survived or died from it but yet she was still here, doesn't mean she actually was in my life.

I see my parents as failures for everything they've done to me and just kinda fucking with my life.

There never was helpful advice given to me, it was all bullshit, the world itself is bullshit to be fair though so why should I or you see so much in it.

I've never really liked my father to be exact, because honestly why should I, our hate is mutual to each other, he will never see me as his daughter.

He will never love me like he loved his ex or her kids or even alcohol but that doesn't matter, it doesn't matter anymore because nobody heard me out and just made fun of me my entire life and I'm sick of it.

I've been trapped and forced into my corner.

I hate this corner that I'm stuck in.

I hate humanity for forcing me into this little hole.

I once had this time when I was young.

You made me dig for so long and now I can't leave it but only look up at your smiles laughing at me.

I honestly don't remember how old I was, I know I was young but yet I remember everything that still happened because it happens every once in a while.

Never have I once brought this up to a therapist, anyone, because nobody cared at that time nor will now.

I saw things around me and I layed on the floor not being able to move, I was overwhelmed and tired, Hard Breath, Things around me felt bigger than usual and I was faint.

Once in awhile I get that same feeling just I know how to control it, that one night I begged for my mother to help me but she was in the next room to me in her apartment where she was with her boyfriend, awake cause all I heard was her walking right past me, and my room.

I was the wrong child of the family, my parents admit they didn't want me, nor never did even if i've grown.

I'm always the one who sat out or sat in another room because they didn't want to interact with me at any point in time, then I stayed in my room all day during the day and night and after and before school

Doesn't help that school was a pain in my ass while getting teased and pushed around, I always got picked on for being out of pocket as if the quietness was out of pocket for them and just too odd or something.

I moved schools, what's already happening?

Picked on again, just not any worse.

I know this will happen anywhere and anytime in my life, but it's annoying.

I'm starting to realize you will all die and perish and be forgotten in 20 years or less.

Your family will think you are a disappointment, as the hate I have for you now isn't enough.

I want to hate to tear you apart but yet won't happen because you are the reason hate is a thing, and will always continue to be a thing.

I am not hate, I am simply pointing this out.

You and the system will always suck, therefore we need revolution, nobody understands that though, nor do people understand the fact that they probably sat next to me in class and never thought a single word about me nor ever really thought to.

I don't really care though to be honest, nobody really has.

The wolf hunts its prey and continues life with no other bruises or scars.

There is no predator and prey anymore, it is all filth walking.

There's nothing more with filth, it simply cannot die or make hunts real if only they want is value.

"Finally, one learns that boredom is a disease of civilization"

[darknightsandfairylights]

I don't know why shouting into the void of the internet helps, but sometimes it's an invaluable tool on this journey. So today, I shout.

TRIGGER WARNING: Talk of unhealthy dieting, body dysmorphia and body image issues

I'm in a weird spot, mentally, with health and fitness. I grew up very out of place. I come from stocky people, but was adopted into a family of fast metabolism. I never quite fit in. Combined with other issues (poor socialization, small private school, general awkwardness), I never had many friends or social interaction in general, which I chalked up to not being pretty or popular enough. In high school, I joined Weight Watchers, starved myself, but didn't work out at all, and so I ended up much thinner but VERY unhealthy. And with basically no muscle mass. I stayed roughly in that (bad) weight range for about 3 years - until college. I had semi-helicopter parents, so I never really learned how to regulate my own eating, and I also went through a horribly abusive relationship that triggered depression and massive anxiety my last year of high school and the summer into freshman college. So, left to my own devices, I gained the freshman 15. Then 20. Then 30. Then second semester, I met someone with disposable income, and suddenly I was eating Domino's multiple times a week, and other takeout besides. 30 extra pounds grew into 50, then 80 by the end of college, then a new trauma / depression spiral the first 2 years out of college bumped the number up to 120 extra pounds. Almost as much as I weighed to start. And the whole time was horrible yo-yo dieting, juice fasts, several stints in Weight Watchers, a ton of fad diet books, and emotionally bullying myself, horribly.

So now we come to the latest "era" of my life. The era of childhood healing, true self care, and hard fucking truths. It took a lot of work, and I doubt I'll ever be completely "done", but I've done quite a lot to lessen the voices telling me fat = bad. I no longer consider fat to be a moral failing. It's not something to be celebrated either - it just is. It's morally neutral. It is an emotionless fact about me, much like the color of my hair. Brunette isn't bad, blonde isn't shameful, it's just... hair.

With that said, being morally neutral like hair, I believe it's objectively OK to want to make a change. If I want to dye my hair a slightly darker shade, no one will really care. If I want to go red, or purple, or oil slick hair, no one's gonna care. (I mean. With some bright colors / multicolor shenanigans, there are some angry people that might take personal offense, but these aren't people whose opinions I value.) Wanting to change my weight and physical health should be so morally neutral. The answer to both is "do what makes you feel good." Purple hair makes you happy? Dye it. Growing muscle makes you happy? Hit the gym.

Because of my history though, I freak out about eating anything I see as a "health food" (we aren't even talking dieting, because I never want to see a fad diet again. I just mean like... eating a side salad with dinner) because I don't trust myself. What if a salad turns into a slippery slope and suddenly I'm an unhealthy skinny weight again? What if I go off the deep end and spend way too much time in the gym and drive away everyone I love? What then?

I know these fears are unfounded. There's a balancing act, finding that sweet spot. If I stay with morally neutral, and keep food morally neutral, so cake and pie hold the same moral value as fruits and veggies, I may find (if I allow myself) that I actually like eating a mostly veggie / fruit / bean diet ("diet" as in "things you eat" in this sentence - not as in "strict eating plan"), and I may find that I love the gym, and my metabolism is great, and weight just falls off. Or I may find I still want to eat a lot of pasta and potatoes and desserts, but I can add on enough fruits and veggies, and go to the gym enough, that I slowly get to a healthier equilibrium. But I have to stop being so afraid of the journey to even let myself start.

I don't know whether this helps. You, or me. I'm still overwhelmed. And tired. I Aldo hate meal prep. If I had someone making me fresh acai bowls and salads and bean burgers, this would be easy. But alas.

[bigskydreaming]

And one more bit from the “Kings of the Sky” AU albeit several installments in, because I just......don’t know when or why I stumbled into an obsession with the dynamics between Dick and Jason and Cass as the eldest three Wayne siblings, but its there, its real, and its happening. I’ve stopped fighting it. I just....enjoy writing those three being dumb siblings who are dumb like so, so much.

Anyway, in this AU series, Jason doesn’t go to Ethiopia and die, but rather eventually joins Dick at Titans Tower more regularly and is Flamebird. Both are closer with Bruce here than in canon because Dick helped Bruce and Jason get through the Garzonas stuff and Jason helped kick Bruce in the direction of Dick and adoption papers right after the Brother Blood storyline. Then Cass is actually the third to join the family, by way of Babs, and she’s Batgirl and then Black Bat, but there’s a period of time when its just Dick, Jason and Cass as the Wayne kids. 

(PS - this is the same series as where Jason ends up with his own age group of Titans, and accidentally falls into a love quadrangle of doom that is absolutely NOT a polycule dammit, with Tom Bronson (Tomcat), Ray Terrill (The Ray) and Todd Rice (Obsidian). Which amuses his brother and sister to no end).

Tim and Duke are both next, but sorta at the same time? Like Tim’s story takes a sharp turn when Robin II never dies and obviously is Flamebird now like Robin I is Nightwing, and Tim winds up in foster care after his parents die differently than in canon. Duke is also in foster care at this time, though a different placement, and while no Robin has died here, its been awhile since there’s been one in Gotham, and to kids who grew up with the idea of there always being a Robin, that feels weird and wrong ultimately. 

So Tim and Duke both hit on the idea of being Robin like, at around the same time and totally disconnected from one another, and that leads to them both joining the Batfam around the same time, and co-sharing Robin until Damian arrives much later and they both move on to new identities. But there’s no real confusion between Robins because Duke is the daytime Robin with more yellow coloring in his costume and Tim is the nighttime Robin with more red, and people say Red or Yellow if they ever need to differentiate which Robin they’re talking about. Anyway.

************

So [Tim and Duke] run into trouble eventually and then when running from trouble they run into each other and they’re like….huh. Awkward. And then they decide well, might as well both run from trouble in the same direction, I guess. So they do.

“Did you have a plan for dealing with these guys?” Tim yelled at Duke. The other boy looked back over his shoulder briefly and gave what would probably have been a half-shrug if he didn’t awkwardly try to barrel-roll over a car two seconds later.

“Umm, sorta?”

“How sorta are we talking about? Maybe the two of us together could fill in the gaps in the plan and come up with one full plan?”

“Uh yeah, no, its not that kinda sorta. I meant sorta in the sense that I thought I had a plan but it didn’t work and that’s why these guys are after me. Sooooo…”

“Not helpful, basically.”

“Yeah. Pretty much. And hey, I don’t hear you offering up a plan! Did you even have one at all?”

“Uh….I mean I kinda didn’t think I was going to need one because I figured some kid running around in a mask making a nuisance of himself was the sorta thing that was bound to attract Batman. And so I was just pretty much running around until that happened, and then I’d make a case for how I obviously need training and Gotham needs Robin and if its not me its likely to be someone else trying eventually anyway so why not be me?”

Duke paused just long enough to squint at him. “That’s a terrible plan.”

Tim rolled his eyes. The effort didn’t pair well with his huffing and over-all exertions from running for his life and all that, but necessity demanded. “Yeah I know, that’s why I never said it was a plan! It was mostly….more…idea-ish.”

“I’m just saying, I thought I was doing this wrong, but at least I had a plan! I mean yeah, it might have ended up with me accidentally busting in on what I thought was a bunch of Riddler’s henchmen setting up some kind of clue thing, only it was actually a bunch of Intergang type guys with alien space guns or some shit all dressed up as Riddler henchmen for some reason? I dunno what they were trying to do honestly, but so yeah I might have ended up running away on foot from like twenty of them and some kind of hovercycle -”

“I’m going to cut you off there and say wherever this is going its probably not the superior vantage point I think you think you have.”

Meanwhile, Batman was not going to be coming because he’s off on a JLA mission. However, in his absence Dick and Jason are in town filling in, and they finished taking out the bad guys several blocks back and caught up to whomever was running from them, figured out the situation and are currently sitting on the edge of a rooftop watching them realize they’re totally lost and trying to figure out where to go from here. Mostly because Dick and Jason are incredibly amused listening to their back and forth and also just…this whole situation.

Dick justifies not piping up to let them know they’re safe now by saying this is good intel gathering so we can offer Bruce our assessment as to whether they’re gonna try and keep doing this whether we train them or not, and also how they handle this whole being lost situation. Not knowing they don’t have to run anymore isn’t going to hurt them and really, this is a good field exercise almost.

Jason justifies not piping up by saying this is fucking hilarious and I will hurt you if you end this any sooner than we have to, I deserve this, I had a rough week.

Which is right around the time that Cass pipes up from where she’s been lurking unnoticed behind them this whole time: “Oh no. Was it Tom? Or Ray? Or was it Todd?”

And she does it right in Jason’s ear so he kinda aborted-shrieks and almost falls off the roof except Cass is ready for that and grabs his arm to steady him.

“I hate when you do that!” Jason growls in an attempt to cover up how badly she got him and also because he hates when she does it which is why she does it a lot. Again, they don’t hate each other at all, but they do seem to act like it a lot, and neither of them is entirely sure why. They kinda just started doing it and have each been trying to get the other back ever since and ended up locked in an unending spiral of gotcha-gotchaback, except, y’know, Batfam style.

Dick occasionally picks sides just to muddy the waters. And then he randomly switches sides without warning, so neither of them ever wants to risk getting too peeved at him even when he’s helping the other, because that might push him fully over to the other side and leave them permanently outnumbered, so they’re kinda stuck, which is exactly as he likes it, lol.

“Why are you Satan,” Jason hisses dramatically as he gets up and stomps over to the other side of the roof to sulk, lest she almost knock him off again. Its not the almost falling part that bothers him, its that she’s the one that snatches him to safety each time. She’s like a freaking cat toying with a - yeah not going there, just blaming Selina. Knew them hanging out was going to be bad news for me somehow, he gripes.

Cass just shrugs and smoothly sits down cross-legged right where she is, grinning Cheshire-cat style at him from there. “Childhood trauma,” is her answer.

“Great, and now you’re stealing my comeback on top of it?! Is nothing sacred to you?”

She offers another shrug. He would like to return those for store credit please. Maybe get something useful instead. “Haven’t decided yet. Babs is still helping me explore my options. We’re going alphabetically and we’re only on  the E-religions.”

“God, you’re the worst. I can’t believe you ruined sisters for me.”

“You already used that same line last week when you came out of your room still half-asleep and she was just sitting directly across from your door waiting and staring unblinking and you yelped and dropped your laptop on your toe, and then cursed so loud that B came running around the hall thinking we were being invaded,” Dick reported idly, still perched in the same position he’d been in all along and watching the boys below them. “Just in case you thought no one noticed when you recycle.”

“I noticed too,” Cass added solemnly.

“I have no siblings,” Jason intoned. He threw up his hands dramatically and then loudly jumped down to the street below with a little help from the fire escape. It drew both Duke and Tim’s attention and they startled before realizing it was Flamebird. And that he’d landed on the street and was stalking past them while barely acknowledging them. And that that was Nightwing standing on the roof now with his hands on his hips yelling after him.

“Oh, reeeeeeal subtle. You’re not having fun anymore so you gotta make sure nobody else does either. Wow, the Brat-like behavior, just jumped out of the shadows with that one!”

And that was Flamebird not even turning around and just yelling back. “I HAVE NO SIBLINGS!”

And also they were both pretty sure that was Batgirl crouched on the roof next to Nightwing now, and she was…..sticking her tongue out at Flamebird’s back? No, Batgirl very much definitely was sticking out her tongue, that wasn’t in doubt, it was more just….very unexpected to see.

What was happening right now?

********

Eventually Tim and Duke have inevitably worn down [Bruce’s] resistance to training them by insisting they’re gonna keep doing this and if its not them its gonna be someone sooner or later anyway. Because, as they put it, you guys may not know this but Gotham’s gotten used to Robins by now and it freaks people out not to see one and Robin’s as important as Batman really and there needs to be a Robin and its not just us that will think that, like look at the fact that already two of us had the exact same idea, huh? And also, we’re gonna keep doing it anyway, sooooo….there’s that.

And then Cass vouches that they’re both 100% serious about that.

And then Dick vouches that as a former determined daredevil kid that was absolutely going to keep doing the same thing no matter whether you’d helped me or not, B, I also am of the assessment that these two mean it all the way.

And not to be left out and just to have something to contribute but also grumpy because his brother and sister are picking on him and he’s eighteen going on ten, Jason throws in: “And my assessment is that they both definitely seem dumb enough to keep doing this without help anyway and they definitely need help or they definitely will die, I’d give it a month, month and a half tops.”

And then Bruce dryly thanks his children for their contributions, their keen insights in this matter have been absolutely invaluable, he has no idea how he would make a decision here without it.

“Oooh, a rare sighting of Bat-snark in the wild. Someone call Nat-Geo quick, maybe he’ll do it again,” Dick says.

Bruce sighs. Duke and Tim look like they’re trying to decide if they’re allowed to be amused or if that’s also part of some weird Bat-test that they’re probably taking without even knowing it.

So Tim and Duke move in, start training together, and then also get sent to school together and it takes a month or so of settling in before they decide whether or not they actually are happy about this. There’s a period of deciding they’re supposed to be bitter rivals who snipe at each other back and forth across the dining table at every available opportunity, but that changes the first night Dick and Jason come back from the Tower since Tim and Duke have moved in and where Cass is also home instead of at the Clocktower with Babs.

Since all three of the older Batkids, upon seeing Tim and Duke squabble at dinner, decide to obnoxiously coo about how adorable it is watching the kids play. Which pretty instantly cements Duke and Tim as realizing their best chance of surviving the sudden acquisition of three older superhero ninja foster siblings who all can be as obnoxious as they are dangerous but also as much as they are - Duke and Tim are convinced - all quite insane.

A belief further cemented the next morning, with all three of them having spent the night at the Manor as well. Treating Duke and Tim to their first Saturday morning episode of the Cass and Jason show.

In this episode, Jason emerged from his bedroom in his pajamas still but warily peeking his head out first to look both ways down the hall before deciding it was clear…..and then makes it just almost to the end of the hallway leading to the stairs, when Cass drops down from where she’d been waiting perched above the other side of the door, in such a way as to suddenly fill the doorway just in front of him, hanging upside down suspending herself just with her feet wedged above the doorway, all while keeping her hands crossed her chest, a dead-eyed expression on her face, and with her tongue hanging out like she’s some kind of vampire hanging upside down in mid-slumber.

Jason shrieked and stumbled back a foot before catching himself and shoving two fingers in a cross shape in her direction.

“Demon! DEMON! Goddammit, I abjure thee, that’s supposed to fucking do something about having a demon sister, now what the fuck does it take to banish you!?”

“Can’t be banished,” Cass informed him, still upside down. “Can be bought though.”

Jason halted. “What?”

“I’m really surprised you never figured it out,” Dick said from his room further down the hallway. He was leaning against the doorjamb, arms casually crossed.

“Why did you think she never goes after me?”

Jason swiveled back and forth between his siblings suspiciously, trying to scry both their inscrutable (and in Cass’ case, still upside down) faces for signs they were telling the truth. “You’re telling me that Little Miss Monstrous has been a pain in my ass from day one and the reason she’s never so much as eked a single boo in your direction is you’ve been bribing her all this time?”

Dick shrugged. “Its all about getting in on the ground floor.”

Jason squinted, still unconvinced. “Nuh-uh. No way. You’re just fucking with me. Like if this is for real, what have you been buying her off with?”

Dick smiled beatifically. “Cuddles and hugs.”

“NO! NO! Bullshit! I am NOT falling for this crap again, you are not gonna get me this way this time. I call BS, fuck you, nuh uh, you’re lying out your ass and your ass-face both.”

“Wait, what is this ‘this’ that I did before? What ever are you talking about?”

“You know damn well what I’m talking about.”

“Is this about the Care Bear you had when you were fifteen?”

“Shut upppppppppppppppp, I didn’t have a Care Bear then, you’re such a - “

“Oh, I dunno, I’m preeeeetty sure there’s some holiday photos from that year that would say otherwise, pretty definitively in the form of you and your Care Bear….”

“That I only had because you literally just gave it to me as a present solely so that you could claim that I had a Care Bear when I was fifteen, you douchebag!”

“Just because I gave you the Care Bear didn’t mean you had to keep the Care Bear and hold the Care Bear and love the Care Bear, Jay. You chose to do all that.”

“I only kept the damn thing because you’re an asshole who lied about it being a family heirloom so I felt like I had to or I’d be a total jerk. Is nothing sacred to you?”

“I didn’t lie! It is a treasured family heirloom! Its the first Care Bear I gave to my little brother to teach him the important and valuable lesson that Care Bears - say it with me now - “

“Finish that sentence and they will never find your body.”

“CARE!” Cass shrieked from behind him before jumping on Jason’s back and bearing him down to the floor in an undignified tangle as she splayed atop him like a starfish and he stared up at the ceiling in a kind of strangled frozen fury, like there was so much emotion he wanted to process he’d overheated and now was stuck like that until he cooled down.

That was when Dick leaned over him and solemnly added one final thought, as though it was a crucial addition of the gravest importance:: “A lot.”

Jason’s eye twitched.

Dick’s eyes went wide in response. “Uh oh. He went to the Danger Zone. Run Cass. We’ve unleashed the dogs of war!”

Cass was off and on her feet in a second, taking off down the hall like a rocket. “Not the dogs of war!” She yelled.

Dick was only seconds behind her when behind him, Jason rose like an eruption, growling wordlessly and sparks practically flashing from his suddenly flinty eyes. He charged after them like an enraged bull.

“Kenny Loggins wouldn’t want this!” Dick yelled over his shoulder as he rounded the doorway and vanished. Jason rounded it in hot pursuit.

“Poison Ivy won’t even be able to make compost from what’s left of you when I’m through!”

The yelling and running vanished into the distance. Duke and Tim finally looked at each other blankly.

“What?” Tim asked. Duke shrugged helplessly.

A door opened at the end of the hallway. Bruce stuck his head out. “Is it safe?”

Tim just stared at him.

“What?” Duke asked.

**************

LOL mostly I just want to get to the tail end of the series, when Dick and Jason go undercover as supervillains in the Society of well, Supervillains....Dick as War Shrike and Jason as Gray Jay. (A kind of bird usually known for or referenced as being thieving and unpredictable and unexpectedly dangerous despite its size. Jason never went into the Lazarus Pit here and so isn’t as huge as he is in canon, he’s on the smaller side due to his early life’s malnutrition. Living with Bruce helped him catch up enough that he’s not TINY tiny, but he’s still smaller enough that this particular mantle fits him a little better than it would his massive canon depiction).

Cass also partakes in the undercover storyline, just showing up uninvited in a persona she’s crafted for the mission and calls Black Swan. And War Shrike and Gray Jay are both so startled and obviously a little freaked by her unexpected arrival, that combined with her being ticked at her brothers for leaving her behind, RUDE, and them sufficiently cowed and guilted by her wrath, that it all adds up to the other villains as being clear evidence that she is the boss and they are her advance minions. 

Which mollifies and satisfies Cass immensely, and leaves Jason grumpy that their mission was hijacked and also his sister is The Worst, and leaves Dick temporarily disgruntled because This Whole Thing Was His Idea DAMMIT but then five seconds later finding it hilarious because Dick is a chaos connoisseur and he has an appreciation for whimsy and the unexpected.

“I can’t believe you not only gate-crashed our extremely sensitive and delicate undercover operation, but you completely hijacked it as well! This is so typical,” Jason grouched.

Cass simply swept ahead of him and strode down the hallway with lethal grace. “Silence minion.”

Jason spluttered behind her and she grinned to herself. He really made it too easy sometimes.

[daisylincs]

It's time to see what I can do! To test the limits and break through// no right no wrong no rules for meee// I'm freeeeeeeeee (and i was glad lincoln died)

*silence*

*utter, shocked silence*

Well, Birdie, I only have one thing to say to you --

Why Lincoln Campbell Shouldn't Have Died: A Small Essay By Lily [Redacted]

#1. It’s Lazy. There was all this fuss about how “heart-breaking” Lincoln’s death was, and how it was the most shocking choice, and I’m just like... really? Was it? Because frustrating as it is to me, it’s true that Lincoln didn’t have any significant relationships on the show aside from his with Daisy, and he also didn’t have the time/the writers didn’t invest the time to make him a character the audience could become really close to. 

And I don’t see how that’s a shocking choice at all? That’s just taking the easy way out of things. If they had really wanted to make a heart-breaking death, it would have been so much worse to choose literally anyone of the OG team.

Or, heaven forbid, not to make anyone die at all!! (Yes, I hate the Fallen Agent arc. Yes, that’s a conversation for another day.) But think about it: it would have been way more original, way more shocking, to have Lincoln not die, or find a super original/Fitzsimmons-esque way to get past the vision. It could’ve been way more shocking and ultimately satisfying if the whole team had worked together to avoid someone dying, and succeeded in avoiding that. It would have made excellent bonding.

And it wouldn’t have been lazy, because Lincoln staying alive would force him and Daisy to have some tough conversations, i.e. Hive and SHIELD and what’s next. It would also have meant an equal amount of tricky conversations with the rest of the team - especially surrounding the whole Hive debacle and methods used during it (*coughs in murder vests*). It would’ve actually been much harder than just having Lincoln die... and isn’t that what good storytelling is supposed to do? Make the harder choice for an ultimately far more satisfying resolution? 

Because choosing Lincoln to die makes it feel like that was his only purpose on the show, and I can’t help but rage against that. I know that’s how a lot of people actually do see Lincoln, and it just makes me so furious, because that’s actually such a disservice to his character?? He was so much more than just Daisy’s doomed boyfriend, and he could have been even more. Which brings me to my next point - 

#2. Wasted Opportunities. I’ll always believe that one of the biggest missed opportunities on the show was that we never got to see Lincoln properly bond with anyone on the team - it was like the writers started, but then decided he was going to die, and then went all, oh, RIP that. Which, honestly, is stupid - because they created this amazing character that had so much potential, and then decided to drop it just like that. 

And I mean, dammit!! Aside from Daisy, Lincoln had prime opportunities to bond with at least five other characters on the team - May, Coulson, Jemma, Fitz, and Mack, and that’s not even starting on the other Secret Warriors. 

He had a little bit of bonding with May when Lash/Andrew was still a thing - but then, whoops-a-daisy, unequivocally dropped. And like... Lincoln and May could’ve been such a good friendship?? Imagine May initially terrifying the living daylights out of Lincoln, but slowly seeing that he’s not actually that different to Daisy, and he makes her happy? And maybe inviting him to t’ai chi with her, to help control her powers? And him in turn helping give her some closure over Katya Belyakov/telling her that she really did make the only choice? They could’ve developed a mother/son bond just as beautiful as Daisy’s, if AoS had only tried. 

Then there’s Coulson. Daisy’s (basically) dad. We got to see a little bit of this, especially in the 3x14-15 era, but I would have loved to see even more of Coulson not-so-subtly threatening Lincoln, but grudgingly coming to accept him as a good agent (and, though he’d never admit it, kinda liking the guy.) Ugh, it could have been so funny and GOOD!!

Fitz and Jemma, to do them in a package deal, could also have been a GREAT BroTP with Lincoln if they had only actually developed it. I would have loved to see a) FitzSimmons initially distrusting Lincoln and being like “if you hurt Daisy...” and then eventually growing to bond with him over science and, well, adoring Daisy, b) a Lincoln-and-Simmons-specific friendship starting after Maveth, for example, Jemma can’t really be around her friends because they keep pitying her and trying to help and she doesn’t want that, so here’s someone new who’s nice and can also distract her with a common interest, and finally c) Lincoln and Fitz bonding over, oh, Daisy, and being ridiculously in love. Just. C’mon. It could’ve been WONDERFUL - and, just think about it, the picture of a Fitzsimmons-and-Lincoln triple alliance out-science-ing Daisy. FAB.

And Mack!! Someone who’s basically Daisy’s older brother, and, I do believe, another one for the Don’t-Hurt-Daisy pile. But Mack’s also very just, and an excellent judge of character, plus he was literally listening in on their first kiss, lmfao. So I think he’d be that “ugh AGAIN you two stop *eye roll*” big brother, but secretly be very happy for them. (I would’ve LOVED to see it, ahhhh.)

Then, of course, the Secret Warriors!! If anyone would listen, I could R A G E for days about how we only had one episode with the Secret Warriors, and that only barely before it all blew apart. But what snippets we had in that one episode!! Lincoln comforting Joey when he gets stressed before a mission. That’s canon. Now imagine Lincoln learning Spanish for both him and Elena (and so the three of them can fuck with Daisy.) And him encouraging them to follow Spanish traditions, because he picked up a lot of “traditions are important” culture from Afterlife. And, of course, them all going to Pride together to support Joey...

My point is just, there is so much MORE AoS could have done with Lincoln’s character, but especially his bonds with the other main cast. Instead of highlighting his relationship with Daisy, I would’ve preferred a lot more focus on his bonds with the rest of the gang. Because, most simply put, he’s a nice guy and loves Daisy - but that’s not all he is, and also, that love for Daisy would mean he WOULD go out of his way to bond with her family. (Point made.)

#3. It Conflicts With The S5 Time Paradox. During the Fallen Agent arc, all we’re hearing about is how time is fixed, and a death is inevitable. And then in season 5, we have the same thing with the time loop... except, they manage to break it then. We’re literally told, “there are many different futures.” And, cool. But, uh... that’s exactly what you guys didn’t say in season 3!!

Because someone saw a death, a death had to happen. My question is just: if the loop could have been broken in s5, why couldn’t the death have been avoided in s3?? It wouldn’t even have been that hard to make it still fit with the vision - Daisy can quake the controls to destroy them, then Lincoln pulls her out of the quinjet, but she leaves the jacket behind. Hive dies, but no-one else - and the best part is, that even still fulfils the original vision, because someone did die. Hive. Click boom.

And if I can figure that out, then, come on, surely AoS could have done so much better!! It just... really frustrates me, hrrrg.

#4. It Becomes A Plot Point To Hurt Daisy. We all like to joke about how much AoS hurts Daisy, but... this is extreme?? Like?? She only just went through probably the biggest trauma of her life, being freaking possessed, and now you want to make her lose someone she loves too? Cruel. 

The only real reason the Fallen Agent arc ever existed was, let’s be real, to force Daisy into that spiral of hurt and depression. And, like... she already had more than enough trauma just from Hive. Nobody would have blamed her for running away then - in fact, how very Daisy it would have been, leaving before she could hurt anyone else she loved.

And then, of course, we could have had Lincoln and the team working together to find her and bring her back, and, heyo, bonding!! It could also have been such a good point for Staticquake’s relationship, what with Lincoln helping Daisy recover after depression/withdrawal, because who better suited, and Daisy slowly forgiving herself and them becoming that much more of a deeply caring, solid ship.

So in short - though, 🙈🙈🙈, I suppose I should really say in long, because it would seem I am incapable of doing anything in a short fashion - I don't think anyone should be "glad" about Lincoln's death. If anything, we should all be FURIOUS, and super frustrated, because if he had only lived, there could have been so many excellent storylines, both bonding-wise and regarding THE ACTUAL PLOT (his powers could have been SO HELPFUL, just, argh). Lincoln Campbell should not have died, and I will stand by that till the day I die.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

[asterekmess]

(I was gonna save this for tomorrow, but FUCK IT) Eyyy, still being salty over here. Pls block the tag ‘rant’ if you don’t wanna see anymore of these. Or maybe ‘anti-scott mccall’ though, tbh, I’m not sure how much fun it would be to follow me if you aren’t anti-scott mccall. I’m pretty vocal abt disliking him.

ANYWAY.

I wanna talk about the concept of Derek being a ‘creeper’ because of all his wandering around the lacrosse field, at lydia’s party, etc. And by talk about, I mean ramble about incoherently. By which I mean, please know that I’m not trying to insult or fight anybody who makes this joke or uses this concept in fic or whatever. I’m just ranting bc I love this boy and his trauma makes me sad.

ANYWAY. (This is insanely long, so I’m adding a “Read More”)

I just have a lot of feelings about people seeing Derek as a stalker/creeper because he keeps showing up at lacrosse practice and in Scott & Stiles’ rooms, etc. It gets mentioned in loads of fics (I see a lot of “Creeperwolf” which I think is supposed to be an endearment?) (And there’s lots of fics that talk about how ‘you used to be/are really creepy, following us around’ Again, not judging) (Dude it’s even a whole tag on AO3 ‘Creeper Derek Hale’) and it’s joked about a lot in fandom (the vine with the ‘every step you take’ song and the swans on the building comes to mind). I see it a lot, and dude, it hurts me.

Let’s look at Derek’s current mental state and what he’s been dealing with, going all the way back to Paige. (Or, tbh, his birth) Derek is a werewolf. He was born a werewolf, to a family of werewolves. He grew up within the supernatural world, in a whole different culture to humans (honestly, my fury at the lack of werewolf culture/history/worldbuilding is worthy of its own post. Let me know if by some ungodly chance, you actually wanna hear my thoughts on it.) and presumably the number one rule in all of werewolfdom is “Keep the Secret.” Now, Derek’s fuckin’ 14/15 (I put his birthday on Christmas, like most of fandom, and if his house burned down when he was 16, in the spring, and he was dating Kate for a while before, he would’ve dated her when he was 15, and we don’t know how long there was between paige and kate, but let’s give him a summer of mourning. So. 14ish with paige) and he starts dating this human. He’s kinda shit at keeping the secret, implying that either he’s only dated werewolves before, or she’s his first girlfriend ever (also implying that maybe some of the people on his basketball team are werewolves, bc they don’t seem to notice his weird way of talking [pack members maybe? fuck, my heart]) and he’s maybe not as careful as he should be. (More implications arise, and we begin to build our own history. If Derek was never taught not to say dumb shit like ‘i caught a scent’ then was he even in public school before freshman year? Were the Hales all homeschooled before high school to help keep the secret? How soon do wolfy abilites arise? Do they hit with puberty? Fuck, I digress.) He says some dumb shit, and Paige gets suspicious. Of course, he doesn’t know that, and he has some kind of meltdown about her eventually finding out his secret. We hear from Peter (who’s villainized, so we’re not supposed to necessarily believe what he says, but what we see in the flashback doesn’t make a huge amount of sense either so *shrug*) that he enlists Ennis to bite Paige, believing that if she is bitten she won’t spill the secret and she’ll be more inclined to accept that Derek is a werewolf. Now, she fucking dies. Paige dies in Derek’s arms because of this, and he finds out at the last second that she already knew the secret. He feels guilty enough abt getting her killed but now he’s got a whole new batch of guilt from finding out that apparently he’s so bad at keeping the secret of his ENTIRE SPECIES that she found out he was a werewolf. She could’ve exposed them all at any time. He had to be terrified. Next, he’s 15/16 and he meets a gorgeous older woman who presumably showers him in affection, and all the horrors that go with that whole situation (I don’t wanna go into detail, because obviously). But again, whether Derek tells her himself or she just knew or she finds out, whatever it is, Kate knows Derek and his family are werewolves. AND SHE KILLS THEM ALL. Derek has no clue what the fuck is going on. All he knows is he is the only link between Kate and his family, which must mean that it’s his fault she knows about them. Once again, he’s revealed the Big Secret and people Died. He and Laura bolt to NY for six years, where presumably they live in hiding thinking the Argents are coming after them to finish off the Hales. Then Laura gets sent a funky letter and goes back to Beacon Hills. Now, we have a lil more confusion (i’ve got a whole buttload of issues with the timeline, but let’s not get into that now) because he says he came looking for Laura, but later he mentions that he knew she was in Beacon Hills and was searching for...whoever burnt down their house...that whole plotline confuses the shit out of me (derek knew kate did it. he blamed All the argents, but he knew kate was involved. So why was Laura looking for the pendant. and if he didn’t tell her then why was he looking for the pendant?? And what did the pendant have to do with the deer and the spiral?? Halp.) but whatever. He shows up and finds his sister dead, the hunters arrive in town the next day, and suddenly there’s an angry alpha Attacking Humans.

We’re finally in the present. Derek has lost what little family he had left, except for a catatonic uncle. He already has two instances in his past where the worry of keeping werewolves a secret has caused deaths. And now there’s this teenager. No, actually, two teenagers. One who was bitten, and one who shouts out “You’re a werewolf!” in the middle of the preserve, instantly figuring out a centuries-old supernatural secret. Derek is fucking terrified, and things are only getting worse. This kid who got bitten? Derek follows him to see if he’s really a wolf, to find out if he knows what’s happening to him, if he believes the other teen. He finds the kid JUMPING OVER PEOPLE’S HEADS in broad daylight in front of everyone. Derek might’ve had a couple verbal giveaways but this is just ridiculous. Then, even better, the kid goes on a date on the FULL MOON with THE YOUNGEST ARGENT. There’s about a billion reasons to follow Scott to the party. It’s a FULL MOON, for one. HE’S WITH AN ARGENT for another. And of course he can’t just walk into the party. He’s fucking 22 for fuck’s sake. This is a high school party. He’d get arrested. And of course he doesn’t introduce himself to Scott beforehand. He has no way of knowing if this kid is on the Alpha’s side. He’s the Alpha’s Beta, it would make perfect sense for him to be obeying the Alpha. OR since he’s with the Argent, maybe he’s working with them. Maybe he’s a plant of some kind. a hunter pet. Laura was used as bait to catch Derek, why not Scott too? But he sees quickly that Allison has no clue what’s going on, at least with Scott, and he takes her home and steals her jacket to lure Scott into the Preserve where he can’t hurt anyone. Then, when he sees Scott get chased by the hunters, with no Alpha coming running to protect him, he decides “Alright, guess this kid’s my ally. Gotta protect him.” Yeah. He says some weird shit. But the evidence points to Derek not knowing much about bitten wolves. He tells Scott that he doesn’t know how to train a bitten wolf, but he does know how to help Scott recover memories (the memory loss appears to only happen in the early days of shifting, which lends more credibility to the possibility that born wolves don’t start shifting properly until later in life [puberty being the most likely milestone] and he therefore has experience with that, but not with the kind of control Scott needs, that he’s known his whole life). Born a werewolf, he’s never considered the bite anything other than a gift. He also just lost his entire family, so sue him for trying to find some kind of connection between them. (It honestly makes total sense for him to use the term ‘brothers’ bc he KNOWs Scott won’t understand the concept of ‘pack’ yet) So, now that’s decided to help Scott, to protect him, he goes back to the school. SURELY now that Scott knows what he is and how dangerous he is when stressed, he’ll reign himself in during lacrosse, or even just back out of it altogether. There are lives at stake here, be them human, or if Scott exposes the secret, werewolves. SURELY this kid wouldn’t put everyone in danger over a fucking game. But no. Not only does he keep flaunting his abilities, but he SHIFTS ON THE FIELD. If Stiles hadn’t Dragged Scott out of there, the entire supernatural world would be EXPOSED by this ONE KID. Derek passed Terrified about a hundred miles back. He’s gotta be fucking out of his mind with fear. I don’t blame him even a little for threatening Scott. If Scott’s not gonna do the right thing on his own, then threatening him is worth it if people don’t DIE. Then, bc Scott’s a pissy baby and goes to shout at him and be a fuckwad, and Stiles is nosey and neither of them have boundaries (I love Stiles, but fucking seriously, digging up a grave?) Derek gets ARRESTED. He pleads with this lanky teen who is brave enough to climb into the cruiser with a WEREWOLF. Who’s FRiends with a Werewolf. Who figured it out so quickly. He pleads with him to understand how dangerous this is, to stop his friend. And Stiles looks like he’s gonna, but Scott bolts bc of the wolfsbane (Which...listen if I’m being really salty, a deep bitter part of me genuinely wonders if he was that freaked out, or if he overheard Derek beg Stiles not to let Scott play, and Scott ran away from Stiles so he wouldn’t get told no, bc he wanted to play.) and by the time Stiles finds him he’s already dressed for the game. And DEREK WAS RIGHT. Scott DID lose control. He DID shift on the field. At LEAST one human saw him shift, and the coach for the other team knew something was up too. He DID expose them, and he did it further bc Jackson is suspicious now. Now, I’ve reblogged a gifset of it before, the moment when Derek shows up at the lacrosse field and finds Jackson standing in it after Scott’s run off, staring at a glove with a claw hole in it. He is watching his worst nightmare come true. Scott has exposed them and Jackson is going to figure out werewolves, just like Stiles did. He knows right that instant that people are going to die. I’ll reiterate what I said in the tags on that gifset. It’s extremely likely that Derek bit Jackson out of self-preservation. Jackson had been threatening to tell the hunters and the entire world if he didn’t get what he wanted. The safest thing to do was give Jackson the bite so that at least he would be putting himself in danger too if he exposed werewolves. He forced Jackson to have to keep the secret for himself because he knew Jackson wouldn’t do it for anyone else. (And he knew Jackson had some self-preservation, compared to Scott, and wouldn’t want to expose himself.)

Listen, I just. I just get so sad watching Derek sneaking into people’s rooms and standing on the edge of the field and showing up in the locker rooms. He’s trying to help. He’s trying to protect. He wants to be there in case Scott does something stupid (which he does, again and Again) to protect him, even after Scott REFUSED to help him stop a SERIAL KILLER because there wasn’t anything in it for him. Even after Scott fucking blackmails him by leaving him hanging on a grate with wires plugged into his side and his abuser on their way back to hurt him, he still helps him protect Allison (who watched him be tortured and did nothing. [He still has the capacity to acknowledge that it’s not her fault. That she couldn’t save him. He doesn’t blame her for it and he certainly doesn’t want her to die.]) He wants to keep his Betas safe. He stands in the parking lot waiting for them to test Lydia because he doesn’t want them to have to go through with killing her alone (and he only tries to kill her because she DOESN’T pass the test [although I admit it’s a dumb test] and because the kanima is KILLING people. More people have died and I don’t know how the fuck Derek manages to keep standing, let alone having such capacity for empathy and optimism and sarcasm after everything he’s dealt with. He’s constantly being hunted by hunters or humans, or fuck even Scott himself, since every time Scott gets upset he blames Derek for everything (I’m still fucking disgusted that he turned up at Derek’s place and accused him of murdering his own sister.) And STILL he shows up. No matter how many times he’s shoved away and ignored and yelled at. He shows up and he stands on the fringes and he waits for the chance to help.

And what’s creepy about that?

[charmingpplincardigans]

January Kitchen Sink Check In

This is mostly for me, because I’m trying to become a better person this year, for varying definitions of the term ‘better’, and I like to see my progress laid out all organized like. It helps me move forward. So I’m gonna go through my Body/Mind/Money goals for January and note how I did and what I’m going to do moving forward!

BODY

Working Out: 

My two work out goals for the end of the year are to 1) be doing yoga semi-regularly and 2) be working out four days a week reliably, including the yoga. I’m working on easing myself into these (and all) habits, because I don’t want to overwhelm myself and give up on everything, so my goal for January was to work out one day a week. And I worked out *drumroooooooll* NONE! NOT A ONCE. I don’t have an excuse for this. Part of it was stress, part of it was depression, part of it was sheer laziness. I promise myself I’m gonna work out at least once a week in February, but also shoot for the two times a week that is the February Goal. 

Food: 

I have several overall food goals for the year. One is to give up soda near completely, or at least to break my addiction to it. The others are to start planning meals and eat less meat. For January I wanted to drink only two sodas a day (20oz max). I managed that 23 days out of 31. In looking at the calendar you can reliably match the days I failed to the days that were extremely stressful or anxiety ridden. I have a very bad habit in those moments of throwing up my hands and deciding that I’m a failure anyway so nothing matters. That’s definitely a mental tick to keep an eye on over the next few months as my job no doubt just gets more and more stressful. The other goals I did okay with. I decided to plan one meatless meal a week. New recipes I made in January were: 

Black bean soup

Moroccan sweet potatoes

Spinach lasagna

Black bean & sweet potato enchiladas

Do recommend most of them. The lasagna had way too much cinnamon in it, which was kind of weird. If I make that recipe again I’m gonna quarter the amount. But I might just find a different veggie lasagna to make. 

For February I want to drop the soda to one a day (12oz max), and start to plan to make two meals a week. I’m doing okay with meat, but I could for sure do better. It helps that I have started making THE WORLD’S BEST SANDWICHES for lunch. Probably just gonna eat those forever instead of ordering out Huey Magoo’s or whatever. (The sandwich is hummus, cucumber, and feta on toasted Good Seed bread. Try it!)

Doctor Things:

Uff. I need to figure out the CPAP issues and the chest pain issues. I absolutely despised the first mask they sent me for the CPAP. It gave me panic episodes and I was ripping it off IN MY SLEEP. Insurance refused me a new mask until April, but my doctor came in like an angel with a sample version of a different type of mask to try. This one is...better. I’m still not comfortable in it and it’s not appreciably helping my sleep. People keep telling me it’s going to change my life, but that has not happened yet. On the other hand I have friends who’ve tried to make them work for YEARS and never did, so I’m wary of this whole process, but still trying. 

I had a sort of fraught meeting with my cardiologist last week. My chest pain symptoms had been getting better as of October, but with the change in my job I’ve back slid almost entirely. I had a 36 hour period of chest pain two weeks ago. I go whole nights having every heart attack symptom in slow motion, but doing nothing about it because I can’t afford for the ER to tell me I’m fine five times a month. I cried when she asked me why I didn’t go to a hospital when that happened. I feel so helpless all of the time and I’m certain I’m going to die any day now, even though my heart is technically physically fine. Can you anxiety yourself into a heart attack? I THINK YOU CAN. She did tell me to try to speak to the psychiatrist again about anxiety medication. The last time I tried the woman I saw didn’t want to prescribe me anything. She told me to work on my sleep and come back. Welp! The cardiologist said that if that happens this time she’ll write a note telling her to prescribe me something. We’ll see. I need to try to make that appt this month. 

MIND

Therapy:

My therapist thinks I’ve done really well over the last year with working on myself and said out loud that she thinks I’m better at dealing with some things and am in a good position to move forward. But I’m so stressed right now that I just feel like I’ve fallen apart again. We’re meant to start on EMDR this week, but I’m going to have to put a pause on it so I can talk about how I’m at like, the lowest point of my life, which she will be very supportive of and then probably remind me that if we could just get to the EMDR and work with the older traumas this might not feel so dire. I’m just, on the struggle bus and too tired to do anything but freak out about that. 

Writing: 

I have so may creative goals this year! Too many probably! I should put some back! My creative goals for the year are:

Complete a rough draft of AMLD (10,000 words a month)

Complete and mail out the Girls Who Date the Universe chapbook

Complete and mail out any remaining art for people who helped me with the car fund

Work on poetry and short fictions (Monster Story?)

Actually check in to @gywo every month (10 days a month goal)

My creative goals for January were to write 10,000 words on AMLD, work on the extra poems for GWDTU, and send the remaining postcards from the car fund. And uh...look. I did work on writing. I worked on the chapbook layout and editing pieces that needed to be edited/replaced, because there are several. I did also work on the outline for AMLD, but didn’t write new words on it. Not anywhere 10,000 of them at any rate. 

The owing people art thing is just...it fucks me up, man. I have learned a huge lesson between the car fund and the patreon. I get so in my head about how these people deserve beautiful things and then I tell myself I’m not capable of making things worthy of them and then I put off doing the thing because I want to put off letting them down and then it just spirals from there. ALL THE WHILE I AM FOR SURE LETTING THEM DOWN. I realize this is both unhealthy and unprofessional. It’s why one of my goals this year is to clear all of this once and for all so that I can square myself away with everyone and try not to end up here in the future. 

So, the January Goals now get rolled up into the February Goals, which leaves the new list for the month at: 

10,000 words AMLD

Complete extra poems for GWDTU

Send postcards from car fund

Complete layout for Boston chapbook for car fund

I did check in for GYWO. 

Future Plans:

Part of letting off the pressure for the now for me is always about planning for the future. Not like, the actual future, I’m not starting a 401k, let’s not go nuts. But for something that is one step forward. In my notes for my year goals this is all about moving back to Boston. I need to set a date for it. I need to save money for it. I need to keep my job until after I’ve done it. But now I think this part needs to include notes about my job itself and the ways I can either move forward with it or move away from it once and for all. 

I talked to Lisa and Kait at the beginning of the year about the moving plan, and now I just need to talk to my apartment complex to see if it would be feasible to extend the lease to December or February without paying an exorbitant amount in rent each month. If rent ends up being more than $2k/mo for the extension then I’m just going to have to have to wait until June 2022. This frustrates me, because I hate not being able to just follow through with decisions once I’ve made them, but patience is another thing I’m working on eternally. My goal for February is figure out money stuff well enough and talk to complex and set a timeline. 

Work is. Wow. It’s awful right now. I still have my job, which takes up much of my days, but because of re-org I’m also having to learn a whole new job which would also take up much of my day. I can’t not learn this job, because the person who used to do it is in another department now too, so there’s no one to get the work done if I don’t learn to do it. But I also can’t do both. I CAN’T DO BOTH. An issue popped up last week with my job that literally brought my ulcer back. I asked my boss for help with it and she sent me a message at one point saying she wanted to cry about it. So like. She knows now, right? She knows I can’t do both jobs?? BUT THERE’S NO ONE ELSE TO DO IT SO I GUESS I JUST GET TO SLOWLY KILL MYSELF. I’m just so frustrated, and angry that these decisions get made without taking the people in them into account, and of course anxious and miserable. I’m currently dreading work in a way I haven’t since I was in text perms. It’s real bad. So I have to find a way to make it work or find a way out. 

My February approach to that is to finish this Love It or Leave It book and see if I can’t divine where my true motivation lies, and also to research library school. I kind of would rather not go back to school. Not because I wouldn’t spend my entirely life in school if I could. I WOULD. But because it’s expensive and time intensive and there’s no promise my life will be better after it’s over. But every job I think I want pretty much requires that masters, so. We’ll look into it at least. 

MONEY

Eating Out:

During the pandemic, one of my money sinks became DoorDash. I never used it before, because it costs literally twice as much as just going to get the food. (Also because I kind of like eating in restaurants alone. Ah, one day again I hope!) But the more afraid I became of the outside world, the less inclined I was to go into a restaurant to pick up take out, so I’ve had it brought to me. And I need to cut that shit out! I have food at home! My goal for January was to order out only 4 times a week. I managed this for three of the weeks, but when I blew it it was definitely those weeks at the very beginning and very end of the month where I was super stressed. The goal in February is to only order out 3 times a month.

Savings:

I need to open a high yield savings account. I’ve had the starting money for the move just sitting in my bank account making me no extra money for like, four months. The latest reason I haven’t moved it over is that I’m worried I’m going to owe a lot in taxes this year because of the partial unemployment I got. Hopes are that since it was a work share the taxes were taken out ahead of time, but I do not trust the government with my money as far as I can throw them, so. I’ll do my taxes this month and finally know for sure. And then I WILL move the rest of the money into a high yield savings account. I WILL. 

Also, every time my credit union savings hits a grand, I’ll move $500 of that over into the high yield account to put toward moving expenses. 

Budget:

I keep meaning to sit down and work out my new budget for 2021. I’m bringing home a little bit less in my paycheck because I changed my health insurance, and I’m also, of course, trying to save as much as I can ahead of moving so I don’t put anything on credit cards. (I’m doing so well paying those down!) This means I need to save everything I can and not spend money on stupid frivolous stuff. I’m not buying clothing like I did in the before times, but I AM spending too much money at Target still, because the app lets me just peruse any dumb idea I have and then pick it up that day! What a disaster! So, I really need to work something out. Or at least, I need to check my bank accounts more often and keep tabs on how much is actually going out. I have a bad out-of-sight-out-of-mind habit when it comes to bank accounts. Just another piece of me to try to cure this year.

And that’s it for January. I’m now late to bed because I’ve been working on this post for an hour and a half. Working on my sleep is also a goal, but we’ll see how exercise and the cpap handle that. Til next month!

[buckleysjareau]

you feel like the sun on my face

Buck has a way of doing things and saying things that even in Eddie’s worst moods, he still can’t fight his smile.

or

Eddie's view on Buck's Wikipedia spirals and the beginning of the brilliant idea it inspires.

part 1/3 in my series ‘cause i’m not too far and you’re my favorite place on ao3

cw; non-graphic description of anxiety, scary facts about tsunamis (they’re freaky so this is just to be safe)

-

One thing Eddie noticed about Buck in the time they’d become friends was that Buck loved to research. He was full of obscure knowledge and useless academic insight and he never let people forget that. 

The longer they were friends, the more Eddie realized it was used as a coping mechanism. After bad calls, he’d sit on his laptop and fall down a Wikipedia rabbit hole that, according to Buck, is extremely difficult to get out of. 

After the train derailment, and as Buck put it ever so dramatically, the derailment of his sanity, he’d taken Buck back to his house. After the exhausting night they had, he figured Buck would fall right to sleep as soon as he hit the couch. He offered his bed, they were two adults, they didn’t have to make sharing a bed weird; but no, Buck insisted he sleep on the couch. 

Which would have been fine with Eddie if Buck had actually slept. 

“How did you know my laptop password?” He snorts when he realizes Buck is using his laptop. 

When Buck turns to look at him with a smirk, Eddie’s eyes widen as he notices Buck’s bloodshot eyes and the bags under them. “Chris’ birthday, dude? Really?” 

“Have you slept a wink?” He leans up against the wall, arms crossed, eyebrows raised. 

“Probably not.” He shrugs. “Too busy reading about the evolution of cameras.”

“The what?” Eddie’s mouth drops. “Why would you need to know about the evolution of cameras? And why my laptop? Don’t you have a phone?”

“Why wouldn’t I need to know about the evolution of cameras? The history of the camera began even before the introduction of photography. It evolved from the camera obscura through so many generations of photographic technology like daguerreotypes, calotypes, dry plates, and film. Now we’ve got cameras on our phones, and not to mention cameras and phones didn’t used to exist, which is crazy.” Buck sounded exhausted but enthused at the same time and Eddie curses himself for finding his coping mechanism adorable. “Speaking of phones, to answer your question, it died somewhere around three.”

Eddie nods. “So that’s why Maddie’s called me six times.”

Buck looks at him sheepishly. “Sorry?”

The next time Eddie catches him during one of his Wikipedia binges, it happens a month after they get together. 

During family dinner at the station, Bobby mentioned that Harry begged to have a beach day and proceeded to invite the rest of the one-eighteen on their next day off. Eddie looked over to his boyfriend at the mention of it but Buck wasn’t showing any signs that he wasn’t okay with going. 

But he was always good at putting on a mask. Spectacularly good at it.

When he wakes up on the day they’re supposed to go, he sends Buck a quick text before he goes about his usual routine. He gets Chris up, brushes his teeth, attempts to make a nice breakfast for them, and gets Christopher ready for the day. 

When Buck doesn’t text him back by the time he checks his phone again, he starts to worry. He feels foolish for worrying about not getting a text back, especially when it’s possible that Buck could be going through his morning routine as well, but his reason for worrying is justified. 

He gives it another hour before he stops torturing himself waiting for Buck to call or text just to let him know he is on his way.

“Chris, buddy, change of plans! We’re gonna pick up Buck on the way.” 

“I thought he was picking us up?” 

Eddie smiles through his worry. “I think he overslept, bud. We’re gonna go wake him up.”

Christopher grins. “Surprise attack?”

Eddie snorts. “Surprise attack.” 

He lets himself in with his key after knocking fails to work. He automatically sees Buck slumped over the island in his kitchen, just barely sitting on the white stool. His laptop is open and next to it, Buck is dozed off. 

Eddie squints to see where Buck landed in his Wikipedia spiral and when he sees what it is, his heart squeezes in his chest.

The tsunami with the highest runup was the 1958 Lituya Bay megatsunami, which had a record height of 524 m (1,719 ft).

He skims through enough of the page to know he’s looking through Wikipedia’s page on tsunamis. He looks at the top to see the tabs he has open which only makes him feel worse.

How To Survive a Tsunami, According to Science

2019 Santa Monica Tsunami

Tsunamis In History

Dealing with Aquaphobia

There’s a lot of tabs open and all of them have to do with tsunamis. He knew this would be upsetting for him, he knew Buck was pushing his limits by even saying yes to going. He should have seen this coming.

“Hey, buddy, I’m gonna wake up Buck and we’re gonna have a little talk. Do you mind going to the couch? I’ll put the T.V. on once he’s awake, yeah?” 

“Is Bucky okay?”

 “Do you remember how nervous you were to go back to the beach after the tsunami? I think he’s going through the same thing right now, but he’ll be just fine. You know why?”

“Because he has us?” 

“Because he has us.” Eddie smiles softly. 

Once he gets Chris set up on the couch, he quietly walks over to where Buck is still drooling onto the island. He can’t stop the snort that escapes him. He reaches over to his shoulder and shakes gently, realizing how deep in sleep he is when that doesn’t wake up. He shakes his shoulder a little harder.

“Buck, hey, honey… wake up.” 

That does the trick. Buck bolts upright too fast, falling completely off of the island stool and just misses completely hitting the floor when Eddie catches him with two arms. 

Buck’s eyes widen at the sight of Eddie. “Eddie? Shit, what time is it?”

“Hey, it’s okay! It’s just passed twelve.”

“Shit, Eds, we’re late! I’m so sorry, dude. Give me-”

Eddie stops him from frantically running to get ready by tightening his grip on Buck’s shoulders. “Slow your roll, babe.  I think we should talk first.” 

He feels Buck’s entire body tense at those words. “Talk about what?”

Eddie ducks down to get Buck to meet his eyes, smiling softly when he does to hopefully ease whatever spiraling thoughts going through his head. “Have you been anywhere near the beach since the tsunami?”

Buck looked unsettled, almost embarrassed as he closed his eyes and shook his head.

Eddie sucks in a breath. “Buck, it’s been over a year…” 

“I know, I know, I’m pathetic. It’s just-”

“You’re not pathetic, babe. After what you went through out there, no one could ever blame you for not wanting to go. Clearly this whole day out has you on edge if your searches have anything to say, so why did you say yes?”

“I can’t avoid it forever, Eds.” Eddie’s heart cracks along with Buck’s voice.

“No, you can’t. But you have me, Buck, you didn’t have to deal with all of this anxiety alone…”

“I just… hate that I’m a grown man that cowers at even the thought of going near open water. This is something that I should just be able to do without someone holding my hand.” He swallows. “I said yes because I thought I would be ready. I guess there really is no ready, though, is there? I’m always just going to be like this.”

Eddie frowns. “Trauma knows no age, you know that. You went through a trauma and being scared does not make you less of an adult, doesn’t make you a coward. Let me tell you this. I wasn’t ready in any way, shape, or form to be a dad when Christopher was born, but the second I got over the initial terror that I’d fuck it all up, being that wonderful kid’s dad in end of that fear was pretty damn rewarding. So, what I’m trying to say is, we don’t have to go, we can just sit here the whole day and play video games and stuff our faces. But, really the only way to conquer a fear is to face it, right? I’ll be right by your side the entire time, we only have to go as far as you can make yourself.”

“And I’ll be there!” Christopher shouts from the couch and Buck’s face lights up as his eyes fill with new tears. 

“Superman!” 

Eddie can’t stop the enormous grin that comes from the sight of his son and his boyfriend meeting for a hug in the middle for a room. Buck is kneeling down to Christopher’s height and has his arms tightly wrapped around him. 

“I was scared the first time at the beach too, but I was okay because I had my dad. You’ll have both of us, Bucky. It’s going to be okay, kid.” Eddie watches through his own tears as Buck’s shoulders shake with sobs. 

“You’re such a good kid, buddy, you know that?” Buck is gleaming and though filled with tears, his eyes are full of love. 

“Please don’t leave my side,” Buck’s plea is desperate but Eddie wants to laugh.

“Never.”

Buck never stops shaking the entire drive to the beach. 

“A tsunami can travel at 500 miles an hour, a wall of water can travel at you full force until it hits.” He’s whispering so he can’t scare Christopher but it does nothing to help himself. 

“Buck…”

“If a large magnitude earthquake hit Alaska, it could trigger a tsunami in California. An earthquake can happen 2,000 miles away and cause 700 million dollars worth of property damage, not to mention the death toll that would cause.”

Eddie tries to stop him another time, but only gets cut off by another fact about tsunamis. 

“A smaller tsunami could be triggered by an offshore earthquake and we’d only have ten minutes to evacuate and that’s if we even knew we had to evacuate-”

“Evan, stop. You’re only freaking yourself out more, okay? It’s going to be okay whatever happens. I’m by your side, I have you, baby.” 

Eddie feels like he’s in Heaven just watching Buck blush and look down at the pet name, but then the tiny smile drops and he looks away.

He’s quiet after that but Eddie can feel the car vibrate even after it’s turned off with the force of Buck’s shaking. “You ready?”

Buck’s eyes squeeze shut the second his eyes see the ocean. “As I’ll ever be.”

The grip Buck has on Eddie’s hand is bordering too tight but he’s walking on the sand and towards where everyone was set up, closer to the water, and he finds himself emotional that Buck has gotten this far. 

“Just keep swimming, Bucky.” Christopher cheers on from next to Eddie. “Just like Dory.”

He’s almost certain he hears a whimper from Buck at the expression. 

“Just like Dory.” Buck repeats. 

The second they reach everyone, Buck spins to face Eddie and quickly pulls him into arms, seeking comfort. He wastes no time in returning the hug, cradles the back of Buck’s head in his hand and uses the other to rub his back. 

“You made it, babe. You did so fucking good, I’m so proud of you.” 

He knows their family is watching, he hears Maddie distantly explain that this is the first time he’s stepped foot on a beach in a year and a half. His only focus is telling his boyfriend how damned proud he is. 

“I love you,” is muffled by Eddie’s shirt but he doesn’t need it to be comprehensible because he feels it loud and clear. 

“Forever.” 

The next time he really thinks of Buck’s obscure knowledge and his coping mechanism, it really comes in handy. 

Eddie felt as though he was vibrating out of his own skin the entire shift. His hands were shaking by the time he finally got home. He finds Christopher asleep in Buck’s arms on the couch. The sight of his favorite people lessens the tightness in his chest in the slightest. 

“Hey, how was work?” Buck whispers when he lays his eyes on him. 

“Nothing too crazy happened, so I guess good.” He shrugs. “Thanks for watching him today, seriously.”

“You okay?” Buck shoots him a look when Eddie goes to lie. “Eds, your hands are shaking. What’s wrong?” 

Eddie sighs. “I just feel… weird.”

“Let me get him to bed seeing as we both fell asleep here and then we can talk, okay? Sit down, take a breath.”

He tears up at the sight of Buck carrying Christopher to bed. He couldn’t believe he found someone that loved his son like their own and he couldn’t believe that person was Buck. His best friend. 

“Talk to me, what’s going on in that pretty head of yours?” 

“You seem to be in a good mood,” He tries to get the attention away from himself, even though he knows it’s pointless. After the lawsuit, before they even got together, they both promised to communicate better. They both definitely failed at that far more than they should have, but no one should have expected any less. They were trying, that’s all that mattered.

If they brought a call home with them, they talked it out. 

“What can I say, your kid is a ray of sunshine.” He grins. “Nice try though, Eds. You didn’t let me get away with it last week and your shaking is kind of scaring me. Come sit.”

Buck has a way of doing things and saying things that even in Eddie’s worst moods, he still can’t fight his smile. Eddie lazily threw himself onto the couch next to Buck. 

“What do you want me to even say? It’s not like I brought a call home with me. Nothing bad happened. I’m just, uh, in a mood.” He doesn’t realize he’s crying until Buck is cupping his face in his hand. The soft concern behind his blue eyes makes more tears build behind his own. 

“Come here,” Buck whispers, guiding Eddie’s head down to where it’s laying just above his heart. “Anxiety?” 

He doesn’t know why that word draws a reaction as strong as sobbing but Buck pointing out it’s not just a weird mood has him breathless and emotional. 

Buck tightens his arms around him. “Hey, take a deep breath with me alright?” 

He nods and takes in a breath just after Buck and to know that he can breathe is enough to calm some of his bubbling anxiety. 

“You hear my heartbeat?” Buck is so unbelievably good at taking care of him when he feels this way. God, how did he get so lucky?

When Eddie nods he feels Buck’s chest rise just a little with quiet laughter. “Did you know you can hear a blue whale’s heartbeat from two miles away?” 

Eddie laughs wetly. “Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah! And even though they’re the biggest animal that’s ever lived on Earth, blue whales feed on krill, they’re like tiny shrimp. They can eat up to 36,000 kilograms of krill a day. Lucky animals.”

This statement has a laugh erupting from him without time to muffle it, a smile spread from ear to ear as he looks up at his boyfriend. 

“There he is!” He smiles down at him before he pecks his lips. “Anyone ever told you how dazzling your smile is, Diaz?”

“Dazzling?” He snorts. 

“It’s one of the many words I would use to describe your smile. Dazzling, shiny, gleaming, beautiful, life ruining, you know.”

The anxiety is slowly leaving his body and it’s filling with love and warmth in its place. He snuggles closer in Buck’s arms and revels in the safety and comfort. 

“You know? I never get to be the little spoon. This is nice.” 

“Now you know how I feel in your arms.”

“Safe? Happy? Warm?”

Buck lips quiver with emotion. His eyes give away love, peace, light. “Yeah, exactly.”

It’s quiet for a few minutes before Eddie’s curiosity gets the better of him. “Hey, Buck?”

“Mm?” 

“Can I ask you something? It’s not a big deal, but my curiosity is getting the better of me.” He continues when Buck hums his response. “The Wikipedia spirals? The random knowledge about blue whales, the evolution of cameras, winning us trivia night at Frisco’s like it’s nothing every week with answers to questions Bobby didn’t even know. You just have a lot of knowledge in that smart brain of yours. Something I adore about you, don’t worry.”

He feels Buck let out a sigh before he snuggles Eddie closer to him, resting his head on top of Eddie’s. 

“It’s just a thing, I guess. Random facts always, uh ground me, when you know-”

“I know.” He assures him.

“Yeah. It’s always been something to cope with anxiety, but it’s also just something that I just do. I like to learn, I like to read about things I didn’t know about before. I like learning for the sake of learning, I guess?”

“You’re so smart, you know? Don’t let anyone make you think differently.”

“You’re so much better than I deserve, please let anyone make you think differently.” 

“Does anyone include you? Because babe? You’re so much better than I deserve but there’s no time for an argument right now.”

Buck yawns loudly. “Says who?”

“Says your sleep schedule. Close your eyes, use me as a pillow, I don’t care. Go to sleep.”

“Will you be here when I wake up?”

“Not like I have a choice here, seeing as you’re holding onto me for dear life, but I’ll always be here when you wake up. Now, and every day in the future, okay? Now sleep.”

Buck snorts and mumbles sleepily, “Love you, Eds.”

Jesus, Eddie really wants to marry him. 

“I love you, too, Evan.”

To Hen;

Help me propose to Buck? I need a bunch of Wikipedia knowledge on proposals, marriage, all that good and sappy stuff. I’d ask the Wikipedia king himself, but you know…

From Hen;

WHATYSHDDJKSKJAHDKJDSKFKLK:LDK:K:DKSLDKEIWDJJSKDSKDKSJKDJSJDS

[pennylogue]

thoughts on “growing pains”

yeah, a week late XD but this episode was way too important for me to say nothing.

You can draw a lot of conclusions about why Steven has become so isolated from the gems and Greg, and why the Gems haven’t confronted him about any of his powers going awry, and it’s honestly probably a lot of factors at once…but his conversation with Greg at the beginning of the episode really says just about everything that needs to be said on his end. It’s reflexive at this point. He never wanted to be a burden on the Gems became a habit—he never wants to be a burden or anyone. Even when he should be. Or when he’s being short-sighted about how putting off addressing his issues is just going to make them even harder to deal with down the road.

Still, it’s so heartening that connie makes him go to the hospital. It’s really a solution that’s uniquely hers, something none of his other friends or family would have thought of.

I know very few people care about Steven having a confirmed height (of five foot six), but I care and I am happy. Give me this.

Tbh, hybrid biology is my jam to the point where I didn’t want to get my hopes up for an episode that literally promised to be about examining Steven’s biology. SU has been so obfuscatory about studying Gems that it seemed like this could be bait. But the Gems’ x-rays were so fun, I was on the edge of my seat going into Steven’s x-ray--

And you know, when I said I wanted hybrid biology facts…yeah, that was a monkey’s paw there. I am so fucking impressed with this episode, and how elegantly it found a way to lead into mental trauma from physical trauma. It’s a perfect representation of his problems—wounds that healed too invisibly for anyone to notice, but the strain of the wound was always there. It was just unnoticed. It really gets across everything it’s trying to say in such a simple and easy-to-understand way. Steven always seemed invincible. He just wasn’t.

God, that scene. The way it focused on how even the weird-toned s1a episodes contributed, used that to simultaneously put the events of 1a and later episodes into another light. I’ll admit it—I diagnosed the pink glow wrong. I didn’t know what it was, but I didn’t think it was literal ptsd. 

See, I didn’t expect the show to directly blame the overarching pattern of trauma Steven experienced for his actions, because it seemed to be taking it’s time, exploring each aspect of Steven’s problems through different lenses. He’s lost and without purpose after fixing everything, so he falls back on habits of being useful, trying to help people--but for some reason, that’s not working as well as it used to. He keeps hurting people. He keeps messing up. Everyone seems to be moving on, but he can’t. So he’s angry. So he’s confused. So he’s upset. So he feels even more out of control, and reaches to control even more—and inevitably lashes out because of everything he’s bottling up. Again and again, he tries to forge ahead, only to find he’s tripping himself up. It seems to be a spiral, growing from the stress of his mid-life crisis, his numerous issues (Rose just one among them), the way his upbringing has left him without the tools to really transition stages of his life. 

I think I was expecting some sort of fantastical metaphor. It wasn’t going to be one thing, it was going to be everything crashing down combined, making him more and more stressed, until he snapped and blew something up (I was never a huge fan of corruption), and the rest of the show would be helping Steven and picking up the pieces. Steven has so many issues, so many problems, and it was very, very distracting to focus on all of those and so very easy to miss the forest for the trees. There seemed to be such a surplus of “whys” that their overwhelming nature was self-evident. How could someone possibly function with so many issues?

So, why is Steven acting this way? 

Because X and Y and Z and CYM. 

Oh, you mean the pattern of traumatic events he’s been through.

Right.

That have caused CPTSD.

...HOLY SHI--

There are so many stand-out lines in this episode, but: “My body, it’s reacting like it’s the end of the world. I think I’ve seen the world almost end so many times now that everything that goes wrong feels that…extreme.....How do I live life when it always feels like I’m about to die?!”

That hits hard. It’s real. A lot of people struggle with that every day. It’s so brutal and so bleak, and it’s hard to hear.

And it’s even harder to hear it coming from Steven. Steven, a kid who we have been through so much with, and who is still so heartbreakingly young. Even though he’s always been the viewpoint character, Steven’s range of maturity and behavior, depending on the situation, have always kind of made it hard to nail down his exact psyche. I mean, never tells you how much of his early behavior is genuine and how much of it is him trying to make the Gems laugh--you just sort of figure that out at some point, maybe as late as “Familiar”, and go oh. 

So to hear that kid who, to some extent, is always gonna be that sweet little boy to us, to have him straight-up say that he feels like he’s always about to die, to know he means it, that that’s what been going, that that’s been buried inside of him for who knows how long--that this was the price all of his victories, the secret fact that he’d ruined his health in every way possible--

--yeah, it hits hard.

“Growing Pains” is really an episode that’s effective not just because, obviously, of all of SU, but all of SUF. For the last dozen episodes, Steven has been fruitlessly asking “why”, over and over. Why is he so angry? Why is he so lost? Why does he feel all of these things?

The answer to this question isn’t a flood of endless problems--It uses the entirety of SU and SUF to balance the weight of it’s precise strike, because rebecca knew exactly what she was doing here. The reason this episode feels like a reveal we always kind of knew was because that…well, diagnosing mental health disorders is about recognizing a pattern of symptoms and behaviors.

So what has SUF been doing? It’s been tracing that pattern. 

In other news,iIt does freak me out that corruption theory has actual concrete evidence at this point. I’ve never been a fan, but that glowing happened and I just went…WELP. “I Am My Monster” certainly didn’t help.

I do feel bad for Connie, and I really am glad she hopefully has the maturity to not blame any of this on herself, because she’s done literally everything she could--up to and including getting Steven to go to a hospital and calling Greg well in advance of when she knew he would likely be needed--and none of this is on her. Still, here we go. Here’s the ugly side of emotional repression. It’s gotta go somewhere, and when it comes out—it comes out in ways you’re going to regret later. Obviously, having Steven’s issues just make that way, way worse. Still, they always try to treat each other with care and respect, no matter how bad things get, and that’s something really wonderful.

And one final note, concerning Greg:

A lot of people have been digging into Greg’s reasons for never taking him to a doctor, defending him by saying he was too poor to afford it or calling him out, but tbh, I like fanfoolishness’s take on it the most. He hadn’t thought he could take Steven to a normal doctor without consequences early on, and later—well, his baby was half magic. He probably thought Steven would be fine, and there a lot of other things to worry about. Not great, but it’s understandable, and dude’s not perfect.

Speaking of which: Greg is an A+ dad, I adore him, I love him to death, and he fucked up. He fucked up big time, in the way that every parent is going to, because no parent is perfect--even the ones that do their best, like him, are going to have massive blindspots. Insecurities about his inadequacy and unimportance compared to the Crystal Gems and their mission likely led to him nodding along to what was probably the Gem’s ideas of how to go about training Steven. 

He didn’t want to get underfoot. He didn’t want to get in the way. He didn’t want to give bad advice, because he’s not good with Gem stuff, and it honestly makes him pretty uncomfortable these days, with everything that’s happened since Rose. In fact, him having as little to do with Gem stuff as possible is probably what was best for Steven--right? 

And he never really thought about how his implicit rejection of an integral part of Steven would affect Steven. He toughed it out, the loneliness, telling himself it was for Steven’s own good...

What I’m getting at is that I’ve been hoping for a Greg character arc for ages, and Future seems like a great time for it. Better late than never. And honestly, I can’t wait to see how Greg’s attempts to parent Steven go.

[aquagenesis]

This is by no means a vent post or anything I just need to discuss topics and ideas.

It’s so bizarre how, for most of my life, I did have psychotic tendencies and explicitly schizophrenic symptoms.  I would get disoriented on a school bus and want to make a big show of it; storm up to the bus driver in a fit of rage and demand to know where I was being taken.  I would ask incoherent, nonsense questions in class that would get me a resounding look of “what the fuck are you talking about”.  Friends in particular would always take the time to step in and allow me to re-phrase what I was asking because they would learn to understand sometimes information is jumbled in my head, which I am not aware of.

It happens on here too, though I’ve gotten better at it.  What begins as a cohesive argument in my mind eventually spirals into a whirlpool of me repeating the same three things, the same three points, the same three everything while pretending it’s something different.  Because I have voices in my head that take over and make it hard to focus.  I thought everyone heard voices, because how else do you process information?  But for other people, it’s not voices.  Not ones they can hear, at least.

The only thing that ever stopped me was, incredibly, what I think my paranoia was.  I was too afraid of making a scene because I thought, assuredly, they’d always tell me they were going to kill me.  I would stand up to assert myself only to get pulled back down in my own head with “if you cause problems, you will die”.  I thought that was survival instinct.  I prided myself, in fact, on my survival instincts because of things like that.  Because I believed every person who utilized and prided their autonomy was doomed to die for their arrogance.  How can you exist so unabashedly in life when you know death is something you cannot hide from and cannot know the origin of?  Standing up for yourself is putting yourself in harms way; the lines between “what is paranoia” and “what is formative child abuse” are too blurred for me to even care “which one it is” because they’re both the same.

It’s just knowing I was so schizophrenic.  Knowing I was so blatantly delusional; I’d get called delusional all the time because I wasn’t living in reality.  My original self was already forced to be so separated from its body because of infant-aged trauma when I felt “normal” it already wasn’t me.  Every time I’d stabilize myself in a deeper level of my own psychosis I’d get punched down through another one, like a personal version of Dante’s Inferno.

Of course I developed a dissociative disorder.  How else was my psyche supposed to survive losing family members who cared about me, how else was it supposed to survive losing everything.  The personality I shifted into to appease my conditions were never good enough; they never protected me enough.  It’s so fucked up my brain already had to put me in another reality to cope with not receiving basic physiological needs as an infant and then had to shatter and reform reality after reality because anything was better than living in real life but nothing protected me enough, nothing justified anything enough, nothing could make me feel like I was living how I was meant to.

And then I wonder why I got so deep in it.  I wonder why that’s all I knew.  It was.  Living in delusion was the only thing that kept me from being suicidal, because it made me believe something grand was meant for me at the end of it all.  I only broke down because, after everything, after five years of eviction and homelessness, there was still only despair ahead.  Now I’m 26. an entire high school education away from 30 but abysmally depressed I had to spend all this time helping myself, and continue to, in the vain hope one thing would ever happen to me to make life worth it.

All I needed was to be pushed into reality, to be shown and taught nothing happened to me in some grand plan.  All I needed was a therapist who would listen for long enough in my Anime Tragic Backstory to tell me, “Hey man, that was fucked up, but it’s not like you have to forgive them.  You don’t have to be tortured by anything.  You can leave other people; you can leave them too.”  But therapists are no longer trained to listen to trauma and try to work out anything formative that could have happened to someone.  I didn’t know I was schizophrenic.  Nobody cared enough to tell me I was unless it was through the “well...you have The Disorder.  we have to keep you to make sure your SCARY PSYCHOTIC EPISODE--you’ve seen American Psycho, right?--doesn’t make you do that to yourself or someone else.” lens of “take this medicine and it’ll fix something you don’t think is a problem, because psychosis deludes the brain into thinking it isn’t delusional”.

And there was nothing anyone could have done; my untreated schizophrenia prevented me from being able to work.  My delusions would go unchecked, people wouldn’t know I was stretching the truth and neither did I.  Through the lens of insanity I doomed coworkers to bitter rivals, others to beloved friends, and still others to unworthy of my respect with nothing in between.  My life was a grand path to luxury and respect from the bottom of the earth; who wouldn’t be adored to know me?

I would tell people time and time again I was schizophrenic, I was psychotic, I experienced delusions.  I was cast as “the good outcome” of a psychotic condition and my experiences, the only true part of my life, were chalked up to “well there Luke goes with his silly little rants again”.  I was abandoned to spiral because I was “okay”; I didn’t experience delusions where I thought I was God (anything remotely attached to that was different, I said it was different), my psychosis never drew me to suicide.  Everyone else who claimed they were schizophrenic were automatically compared to me and regarded as “good” or “bad” with no regard to what was swimming around in my brain.  If I didn’t have a god complex before (I did, but I said I didn’t, so there’s no blame here), I certainly developed one then.

But I knew I wasn’t someone to be compared to, because I did experience delusions where I thought not that I was God but some higher being, I was drawn to suicide at the drop of a hat.  But then I couldn’t admit to those things being so much deeper than they were, because everyone else who experienced these things were “bad” schizophrenics.  I was supposed to have this together; I knew I had no right to judge people with my same condition because I knew I was no better than them.  If I had a best friend I’d known all my life, I would probably go to them with my ever-wavering mental condition too.  That’s what I craved; the ability to tell someone about what was happening to me.

And it’s not like I ever thought I was entitled to people, you know, listening.  I never expected anyone to look me in the eyes and tell me “Hey buddy you know you don’t really seem in reality” because if someone said that to me I’d probably freak out and doom them to “Bitter Rival Plus” for the rest of my life.  It was the attitude that I was redeemable because of how well I handled everything, the way I never let my symptoms show, the way a one-time freakout seemed more preferable to everyone else but me because “at least he only got that bad once”, as opposed to the risk of smaller breakdowns more often.  I lost my ability to realize I had control over myself because the admittedly bad symptoms everyone else experienced, which I did too, never were offered support.  I was told a story of a mutual once-friend who threw herself off a roof in the midst of a schizophrenic breakdown.  The pitilessness of it all told me I would never find sympathy in admitting my faults.

It’s hard because if it were depression, if it had been depression, this would have been solved eons ago.  Anyone can go to a friend and talk through a depression; nobody can go to a friend and talk through a psychotic episode without your companion growing frustrated as you’re unable to grasp reality.  Once is fine, twice is annoying, thrice is overwhelming.  I can feel it just as anyone.  Nobody wants to talk to crazy people.

And what do people think that does, exactly?  Do you think your delusional friend can really have a talk once, be told they’re psychotic, and immediately know?  How do we have thousands of articles dissecting every aspect of anxiety, from work to generalized, but none to tell the everyman that “psychotic people suffer from a condition that prevents them from differentiating reality from fantasy”.  or, we do tell people, but it still follows the same rules of once is fine, twice is annoying, thrice is overwhelming.  Depression is a mental condition that causes extended states of misery.  Anxiety is a mental condition that causes extended states of stress.  Psychosis is a mental condition that causes extended states of, well, delusion.  Someone who wakes up already delusional is not going to be able to tell you “when it started”; everything has always felt this way.  Now that they can see clearly, because they feel energized (because they are delusional), “nothing is wrong” and they are left to spiral into whatever rabbit hole they fall into.

If we know it’s harmful to tell people with depression and anxiety to “get over it”, why are psychotic people different?  Why is it so hard to go into a relationship and be told, explicitly, “I have a psychotic condition”, and follow through as you would anyone else?

“Because psychosis is different.”  No further context needed.

[spaceskam]

consume my wine, consume my mind

kyle valenti appreciation day 3: finding someone

ao3

.1.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to get you to take your shirt off.”

Kyle rolled his eyes with a laugh before taking a sip from his wine glass. Isobel was sprawled out on the couch in a silky little slip, channeling her inner old Hollywood widow. They'd all been taking turns to make sure she didn't do anything rash, but it'd been three months and she hadn't really done anything other than seem to enjoy the company. So Kyle kept coming.

"You are way too drunk for all that."

Isobel hummed low in her throat, turning her head in such a way that caused the strap of her slip to fall off her shoulder. It was becoming increasingly difficult not to stare. He managed it.

"Are you saying you would if I weren't drunk?" she asked, stretching her long leg out to rest her foot in his lap. Her head was on a pillow with her hair around her like a halo and the slip had ridden up to reveal just a bit of similarly silky underwear–or perhaps it had always been that length. He didn't look, rather just rested his hand on her ankle. 

"This is not a conversation we're going to have right now," he insisted, squeezing her foot gently. 

“Okay, but, when I’m not drunk,” Isobel said, her arms stretching above her head and her back arching as she let out the tiniest little noise she’d ever made. Kyle’s thoughts swam and he almost got lost in them. But she was drunk, so he kept his eyes either on his drink, her foot, or her face. Sometimes her face even seemed to obscene, though. “I would like to have that conversation.”

“Huh?” he asked dumbly. She giggled. In his defense, that moment he accidentally saw her slip riding up to reveal her midriff during her stretch had been mind-altering.

“I want to talk about your shirt and why I would like it on my bedroom floor, please,” she said, “Sober.”

“Sober,” he agreed, though he partially hoped that she would forget about this. As much as he oh so desperately wanted that, he also knew that two very angry and macho alien cowboys that would kill him for even thinking about it.

“For now, can you take me to bed, clothes in tact?” she asked, reaching her arms up with a pout on her face. 

He stared at her for a moment, just a short moment to take it all in. She was so effortlessly beautiful and he wondered how he hadn’t noticed before recently. He was dumbfounded that he hadn’t noticed in high school, hadn’t noticed in all the years they lived in the same town, hadn’t noticed whenever she was laying in a hospital bed. He had wasted so much time not taking in her beauty which should be a fucking crime. He didn’t want to go back to a time when he didn’t notice.

Kyle tried to help her stand up, but she was too drunk to find her footing. So Kyle picked her up, one arm behind her back and the other beneath her knees. Her head rested firmly against his chest and her arms went around his neck. 

She breathed him in.

He breathed her in.

He carried her to bed, pulling back her sheets and laying her down. He covered her up and tucked her in which earned playful little laughter that he reveled in.

“Thank you,” Isobel told him in a voice that wasn’t quite the one he was used to. Kyle smiled even if he wasn’t sure why exactly he was being thanked.

“No problem.”

.2.

Kyle felt his shirt start sliding up his back on its own.

“You know, I’m pretty sure this qualifies as sexual harassment,” Kyle teased and the shirt dropped immediately, “Kidding, I don’t mind.”

“If I thought you would mind even a little, I wouldn’t have done it,” Isobel said. He turned around to face her and she had a faux innocent look on her face. It melted into straight devious as she reached over to steal one of the grapes he’d just washed. “I was just practicing.”

“Mhm, sure,” he said, raising an eyebrow. She seemed very smug. “You are getting better though.”

“I agree.”

Kyle rolled his eyes and put the grapes between them before leaning on the counter. It was the first day in awhile he’d seen her actually go all out to dress up. Her hair fixed, her makeup was perfect, she had all sorts of jewelry, and a three-piece skirt suit with elegant heels. It was her first day back at work with a new client and she was thriving. Kyle was proud.

“You could take your shirt off around me whenever, though,” she hummed, smirking just a little.

“How are you even interested in that? Aren’t you tired?” he laughed. She narrowed her eyes at him a truly Isobel way. It used to make him nervous before, now it just made his day.

“Who said I wanted to do anything? Maybe I just want a topless doctor to feed me grapes and fan me. Don’t assume,” she scoffed. He smiled at her.

He plucked a grape from its stem and held it out to her. Isobel’s eyebrow raised, but she leaned forward. Her lips gently grazed his thumb as she took it. He tried not to think too hard about that.

“Now was that so hard?” Isobel asked teasingly. He almost said yes.

It seemed the more they spent time together and the more they delved into a flirtatious friendship, the more Kyle seemed to be blurring the lines in his mind. He knew on all levels that she was joking, that this was just how she was, but sometimes it felt real. Sometimes he desperately wanted it to be.

It was proof to him that she didn’t mean it whenever she never brought up the idea of them hooking up again. Then he felt shitty for thinking about it when she had a ton of trauma involving men and he shouldn’t have even considered taking her seriously. However, every time she smiled, it felt like it was just for him and he fell down the same spiral.

“Sorry, couldn’t find a fan in time,” he said instead of something stupid. She let out a little laugh and shook her head.

“I’ll accept a foot rub instead,” she suggested playfully. But he made his way over to sit in the stool beside her, pulling her foot into his lap without question and carefully letting the heel she had on drop to the floor. She raised an eyebrow at him. “I was joking.”

“I can stop,” he said, digging his thumb into the arch of her foot. Her tongue pressed to her teeth in a smile he couldn’t read. For a moment, he thought this must be what love was.

“I didn’t say that.”

.3.

“Jesus Christ, can I lick you?”

“Ew, what the fuck, Izzy?”

Kyle smiled as he listened to Michael and Isobel bicker back and forth while Alex groaned. He had very graciously offered to teach Isobel self-defense and it was apparently going nicely. Today, though, Kyle and Michael tagged along to work out a bit. Kyle was admittedly covered in sweat and breathing heavy‒and hearing that Isobel liked it made him want to do it more.

“It’s not my fault! You’re into dudes, look at him!” she exclaimed, throwing her arm in Kyle’s direction. Michael just glared at her in disgust. “You know, it’s that kind of attitude that is the reason he won’t take his shirt off.”

“That is absolutely not the reason I won’t take my shirt off,” Kyle chuckled, “There are ladies present.”

“Oh, please,” she scoffed, but she gave him that smile. That special little smile that held so much adoration that made his heart pound. He wanted her to never stop staring at him like that. He craved it, he strived for it.

“Will you all just stop it? I don’t have the patience for this,” Alex sighed. Kyle gave him an apologetic look and tried to look away so he wouldn’t be contributing.

It wasn’t until their session was over that Isobel strolled over to him, casually draping her arms over his shoulders. Kyle turned and saw her face not too far from his. Her thumb dragged over his jaw while the other hand pressed between his pecs.

“Come over. A new episode of Long Island Medium is coming on,” she said. Kyle licked his lips. She watched.

“That lady is a terrible person and you said, like, a million times that she’s fake,” Kyle pointed out. Isobel shrugged and put the thumb that had touched his sweaty face between her teeth. For the months he’d been able to look away when she did something as overwhelming as that. This was not one of those times. He stared at her mouth and her thumb until she smirked.

“Yeah, so? Come over,” she urged. Kyle nodded dumbly, his eyes unable to look away even as she let go and they followed her until she was completely out of sight outside of the gym.

“What’s going on between you two?”

Kyle snapped his mind back to focus as he looked over to Michael. He didn’t seem angry as much as he seemed confused. His eyebrows were furrowed and he was just staring like he didn’t get it.

“Nothing,” he answered with a shrug, “We’re just friends.”

“No, she doesn’t even like when me or Max touch her,” Michael said, “Like, she doesn’t freak out like she does when it’s random dudes, but doesn’t really like being touched since everything with Noah happened. Only guy I’ve seen her be comfortable when it comes to touching is Alex and I think that has a lot to do with him being the one teaching her how to fight. She was just fine touching you though.” Kyle licked his lips.

“I don’t know, man, we just hang out a lot,” Kyle said. Michael nodded, but it was clear he didn’t really buy it.

“Okay. Just… be careful, please.” It was the most sincere Michael Guerin had literally ever sounded. Kyle nodded.

“Absolutely.”

.4.

“I think you’re the only guy left on this planet that I would let touch me like that.”

Kyle turned away from the sex scene that was displayed on the TV in front of them. Isobel just tipped back her wine glass like she hadn’t just said something like that so matter-of-factly.

“Okay,” Kyle said slowly. She scoffed.

“I just told you you’re the only one I’d fuck and you say okay?”

“I just… I guess I don’t really get why. I’m not special. I’m just me,” he said. She shook her head and smiled at him.

“That’s apart of why. Most guys would just be like ‘yeah, that’s right’,” she said and he smiled at her bad imitation of a manly voice. And maybe he smiled for a couple of other reasons. “You’re nice and genuine and you… You always seem to strive to be a better person. I think you’re the only person in the world I’ve ever met that is constantly trying to improve. Every day you wake up wanting to be better than you were the day before and that’s just… That’s really refreshing and assuring.”

“So that makes me your only exception to celibacy?” he asked. She gave him a sneaky little grin and reached out to squeeze his cheeks.

“I said the only guy, Kyle, stop being so closed-minded.”

“I’m not,” he laughed, though neither of them moved. They were so close and he really, really just wanted to take this opportunity.

But he didn’t and she just rested her head on his shoulder. He tugged her close.

“I’m glad you trust me, Isobel,” he said, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. She snuggled in closer.

They stayed close for a while, watching the movie play even though Kyle couldn't focus on it. He liked to focus on the way she seemed to breathe in time with him. It wasn't until the male lead took his shirt off for some pointless reason.

“One day, I am going to see you shirtless.” She sounded so determined that he couldn’t even jokingly tell her no.

“One day.”

+1

“Is this too fast? Tell me if it’s too fast.”

“Kyle, I have wanted this for months, there is nothing fast about this.”

Kyle couldn’t help the sigh of relief that left his system at her words. The confirmation of just how long those feelings had been mutual felt like learning how to breathe again. They’d been dancing around each other for nearly two years at this point, spending time together and growing and becoming something. It took him too long, but Kyle had finally asked her out on a date. They had barely made it through the meal before they were itching to touch which led to them making out in the car like teenagers because it had been so goddamn long for both of them. Kyle wondered if it felt like longer for Isobel considering the last guy was just using her. That made him feel sick, so he tried not to think of it.

“You’ve only liked me for months or you’ve only wanted to have sex with me for months?” he clarified. She rolled her eyes and leaned across the center console that had officially been the worst creation ever and kissed him long and slow. They were the best kisses he’d ever felt.

“I’ve liked you for two years, I’ve only wanted you in my bed for a few months,” she admitted. It made sense to Kyle. While her sexual jokes and suggestions had started far before then, he understood that they probably weren’t legitimate offers. At least, not at the time. Now they were. “Drive.”

The entire drive back to her place involved her hand on his thigh and her eyes burning holes into his face. Logically, he knew she was keeping it tame because she didn’t want to distract him from the road. Illogically, he was still very much distracted.

When they got there, she all but dragged him from the car. He laughed as she unlocked the door with her mind, still kissing him all the way. Her kisses were something heavenly. He was obsessed with them already.

“Are you sure it’s not too fast?” he wondered as they separated for a small second. She gave him a very pointed look.

“It’s not too fast,” she said, “But if I change my mind, I’ll let you know.”

“Just make sure you let me know like as soon as you have doubts, okay? Promise?” he said. Isobel’s eyes softened and she nodded, moving forward to kiss him again.

Everything lightened up a bit whenever her hands reached beneath his shirt. With a laugh, he pulled away just long enough to remove it. He went to go back for more kisses, but Isobel held him out at arm's length and just took in his bare chest. He found it endlessly fascinating to feel her drag her hands slowly over his chest and stomach and rest at the hem of his jeans.

“God bless,” she said wistfully. He snorted.

“You got what you wanted,” he teased.

“Finally,” she said sarcastically.

“Finally,” he repeated seriously.

Finally.

[kaspbrak-tozier-reddie]

#5 & #13 stanbrough?:)

5. “You’re safe, that’s all that matters”

13. “You wanna hug? You look like you need one.”

Masterlist + Prompt List + Asks

Pairing: Stenbrough

Warnings: swearing, death, blood

Summary: At a reunion, Pennywise (an escaped murderer) comes back to Derry to kill the Losers like he had planned to 27 years prior. [Pennywise! Human AU]. Stan freaks out when he starts having Deja Vu and thinks he’s a coward but Bill proves otherwise. 

———————————————-

Walking through the school doors for the first time in years, it was a little overwhelming for Stanley. When he got the notification saying that there was a high school reunion, he wasn’t sure if he would go. Especially with the hell that happened 27 years prior.

When the losers were mere middle schoolers, there was a serial killer on the loose, he dressed up as a clown to lure the kids away. The Losers Club had stuck together and ended up catching the man that was killing young children. Stan, however, was the only one who was attacked badly, to the extent of a total of 30 stitches in his arm and face.

He had never recovered from the trauma and was the first of the losers to leave Derry, in their junior year. Sure he kept in contact for a year or so but he sacrificed his friendships for his mental health. Losing any trace of anything that could remind him of Derry.

“Stan the Man? No way!” Stan cringed and turned to face none-other-than Richard Tozier, the bane of his existence. 

“Beep Beep Richie,” Stan grumbled.

“Ah, music to my ears.” Richie slung an arm around Stan’s shoulder and leads him to where the Losers had their table. “Look who I found.”

“Hey babe, didn’t think you would come,” Bill said with the shrug of his shoulders, a signal directed at the others.

“Yeah, had a change of mind, sorry that I missed the dinner last night with just the seven of us,” Stan replied moving to sit on Bill’s lap. “I didn’t want to regret anything.

The 5 others gathered around the table and looked questioningly at the brunette couple. Nobody would’ve guessed, they weren’t obvious as Richie and Eddie, or Ben and Bev. It made them wonder when they both started liking each other or if they even liked each other, like that, back when they were kids.

“When did this happen?” Mike asked.

“Three years ago. I was in Florida and met up with Stan.” Bill replied and Stan smiled softly to himself.

*

Stan had met up with Bill a couple of years ago when he was doing a press tour for his recent book. Stan had offered his spare bedroom for his old friend, even though they hadn’t spoken in several years or so, Bill took it.

Over dinner and drinks, the pair had caught up and Stan had stupidly and drunkenly admitted his feelings to Bill. Stan had followed Bill and Richie’s careers as they both grew. He was proud of both of them, even prouder when Richie came out and did so with Eddie by his side. But Bill, there was something that still lingered there, whenever he listened to the interviews or read his stories. Stan couldn’t remember much about his childhood or what his friends were like back in middle school and the first year of high school. 

As soon as Bill and Stan caught up that night, Stan knew. He knew what that lingering feeling was and yet he let himself drunkenly say it. 

****

A few hours later, the Losers found themselves up at Mike’s place, above the library. Mike had a collection of things from the fateful summer along with their friendship after Stan had left Derry. As he walked passed a memory wall, Stan had seen what he had missed out on. 

Graduation, prom, a series of football and basketball games. He got to one final photo and saw all the losers gathered around Richie in his valedictorian gown. “No fucking way! Rich, you made valedictorian?” Stan exclaimed.

“Yeah, there was half a point between me and Eds, I was just better at Biology than he was.” Richie boasted. “And yet, he’s a surgeon!”

“Beep beep Richie, and don’t call me Eds!” Eddie growled.

There was suddenly a loud bang from downstairs, causing all of them to jump, nobody moved. On his way over, he heard that Pennywise had escaped a high-security prison but he was too close to Derry to turn back. It was a high possibility that the man that goes by the stage name of Pennywise, was now in the building and ready to kill them. 

Stanley was the first to move, pulling a knife from the wooden knife holder. He knew that whoever was down there, wasn’t there for books of for Mike, otherwise they would’ve called out for the librarian but alas, that didn’t happen. The losers followed Stan down the spiral staircase. “Are we really just going to follow Stan, the boy who left because of PTSD, down the stairs?” Richie whispered.

Stan rolled his eyes and continued down. “Hey dipshit, I know you’re here,” Stan growled, hoping it was loud enough for the man to hear.

As they neared the back entrance to the desk, the man came into view. He was perched on top of the library’s desk, dressed in a shitty store-bought clown costume, swinging his legs like an energetic child who was told to stay seated.

“Ah! The Losers Club. What a lovely surprise.” Pennywise greets pushing himself off the desk. “Stanley, I didn’t think you’d make it. Last I heard you were still in Florida.”

Stan lost all of his confidence. How did Pennywise know that? How the hell did he know where he lived?

“How do you know that?” Stan whimpered.

“My kind accomplice, Henry Bowers, I’m sure you all remember him. He’s been helping me with my escape.” 

Stan shied away. This couldn’t be happening, he knew it was a mistake coming back. He knew that he would be yelled at by everyone if they lived through this but he couldn’t do it. Eddie noticed that Stan had walked back to hide behind everyone.

“Hey, you good?” Eddie whispered.

“No. I can’t - I can’t do this Eddie.” Stan whispered back. “I should’ve turned back when I heard it on the radio.” 

“Hey, hey. It’s okay. You were almost killed that Summer, you have every right to be more afraid than any of us.”

Stan looked down to meet the eyes of Edward Kaspbrak. “I know.”

 Stan felt Eddie embrace him. “You’ll be okay. Trust me. We won’t let that bastard get away.”

Mike was on the phone and Bill and Bev had started to attack the clown when out of literally nowhere, Bowers jumped out stabbing Eddie in the cheek with his pocket knife. 

****

It turned to chaos from there. Stan didn’t know what to do. He kinda just slowly backed away into the shadows watching as Eddie and Ben fought off Bowers before stumbling over to Mike. Bowers was trying his best to protect Pennywise from the clutches of the losers. Richie had ended up grabbing an axe to fend Bowers off Mike, landing the axe right into Bowers’ head.

Stan started to further shrink away, hiding in the storage room. 

“Stannie, I know you’re down there.” Pennywise teased, the sound of slow but determined footsteps echoed down the hall towards the stairs of the storage room. 

Stan could hear the distant screams of his friends as the footsteps got louder and louder. Fuck, what the hell happened to my friends? He huddled in a corner, away from the door and hidden by at most 8 rows of bookshelves. 

“Yippee Kiyay Motherfu-” Richie screamed but stopped mid-sentence when he was pushed heavily into the wall, hitting his head on impact. Eddie took the opportunity to throw a book at Pennywise’s head to distract him from Stan. But that almost led to Eddie getting a knife to the stomach.

*

Stan came out from his hiding place as soon as he heard Eddie’s scream. Pennywise was to busy trying to lunge at Eddie, Richie was down and everyone was trying to pry Eddie away from the clown man’s grip. 

Stan needed to do something, he decided to yell, “Why don’t you stop traumatising my friends and come at me, asshole!” Pennywise turned around just in time to see a shelf coming down on him, the end result of a domino effect started by Stan shoving one of the end bookshelves.

Just as the shelf collapsed onto Pennywise, an officer waltzed in. “We need paramedics in here asap.” The officer announced into his walkie-talkie. “Anyone want to explain why there’s a dead man out there?”

“Self defence, the guy was trying to attack my friend and he was the one that put that hole in my husbands face,” Richie said pointing to both Mike and Eddie.

“Okay.” The officer said. The paramedics come in and lift the shelf off the man in the clown costume, putting him on the stretcher and locking his hands and feet into restraints.

****

The losers all make their way up to the ambulances to get checked out. Richie had a minor concussion and needed to take things slow for the next few days, so he and Eddie couldn’t fly back to New York for another few days. Eddie had his cheek patched up and cleaned. Bill and Mike had a few stitches, Stan, Bev and Ben were the only ones to come out unscathed but had been scarred mentally. They all had. 

As soon as Eddie was cleared he was straight on the phone with Maggie, letting her know that he and Richie wouldn’t be back for a few more days. So she and Wentworth would need to look after Caleb, Stan guessed that the two adopted a child, for a few more days than planned.

Bill jumped off the seat, as soon as he was cleared, and headed straight to Stan. “I’m sorry Bill, I am a real coward.” Stan whimpered to Bill.

“No, you aren’t baby. You have every right to be afraid.” Bill said, “You wanna hug? You look like you need one.” Stan nodded and hugged his boyfriend.

“Yes, yes I am Bill. I am a coward. I run away at every sign of trouble. That makes me a fucking coward.”

Bev is the first to join in the hugging of Stanley Uris. Soon everyone joins in, making sure that he feels the support of the 6 other members of their club. All his worries seemed to wash away.

“Let’s go to the Quarry,” Richie announced. 

****

Bev, Ben, Mike, Eddie and Richie basically made a run for it, to get to one of their many old hangout spots. Bill hung behind to walk with Stan, who was still shaking from the whole experience.

“If any of us were in your position, we would be feeling the exact way,” Bill said.

“Really? You’re all stronger than me, mentally.” Stan replied.

“Not true.” Stan gave him a look. “You swore during your bar mitzvah, you can watch horror films without any nightmares, you’re incredibly smart. You’re getting your PhD in a month! You’re stronger than you think, we all may be smart but you’re the smartest. 

“Don’t let this one thing get in the way of that. You aren’t a coward, a coward wouldn’t jump off the Quarry’s cliff. A coward certainly wouldn’t voice his opinion, the number of times that you stood up against all of us? A coward wouldn’t do that.”

“I never thought of it like that,” Stan whispered.

“And a coward wouldn’t admit that he’s a coward or do anything to help themselves. And finally, a coward wouldn’t scream at an escaped murderer to come and get him so that they’d stop attacking his friends. Nor would they push the shelves down.” 

Stan remembered the therapy he took as a child and the fact that he had been taking anti-depressants and anti-anxiety pills since then and doing everything he could to forget that Summer in ‘89.

He thought back to only moments ago as his impulsivity and adrenaline were through the roof. The thought of anyone hurting any of his friends was enough for him to become enraged. His body was still pumping out adrenaline, he was vibrating like he usually does after 4 cups of coffee. But he only had two today and didn’t have his customary caffeine shakes.

“You’re safe now, and that’s all that matters,” Bill said softly. “In the wise words of Richie Tozier, ‘you’re braver than you think’.”

“Richie said that?” Stan giggled, Bill smiled, he loved hearing his boyfriend giggle, it was cute.

“Yeah. To Eddie.”

“Oh my God, we’re the less over the top version of Richie and Eddie.” 

Bill and Stan continued to laugh as they made their way to the Quarry to catch up with the losers.

[lacrossepapi]

oooh what about steter 10+16

Sorry this took so long! But fun fact: I was hit by four seperated devasting personal blows right after I received this prompt and then went into a huge depression spiral that involved dropping out of school and attempting suicide again so this is a Very Dark fic. And I don't mean the events just like the tone of the writing is dark and I'm so sorry for that. I'm feeling better now and I'm hoping the last half of this shows that.

So some content warning: mentions of Eichen house and torture and heavy angst

De-Aged + Mutual Pining

Ao3: Link

Stiles watched Peter from across the room. The older man walked as if there was an ache in his shoulders that would not let him stand tall. Stiles hated it. Peter had been a diminished version of himself since Stiles and Lydia had dragged him out of Eichen and told Scott to buzz off. Peter was pack, but just barely and it showed. Being an outcast wasn't new, the others didn't treat him nearly as badly as they had before sending him to Eichen, but something had changed in that hell hole. 

Peter never looked weak or wounded, even when he was bleeding out in the Preserve after saving their asses once again. Peter wouldn't allow anyone to see him look vulnerable, but nevertheless Stiles saw. Peter's mental state was worse than it'd been since the fire and the only ones who noticed couldn't do anything to truly help. Except the spark, who had watched the man he'd been harboring a crush on for years be sent to his own personal nightmare and come out the other side worse for wear. 

Stiles missed Peter's smirks. The fragile lift of the werewolf's lips these days was a pale imitation at the best of times. Stiles missed Peter's huffs of laughter. He hadn't been graced with the sound since the night before he'd been imprisoned. Most of, Stiles missed Peter's wit. He hadn't had the energy or want to verbally spar in the months since the rescue and Stiles missed their banter as if it'd been a physical part of him. 

Learning ancient Sumarian would be easier if there was anyone who could teach it to him outside of the internet. He was honestly lucky to even find the spell that'd send him back through time for three days. This time around Stiles wouldn't let them go through with it. No matter what, Peter wasn't going to go through whatever torture he'd endured in that place. And when Stiles returned to the present he would return to the man he'd fallen in love with. 

-

Peter sighed, a weariness in him he couldn't seem to shake. What would today bring? More quiet observation of the handsome human boy, that'd somehow became a man, and a spark, without anyone noticing? More rueful debates with himself on whether it was smarter to stay with the spark and banshee that'd rescued him or flee from the pack that had imprisoned him? Perhaps today would bring a spark of life Peter hadn't felt in months. 

Speaking of Sparks, his was watching him again. Observing him the same way Peter had been watching the man. 

"How are you today?" The soft way Lydia spoke to Peter made his teeth grind and his hackles rise. 

He was not a wounded animal. He just didn't have anything to say these days, and even if he did there wouldn't be a point. No one listened. No one cared. So why should Peter waste his energy helping the people that imprisoned him to be tortured by that man for months? He shouldn't. Lydia had mostly tolerated him before he was sent to That Place, but now she practically treated him like a broken doll. He wasn't broken. It would take more than that to break him. That more than was currently watching their exchange with a frown, which alerted Peter that he'd been silent too long. 

"I'm peachy keen, darling. And why are you gracing me with your presence this evening?" Even though he said the normal words his tone seemed to fall flat. 

Lydia looked at him for a moment, her eyes scanning his face before she sighed, "When was the last time you ran under the full moon?" 

The question struck him like a slap to the face. The past four full moons he'd been unable to get out of bed. It hadn't seemed worth making an effort to sit up, get out of bed, put on clothes, brush his teeth, put shoes on, and leave his apartment. Not to mention all the things he'd have to do to get him shifted and into the deep part of the preserve. Even so, he can't believe he had gone four months without running under the full moon, four months without feeling her rays on his skin. And those were just the ones he'd missed since escaping that place. Peter had never gone more than one moon without running with the other wolves, expect the six long years he was in a coma. 

In a lot of ways Peter felt like he was back in that hospital bed. Alone. Abandoned. Unable to move on. Stuck in his head with his traumas. 

He realized too much time had passed once again when she placed a petite hand on his. 

"Seven months." The voice that left him didn't sound like his own as it rasped over two words. 

Lydia nodded solemnly. 

"This month we're coming over." Stiles' voice startled him out of the quiet moment. 

Peter looked up into Stiles' determined face and found all his complaints dying on his tongue. He nodded, unable to tell the spark 'No'. 

The full moon was only three days away, maybe he'd feel up to running by then.

Lydia nodded as if they'd settled a business contract and stood up from the step below him, dusting off her skirt. With her departure Peter was left alone with Stiles, their eyes burning into each other's. Stiles looked as if he had something to say, yet said nothing as he scent marked Peter and left. 

-

Stiles left Peter on the stairs, a heaviness settling in his chest as he heading out the giant metal door of the loft and down to his Jeep. He'd do it tonight. He was going to go back in time and save him. 

Except, when Stiles finished chanting, animal blood covering his body and floor, nothing happened. He snatched his phone off the floor outside of the ash circle, uncaring of the blood he was smearing the screen with, and promptly threw it back down when he saw the same date as when he'd put it down. 

It hadn't worked. 

Somehow, somewhere Stiles had screwed it up. Or perhaps the spell itself was a dud. He had no way of knowing because he certainly wasn't going to try it again. He'd put all of his intent into the spell, chanting words he was sure were correct. He had had to sacrifice a chicken and coat himself in it's blood, while sitting in the middle of an intricately designed ash circle. The most important part was that he had to focus on why he wanted his body to go back seven months. And that was Peter. A frankly, easy subject to focus his mind on. And maybe he'd gotten a little distracted thinking about kissing Peter, but oh well. No harm, no foul, right? Nothing had happened which wasn't ideal, but it wasn't the end of the world. 

Stiles was still going to help the older man. No matter what. 

-

Peter woke the next morning feeling oddly relaxed for the first time in, well, months. He felt energized in a way he couldn't quite place. That is, until he sat up and tried to step out of bed. His feet didn't land on the ground, causing him to fall out of bed instead of simply stepping out. 

As he lay on the ground, irritated and confused, he looked at the small chubby hand in front of his face for a moment before jerking back and looking wildly around. 

How had a child gotten into his room without him noticing? And why did it trip him? 

And where had it gone now? 

Questions were flying through Peter's head rapid fire, until they all came to a screeching halt as he realized that there was no one else in his home, that he in fact, was the child. 

"What the fuck?" The words came out soft and much higher pitched than he thought they would, startling him again. 

Peter only knew of two magic users in town, and this had the very distinct buffoonery of one of Stiles' magical accidents. He growled, the sound much less menacing with his prepubescent vocal chords, before ripping his phone off the charger and dialing Stiles. 

It took three calls for the infuriating young man to answer, Peter's chubby little foot tapping a furious rhythm all the while. 

"Peter? What the fuck, man? It's like six in the morning." Stiles' voice was deeper and rougher than usual, the sound alluring in a way his current body couldn't fully process. 

"I'm aware of the time Stiles, but are you aware that I don't care if you were sleeping? It seems I have been caught up in a magical issue and it stinks of your kind of ridiculousness."

Stiles sounded more alert when he replied, "you sound so girly right now, even if you are being an asshole. Whatever happened couldn't have been me. My spell last night definitely didn't work." 

Peter rolled his eyes, wishing he could growl at the man but not wanting to embarrass himself further. 

"And what, pray tell, did you try to do last night?" 

"Shit."

"With me now, dear boy? I don't know what the intended purpose of the spell was, but it seems my body has been reverted back to its adolescent self." 

"Fuck, Peter. I'm so sorry. I'm coming over right now."

And with that Stiles hung up on Peter, presumably to quickly get dressed and come fix his mistake. 

Though the situation was highly irritating, Peter had to admit there was a certain release that came with his altered state. His mind was no longer weighed down by the images of the torture done to his body every time he looked at himself. His body no longer slowly by the years it had endured, six of which he hadn't actually been living during. 

By the time his doorbell rang he had made himself and Stiles coffee just how they both liked it and was reading a book. He hopped out of the chair and opened his door to the sight of his frantic pack mate. 

For a moment neither said anything, Stiles just stared open mouthed down at Peter, his body going uncharacteristically still. 

"You're a fucking kid!"

Peter slammed the door in his face and walked back to his hair. He was not going to be some freak show exhibit for Stiles to stare at, the man could figure out how to fix it on his own for all Peter cared. 

The door opened and Stiles poked his head in looking sheepish, "I'm sorry. It was just a shock. I won't stare at you like that again. Can I come in?"

Peter sighed, closed his book, and waved the idiot in. 

"So I think there was an issue with my translating or maybe my pronunciation because I was supposed to go back in time seven months ago, but it looks like your body reverted back to being seven years old." Stiles fiddled with the edged of his sleeve, eyes locked onto the floor as he spoke the last part, "The bad news I can't fix it, but the good news is, it'll only last three days." 

Peter stared at him for a long moment, the man growing increasingly more uncomfortable as the silence stretched. He loved this person. God how his heart swelled, childish nerves alight inside him. And yet, he was also seething. 

"Time travel, Stiles? Are you kidding me? How many times have I or Alan told you that even if you get every aspect perfect time travel spells have a tendency to go haywire? Give me the spell and tell me what you were trying to do, you foolish boy." Peter stuck his hand out angrily, his chubby palm a sour reminder. 

Stiles only nodded and handed Peter a piece of paper where he had translated out the spell, and already Peter saw issues. 

"The spell says it will time alter the focus of intent at will. What did you think it said?" 

"It will alter time at will with a focus of intent." Stiles was frowning at the floor now. 

"And the part you've written down here says seven years not months. And the verb use makes it seem less of "years ago" more of "years." Full-stop." 

"I didn't know." Stiles mumbled. 

Peter reached out and pulled the young man down into the large armchair, that would usually be too small for both of them. 

"Stiles, look at me. Why didn't you come to me with this? You know I can read Ancient Sumarian. What were you trying to do?" Peter's voice was too childish to be soothing like he had wanted, but Stiles still relaxed. 

"I was going to go back and stop them from sending you to that horrible place." 

The words hung in the air between them, echoing in Peter's mind. Stiles had fought for him then and was going to go back and make sure he would never be sent there. 

"Oh my sweet boy." Peter wrapped his small arms around Stiles as tears welled up in his eyes. 

He would perhaps never be the man he was before his traumas, but with people like Stiles, and Lydia too, beside him he could heal better than he had ever though possible. 

[baixueagain]

ok venty reflective blog entry time bc I find it helps me get shit off my chest & calm my anxiety. 

tl;dr I had a shitty teen friendship that to this day has left me with enduring trauma symptoms lol

at least once a year I find myself reflecting back on one of my closest teenage friendships. towards the beginning it was (at the time) probably the deepest platonic bond I had ever shared with anyone, but over the years things soured until finally it became well and truly toxic and finally ended disastrously. we tried on two occasions to make amends as adults, only for it to crash and burn again because of the baggage.

now toxicity in this case went both ways and I know that I had ownership in what happened. my RSD ass for one was clingy and needy, which was only exacerbated by a very long episode of major clinical depression that started when I was around 16. I could also, like many teen girls, be a real catty little shit at times. I had a hard time with social cues because of my neurodivergence, but I will note that I have always tried extremely hard to listen and respect others when they tell me that I’m doing/saying something which annoys them, hurts them, or otherwise bothers them. thing is, though, you kind of have to tell me if something bothers you, or else I might completely miss out on or misinterpret your reactions. it’s not so much a lack of empathy as just the signals get completely crossed. people send off so many signals that I sometimes can’t sort them out.

as a result I have made a lifelong habit of conscientiously trying to communicate that I am open to hearing feedback and trying to resolve interpersonal problems. I did it back then, too, because this was far from the first time I’d had trouble reading social and emotional signals, or getting them confused.

anyway, that said, what sticks with me about this particular friendship is that as things progressed this friend, let’s call her A, began to treat me not only like a burden, but like a monster, sometimes reacting to me with both fear and hatred. that was the confusing part. she did it in front of others, making it clear how she saw me, and that was the humiliating part. she also had long talks about her problems with me with other people (who were already openly mistreating me due to my neurodivergence), but she rarely ever told me that she had problems with me, even though I pretty much begged her on multiple occasions to tell me what I was doing wrong. that was the painful part.

ever since then I have had the occasional bout of extreme guilt, shame, self-hatred, and anxiety as I wonder if maybe she was right to treat me like that. maybe I was a monster. maybe I had been horribly abusing her and never realised it. maybe my attempts to reason with myself about all this are just the typical excuses abusers make for their behaviour. maybe i’m a monster, or else why would A have treated me like a monster? why else would so many of the other people in our mutual social circle have treated me like a monster? fuck, am I the baddie? 

hell, throughout those years, when my other friends and family tried to convince me that A was treating me unfairly, I consistently defended her to them. I told them that they didn’t know A like I did. I told them that I must be doing something wrong. I must deserve the way she was treating me. sometimes, like today, I still find myself in that spiral of anxiety and self-blame.

on days like today, I have to consistently remind myself of the things A did do, making a goddamn list in order to silence the screaming in my brain telling me that I am the sole fuckup:

she downplayed things, dismissed them, and even shamed me when I told her on multiple occasions that some powerful people in our social circle were openly mistreating me and a few other (obviously ND) kids

she confided in these same people about our friendship and took their advice on how to treat me

she basically used me as her free therapist for years, and because I didn’t know better I let her. she meanwhile refused to see a real therapist for some of the very real issues that she had, even though I literally begged her (in tears) to please go to a professional about these things because I couldn’t handle them on my own.

she lied to me. a lot.

she used me to lie for her to others, including to her own parents. I let her, because I thought that’s what loyal friends do.

she frequently treated me like an annoying child in public because of my hyperfixations and other coping mechanisms

she frequently treated me as if symptoms of my illnesses - including literal internal bleeding - were just me trying to manipulate her for attention

years later, A basically admitted to seeing me as a freak who is unable to socialise with “normal” people. she acted as if I were being unreasonable and overreacting when this made me angry.

as I would learn even more years later, she would frequently assign malicious intent to my awkward or unusual (but otherwise innocent) social behaviours. this, it turns out, is why she’d sometimes randomly start treating me with fear, revulsion, or anger, with me being completely clueless as to why. (note: I have other close friendships that started around the same time as my friendship with A and which have endured to this day, and none of those people have ever had very much trouble with talking to me about behaviours that inadvertently upset or bother them)

she continued to do this during both our attempts to make amends. when I finally realised what had been happening and told her how it made me feel during the second attempt, she cut off all communication completely. by this point it had been nearly a full decade of this behaviour from her.

but of course, even when I sit down and write all these things out, the little whisper in my brain still tries to convince me that she could probably make an even longer list for me so I must be the monster she thought I was, right?

then again, while writing, I’ve come to something of a realisation: if a friendship from my teen years has left me with symptoms of emotional trauma that have lasted into my fucking thirties, then maybe I’m not the asshole in all this. maybe my crippled-ass brain is telling me I’m a monster because, during a very important developmental stage of its maturity, someone I loved and trusted repeatedly treated me like I was a monster.

I mean, only like 2-3 years ago, I suddenly had a memory surface of A’s dad yelling at me in public, in front of dozens of people, and then leaving me to have a meltdown/panic attack in front of those same people - all because I tried to ask her why she was (yet again) treating me strangely. I don’t remember what he was yelling about, or why. I can only suppose that she had told him that I’d done something heinous. that, or he just saw that his precious little girl was treating the local freak like a scary monster and decided that it must be for a good reason, because that freak’s a freak. 

this occurred a full decade before I actually remembered it for the first time. I even called up my parents to confirm whether it actually happened, or if I was imagining things. it had. 

so yeah. I’ve always known that all that business fucked me up. I guess it just fucked me up even more seriously than I’d ever expected.