#self therapizing again ...

[mainfaggot]

automatic thoughts: every current failure is proof that my past successes were flukes + everyone is better than me always no matter how eloquently I attempt to express myself

counterarguments: ok but even my failures are so tame like they truly could've been more cringefail + some people think im smart based off thoughts that I have vocalized during various discussions:]

conclusion: lol I'll get by. my brains go-to thought process is negative and self deprecating but that doesn't make it the be-all and end-all of reality. perception is subjective nothing matters at the end of the day lol (-> ok now the pendulum is swinging from neuroticism to near nihilism. how I do stop doing that automatically too? Jesus)

[alittlebitofrainbyyourside]

I had 1 (one) good day of like 'oh yeah, I'm a human and I know how to talk to people' and immediately after it was followed by my brain doing it's Shit.

[facelessoldgargoyle]

When people see deviant behavior and comment that that person needs therapy, they’re not actually wishing that person well. They’re hoping to eliminate the deviant behavior, and failing that, to incarcerate them.

It’s also a gross misunderstanding of how therapy works. If you don’t want to be there, you won’t get anything out of it. I think people who say “they need therapy” do know it works that way, but they’re taking a mental shortcut. They’re imagining a deviant person who wants to change already, whom they can put in the Therapy Vortex and get a normal person out of it. If you’re intellectually rigorous about prison abolition, you have to grapple with the fact that you can’t incarcerate or therapize people into changing.

You also have to grapple with the difference between deviant behavior and harmful behavior! Someone who self-harms displays deviant behavior, which is harmful to them but not anyone else, and it’s your goddamn right to be mentally ill in a way that disgusts other people. If you want to stop, then therapy might be helpful, but it’s offensive to say that someone should get therapy just because you want them to stop.

Compare this to scamming people with fake blood testing machines. I saw people talking about how Elizabeth Holmes was a narcissist, a sociopath, whatever stigmatized cluster-B diagnosis they could throw at the wall. Maybe she is a narcissist. She doesn’t necessarily need therapy about it. She certainly doesn’t need therapy inflicted on her. It wouldn’t stop her from doing a scam again. She needs to be banned from the medical industry. Her actions were harmful, and we should address the actions, rather than trying to solve whatever the psychological cause was.

Much of this has been said before, but I’ve been seeing a lot commentary recently that criminals and deviants should go to therapy. IMO it’s a sanitized way to say “lock them up.”

[sightofsea]

end of the year reclist

well!! the year is winding down and I read some good stuff on ao3. here are the highlights.

Good Omens:

Ut It Tempus (Or: Muriel's Wet, Wild, and Very Hot Summer Weekend) by Oatmeal Addiction

just recently read this one so it goes on the top of the list!! incredibly funny, great muriel character study, some of the funniest prose out there. it genuinely feels like you're reading a continuation of the book, which is just such a cherry on top of everything this fic has to offer.

a rarer height by @hyruling

this was the first fic I read post series 2 that scratched that itch i get for good go fic. the atmosphere it creates is lovely, like a little blanket to wrap yourself up in. the way it jumps back and forth through time is amazing. the characterization is so good--I'd been waiting for a fic where the way they fight felt natural and HOOOOO boy did this deliver like a swift kick in the nuts. absolutely a post series 2 classic.

puttin' on the ritz by @moonyinpisces

what can I say that hasn't been said already. it's funny it's hot it's glamorous they are so unbelievably stupid for each other it's amazing. I think about it every time I order a drink with a maraschino cherry.

Just Once More by NaroMoreau

TIME LOOP FIC!!!! that's all I can say. what a great character study and what a great means of utilizing time loops for character development. absolutely lovely.

Drinking Buddies and Diaries by dove_dove

on my life this is probably one of my favorites of all time. perfectly imagined series 3. perfectly imagined muriel and crowley shenanigans, perfectly bitchy aziraphale, with a wonderful small study on food symbolism to add to the cherry on top. lovely.

I'm the treasure baby, I'm the prize by stereobone

crowley works at a brothel and hypnotizes men into thinking they're having sex with him so he can therapize about aziraphale to them. that's it. that's the story. it's perfect

come as you are by fruitygoblin

this one made me cry buckets for very personal reasons but also I think it's a very good character study of aziraphale and it also does something lovey stuff with food symbolism.

Sherlock:

(Never) Turn Your Back to the Sea by DiscordantWords

I finally read this one after meaning to get to it for years (I love the author's other works) and uh yeah. yeah. great exploration of grief and somehow successfully makes things make sense after whatever all that was.

House:

Old machines by applecrumblecore

I love fucked up middle aged men and I love how this seems like a totally plausible way for them to get together.

Howler Tone by baffledbear

I love fucked up middle aged men and I LOOOOVE fucked up codependent self destructive tendencies displayed through impromptu phone sex. Or whatever.

Red Dwarf:

Learning to Lose by komodobits

listen. technically I read this last year and technically I made myself promise not to put any WIPs on this list. but it started updating again and also this fic was made for me. Its a blades of glory au and it's so deliciously funny and sucks you in so fast. it's crazy. I've pulled all nighters over it. it's literally the two stupidest things I love with all my heart smashed into one. it doesn't get better than this.

[transmutationisms]

I would love to hear more of your thoughts on House & its relation to the detective genre ! I think that house (completely accidentally and very badly) stumbles into a good critique of how doctors & medical structures view addicts & disabled people, with house being a horrible hegemonic mr malpractice to his patients frequently yet half is series is unironically just about all the injustice/mistreatment he faces because his doctor colleagues can’t see him as a person but only as a problem to be solved/rehabbed/therapized/institutionalized/treated like a child with stolen candy/treated like a criminal. and then it also randomly takes an incredibly pro MAID stance. which isn’t really part of this but I just remembered how batshit insane that show was. and then chase killed a dictator and I feel like the show was squarely on his side for that one. Anyway. Do you have thoughts? I really like house.

ok here's my house md take. like a lot of medical dramas, the show essentially relies for its dramatic appeal on the construal of patients as gross, weird, and stupid—rubes who are too uneducated and self-serving in their petty lies to solve their own bodies, and thus need the intervention of house to fix them. this is standard for the genre, although slightly meaner on house than on some other examples (cf. grey's or even the older and soapier generation of these shows). i don't even think house committing malpractice is all that new; it's relatively common as a plot point that positions the noble rule-breaking doctor as someone who 'does what needs to be done' and skirts the bureaucratic red tape to follow their own superior judgment. what makes house more interesting is that from the get-go, house himself is both a doctor and an unwilling patient. in itself this isn't a tension that's new to the medical soap (injuring a major character is pretty par for the course) but house's particular interactions with the ruling biomedical epistemology are, as you point out, characterised by hostility and resistance, and the show frequently either sides with house, or at least leaves it somewhat up to the viewer to decide whether house is right to resist the pathologisation that cuddy and wilson try to impose on him.

this is kind of a tricky line to walk for 7 seasons or however long the show is. my recollection is there are episodes, for example, where it's very clear that house's pain is physical, and the writers use this to morally justify his vicodin use. this is obviously not a full-throated defence of opioid users, but it is at least pointing to a position on chronic pain that allows for the possibility that for some people, long-term use of drugs with a high addiction potential and side effects is legitimately the best thing. but, this messaging is also undercut by the fact that it's primetime television, they need to make drama, and there are definitely also episodes where house is framed as potentially lying about his pain, or at least mistaking a somatic problem for a physical one, which the writers often (not always, but often) present as evidence that actually, house shouldn't be trusted to make his own decisions about drug use, and ideally should be 'de-toxed' and probably sent to cbt or whatever. of course all of these considerations are also contextualised by the fact that house is, again, not just a patient but a doctor: his right and ability to make these types of calls for himself is, it's suggested, a result of his having attained medical education and credentials. the patients who come to be treated by him are seldom, if ever, given this same level of consideration or presumed to have sufficient self-awareness to make their own medical decisions. this isn't to say they're portrayed entirely unsympathetically, but ultimately the narrative engine of the show relies on house being the smartest guy in the room (though ofc, sometimes tragically 'held back by his addiction').

so, although there are moments on the show that genuinely transgress some of the norms of the med-drama genre, i have never agreed with people who thought that the show as a whole was presenting any sustained critique of the medical system, the treatment of chronic pain/disability, or the power-imbalanced doctor-patient relationship. ultimately all authority on house md is supposed to emanate from the physician, or the physician's superiors (cuddy as a 'check' on house, though sometimes a failed one! again because of the need to generate drama for like 140 episodes), and at its most radical the show is really only capable of presenting house himself as an out-of-control aberration whose existence strains the existing system rather than being produced by it.

this is where i think the comparison to the cop show genre becomes more clarifying. house md never made a secret of being an interpolation of the detective genre, specifically sherlock holmes. however, i'm not sure i've ever really seen writing on the show that analyses what effect this actually has on house. like police, doctors are tasked with maintaining certain social norms; the dichotomy between policing and medicine isn't even a solid line, as criminality is frequently rhetorically construed as a pathology in itself and medical authorities can and do have recourse to carceral systems in order to discipline and confine recalcitrant patients, the 'criminally insane', addicts, and so forth. (policing has historically also been understood in a more expansive sense than how we use the word today; our understanding of the medical/public health system as separate from police authority is arguably more to do with university credentialling than the actual exercise of social and political power).

so, if we want to be serious about the portrayal of medicine in popular culture (i am always serious about this) then we're necessarily talking about broader systems of power, social control, and discipline, and doubly so on a show like house that is explicitly inspired by detective fiction. this is where house md is most ideologically objectionable to me: as with the trope of the cop who breaks all the rules, house is basically positioned in one of two ways throughout the show. either he's a lone genius who alone is willing to achieve noble ends (cure) through distasteful means (breaking into patients' homes, berating them, performing risky interventions on them, &c), or—and this is rarer on house but does happen—he's portrayed as genuinely crossing an ethical line, in which case he's a kind of monstrous aberration from the normal, ethical functioning of the medical system, often represented metonymously by the objections that cuddy, wilson, or house's underlings raise. in both of these cases, as with copaganda, the function is ultimately to reinforce the idea that doctors, though occasionally capable of human error, are prima facie wiser than their patients, looking out for their patients' best interests, and performing noble social roles as healers. house, ofc, is very rarely willing to admit that he has any underlying ethical motivations, though much of the show is driven by the flashes where he is revealed to 'secretly' care about another person (often wilson) and anyway, the construction of an ethical society in which all individual actors are motivated solely by selfish interests is a very established rhetorical move for those interested in defending liberal capitalist societies (cf. charles darwin, thomas malthus, adam smith, &c).

because of television's need to generate profit via audience engagement, house md always relied on a certain level of shock or at least provocation in order to sustain itself. so, there are certain aberrations from the more overtly doctor-valorising medical dramas, like the suggestion (sometimes tongue-in-cheek) that house was better at his job when he was mildly high on opioids. this was, for the reasons outlined above, never a serious entry into political critique, but it was at least refreshing in a certain way as a departure from, eg, the portrayal of addiction and drug use that we see on grey's, which is completely limited to the medicalised AA narrative of 'recovery' as a battle against the malevolent intervention of an external chemical agent. which is to say that although house md is ultimately reactionary in the way we should expect from an american tv show, it did at least dabble in a certain level of caustic iconoclasm that allowed limited departures from the genre conventions. even with what was ultimately a pretty solid vindication of the anti-opioid narrative, the show does stand out in my mind as one of the few very popular presentations of any kind of alternative stance on chronic drug use. that it's usually put in house's own mouth means it is occasionally legitimated by his epistemological authority as a physician, though ofc ultimately this authority is challenged not through a critique of the medical system, but by presenting house as individually and aberrantly licentious, undisciplined, and insane—and his chronic pain/disability are both a justification for this, and a shorthand for conveying it.

[kinardsevan]

bucktommy proposal end of season 8 or start of season 9?

i mean what do I want? obviously sooner than later. I really do believe in the logic that we've seen stated about Bobby and Athena in relation to what Frank said in (I think) 702, that when who people work in the field, they understand the immediacy. I also think that you have two characters who have been through the wringer in their personal lives, and if this show is really going to let them have their happy ending, I don't see it being a long, drawn out process. For Maddie and Chim, it made sense. Healing from DV is a process, and she needed to be able to trust him. By correlation, Evan has always been seeking someone who would match his attachment style and not be turned off by how his abandonment issues affect him in relationships. Add to this the fact that I feel like Evan's highest love languages are physical touch and quality time (although quality time may also be competing with acts of service; we could argue removing physical touch, but I think that being a love language for him is clearest in s1 with his self-diagnosed sex addiction). Still, even in season 7, he's always touching people he cares about. His hand on Eddie's shoulder when Chris leaves; the hug with Bobby (both in 710), the kiss in the hospital in 706. Even the hands on Chris's shoulders in 709 from the stills.

By relation, I think Tommy's similar, with acts of service and quality time being his top two. I'm less inclined at the moment to say physical touch is as high for him, because we haven't had enough of out, therapized Tommy to really gauge it. Still, the acts of service is obvious. He shows up for those he cares for (flying into a hurricane, showing up to the wedding even after fighting a fire all night and day). And we know he's not just showing up for Evan to sleep with him; we've seen dates, dinner together, actually showing up for one another.

Ironically it's both of these that get me wondering if we'll be waiting into s9 purely just because I don't think that receiving gifts ranks very high for either of them. I honestly think we'll see them moving in together with more importance placed on it because that directly correlates to quality time AND acts of service. Truth be told, I think when a proposal finally happens between these two, I think Tommy will be the one to ask, because it's something Evan wants, and as stated, acts of service are important to Tommy. Still, I think if we're lucky enough to see it happen, we might be waiting a while. Again, I could be wrong, given the discussion Bobby had with Frank in therapy about not putting off more time than necessary to be together when you know life is limited (and this will be another relationship with two first responders who are in dangerous positions). But realistically? I think we'll see moving in together in s8, and then maybe a proposal in s9. I legitimately could see B/T getting completely domestic with a home, an animal (maybe even a kid) before they even make it down the aisle.

(This was far more than what you asked, but it's how I got there 😂)

[ask-stan-and-ford]

Hello Pines brothers.

My name is Axol, I work with the Therapism in the Neutral dimension 5150. I'm curious. Please if you would feel so inclined to answer.*Pulls out clipboard* What are you feelings towards the one who calls them self Bill Cipher ?

I ask purely because they are in the process of rehabilitation. At Therapism we believe it is important for our patients to reconcile with their past. And it seems Bill has quite the history with your family.

Do not be alarmed tho, should we bring them back to earth for this. Their power will be stripped completely and locked for good measure in a human body and they will be monitored 25/8. So they can learn what is to be human and atone for the ills they cause your family.

This is... Quite shocking. Bill? Bill Cipher is in therapy? How ironic. I don't think I can even quite conjure the words for how this makes me feel, let alone even beginning to explain what he has done. Don't trust him. Ever. I made that mistake once and I will never do it again. I... I need a moment to sit down with this.

Hell no. I’ll punch him in his triangle face again.

[gasolinerainbowpuddles]

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘚𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘍𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 ║ ⓞⓝⓔ๏ⓞⓕⓕⓢ

|| fic masterlist || main navigation ||

This Side of Forever

| PAIRING(s): Marcus Pike x fem!OC Bodie Edunn

| RATING: explicit material | 18+ | WORD COUNT:  6.6k | CONTENT: angsty!Marcus throughout, pining?, Bodie talks a lil whimsical but that’s bc she’s based on a Goddess ok?, half of this is me self-therapizing, lots of allusions to magic and fruit, following your dreams, is somebody gonna match my freak? vibes, accepting fate, overly sentimental bc it’s Marcus duh

| SYNOPSIS: After back to back failed relationships, Marcus tries to find meaning and distraction in his work. When he's presented with an offer that appears to be a nudge in a whole new direction, he isn't sure he can make the leap of faith.

The consultation offer had come through at just the right time. Marcus had been burnt out with his work despite the change in scenery and job title. As it turned out, being head of the International Art Theft Task Force in D.C. wasn’t a whole lot more gratifying than being Special Agent Marcus Pike with the Austin Art Squad Unit. It was a bitter pill to swallow, the rhapsodic thrill of getting a second chance at love and life in Texas turning to nothing more than ash and heartache come Virginia. 

It was torment being back in Austin for an assignment and learning that he’d ultimately been nothing more than a bridge for his would-be fiancé and her now other half to finally realize what they felt for one another. It was hard to believe this was the same woman who had told him that night at dinner she, too, felt the same things for him. That she couldn’t deny their chemistry and connection. He loved that she was independent and really thought about his offer to move to D.C. with him before she’d accepted.

And then he’d gone and followed his heart again with the proposal. The words felt like poison clinging to his lips almost the moment he uttered them, her expression one of stunned anxiety making his stomach turn.  Then it all seemed okay again when she said she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, too. Looking back it was easier to see that she didn’t feel as strongly for him as he did for her, but in the moment he’d thought that maybe it was just a lot for her to take in. He had a tendency to be too much for the people he cared about.

He spent a lot of time in the aftermath of the breakup lamenting over every word and action, playing them over and over again in his head to try to figure out where he’d gone wrong, but he couldn’t bring himself to fully regret honoring his emotions in the moment. He’d been forthright and honest from the start with her because it felt real. It was real. Until it all fell apart.

So, he finished his assignment and returned home to D.C. with nothing but an empty, cold apartment waiting for him. The thought of just leaving all this behind and starting over from scratch was becoming more and more appealing. The ghosts of the past followed him everywhere, and it was beginning to feel like he’d always be chasing some phantom of a dream that resembled happiness. His voluntary sabbatical might not have been the best idea with all this inner turmoil brewing, but he had to take a step back and at least attempt to get himself together. The third night in a row of packaged ramen noodles for dinner, ass firmly parked on the couch with reruns of Antiques Roadshow playing back to back, her email had come through.

He read it twice to make sure it hadn’t been sent in error. As the sole owner of the wildly successful spa and wellness center Eternity Hill Orchard, Bodie Edunn was looking for a consultant regarding the yet to be established Art Director position and coinciding Art Program for her resort. A former colleague and shared mutual had passed his name along to her with a soft endorsement for the job. The referral name checked out and everything seemed legitimate, but Marcus had been burned too many times to believe his luck could be this good.

A phone call with her the next day had that thought going right out the window. He could hear the smile in her voice and how genuinely excited she was that he received the offer and reached out. Before he knew it, agreements were outlined and plans were made. The last few weeks of his sabbatical were going to be spent back and forth between the few hours of travel from D.C. to the mountains of Virginia where Eternity Hill Orchard was located.

The payday was already enough of an incentive, but the picturesque scenery as the vehicle climbed switchback roads wasn’t too bad, either. The ascent felt like he was heading to some other world entirely, and perhaps given the constant grind of life in D.C., this was a completely different life up here in the mountains. His first step onto the grounds already felt energizing, the inhale of fresh air crisp in his lungs. 

He could just make out a distant figure atop a rather grand set of steps leading up to a striking manor structure. It was somehow modern and antique all at once, as if it had been built here so long ago that it simply transcended the concept of time. Lush greenery at every opening and slope gave an impression of liveliness and growth. Small, warm white bulbs danced in the darker recesses of the flora, and Marcus could imagine the balmy, intimate glow it would emit come nighttime. 

Despite the impressive scene, he found himself eagerly skimming back to the figure coming into focus as they climbed down the stairs towards him. The pictures and videos he’d seen of her on the website did no justice to the firsthand encounter. He’d thought it was high quality editing – something to sell the whole wellness image the business touted - but seeing her here in person made it clear there was no alteration involved.

It was hard to pinpoint an age, but she looked like she’d sipped on every enchanted youth tonic from every fairytale ever told. A “glow from within” hue to her skin. Soft, supple curvature of pink appled cheeks. Piercing but kind green eyes. A sharp mouth with a delicate cupid’s bow, all balancing the mesmerizing smile underneath.

How old was she? How could someone establish and develop this level of business acumen all before the age of 50? Was she just the face of the business while some gnarled, hunched octogenarian hid away in the shadows and counted his payday? Was she some sort of trust fund baby? Was this all just an elaborate babysitting project to keep her out of the trouble that wealthy, bored children often found themselves in?

“Marcus, I’m so glad you made it,” Bodie softly greets him as she makes it to the bottom of the stairs. She envelops him before he has time to insist on a handshake, pulling back after a moment and rubbing each of his biceps in a welcoming gesture.

He isn’t sure where to put his hands, and he internally cringes at the realization of just how touch starved he is. His mouth feels a little dry, and he can only attribute some of that to the higher altitude. “Wow. Hi. I mean– Yes. You’re– It’s beautiful,” he responds a little breathlessly. “Glad to be here.”

The mischievous twinkle in her eyes blooms into the grin curving her mouth. “I’m partial, of course, but I really think there’s nowhere else as special as here. I hope you’ll come to find the same thing.”

The closer she was to him, the thinner the air felt. The sun cast a hazy blur of light around her long flax tresses, forming a little halo of brightness that made her seem all the more ethereal and divine. Bodie had several science degrees according to the website, although it didn’t say from where or when. Maybe this place was the real deal after all. Usually these retreat spaces offered little more than a whopping dose of placebo laden manipulations meant to drain desperate people’s wallets. He tried not to be so jaded about it all, very much aware of the more bitter version of himself he’d been morphing into for the past several months.

Obliging staff appeared from nowhere and whisked his things away. He really didn’t care where his things were going or where he was being led as he walked along quietly while Bodie conducted a guided tour of the grounds and the buildings. She carried herself so effortlessly and spoke so confidently. None of it sounded rehearsed, either, as they both meandered through the picturesque backdrop of the plot. She shared all the history of the resort and the scientific approach to wellness that incorporated the native resources as much as possible.

Everything he sees is nothing short of magnificent. He can envision sitting out here and painting a quick oil landscape while Bodie sits nearby and chats. He can hear her unwavering knowledge and commentary in his mind’s eye, but he forces himself to focus on the present. The sprawling backdrop of mountains and trees and orchards frame the welcoming facilities and services here. An expansive natural swimming pond lined with large rocks that lead to private cabanas and plush lounge chairs. He wonders if Bodie ever goes swimming. 

An indoor heated pool with adjacent teak sauna. Three stories worth of amenities built right into the mountainside with multiple buildings above that she explains are guest rooms. One building has a long, shared balcony with large potted trees and rooftop gardens. The other building has private balconies with big, round lounge beds and floor to ceiling fireplaces. He wonders which one of them is hers and what she sees when she wakes every morning.

The winding decks that slope into each other feel endless, and yet Marcus could enjoy hours of hearing her talk about anything and everything. It was infectious and calming, almost like walking through an art museum and discovering all the tiny surprise gems amongst the overarching beauty of artistry. Even the staff looked young in the way of someone who has never experienced a day of stress in their life. They don plain uniforms – soft white linen shirts with loose taupe colored pants – with some sporting half aprons or utility belts, depending on their job.

It was one thing for every patron thus far to look relaxed and content, but the workers also appearing well and youthful? How on earth did Bodie manage all of this? She was still talking about some sort of zero gravity massage clinic when the intrusive thoughts got the better of him.

“So how old are you anyway?” he blurts out.

The back of his neck blazes with embarrassment, but he forces himself to maintain eye contact. She smiles at him again in that easy sort of way, and his stomach flips. Whatever secret restorative methods she had up here were certainly doing something to him. Either that or he hadn’t adjusted to the altitude yet.

“I’m thirty one,” she answers graciously.

His jaw parts, all agog and inelegant, while she titters and waves off his unspoken compliment. 

“I apologize for the question. I’m usually not so–” He motions with his hand aimlessly in the air, floundering for a coherent end to his sentence. “Your methods and programs are obviously very effective.”

“I guess you could say between the mountain air and enough apples a day to keep the doctor away for a lifetime…,” she trails off and shrugs with a lopsided smile.

God, he could really get used to seeing that. It made his knees all jittery every time she directed that energy his way. He’s so wrapped up in it that he misses something she said and has to ask her to repeat herself.

“I said: I’m proud of everything we’ve built here, but I’m always looking for what else we can incorporate to enhance the experience,” she says again. “It’s always been a sort of bad habit of mine, always looking for something to take everything to the next level.”

She doesn't even know how much it resonates with him when she says it. If he had to identify a singular fault of his, it would be the hope of the next best thing. He had a well-worn pattern of romanticizing things and letting his thoughts run away, all buoyant and hopeful. A big part of that had been stripped from him after the failed marriage, divorce, and then failed proposal, but maybe that was for the best. Maybe he wouldn’t get hurt so much if he didn’t put himself so far out there.

“I get what you mean,” he commiserates. “It can be hard to feel like you’ve done all you can. That you’ve upturned every stone and made something as good as it can be.”

Bodie eyes him thoughtfully and, after a moment of contemplation, nods. “Yes. Exactly. That’s exactly it.”

“So, am I the ‘taking it to the next level’ in this equation?” he jokes, attempting to steer the conversation back to the consultation at hand and away from things that remind him of past failures.

Her grin is devastating and intoxicating, and Marcus turns a lovely shade of pink at the poor phrasing of his question.

“I-I meant– not me personally. I meant the art director and art program,” he stammers. “You know, me being here to help with that.”

“Something like that,” she replies with a gentle laugh.

It’s not until she’s finished showing him around and walking him to his private suite that his head feels clear. Every syllable that fell from her lips felt like a tugging thread, whipstitching musings and what-could-be’s across the divots in his mind and suturing them together with thoughts of her cinched in between and tucked away tight. The feeling doesn’t let up over the next few days where every interaction with her feels like he’s had the wind knocked out of him. 

This wasn’t the same sort of draw he’d experienced before with his ex-wife and ex- fiancé. This was the opposite pole of the magnet hurtling towards him and grabbing hold. This was some sameness, some kindred nucleus of existence. A funhouse mirror reflecting parts of himself back, a warped delineation. Something metaphysical and mystic putting him exactly where he was meant to be: here in this side of paradise with Bodie coming to drip soothing words of perpetuity into his ear. He belonged here, although he couldn’t exactly explain why or how he knew it to be true.

It took everything in him to focus on the task at hand. He’s better acquainted after a couple of days with the grounds, resort scheduling, and “wellness lifestyle” habits being taught and practiced. He wasn’t expecting the legitimacy in some of the newer programs, like the accredited and licensed therapists onsite who conduct group sessions as well as individualized, immersive sessions for select guests. The idea of an art based therapy program felt like a natural addition, according to Bodie. It was the “next logical step” in what Eternity Hill Orchard could offer, and he couldn’t agree more.

By the time he knew it, he’d extended his stay by three more days, but she didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. In fact, she seemed delighted that he was even able to. For some reason, he divulged his voluntary sabbatical from work and the fact that he was only able to take this job because of it. She’d simply smiled warmly and said it “sounded like fate.”

It should’ve been hokey. It should’ve been an eyeroll the moment she turned away. Instead, he found himself inclined to agree. Throughout his rapid appraisal of the resort, it started feeling less like work and more like a challenge, something stimulating and meaningful. The overwhelming sense of magic in the atmosphere had him questioning himself almost daily. He’d take breaks from his assignment and join Bodie in several of the offerings at the resort, and every time without fail his head felt cloudy and light and elastic. He hadn’t felt this way since his first few months in the FBI when the world was laid at his feet for the taking.

He almost wished this bubble would pop already so he could fall back to reality, but day after day it remained intact. Gentle brushes of her hand. Leaning closer when they spoke. Angling her body towards him whenever he sat down next to her – and there somehow was always an empty seat, like she’d saved it just for him. The warm, dizzying embrace the first day he got here was just the beginning of an endless well. He wanted so badly to know how her lips would feel against his. He tried to stop himself imagining the sorts of sounds he could pull from her, all the ways he could make her feel good. They could fall asleep here every night together, dreaming up new programs and projects.

As much as he wanted to stretch out his time with her, he loathed the idea of wearing out his welcome or, worse yet, letting hope fester long enough to make him entertain all his delusions about a life here. The trek back home to D.C. is tedious and pallid. It’s as though every foot of elevation lost on the ride down leached color and life from the world.

The dreary silence in his apartment might be the worst of all as he sets his things down and takes a long breath – one that doesn’t feel satisfying no matter how deeply he pulls for air. At least there was an objective and a deadline to keep his mind occupied and distracted from his stifling abode. He compiled his recommendations with due heed, never rushing through the retrospection and assessment he was being generously compensated to produce.

He didn’t have any legitimate reason to go back for another visit since he’d extended his initial one by so many days. Any clarifying questions could be answered via email or phone, and it better served his timeline to not travel again right now anyway. The Art Therapy Degree Program tabs in his browser stare loudly back at him. It was initially a portion of his informational findings, but he’d made the mistake of venturing into the curiosity of what it would take for him to obtain such a degree. Turns out, not very much. The extensive training and education accrued throughout his years before and during his life as an Agent meant he was fit for most bridge programs out there.

He didn’t know what to do with this new possibility, and the knowledge of it was more disquieting than anything. The awareness that something else existed out there for him felt cruel and imposing, like it was trying to force his hand to take the leap of faith. He’d done that before, and it’s what got him into the shadowlands in the first place. It started to eat at him the longer he sat with it, and what irked him most was the sole thing he knew would make him feel better: a trip to Eternity Hill Orchard. 

He racked his brain for a reason – any reason – to go up there again. He concocted some weak excuse about needing to evaluate some of the spaces before making a final recommendation, and of course Bodie was immediately receptive. He steeled himself to remain professional and impartial about things as he made his way back to the fated resort. His late start out the door meant the sun was nearly setting by the time he arrived, but it was just as enchanting as he remembered it. Bodie wasn’t at the top of the stairs to greet him this time around, but he attempted to quell the disappointment of not seeing her by reminding himself that he was here for work and that he’d see her when it was appropriate. It was bad enough that he’d let his whims bring him here again.

After checking in and getting settled, he figures a walk around the grounds is his best bet at coming across Bodie organically. So, he sets off and silently scouts potential spots for an art studio and corresponding office space. The dwindling daylight makes the endeavor less than fruitful, but he isn’t really focused on it, anyway. He’s really just out here hoping to find her. When he turns onto a secluded pathway off the side of the natural pond, the first instance of dissonance in this place emerges: a man’s aggravated voice. A few beats and then what Marcus thinks might just be Bodie’s more neutral voice. He edges closer to the sound.

“Because it’s bullshit, and you know it,” the man fumes.

“I don’t think it’s anything of the so–”

“I come here spending an ungodly amount of money, and for what? For this sham of a place?”

Marcus picks up his pace and follows the voices until he finds Bodie standing face to face with a visibly angry man. She appears in no distress despite the aggression being hurled her way. He keeps his distance until he can fully assess the situation, but his extensive federal training has him ready to intervene if needed.

“You feel like your time here has been unproductive?” She poses the question tactfully, but the man doesn’t waver.

“Well I sure as hell thought I’d get more out of it than I have! I mean, how much time and money can I throw down the drain before I speak up for myself and demand answers?”

“And what is it you were hoping to get out of your visits here?”

“I dunno! Maybe some-some sort of control back in my life?! All this wishy washy feel good bullshit hasn’t done anything! It’s all some scam to take advantage of people like me who are desperate!” he snaps, taking a step forward with arms raised to the side.

Marcus starts to close the gap but stops when Bodie gestures for him to hang back. A glance isn’t even spared his way as she focuses her attention on the angry man.

“I hear you, and I hear your frustrations. I do, however, feel that you are missing a key consideration.”

“Oh? And what’s that?” the man laughs through his nose.

“Finding and using tools to help you regain control of your life is much more beneficial than some external force coming through and offering some temporary illusion of control. And, above all that, there are things that will never be under our authority.”

“And what the hell is that supposed to mean?!”“It means that, yes, we could create some fantasy of the self-actualization you’re after and make you feel like it’s true, but the whole illusion would fall apart the moment you left because it wouldn’t be real. There is no handing ‘it’ over to you – by us or anyone. The entire notion that control is something we give or take from you defeats the entire purpose of you learning to take hold of things yourself. And, you can learn all the coping skills and interventions under the sun, but they will never be useful if you try to pit them against something that will never be in your control no matter how hard you try to force it.”

The man stands straight and blinks a few times, the words overtly taking hold of something inside him.

“Part of control is acceptance, Gordon,” she explains and extends a comforting hand to his bicep. “You have to accept there are things you cannot and will not ever be able to control, and those are the things you have to learn to let go of. No amount of fighting them or screaming or anger will ever change that.”

The man – Gordon, apparently – deflates a bit at this and hangs his head. His voice becomes so quiet Marcus can’t make out half of what he’s saying. His body language speaks to remorse and embarrassment, but Marcus moves in closer just in case he is misreading the energy. He can hear the apologies now and the all too understanding acceptance of them from Bodie. Gordon catches sight of Marcus and quickly excuses himself with Bodie calling after him that she will follow up with him tomorrow.

“Well that’s a first,” Marcus quips, trying to break the dissipating tension altogether. “I was starting to believe nobody could get upset here.”

“Glad to have you back, Marcus,” she deadpans with a budding smile that gives her away.

“In all seriousness, that was, uh, that was pretty impressive.”

“What?”

“Deescalating that situation. Keeping your cool. Maintaining control of the conversation. Actually the sort of thing that makes a really great undercover or intelligence agent.”

“Well, you’d know what it takes, wouldn’t you?” she agrees warmly.

His smile falls a little at the reminder. He was, indeed, the person that would know. At the end of the day, he was still employed with the FBI. This fairy tale in the mountains was on borrowed time, and a couple of weeks from now, he’d be back to his usual responsibilities at work. It’ll be like none of this ever happened, the souvenir of a padded bank account the only remnant of this experience. The realization that he doesn’t want to be Special Agent Marcus Pike anymore hits him like a blow to the gut.

“Marcus? Are you okay?” She reaches out and slots her hand into his.

“Hm? What? Oh, oh yeah, I’m fine.” He forces a chuckle and waves off her worries, but he knows she won’t buy it.

“If you’re not too busy right now, I’d really love for you to join me on my walk.”

And of course he agrees. How could he not? Even if he knows he’s being led to the death of his guard, he can’t turn her down. The tranquil sky and mellow breeze amidst the lines of apple trees are no match for his racing mind. The last time he was here, it felt pacifying and calming. This time it feels as though all the defenses and excuses have been stripped from his brain, leaving nothing but the bare, candid emotions underneath.

“You know,” she begins, interrupting his storming thoughts, “I was thinking back to how you were talking about never being satisfied with what you’ve got. You know, how we’re both guilty of always looking for the next best thing. Worrying about ‘leaving a stone unturned’, as you put it. It made me think back to when I almost gave this up because I thought some place closer to the interstate was a better investment.”

Marcus listens in quiet disbelief as Bodie shares the memory of when she’d come across a great plot of land that was closer to the main highways in the area but located further away from the mountains. She was content at the time with the state of Eternity Hill Orchard, but it wasn’t anything near what it is today. It wasn’t even a fraction of what it is currently because she was so consumed with worry over whether or not there was something better out there. The new plot would’ve been more readily accessible for travelers, which could’ve potentially meant more patrons and a wider reach. It wasn’t until the last moment that she rescinded the offer and decided to keep what she already had and give it the devotion and nurturing it needed to thrive.

“I’m grateful every day that I didn’t go through with it,” she reflects. “The things that I thought were drawbacks were actually what made this place special. The seclusion. The terrain. You can’t get this atmosphere anywhere else. I could’ve lost all of it if I had let my fears override my instincts.”

“I couldn’t imagine this place anywhere else,” he concurs. 

“And I didn’t realize my unturned stone was right under my feet.” She levels him with a probing gaze and silently waits for him to speak.

“I’m supposed to start up my position again in a few weeks…..” he begins weakly.

She doesn’t respond beyond a gentle nod, and it compels him to keep going.

“But I don’t think– I feel like maybe there’s… maybe there’s something else for me.” He swallows hard and drops her hand, opting instead to lean against the sturdy base of an apple tree for some kind of support.

“You found a new opportunity, but you’re afraid it’s just another case of chasing after the next best thing?” she surmises.

“Yeah, I– Something like that. I think.” He laughs and drops his head back. “God, this is so unprofessional. I apologize. I really shouldn’t be talking like this.”

She ignores his appeal to decorum and instead pushes for candor. “So, Marcus, where’s the line between romanticizing a hypothetical and following your heart?”

When he doesn’t have an answer, she leans against the tree beside him, and Marcus feels a thousand fiery licks of magnetic pull.

“This whole experience with you has made me consider leaving my work to become an Art Therapist.” It comes out before he can stop it, but he’s rewarded with a beatific smile that makes his insides feel warm and syrupy.

“You know, I have it on good intel that there’s a really nice place up in the mountains that’s in the market for an Art Therapist. I mean, they’re awaiting a report from a consultant about how to implement the Program, but still. I mean, hey, one lucky Art Therapist might just find themselves with the freedom of creating the entire structure of the Program from start to finish.”

Marcus shakes his head, unwilling to accept the insinuation of being offered a job he wasn’t even qualified for. Yet.

“And I bet that Art Therapist would be able to help a lot of people,” she adds softly. “Could really change the lives of the people he’s around.”

He turns to meet her gaze at that and fumbles for the right thing to say. “I can’t— I couldn’t possibly ask you to—”

“You didn’t ask. I offered,” she points out. 

“So, what? I’m just– I start tomorrow, just narrowing down a list of online bridge programs? Until I find one and apply? And then magically I just use that degree here?” he scoffs.

“Either that or you could spend the next few days trying and failing to talk yourself out of it,” she muses with a grin.

He balks and stalls but can’t argue with the assertion. Truth be told, he doesn’t even feel like trying to talk himself out of it. The fight left in him to ignore his heart is quickly faltering. 

“And, if I might take a turn being unprofessional, I really, really wouldn’t mind you being here on a more … permanent basis. It was nice having you around.”

“Y-Yeah?”

“Mmmhhmmmm.”

Marcus’s eyes flit between her glittery eyes and plush lips. All those years of unfulfilled promises melt away. Every unreciprocated outpouring of love and emotion, gone by the wayside. No more were the feelings of having so much to give without anyone to give it to.

“I really want to kiss you,” he admits in a hush.

“I thought you’d never ask,” she murmurs back.

He doesn’t give himself the opportunity to linger on hesitations. He dips his head and presses his mouth against hers and finds an ardent response. The kiss is  slow and deliberate, like so much time has been lost to the absence of it that every facet must be savored. Her tongue rolls along the ridge of his lip, and he opens with a soft gasp when she pushes their bodies together.

She tastes of sugar and earth, body firm and potent. Still, he holds her like a delicate, timeless artifact meant to be admired and cherished. He follows her pull to the cool grass below and groans at the weight of his body sagging against hers. She hooks a foot behind each knee and tugs, the shift of it sending him off balance. Her pliant body eagerly accommodates his searching hands. The dip and swell of her form under his touch has his mind tracing static orbits, something barely tethered to anything resembling cognizance.

When they finally part for a breath, chests heaving and lips swollen, he sees the incisive tenacity burning bright in her eyes. She rolls their fused bodies until his back settles against the ground, and he lies as a stone unturned beneath her feet, ready to be inverted and suffused by her entirety.

“I’ve known I wanted you from the moment we spoke on the phone,” she confesses quietly. Her hand drifts down his torso, stopping carefully at the button of his waistband.

His heart lurches at the disclosure, brazen in all its laid bare inelegance. “All I could think about was getting back to you,” he confides. “All I wanted was to be back here with you.”

Bodie’s lips crash against Marcus’s with unbridled force, the curve of her tongue licking and darting its way deeper into his mouth. The light blanket of night air ripples against their exposed skin as they hastily remove piece by piece of clothing until they’re laid bare against the strewn fabric. Bodie lies staring up at him, and Marcus somehow has the inkling of clarity left enough to pause and check in.

“Is this okay?” he pants.

“Stake your claim on your path forward, Marcus,” she purrs like it’s an invitation. “Leave your mark on what fate brought to you.”

All reason and restraint leaves his body at the call. His teeth graze and nip hungrily down her neck, across her chest, and tug at the hardened nubs he finds there all pert for his attention. Her body curves up from the ground to meet the wet slip of his mouth and rocks mindlessly when it connects with her sex.“I wanna taste you, I wanna taste you” is all she hears between greedy laps of his tongue. He ruts against the mounds of fabric laid about, desperate for any sort of friction after experiencing the high of her taste. Every little moan and gasp is a brush stroke in his portrait of her pleasure. He feeds off the taction and responsiveness, using those hues and depths of bliss to bring about the definitive, live rendering. A heavenly sound slithers up her throat when he slowly inserts two stacked fingers.

“I feel you. Christ you’re so wet,” he rasps. “Come on my fingers. I wanna feel it. C’mon, baby, come for me.”

She cries out under the careful movements of his mouth and fingers, the soft tufts of his hair gripped tight in her hands as she rides it out. His groans fill the air as he laps up each and every gush of arousal. She hauls him up to share another heated kiss, almost relishing in the taste of herself on his tongue.

Marcus breaks away first, pupils blown wide, with a small shiver running up his entire body. He knows going further is risky, and he knows, just like everything else about this moment, it’s driven entirely by raw connection and want. The feeling of finally having someone to pour himself into far too overwhelming to ignore, and there’s never been anything in his life that felt more right than everything in this moment.

“I don’t usual– I just– Can I….?” He trails off with a glance down at his thick length, bobbing heavily with every movement and demanding attention.

Bodie branches her legs out wider to make room for him – for the place he wishes to be buried in. “Please.”

He wastes no time notching himself at her entrance and slowly feeding his cock inch by inch until he’s fully seated inside. They groan in unison at the assimilation of their bodies merging into one synchronous entity. He’s rambling now, unable to stop the torrent of declarations and hopes and craving. Admitting to having already imagined pinning her down just like he is right now, legs pressed against her chest so he can drive deeper. Not hiding the multitudes of ways he wants to profess and display his affection for her.

Bodie responds in kind. Each kiss of his cockhead against the mouth of her womb punctuated with a rush of oaths and calls to freefall into one another. She clings to him like he holds her next breath. They sway and pitch in turn with heavy breaths and wanton cries of bliss released to the sky. Her lids are heavy with exertion when he brings her upright and back flush against his chest, both of their knees digging into the ground.

“I wanna fuck you slow,” he pants, gently rocking his hips against the swell of her ass. “Wanna feel this forever. Want to take my time with you.”

She grinds back onto him, meeting stroke for stroke, and hums contentedly. “You feel so good. Feels so good.”

“Yeah? You like when I make you feel good? You gonna let me make you feel good?”

“You always make me feel good,” she breathes.

He groans and rolls his hips faster, harder. She turns her head to kiss him, latching a hand onto his neck to hold him there. The momentum of his thrusts hastens and sends her to her hands and knees, and Marcus drapes himself across the plane of her back with an arm winding tight around her chest as he drives deeper. All the noises he imagined are nothing compared to the real thing. He can feel her getting closer, and he goads her on.

“There you go–there you go–yeah–let me have it–let me have it, baby.”

He sinks his teeth into the rounded skin on her shoulder and bares down as she moans and clenches around him. Her soft flesh pillows around his bite as the kick of his cock pulses against her walls. She cries out from the sting of his marking but leans into it all the same. Their bodies slump to the ground, still connected at the crux of her thighs, but it’s still not close enough for him.

They lay together in quiet content as their highs level off. He presses the wet of his lips to each little indentation he left, and he hopes they’ll be gone by morning. The guilt of having marked her so deeply – and the guilt of how much that turns him on – occupy his thoughts as he pays his penitence with each kiss. She interrupts his amends and turns to face him, a playful smirk emerging when he hisses at the last drag of her satiny clutches.

His half-lidded, nebulous expression is mirrored, and she can’t stop herself from seeking intimacy again by way of a kiss, which he readily returns. He cradles her to the sinuous line of his body, and it’s as though she was always meant to fit there. The night sky looks down on them as they struggle to not let sleep take them right then and there.

“We should really head back,” Bodie reluctantly points out.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Marcus agrees.

The task of dressing is much more appealing with one another’s help, and they do so until each is as put together as before they came up the hill. They walk hand in hand back toward the main buildings with easy, lulling conversation to pass the time. Marcus smiles ear to ear when Bodie asks a staff member to move his things to her room.

“Wow, moving in together already?” he jokes.

“I feel like it just makes things easier since we’re going to be planning the rest of our lives, you know?” she lobs back with a cheeky grin. “Logistics and all that.”

“So I guess tomorrow is the start of my new life, huh?” he half-teases, but the undercurrent of nerves still comes through.

“I think you knowing about it is new, but I’m pretty sure it was waiting here for you all along.”

And in that moment he wanted to tell her all the ways he adored her. Confess all the varieties of hope she instilled in him. Scream from the rooftops how much he loved her.

But there was no need to rush. Those things could wait, now that he had forever to say them.

This fic was my contribution to @perotovar's Frith Challenge where I received Marcus Pike x Idun. I don't even know where to start with how wild of a journey this fic was to write, and honestly idek if y'all would believe me if I told you lmao.

As always, thank you for reading and sharing!

catch ya later, ♥Puddles♥

[shakespearerants]

Started watching It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, currently somewhere in the middle of season 3. Here's my comprehensive list of things I think would fix the gang:

- Charlie: Going to live on a ranch in the middle of nowhere as a ranch hand/cowboy -> He loves horses and he needs an environment where Charlie Work™ is actually valued. Also I'm choosing to headcanon his substance abuse problem as self medication to cope with sensory issues thus the middle of nowhere. Also tell me that boy wouldn't be the pride and joy of every ranch owner. Does every gross shit without complaint, is able to immediately grasp what needs doing and does it independently, will work all hours of the week, and has a knack for animals, handy with machines. He even likes country music. They would never let him go.

- Mac: Toxic gay friend circle. Also going to church more often -> he needs people who accept him for the bitchy queen he is (toxic gay friends) but also I think he needs to fix his daddy issues and projecting on God/an older priest who will actually tell him good job for once is the way to go. Also being accepted into a group of bitchy judgemental Church Elders™ would fix him. Tell me that wouldn't be that boys natural environment I dare you.

- Frank: Become the director/producer of a failing amateur theatre company -> he has the money to keep them going and actors would actually voluntarily participate in his convoluted shenanigans. Also I just KNOW he would put on absolutely bat shit out there productions. I'm talking Much Ado About Nothing fully naked in a junkyard and everyone dies at the end. I want to see that.

- Dennis: Therapy - Ayahuasca retreat - become a minor celebrity/cult leader in that order -> He is deeply fucked up and needs validation (therapy) but I don't think it would actually sink in without some kind of Experience™ (thus the Ayahuasca, though I think shrooms would work too). But I don't think his need to be The Best And Prettiest Boy In The World is something that can be therapized away, thus he needs to become some kind beloved public figure. Hopefully with the therapy and shit he won't let it go to his head so much he ruins it again. Also that boy needs a pair of absurdly expensive Persian cats.

- Dee: Join a weird women only cult then leave said cult with a group of like five other women and form a lifelong friend group bordering on qpr/polyamory. Also never ever ever contact the rest of the gang ever ever again -> this woman NEEDS close female friends she NEEDS them. Also she needs to speed run emotional intimacy. And cut off the rest of the gang. Thus the cult. And then she needs to leave the cult but keep her support system. And that support system needs to tell her she's the best and prettiest and goodest girl ever every evening while tucking her into bed.

[potsiefaerie]

[narrator voice:] This week, our nerd got Therapized pretty hard - more below!

So. I went into it this week feeling pretty great and having a short list of things to talk about, all of which were pretty much wins/things I handled well.

I brushed my teeth this morning and looked at myself in the mirror and thought, maybe we could keep just going every two weeks, I don't feel like I have much to really talk about, and she's heard most of my backstory at this point.

Well, Dear Readers. It turns out I still had Backstory.

I did talk about one of the wins (connecting better with my husband after managing Not to talk about Things To Do or Parenting or Poly Stuff for our entire anniversary weekend), and then the second one was a positive note about connecting better with my mom, which turned into discussing how that relationship has evolved and grown, which turned into how I've evolved and grown, which touched on my history of suicide attempts which apparently I had only mentioned in passing, and this time she asked for more details. And that's where we spent the second half, basically.

But also she like... had me focus on how I survived? What it was that made me self abort several suicide attempts?

And honestly it wasn't so much that I wanted to die, it's that I couldn't handle where I was and couldn't see a way forward and I was so far past my ability to cope that death seemed like the only answer.

But I never really lost sight of things I did like, things I wanted to do in the short to medium term (the long term was a little unreal to me back then, but on my best days I did think about careers etc, how to make a difference).

And she pointed out to me something I hadn't thought about really: the way I talk about it, and what I did back then, makes it obvious that I knew I needed help, I recognized that. I didn't always know how to ask for it (or try to ask for it again after I wasn't allowed therapy the first time I asked), but I did make connections with some people who could help with some of it, and I could figure out who was safe to get guidance from. I've felt for a long time that I was terrible at asking for help, but I never considered that recognizing I needed it was actually a strength. And even when I didn't talk about the Big problems at home to teachers etc (who I knew were mandated reporters), talking to them about smaller problems wasn't nothing, it was me getting a little bit off my plate because even just a little bit helps. Asking for small kinds of help wasn't stupid, it was resiliency.

And anyway, I'm still here. I survived that.

[shallowseeker]

TFW parenting, and pep-talking Jack:

Hey, Sammy DOES come into the domain of Jack's bedroom to act as Jack's father! It's in 14x01, when Dean is missing. :-) (TBF, He does this in 13x03 Patience too but that wasn’t well-received/was perceived by Jack as glib and fake.)

Anyway! This whole episode, Jack is pretty successfully being raised by The Village of Hunters. Everyone steps in: AU Bobby, Mary, Sam, Cas. (Of note, Jack doesn't feel better, really, until he talks to Cas.)

///

In this episode, Jack laments the loss of his powers.

In the Sam scene, Sam tries his best to sit with and comfort Jack, and he mostly does okay with that. Interestingly, Sam emphasizes "moving past it," because that's a Sam way of coping. Dissociate and get back to work.

This is a sharp contrast to when Dean comforted Jack about his nightmares in 13x23, which was to tell him, "It's not about being strong," and emphasize taking care of Jack.

Sam in 14x01:

SAM: I talked to Bobby. He says you may have had a rough day today. JACK (sullen, closed off): It was fine. Sam tries some more. SAM: I know it's a lot, I'm sure, but you can get past this. I know you will. I have faith in you, Jack, and I believe in you. (Mary enters; Jack still looks sullen and upset.)

It's a nice attempt, especially for Sam, who comes by connection in a more practiced, careful, "therapizing" manner. The conversation gets interrupted by Nick Vaught waking up. Nevertheless, even before the interruption, Sam's attempt gives off a stilted feeling, like Sam is reading from a self-help seminar.

He says, "You'll get past this," and "I believe in you." Somehow, it doesn't feel like he's coming down to Jack's level and getting real with him, as Dean and later Cas will do.

///

At the end of the episode, Cas comes into Jack's room, with his own face beaten to a pulp. Cas hasn't healed himself. He's letting Jack see his own weakness here. That it's okay to screw up. They all screw up all the time.

He asks how Jack is, and Jack sullenly mutters (again) that he's fine. Then, Cas tells Jack that he did well, and Jack explodes in a flurry of emotion, easily opening up to Cas: (we’ll see that he is more willing to hurl his genuine emotions at Cas, Mary, Dean…)

JACK: All I did was get punched...in the face! CAS (wryly): To be fair, we all got punched in the face. JACK: That's not--Before, when I had my powers, I-I could've done something. CAS (frankly): Jack, you don't-- you don't have your powers. And you- your grace should regenerate in time. But until then-- JACK: I'm useless. I can't kill demons, I can't find Dean, and Michael is in our world and I can't stop him. I can't do anything. I don't have...anything. CAS: Oh, Jack. That's just not true. You've got me. You have all of us. (touches shoulder) You have...your family. (then, passionately) And we are going to find Dean, and we are going to beat Michael, and we're going to do it together! Because that's what we do.

Cas's message seems to get through to Jack a little better here, though Jack is still uncertain and scared. Cas, like Dean, keeps it real with Jack (just like they keep it real with Claire). It doesn't sound so...canned. (Sorry, Sam. Ilu. You try so hard.)

Cas talks frankly: "Yes, you've lost your powers." He also, like Dean, emphasizes familial support and delivers a message of hope and unshakeable confidence.

///

Lastly, Jack is in his "Rocky Balboa" era. It's so adorable. I just wanted to point out his lil jogger outfit and make you imagine him training to "Gonna Fly Now." You're welcome.

No, literally. This is Jack is 14x01, except he's (somewhat hilariously) getting the crap kicked out of him:

[lgcmisha]

hi! i'm nyeo (18+ / sh/th) and i'm very, very happy to be introducing you all to the semi-honorable, idol-actress-personality in-the-making: hong misha. she's outspoken, bratty, and ever-so-slightly catty, but above all, she's a businesswoman who knows how to play to her strengths and (usually) get exactly what she wants. small, but mighty, etc. etc. she's a bit of an enigma, but an interesting case study in self-sabotage, for sure. in lieu of writing a super long intro, i'm gonna link her expanded character outline here and save you the super long read with her gen outline under the cut. :3 uhhh, other than that, d-scord is available upon request and if you'd like to plot, give me a like so i can come to you! i look forward to writing with everyone!!! 💖💘💝

hong misha (紅米沙, 홍미샤) was born august 13, 2001 in nanping, china. her blood type is O+, her MBTI is ENTJ and she thinks that both of those things don’t really mean anything. she’s bisexual and single. her favorite color is light yellow or dusty rose, her favorite kind of candy is gummies, and she listens to all kinds of music, but has a particular affinity toward pop and rnb. her primary goal is to become an idol-actress, but she’s open to various avenues. her primary strengths lie in acting and vocals, but she shows great promise in variety and songwriting, too. she plays the guzheng and speaks chinese, korean, and japanese with varying degrees of fluency, but only slightly conversational english. her style is cute, feminine and eclectic, and she considers herself a maximalist. her concept is versatile, but she excels at cute, quirky, and story-driven concepts. when she's not training, she works as a freelance nail artist and a waitress.

positives quick-witted, methodical, independent, adorable, self-confident, loyal, ambitious neutrals coquettish, artful, savvy, fanatical, opinionated, superstitious negatives short-tempered, repressed, spiteful, skeptical, impenitent, competitive, melodramatic

debrief

while outsiders will describe her as deceptively innocent, incredibly cute and endearingly poised, those close to her might tell the tale of someone that you never fully know. she’s yet to truly master the art of emotional intimacy and truly growing closer to her tends to involve a lot of push and pull. she’s not really interested in people that aren’t interested in her and all of her oddities. no flower blooms without a struggle, no?

creatively minded, she enjoys music a lot more as an idol-will-be than she ever did as a child who grew up around the sordid, punkish types who played in smoky bars (and forgot to pick her up from her lessons,) and more and more is honing her skill set to make herself feel more deserving of the praise she gets as both a personality and a vocal. she’s vibrant in her element and has gained a reputation for being a hardworker, maintaining the “fighting!” spirit and zeal of a fresher faced trainee well into her growing seniority. she’s clear and playful, well-mannered and well-spoken, and a (mostly, sometimes, if the sky is clear and she slept eight hours the night before) good sport when it comes to the innate competition that comes as a side effect to being a trainee among many others.

home life

she was raised primarily by her grandparents, but started living with her aunt in seoul in 2015, after her mother remarried following a short trial period of misha living with her again full-time in an attempt to repair their historically tumultuous relationship. nobody wants to say the quiet part out loud, but it was clearly a fresh start for her mother, who’d gotten married and had her very young. she visits when time allows, but now that her mom is pregnant again, she can only imagine how often that’ll be. anyway, moving to seoul was a new beginning and, as it stands, her only connection back home to nanping is her grandparents and her ever-therapized dad. she was formally adopted by her aunt in 2018.

fun facts

she has a habit of intergrating chinese or english phrases or exclamations into her daily speech (ex. saying something is cute or delicious in either eng or chn, saying “oh my god,”/“wow” etc.)

she was born a month early and her grandparents affectionately call her “speedracer” because they could tell early on that her eagerness to get here would be indicative of her desire to succeed.

her grandparents own a bakery and her aunt, who she lived with up until her signing with legacy entertainment, makes specialty marshmallows in a cafe. misha sometimes goes in to help when time allows, but has more or less accepted that it’s not really her calling.

misha enjoys collecting stuffed animals but has recently had to donate more than half of the ones she brought with her to the dorms because they were taking up a ridiculous amount of space. that combined with her shopping habit was practically a recipe for disaster. she still buys them, obviously, but she’s restricting herself to small, soft, cute ones that she could stuff in a suitcase, if necessary.

die-hard 2nd gen kpop fan

she was a reptile kid growing up, so she has a lot of useless knowledge about lizards and snakes stored in her pretty little head.

more than likely dresses like a combination of harper finkle and london tipton and one of those maximalist fashion girlies on tiktok

“she’s incredibly sexy, but she has to do something goofy every five seconds or she’ll die.”

[colorcodedbeanies]

S2 E5-"Breakage

Sorry about the long posting gaps, new job+sick+RDR2+L+ratio etc. Favorite line from this episode is "why don't you stop being such a freak about everything" I think I should be paid to say that to Walt once an hour.

TW: Racism, police brutality, addiction, alcoholism

So I've always been really unsure what to make of the cold opening of the two illegal immigrants crossing the Rio Grande. With the analytic frameworks I've applied until this point I think I'm choosing to understand it as complicating the idea that violence is sneaking up into the US across the Mexican border. Two scared, shivering men cross the river, and on the other end find an artifact of state-sanctioned violence. It never had to be imported from "lawless Mexican hell", as Marie describes it. We grow it just fine right here.

The cigarettes Walt finds jammed in the toilet act in visual parallel to Jesse's meth that he tried to flush down the toilet last season. The scene where he confronts Skyler about them is chockful of hypocrisy. Smoking while pregnant is bad for the baby's health. So is being a meth dealer trading with people who will shoot your whole family. Beyond that, though, there's one line from Skyler that stands out to me: "I'm sure you'll be very glad to hear that yes, I feel ashamed." She's accurately calling out what Walt's actual priority is. It's not determining the health of their child, or trying to help her so she doesn't feel the need to seek out a narcotic to cope. It's punishing her for needing an escape in the first place. Exactly the attitude he spends all of last season directing at Jesse.

Speaking of more socially acceptable addictions. I have never once seen anyone draw a connection between the fact that Walt cooks meth and Hank brews beer. Both manufacture substances that have heavy ties with addiction, and that can destroy lives. Both seem to seek out the crafting process as an escape from their day to day stress (Hank taking a day off to try and self-therapize with it). Only difference is Hank operates under the banner of legality, something the two of them talk about indirectly in 1x07.

We're getting in this episode to how Walt tends to mythologize the brown men around him into figures of ultimate violence, but also ultimate power. His disdain for Tuco is pretty explicitly racialized when he disparagingly asks Jesse if "you['re] gonna beat your 'homies' to death when they 'diss' you?" However, later in this episode he criticizes Jesse for not being ENOUGH like Tuco. "You think Tuco had 'breakage'? I guess that's true. He broke bones." This is of course, factually inaccurate. Beyond what we see in BCS that establishes Tuco had some clear problems in his organization that went way beyond some product theft, it's also just actually impossible to run any kind of business without experiencing any kind of skimming. Like Jesse says, J.C. Penney's gets breakage. How much more so when you're dealing with a substance that inherently manufactures dependence? None of those realities matter to Walt, though, who is chasing after his idea of what a kingpin is like. Tuco doesn't live on in his memories as a unstable guy with an uncle he looks after and poor long-term planning. Instead, he's transformed into an unstoppable killing machine, brutal and (you should read the full racial implications into this word) savage, but also untouchable. The kind of man Walt secretly longs to be and is currently using Jesse as a proxy to try to achieve

This is further doubled down on when, after an argument with Skyler where Walt feels unmanned by his inability to control his wife's behavior, he goes right to Jesse's house and demands he take care of business. Its him trying to imitate Tuco again, though this time not by his own hands.

Jesse is also doing some imitation here. It's not Tuco he acts like at the meeting though. It's Walt.

Hank can't glorify the Tuco fight with his usual bravado. He can, however, provide unique insight into a cop's view of a criminal when he describes them as functionally subhuman. Cockroaches. Your first instinct is to step on them. Drug dealers, addicts, gangsters, Mexicans they aren't people like you and me. If you saw one, you would immediately know you had to crush it to preserve yourself. This is going to get sooooo beautifully subverted next episode.

The Skyler-Marie conflict continues to act in parallel to the Skyler-Walt conflict, with Skyler refusing to proceed until Marie does her the basic service of respecting her with the truth. Marie tantrums like Walt does, asking "why are you punishing me" and seemingly frustrated that the consequences can't just evaporate because she doesn't want to deal with them. At the end of the day though. The distinction is that Marie loves her sister more than her pride. Walt...remains to be seen.

[inkisadream]

some things I would therapize with a therapist, were that a viable option right now:

-loving Ben and being rejected by him, on top of coming to terms with my asexuality as something that colors how I love people, has made me so deeply afraid of caring for others

-this has also played into my longstanding issues with self-worth, which go back to adolescence and probably childhood if I'm being honest. recently I remembered that I had such trouble making friends in elementary school and feeling like there was something wrong with me that I abandoned trying to play on the playground at recess and instead sat in a little memorial garden and talked to one of the plants. I felt really at peace there and it feels like a lovely memory but it's also kind of sad. anyway a teacher ended up telling me I couldn't sit there, so I talked to the trees on the edge of the soccer field instead. once I was old enough to join orchestra and band, which met during recess, I did, and though I genuinely loved those things I also loved that they were a solution to the 20 minutes every day where I felt so, so alone.

-I made myself a promise that I would write every day and I am trying, I am, but so far I am not succeeding. I can say that part of this is down to all of the grading I have to do, and that is true, and also I think it's because writing is something I do only for myself and somewhere along the line I imposed a strict rationing of how many deeply kind things I was allowed to partake in. I feel similarly when I think about working out and dance and other things I love that are only for me.

-and I wonder how much of this has been shaped by grad school, caused by grad school, uprooting a very good life and feeling like I destroyed it completely, only to now be destroying it again and asking myself constantly whether I've gained anything from that experience.

-I have been binging Lucifer which is an excellent little show. one theme as the show goes on is the main character realizing how deeply he suffers from self-hatred. he has good people around him who help him overcome that and I resonate so deeply with him. I have conveyed this same feeling in different ways to a past therapist and I'm grateful to her for really trying to understand, but I think I dismayed her. I was telling her a very profound truth, probably the core of my own truth, and I'm not sure she fully believed me.

-I am having to think through what I want career-wise and living location-wise and all of that right now and that's all okay, but amongst all of that what I am learning is that my deepest desire is not to be alone, and that's the one problem that I have no idea how to solve and that I'm not sure I deserve to solve either.

[jokeboy]

babbling to the void

It's been almost two years since one of the shitter times in my life and I've gone through the therapizing, the medications, the breathing exercises, etc, but I cannot for the life of me find peace with it. It's been years. I haven't been able to talk to people since. I can't make friends. I'm paranoid. And I bring these things up during therapy time but I don't get anywhere with it. Early on in the healing process, I told myself I wouldn't dawdle on the silly stuff like anger or self-pity or anything like that but now I'm in the late stages where my grief has morphed into the seven-headed beast that slithers into my dreams and reminds me that I will never be able to trust people again.

Slightly off topic but after my friend died in 2017 I used to have dreams about her (this only stopped within the last year or so) where I would find her on the street, or at school, or she'd post something new on Instagram or something.. I'd wake up thinking she was still alive and then I'd relive her death all over again. This was multiple times a week. They weren't nightmares but they hurt me all the same. Anyway I finally stopped having those dreams after her brother died, and now that I don't dream about her anymore it feels like she died again. This isn't really important to the above stuff but it ties into why I can't heal from the above in some way, but I haven't quite figured it out yet.

I started having dreams about that situation too, and in the dreams of course everything is solved with a hug and an "I love you stop doing this to me we loved each other just remember already". These used to come to me every night, and slowly they've come to a close, but maybe once every other week or so I'll dwell on a memory for too long and it'll come to visit me when I fall asleep. Always painful. Always makes me want to die.

So mid 2021 I started smoking a LOT of weed LOL and that took the edge off of this. It still does. It kills my dreams too. It starts getting loud in my head and it's like yeah I just need to get high so I can forget about all of this. But after a year of smoking constantly to forget now I... can't really remember anything at all. My memory of the past 2 years is hazy. It wasn't even a bad two years. I just can't remember any of it. I feel like a shell of myself and I know that's just what continual heavy drug use does but if I don't do the drugs then I have to think and if I have to think then all I'm going to think about is abandonment, betrayal, heartbreak and killing myself. Like come on man. I'm 24. This should be over by now

I'm too old, too kind, too sweet, and too loveable to feel like this anymore. It's not kind to ezra to think about hurting myself. But I do. And ezra loves it, I love it, we love it together, we fantasize about going on the journey together, but I also made a promise early into this that I wouldn't hurt myself over this. Kinda failed that one. Drug use isn't not self harm. i don't know. heavy and loud and sad and empty inside of me sometimes.

Wish I knew if learning to hate these people would fix me. But the only person I've ever truly hated is my mother and after she died and I began to piece together that I never held anything for her besides contempt, it's made it harder to hate others. I can't hate anyone like I hated her. I can't even get close. I don't hate the people that abused me. I don't even hate my dad. Just her. Wish I could hate more so I could feel less.

So many people have tried to befriend me since this too and I've failed every single one of them. Every time I don't respond to a DM I feel so fucking guilty it could swallow me. It's just so hard to approach people now. I'm all twisted up and weird. Overall very happy though. just still drowning. lonely. everyone I loved died and then the rest of them turned on me over shit that was out of my control. It's 2 years later. I do have new people in my life. people that treat me right. and I do love them. why is that not enough? what's missing? what's wrong with me

[seidigardensystem]

I Am Not Too Much

Dear Therapists,

Here we are yet again, sitting on your couch, with our legs curled up underneath ourselves. You're sitting in your comfy La-Z-Boy chair with your pen poised over your clipboard and we’re staring off into space, refusing to speak to you. What ever made you want to join this profession? Why did you choose to be here, on that side of the coffee table?

You’re our sixth therapist now. The first one, nice as she was, had no idea what was happening with us. The second just got frustrated and threw words out at us like borderline, histrionic, and manipulative. The third terminated after a handful of sessions with little explanation. The fourth only gave us one session. The fifth was nice, but canceled a lot and sometimes forgot to show at the appointed time.

We figured out what was going on all by ourselves while we were tossed about like the hot potato no one wanted to get stuck with. So here we are with you and now we’re terrified you will also have some excuse or reason to not see us anymore too. It was bad enough to have experienced abandonment as a child, but to experience with the very profession that professes to heal trauma was far more traumatic than the childhood event.

I did not believe you, no matter how much reassurance you gave me. I could not allow myself that luxury of belief in order to prevent myself from feeling the pain of being abandoned once again, because surely it was just a matter of time before my neediness would push you beyond your limits. How long before you realized that I was too complex, too disordered, and too far gone to be helped? Yet, I had to try with you just one more time. I cannot keep living this way.

And you were true to your word. You answered every text, every email, and even the accidental phone call. You showed up for every appointment, every single time. Not once did you complain. Not once did you sound annoyed. Not once did you tell us we were too much. You explained your boundaries clearly. You explained your expectations clearly. Every trauma response was met with compassion. You squeezed me in for emergency sessions when I requested them. You took your vacations and did your self-care and had a plan for us to get through those times when you went away. And you always came back. You were true to your word. You saw me through the worst struggles I had and now you get to see me graduate with my Master’s and go on to do the same work.

Here I am now, looking around at others who are not so lucky to have someone like you. We are still denied care under the excuse that dissociative identity disorder is simply too advanced for me to treat. The signs and websites and social media accounts tout their trauma-informed ways and claim to treat all the things except for dissociative identity disorder. I am sorry, I cannot help you, DID is out of my scope. Our friends have been lied to, terminated, and turned away over and over again. They are often forced to drive hours in order to see a therapist willing to work with DID. I had to fly out of state to receive appropriate care. Not everyone is so fortunate to be able to do that. At the time, I knew of four residential trauma treatment centers that specialized in DID. Now there are three, because a new CEO took over where I had received care shortly after I left and he did not believe in DID. Seriously?

We are not fake, nor are we rare. We are everywhere and we need care and treatment. We need you to not be afraid of us. To be trauma-informed is to be dissociation-informed. Who else can we turn to if not a trauma therapist or a trauma treatment program? We might arrive with severe attachment wounds, struggle with unsafe behaviors, and a slew of trauma responses, but we are capable of healing. We are capable of learning how to develop a secure attachment. We are capable of turning our distress of dissociation into a superpower to navigate the world. We are successful teachers, lawyers, financial advisors, and therapists ourselves! Include us in your care and treatment.

When a client sits across from me and asks me why I became a therapist, it is because of you. It is because you showed up for me when no one else would. You were a rock in my storm. Our field needs more dissociation-informed rocks. Get the training. Teach others. Stretch and grow beyond your comfort zone. You are desperately needed because we truly want to heal. We are not too much. I am not too much. You are not too much. We hope you get the joy of joining us for our healing journey.

Sincerely,

Your client