#tagging with “disability” because my disability is the reason i'm broke

[this-is-ali]

Born to leave $1,000 tips, pay for strangers' meals, and spoil my friends financially.

Forced to rely on help from others to afford basic human needs like food and toilet paper.

[kittybobitty]

Ranking the Danmei I Read this Year

I got into Danmei this February, and wanted to do a top 5, but then realized I'd only read 5 this year lol, so instead I'm going to rank them from least favorite to most. So without further ado:

5. The Disabled Tyrant's Beloved Pet Fish

I picked this one up just because it sounded so ridiculous and funny, and never expected it to be so sweet! It's pure fluff and love. I've only ranked it low because it's just very low stakes compared to the rest of the series on the list. It's a great read in between much higher stakes series that constantly feel like they're ripping my heart out. I love Li Yu's character and how in love with him Prince Jing is. I'm looking forward tk getting the final volume next year!

4. Heaven Official's Blessing

We all know it and love it for a reason. I was absolutely enamored by hualian's love story. I love the lack of relationship drama because they trust eachother so completely, and I think it has one of the best confession scenes of any media ever. However, I did rank it lower because I didn't find the ending completely fulfilling. I know MXTX is doing an amended version and I'm anxious about her removing some characters but I am curious to see if I find the ending any better.

3. The Scum Villain's Self Saving System

It made me laugh so much, and then volume 3 broke my heart. I really love how related Shen Yuan is. It is MXTX's first series and it does feel like it is her first in a lot of ways, but this series has so much heart. I honestly would love to see more of the world explored, because I think it's so vast and interesting.

2. The Husky and His White Cat Shizun

I LOVE this series. I love our himbo protag living in the regret of his previous life, I love how much of a hopeless romantic CWN is behind his cold exterior and damn, it's good spice. I am spoiler free and have not even read volume 7 yet (it arrives tomorrow!) But it's definitely the longest series I've read, I belive it will have 11 volumes in total. I'm really looking forward to seeing how it turns out, but until then, I will keep all the related tags blocked haha

1. The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation

Anyone who follows my blog probably wouldn't be surprised by this. The series with too many titles, MDZS, was my first danmei and still sits atop as my favorite. I see a lot of myself in Wei Ying. His story breaks my heart, but his love story with Lan Wanji heals me. I love their dynamic, their relationship to the juniors, and their devotion to each other. I was to keep experiencing this series in new ways; I already am collecting the webcomic, I've started watching the donghua (and I'd like to buy it) and I will eventually watch The Untamed. Theres also the new stage play happening soon (no idea how I'll see that) and me hoping and praying for someone to pick up the manga for publication in the west. I love Wangxian so much!

And that's all I've read thus far. I know it's kinda basic as far as danmei go, but everyone has to start somewhere! I would love recommendations for what to read next. I do prefer the cultivation storyline, but I'm also open to Palace Dramas. I'm not particularly interested in Modern stories.

I'm likely to pick up Thousand Autumns soon, and I've heard Remnants of Filth is in the same universe as Erha, so I may also check it out. Feel free to leave other recommendations (please also note I'm currently only interested in series that have been published as books in the US, and not interested in reading fan-translations)

Happy new year everyone!

[lord-squiggletits]

I’d love to hear any comments/headcanons you have for pre-Tarn/pre-war Damus!

Those tags about him being touch starved due in part to his Outlier powers had me in my feels 😭😭 I loved that wonderful (and angsty) analysis on him.

Hmm I'm not sure I have that many but let's see if the ones I do have end up blossoming into a more robust list or not

Like most people, I headcanon Damus having an affinity for music long before becoming Tarn; I mean, his outlier power had literally nothing to do with sound at all to begin with (even once he started being able to do it at a distance), so it seems like for Tarn to have 'music lover' as one of his big traits, he would've picked it for a reason, no? Not all parts of Tarn (TM) have to be a complete pretense

Following that, because Damus' outlier broke all electrical devices/machines he touched, he became a singer because his own voice is something he can't break and that no one can take away from him. Maybe he would've tried non-electronic instruments, but he would've gravitated towards singing more than instrumental performance regardless

Also, depending on how you headcanon Cybertronian singing to work (do any of them "breathe"/push air like humans do or are their voices entirely synthesized? Is "breathing" a special mod or does it work as a function of ventilation/cooling), being empurata'd probably could've affected Damus' singing ability since he would no longer have a face/mouth to shape his sounds. Could still sing since he does have a voice box, but I imagine that, considering Damus wasn't able to touch anyone/anything anyways, losing his hands was way less hurtful to him than losing his face.

However, since his outlier ability would make him pretty much functionally disabled on Cybertron (literally everything and everyone is machines), Damus would've had a greater appreciation for physical mediums of art/function more than the average person, I think. In a society where pretty much everything is stored on datapads, computers, etc, Damus would've been a huge pen-and-paper, art canvas, stonecarving, etc kind of guy; a big appreciator of things that can survive without an electrical connection or any machine functioning. He's basically one of those people who, in human terms, would own a lot of antiquated stuff like record players, cassette decks, CDs, etc because his outlier forced him to adapt to (and then eventually enjoy the benefits/unique traits of) physical rather than digital mediums. I imagine this trait would make Damus odd among other hobbyists, since for both anatomical reasons (they're a mechanical species) and cultural reasons (history of mechanical superiority/anti-organic tendencies), most people would probably degrade physical media as less fast, efficient, flexible, etc compared to digital. Which does kind of make it ironic that Damus later became a Decepticon, but I suppose non-electrical/mechanical doesn't necessarily equate to being organic.

On account of not gaining control of his outlier until his outlaw days with Orion and co., I imagine Damus' job opportunities would've been very limited and he would've mostly had a very poor/limiting lifestyle (which also inclined him to be more interested in Megatron's writings and eventually becoming a Decepticon). Creativity isn't running well at the moment, but probably something like waste management (like being a garbage man) or some sort of manual hauling job, although Damus appears to have just been a normal 4-wheeled car alt-mode so I'm not sure he could've/would've gotten hired for heavy manual labor stuff. Perhaps he could've been a courier like Bumblebee was pre-war?

That also begs the question of how Damus compensated for his disability. Maybe to handle electronics, he could do so as long as he wore really thick gloves or something? Probably he'd also take advantage of stuff like voice commands/text to speech on electronic devices, so I imagine Damus' life wasn't completely devoid of any technology whatsoever. Do you think he'd be able to cook food on a stove top as long as he used a pair of tongs to grab it? I bet Damus had to get really good at improvising disability aids and getting basic life functions done without touching things directly with his hands, so maybe he was a bit of a tinkerer back then as well. And now I'm imagining Damus' home being full of elaborate Rube Goldberg machines that do very basic things like turn the stove to a specific temperature and turn it off after a set interval of time klsdalfjkdls

[differentalpacafestival]

Life Fucking Sucks

Today's breakdown. I'm not sure if it's a meltdown as I still don't understand what a meltdown entails, but I cried. A lot.

It started yesterday when I got up. I'm not studying, and I'm unemployed due to my disabilities, one of which being autism.

So I didn't get up until noon, coinsidentally after my mom went to take a nap. She didn't get up until 4pm (which is a normal lenght nap for her, being almost 60 and disabled), and said her niece was talking about calling. She said it wasn't a guarantee, and she had to eat and properly wake up before doing anything anyway. I asked her if she wanted to go to an all-purpose store, I think it could compare to Target just smaller; Rusta. Then my cousin called, and they didn't hang up until around 7pm, about two hours before closing. Now, we live about half hour away from the closest store, and we like to just stroll and look at everything when in a store like Rusta since they have so many different things. So we decided that we would wait until today.

Que today. About an (two now, I'm just proof-reading) hour ago, actually. Me being my empathetic, autistic self, I've cared for a house fly that got stuck in glue these last two days, and today, she was gone. I don't know if she's dead, but she liked to roam around and hide, and after looking where I left her yesterday, she wasn't there. So this made me a little upset because she had so much personality, and due to the glue, she couldn't fly anymore. Her wings got folded and I couldn't fix them, which is why I cared for her in the first place. Anyhow, when I went to the bathroom, I saw my first pet fly whom I thought to be dead for like two weeks now, so I felt a little better seeing her still alive. You see, she, too, has an injury where her right wing looks to be broken at the joint - it sticks out instead of along her body. This makes her easily recognizable, plus she is also very affectionate (I don't know, nor care if this is even possible, but she was stuck to my hand for an entire day, even when I moved and ate.)

Then my mom asked if I could try to get ready to go by 4pm; half an hour. 3:45 we were ready, so my mom called to my brother (who also isn't studying and currently unemployed) that we were leaving. This POS decided he wanted to tag along. He is the typical stereotype of a gamer; Headset hair, up all night playing online, yelling into the microphone, and rarely gets out of his room. As if this wasn't enough, the two of them went to the store two days ago, so I had absolutely no reason to expect him joining. This wouldn't necessarily be an issue if we didn't have an insanely small car for a 6"3 dude and two overweight people - Hyundai i20 2012. I also need music at least one way (to or from,) to which my brother detests with his whole being as he is overstimulated by music. Now, you might think to yourself "Why don't you just wear a headset or earplugs?" - Because they overstimulate me. The only way for all of us to be comfortable, is if me and my brother isn't in the car at the same time. So when he said he was also coming, I broke. Well, actually, first I panicked, frantically looked for earplugs to no avail, then I broke. I went back out to grab my things from the car and told them I couldn't handle the entire drive without music so I was staying home. My mom followed me back inside and asked if I couldn't just use her earplugs - ew - and I explained to her that I just can't bring myself to. It's so hard to try to explain sensory overload and the need for a plan, even if I can't control everything, to someone who doesn't work the same way. The problem, I told her, is that I was prepared for just the two of us; I wanted it to be just the two of us. We have a very sarcastic relationship, calling each other bitch and whatnot, so when I back out all of a sudden - especially when the whole reason any of us were going in the first place, was because I wanted to - while crying, and being honest, she knows it's serious. So she suggested that we leave tomorrow instead, just the two of us, because she is expecting a package that needs to be picked up. With that, they left, and I sat here crying non stop for an hour before I figured it might help to write it down. Now every time I look at the clock in the living room, I cry knowing I couldv'e been at Rusta, or singing with my mom in the car to Queen.

I want to blame this on my brother since he knows I need music and still decided to join; but I know he also has autism, even though he's not diagnosed (I am, and our primary doctor suggested he might benefit from seeing a specialist too, but bro is too worried people will then treat him the way he has treated other autistics, so he refuses) and therefore also has his sensory needs. I have no idea, still, why he acted to impulsively.

I've stopped crying and calmed down, but I'm still not okay. This completely ruined my day, and I suspect the shit from earlier this year is also catching up and attacked when I was at my weakest.

My aunt died in May from years of treatment and chemo for cancer, was given her terminal date and beat that by another month or so

My dad's cousin's husband (whom I truly look at as my uncle) also got diagnosed recently with cancer and doctors say he'll be lucky to make it to the end of the year. He was in horrible shape for three months before a doctor took him seriously (he also hid his pain extremely well) and then discovered a cancer in his lymph nodes that had severely progressed and could no longer be safely operated on.

My best friend's house was put to foreclosure as both her parents fucking suck at financials, and her dad is literally over 5 million in debt and proceeded to fucking burn the letter sent to his wife warning about this (since she also pays for the house,) causing both of them to get sued for not paying, so my best friend had to loan a million to buy her own house back and is now the sole owner. Her sketchy ass boyfriend also proposed and they're engaged.

My cousin's son was visiting in Spain and got attacked by some scam artists when he refused to bite into their scheme. He has been in and out of the hospital since he got back home in April. Police in Spain, as far as I understood from my mother's rambling, did nothing about the scammers.

My other cousin was wanted for months for multiple crimes including growing weed, car theft, running from police and a possible accomplice to murder, and then fucking decided to move to Spain (thus causing his nephew to get attacked), and posponed selling his house to the tenants living there, talking to at least one other potential buyer who got his contact from his friends; our mutual cousin, and FINALLY deciding to sell to the tenants who had gotten a huge, risky loan just for that. I think that actually started last year, and he, just a month ago, agreed.

On top of all this, my own mental health has been really up and down all year with all this Israel-Gaza shit, and I still grieve from two losses in 2022. I think this was a long time coming, I just needed something to push me over the edge.

Thanks for coming to my TedTalks. Questions are always welcome, and I will see you all in the next episode o7

[dimonds456-art]

vent art below the cut, as well as an explanation for it. it's a mess on purpose. read the tags.

Starting off positive, here's how I draw myself now :) Style improvement! And my mustache hairs are growing in and one of them is over a centimeter long and it's my pride and joy.

okay now onto everything else. fucking help me. /ns

Gonna start with the butterfly imagery, since it's a reoccurring theme when I talk about my disabilities. The butterfly is because of my Graves Disease, which is a subgenre of hyperthyroidism. What's that? Uh basically there's a gland in your throat called the "thyroid" that's shaped like a butterfly, and it's responsible for your ENTIRE METABOLISM, and mine decided to do cocaine one day and never stopped. This results in increased heartrate, shaky hands, dizziness, and an eye disease where your eyes swell and can make you go blind if not treated.

(and no mine is not currently being treated so. :) )

I've had Graves since middle school, and I will for life. For reference of how bad it got before I got treated after 6 months of suffering, if I ran around outside for 5 minutes my heart rate could get up to 220 BPM. Which can kill you. Somehow I only ever saw stars once.

The next imagery I wanna point out is the layers on me. I show some things as brighter, and there's two layers like that- a bright one and a much dimmer one, which is why I kept this a sketch. The bright one is the surface-level disabilities, such as joint weakness, my eye disease, and my swollen thyroid. The dimmer one is my brain and skeleton. I have never actually broken my bones, but for some reason these days, joint weakness has me and they'll just fucking stop working sometimes for no goddamn reason.

The diamonds on my shirt is obviously a reference to my name, "Dimonds456." The design was actually made by my abuser, and so I actually am starting to have some second thoughts about using this particular design despite how much I love it, thus the shattered idea. Plus, diamonds don't break- they shatter. I'm about to shatter, too, so it's just like me fr.

After that, the text all around me. There are three layers. Let's talk about the black ones first. Those are all my disabilities. That's it. To make it easier to read, they're:

Autism

Anxiety

PTSD

Mental regression (probably because of all the other mental shit I'm dealing with)

Depression

ADHD

Weakness in joints

Inhaler as needed

Tires easily

Abuse

Graves Disease

On meds for life (methimazole literally keeps me alive)

Eye disease

Prone to falling

Eating disorder: ARFID ?????

Asthma

Audio processing disorder

Trauma

:,)

Then, the blue layer. The blue and red layers and kinda having a conversation with each other, with blue being my inner monologue and the red ones being still that, but more intrusive and hopeless. The blue thoughts range from "I can't do this" to "I want to," to "Wait, this is too much" to "STOP" to "THIS IS TOO MUCH" and various stuff like that.

The red texts are much, much more negative. "Running out of time." Never safe. I will never feel safe." "My own body wants me DEAD." "NEVER SAFE." "WHAT IS SAFETY?!" these are my intrusive thoughts, and... yeah. My anxiety and trauma already make me feel like I can never be safe in the spaces I'm in, so when I do actually feel safe with the people or location I'm in, my body's there to remind me that no, I'm not. Because I could literally just die at any goddamn moment.

Which brings me to the scythe. The Reaper. He's close. I'm running out of time. To do what? I don't know, live? Impact people? Fucking exist?

The clock shows that, too.

Finally, the dialogue bubbles. The straw that broke the camel's back in terms of me making this art. My recent doctor visit. I'm trans. I'm a demiboy who just wants to figure out what my fucking gender is. I know I want top surgery, but the dr says I HAVE to start HRT in order to get the surgery I want, which is enbyphobic. I've talked about it with other trans people, and we all agree what the dr told me was fucked.

The other bubbles are other things people have said to me. Particularly, I wanna talk about the "are you ACTUALLY disabled?" one because so so so so so many people have fucking asked me that and I want to scream. Like gee, I dunno, maybe it's all in my head. Maybe I'm normal. Maybe my graves disease was all a FUCKING DREAM. The eating disorder I'm getting now that not even the doctors are sure what the fuck it is wasn't real, I'm just a picky eater and I am just a fucking attention-seeking masochist. SURE. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH ME.

Shut the fuck up.

The butterfly is actively choking me. I'm loosing weight. I've felt more anxious recently than I ever have in my fucking life. I have a goddamn eating disorder where I physically CANNOT EAT. It sounds like ARFID but it's also not quite that, I'm in a weird grey area.

i'm 20 years old.

Ever since I got diagnosed with Graves in middle school, I've felt like my existence was defying something. Like I was supposed to die. I also had intense depression at the time, so that definitely added to it, but yeah. Then more happened. I had my first fall. I got put on the wrong dosage and nearly got killed. Struggled to breathe. My eyes tear up more often due to the disease, and I have an aversion to light I didn't have before. The eating disorder. Not to mention my bad knee, weakness in joints, pain in hips, ect.

It just keeps piling up. More, and more, and more, and more disabilities appear and try to catch me by surprise. I got deathly ill last winter. I quit college this year because of the trauma of being outside while on my wrong dosage from last summer. But this time, I'm fucking freezing when I'm anywhere except in the sun, which still makes me feel viscerally uncomfortable, because of whatever the fuck is happening with my eating disorder.

I'm so fucking tired. I don't know how much farther I can go. I'm running out of time. I can't handle another disability. I just can't. If I wind up getting appendicitis or something I'm running back home to my parents and staying there because at least they make me feel SAFE.

I'm not safe. I will never be safe inside this body. I will never feel safe because of my anxiety and trauma. I'm reaching a boiling point where it's starting to spill over onto those around me and I hate it. I am aware that this post is not helping that at all. But... I just don't wanna suffer in silence anymore. I'm tired. I want to be a good memory, but I fear my time is coming and I don't have much more "memory" to make.

I want to be wrong. Please, stars, let me be wrong. Let this all be in my head. Let this all be one big misunderstanding on my part. Please. Please let me wake up and realize that this was all a fucking nightmare.

I can't look at this screen anymore. My eyes hurt and my wrists are starting to give out.

[farfromstrange]

Foreigner's God | m.m

Previous chapter ° Series Masterlist

Chapter Forty-Three: She Knows

Summary: Life is good, life is normal. All pieces have fallen into place. A routine night of patrol leads Matt and Eliza into the arms of one of Hell's Kitchen's notorious gangs who seem to have stolen alien technology. Chaos ensues, revelations are made and things go a little... out of control.

Warnings: Angst, Smut (fingering, this is relatively tame), attempt at humor, Canon typical violence, Season 3 spoilers (heavy on that), Avengers 1 spoilers, Infinity War spoilers, use of mutant powers, blood, hurt/comfort, mentions of suicide (briefly), fluff, declarations of love

A/n: I have worked long and hard on this. I spent a good ten hours, if you put them all together, just writing this chapter. Another ten the day before to plan out the way I want to change some things about how I'm going to portray Season 2 in this story, and some of the plot points I have added with my Original Characters to make it possible to put them all together to make it make sense (and erase some of the plot holes). I have written-down and solid plans until chapter forty-seven, and from there on they're just ideas that haven't been written out yet. But I think I just built a storyline that is somehow canon yet not canon at all and it might just keep you at the edge of your seats throughout the journey. I hope so, at least.

The days in New York kept getting hotter. It was a different kind of heatwave. Even though Eliza evened out the firm’s bills, the AC broke right when they needed it most, and looking at their budget — the one she had meticulously calculated — she realized they couldn’t afford to call someone to fix it, so they were stuck with two ventilators that were barely working, and the iced drinks their clients served them with.

She still had a significant amount of money left. It was enough to buy a car, but in a city like New York, cars were overrated.

She put some money aside in case her and Matt’s living arrangement would somehow be at risk if he, once again, failed to pay his rent on time, or the electricity bill got more expensive. The monthly bill had already changed from plausible to other-worldly — having her live with him meant the lights were on when it got dark; they had never been on before, except for the rare occasions Foggy stayed over. Therefore, the electricity bill grew in size significantly compared to his usually tame living costs, thanks to the discount and his blindness.

Not only was the buzzing something Matt had to get used to but having someone with working eyes living with him meant she usually left a lot of stuff lying out, or she would move the jars on his spice rack a little to the left without noticing, and once he was the one cooking in the kitchen, he touched the shelf like a lost puppy until he found what he was looking for. And she continuously switched the places.

At first, he didn’t say anything, but it eventually got too much when he couldn’t find the salt. “Babe, that’s sugar,” he heard her say behind him.

“If you’d put the jars where they were, I wouldn’t have that problem—“ he broke off, grunting in search for the tag that read salt. He found it where the basil usually was. “There it is. Where did you put the basil?”

“Lower shelf, ‘cause I couldn’t reach it.” She sounded so innocent then, eating her yogurt and watching him through hooded eyes. Eyes of guilt. “I’m sorry if, I’d known–“

Matt sighed. “It’s not that, baby. I’m just so used to everything being in the same spot, I get confused when it isn’t there, and then I have to read all of the tags to find what I’m looking for,” he explained, and it slowly dawned on her.

“Did I just completely disregard your disability because I only kept thinking about your super senses?”

“You didn’t disregard it, you just– you’re being you,” he said, “and I love that you’re you but I usually take a little longer to adapt to change for, uh, obvious reasons.”

“Don’t defend me. I totally disregarded it,” she got up, “and I am so sorry I did. Tell me what you need me to change and I will. For you, I will. I’m going to learn how to adjust to you so you won’t have to adjust to me.”

He chuckled softly. She stepped up to him, her arms snaking around his neck and he kissed her. “That’s not how this is supposed to be,” he told her.

“Yes, it is.”

“It’s not. You live here too, so you get to make this place your home the same way I did. You don’t have to adjust everything because I’m blind.”

“I want to help you,” said Eliza.

“And you are,” Matt caressed her face again, “you’re helping by being here.”

“What else can I do though to make this easier for you?”

He frowned. Usually, people didn’t ask. He was so used to living alone in his apartment that he almost forgot he wasn’t anymore, and their relationship was a two-way street, as everything else in their lives.

His head twitched toward the spice rack. “Put everything where it used to be, that would be a start,” he said.

“Okay, I can do that.” She tried to break free to do as she was told, but he held her back.

He wasn’t done. With his hands on her hips, he made sure she looked into his eyes.

“Everything except for the things you use the most,” he said, “because I need to adjust to your needs to and if you can’t use the sugar because you can’t reach it, we’ll move it to the lower shelf.”

“With the same positioning?” she questioned.

“Please.”

After a couple of days, his spices stopped wandering and he sighed a breath of relief. She was willing to learn and she adapted, something only Foggy had done while they were in college, and even then their dorm lacked of some accessibility.

Eliza put in an effort to make life easier for him. She made sure everything was where he left it, and she stopped leafing her stuff lying out because the first time he almost tripped was enough for her to change her mind about being a little messy.

When it came to the electricity bill though, she wasn’t sure what to do. Matt assured her it was fine, but she considered learning how to walk in the dark when she saw the number at the bottom. He told her he would take care of it but the man could barely afford his own coffee mix, and because of her he stopped buying his disgusting German beer (she told him he didn’t have to, but when did Matt Murdock ever listen to her?), so he lost more of his freedom than he gained when she moved in. She felt guilty, to say the least.  

Thankfully, work days weren’t so boring anymore. Eliza gave up on trying to convince Matt to take paying clients. The number of people willing to pay for their services was, well… zero. Nonexistent. At least they got baked goods as a generous ‘thank you’, but cake didn’t pay the bills. It left them satisfied and with lunch for days, but food couldn’t cover the cost of living or the cost of running a law firm in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen.

“Thank you, Mrs. Ingram, we’ll take a look at those complaints and get back to you.” As an introvert, talking to strangers wasn’t an easy task, but she had a way with people that often amazed Matt. 

The middle-aged woman bowed slightly, thanking her again in a tongue he didn’t recognize. The door closed, he heard the sound loud and clear, and the office finally went quiet. With the air so thick, he could barely breathe, the heat causing sweat to break out on his forehead and soak through his dress shirt. He had already pushed up the sleeves past his forearms and it bunched around his bicep, the one protruding vein now more visible than ever. He wanted to tear his clothes off but not even that would have sufficed to get rid of the heat under his skin. 

Foggy stood at the door to his office, holding a water bottle to his sweaty face. “She speaks Arabic,” he said. “Matt, your girlfriend speaks Arabic. Why does she speak Arabic?”

“Because she’s smarter than you,” Eliza retorted. 

Matt chuckled. “Let me state for the record that she said it, not me.”

“No seriously,” he pushed himself off the doorframe, “how many languages have you spoken today?”

“Three,” Karen cut in. She peeked down at the files scattered on her desk. “Uh, we had an elderly Chinese lady, Mrs. Rodriguez who only speaks Portuguese, and then Mrs. Ingram who speaks Arabic.”

“Yes, that. What’s wrong with you?”

Meanwhile, she had wandered off into the kitchen, taking one of the few mugs they kept in the cupboard and pouring the now cold coffee into it. “I told you, it’s an intelligence thing, you wouldn’t understand.”

It was slowly starting to dawn outside, the sun setting behind the many high rises around them. She hoped it would cool down soon. Having ditched her shirt, she was left in a burgundy top with quite a suggestive cleavage that Matt noticed instantly when the first pair of eyes of a client flicked to her breasts and he only grew more possessive with every passing male client.

“I’ll have you know,” said Foggy, “That I’m actually the smartest out of my family! I mean, I went to law school. Call me the golden child.” A proud, dorky smile grew on his face that caused his dimples to stand out. 

She tried hard to hide her own smile behind a mocking smirk. “That’s kind of like being the tallest dwarf,” Eliza said. 

He lifted his finger, eyebrows crinkling in a state of offense, but he quickly shook his head and put his finger back then. “Actually, that- that’s true.”

Reaching into the Tupperware that stood on the counter, she took one of the Brownies. She sniffed; it smelled like sugar and cocoa. She couldn’t remember who brought them, though she suspected it to have been one of the elderly women that came to them with their small legal troubles. It was the cinnamon that gave it away. A feeling of Christmas in the middle of summer, and it cooled down her skin when she thought about the snow that would come in December if they were lucky, and ice skating at the rink around Rockefeller Tree. Christmas in New York was magical and she looked forward to the holiday every year. 

Although this year, her Christmas would look different from what it used to before; Clint wasn’t there to invite her to his family home anymore, and she wouldn’t be able to spend time with his children under the tree. Her life changed drastically, but she wasn’t alone. She had friends and she had Matt — it would be their first Christmas together. She was excited about that.

At the beginning of the year, she figured she would be lonely on Christmas, but even that had changed and now she couldn’t wait for the magical time of the year that gave her an excuse to buy him several gifts that he couldn’t turn down. But no gift could be better than the one he gave her by taking her back. 

It was still summer though and the temperature melted her skin into the ground. 

On a Sunday, Matt believed it was, he woke up to the scent of cinnamon in the air. He reached beside him, but the mattress next to him was cold. He frowned, listening more intently to the sounds coming from the kitchen. Through the fog of his sleepy senses, he could make out her heartbeat. He relaxed. A sigh slipped past his lips as he heaved himself out of bed.

“You’re baking,” he stated, standing in the doorframe to the living room. 

Eliza looked up from where she stood in the kitchen. “Good morning to you too,” she chirped. 

He pouted. “Why are you baking? Are you okay?”

“What? Oh. Oh, no,” it dawned on her, “this is not stress-baking. This is- well, I guess you can call it cheerful Sunday baking,” she said, “but I’m actually just doing it because Sister Maggie asked if I could help out with the summer fest the orphanage is doing today.”

“Thank God,” he murmured. 

Matt appeared behind her, his hands snaking around her waist. He buried his face in her shoulder. She smelled of the cinnamon she used and flour — some of it got stuck in her eyebrows from where she had rubbed her sweaty forehead before, and some flour even collected at the tip of her nose. He chuckled when he realized. “You’ve got a little something there,” he brushed his finger over her nose. 

She scrunched. “Didn’t notice.”

“I know. There’s some flour in your brows, too. Here,” he repeated the same motion over the soft hairs above her eyes, “All done.”

“Thanks.”

He once again wrapped his arms around her waist, continuing to breathe all of her in. She leaned back into him, one hand coming to rest in his hair while the other stirred the dough before her. Wandering lips trailed over her pulse point, leaving a wet trail behind. Eliza sighed, momentarily forgetting that she was supposed to be baking a whole batch of brownies for hungry and traumatized children. His hands squeezing her hips and his lips exploring what was bare of her shoulders distracted her from the task at hand completely, and she found herself slowly caving into his touch. 

“You know, you have to stop back-hugging me when I’m baking,” she said. “You’re distracting me. I might burn these brownies.”

Matt chuckled against her neck. “How,” his lips brushed her ear as he asked, “They’re not even in the oven yet.”

“Precisely. That’s where they should be.”

“Then why don’t you put them in?”

“Because you’re distracting me from finishing them.”

“Huh, that sucks ‘cause I don’t intend on stopping–” he slipped his hand past the waistband of her panties, “anytime soon.”

“Ohhh-kay.” She grabbed the edge of the counter tightly, her knuckles turning bright white. Her hips bucked into his hand while at the same time pushing against his pelvis from behind. 

His chuckle fanned across her cheek now before he turned her chin with his index finger and captured her lips in a bruising kiss. 

“That is absolutely not–“ he started drawing slow circles over her clit with as many fingers as he could, “distracting— Oh God!” He kicked her feet apart, his middle finger already halfway buried in her cunt. 

“Not distracting, huh?” he hummed into her ear. “Is that why you’re so fucking wet right now?”

Oh, how she hated him. She clenched around his finger at the gentle mockery, meeting the now rough palm of his hand as it bumped against the nerves that craved him the most. 

“That’s it… good girl.”

The orgasm washed over her with surprising intensity. It hadn’t even been a full five minutes until her walls fluttered and she was coming undone around his finger, and he soaked up every last whimper she let out, her head now resting back against his shoulder while he gently rubbed her clit to draw the orgasm out but not to overstimulate her. 

He gently pulled out. “Good morning,” Matt smirked proudly to himself. 

“Oh, good morning indeed.”

His lips chased her movements as she turned around in his arms, leaning up to press her lips to his. It was a silent ‘good morning’, the first display of love that wasn’t connected to anything sexual. In the background, the soft tune of a song filled the room with a light atmosphere. She felt like a feather floating through the air, the air that was often filled with pain and the thick scent of tears shed. Sometimes, it smelled like his blood, other times it smelled like hers, and on extremely bad days, they were both bleeding. Physically and mentally they were often bleeding in each other’s arms, their souls scarred from all the suffering, and their hearts often tired of beating, but now it beat for each other. The only reason they were alive lay in each other’s arms, and they promised to continue breathing for each other, even when one of them got tired and the other had to catch them. Their arms were wide open at the bottom of the cliff, always ready to carry what the other was too weak to hold up on their shoulders. 

The pair stepped into Saint Agnes orphanage sometime around noon when the brownies were finished baking and the sun was less strong in the way it burned down on the streets of Hell’s Kitchen.

Matt sniffed the air; it was hot, humid even, and thick with the sweat and different perfumes of the people passing by them as they walked toward the place he grew up in. Through the fog of the different sensations blurring together, he could make out a slightly tangy scent that lay thick and even a little sour in the air, but it was mostly salt and a cold breeze that brushed past his nose. It was going to rain soon, he was sure of that. The air shifted and it got a bit colder, offering some relief on their heated skin, but the temperature still felt inhuman. 

Maggie greeted them at the door, “Thank you so much for coming,” she engulfed Eliza in a tight hug, “And thank you for offering to bake.”

“I’m glad to help,” said Eliza, handing the Tupperware that held the brownies over to the nun. She looked different from the last time they met; she wore a black dress that was the usual attire for the sisters at the church and the black-and-white headscarf that covered her brown hair. 

“Oh,” she grabbed Matt’s bicep to push him further into Maggie’s line of sight, “This is Matthew, by the way. The, uh, boyfriend I was telling you about.”

Her brain seemed to short-circuit. She blinked, looking the man up and down, then back at her. Her mouth opened, but no sounds would come out. She tried again, fidgeting with her fingers as she tried to find words that would make sense, words that wouldn’t give her away. 

Eliza was curious. Something wasn’t right and her suspicions overshadowed the excitement she had felt before. She needed to know why the nun was acting like that, and she needed to know now. 

Matt smiled awkwardly and Maggie returned his expression. The smile is familiar. Why is it familiar? She wondered to herself. She was probably seeing ghosts and her hands were tingling for no reason. The rational center of her brain was screaming unnecessarily, her suspicions stemmed from a place of curiosity and there was no reason to worry. There was no reason to be on edge or determined to reveal a gigantic lie that probably wasn’t real anyway, she was just paranoid. After everything that happened, everything seemed to have a deeper meaning, a meaning that often turned out to be false. Maggie was a good person and so was Matt; he grew up in the orphanage, of course, he took some of what he learned and observed with him, and it manifested over the years. He was still a broken child at heart. 

Still fidgeting with her fingers, Maggie chuckled. “I remember you,” she said. “You, uh, changed a lot since you were last here.”

“Uh, yeah,” Matt exhaled, “I was a kid.”

She straightened her shoulders. “Well, I’m glad that you’re here.”

“Me too, sister, although it feels weird being back here,” he said. 

Maggie waved for them to follow her. He held onto Eliza’s arm on their way down the long corridor toward what he remembered to be the door to the garden behind the orphanage and the church. It was far away from the cemetery, but he had escaped once while all children were playing outside and visited his dad’s grave. He never told the nuns how he found his way there, he simply stated that he wanted to get out and then got lost. His abilities would have been hard to explain, only Stick understood what he was going through, but even he left him. They all eventually did. Being at his father’s grave had filled him with dread and it still did whenever he set foot into the church, knowing Jack was dead and he was alone. He didn’t even know his mother. 

“You grew up here, it’s always going to be weird to visit your childhood home. Not to speak of the perhaps bad memories you connect with this place. Even a religious boy like you gets to have his reservations about God,” Maggie led them through the backdoor, “But destiny works in funny ways, doesn’t it?” she said. “That your girlfriend and I met and now you’re here.”

“Are you sure you can call it destiny?” Matt questioned. 

“What else would you call it?”

“I don’t know, coincidence, maybe? I’ve been coming to this church for years, and have spoken to Father Lantom ever since I can remember, he’s taken my confession many times and I’ve seen Sunday Mass more times than I can count. That my girlfriend ran into you one night while she was desperate wouldn’t count as destiny, just a very surprising coincidence.”

She chuckled weakly, her eyes stuck on her face, and something resembling adoration flashed across her eyes. Her brows furrowed slightly, it was a look of worry now, one of guilt and regret, and she turned away again. 

“Coincidence,” she repeated, “Yes, that might just be it.”

“I’m a man of God, I believe in what God wants. Anything else seems far-fetched, don’t you think, sister? God gives us all a purpose, so you could call it destiny, but as God’s disciples there really is nothing else but the role he cast us in.”

“Doesn’t that mean there are no coincidences, either? And call me Maggie, please. I insist.”

He tilted his head. Her statement worked through his brain and he contemplated. “You have a point,” he said. 

“I’m glad you came.” Her voice cracked at the end. Matt played it off; voices crack sometimes. Eliza, however, wasn’t convinced that it was a random crack in her voice when the look she had on her face spoke more than opening a Bible and reading every last verse ever could. 

Maggie was an expressive person. Her emotions displayed in her eyes, and whenever she was upset, her lips tilted down in a pout. Her brown eyes had green tints in them, but they were a darker brown, perhaps chestnut, matching her hair perfectly. Naturally curly hair. 

Oh.

Oh.

Fuck. 

Eliza didn’t want to connect the trains of thought that clashed, drawing and setting up an invisible string between them. 

“Brownies,” she blurted, her heart racing in her chest, and there was no doubt in her mind Matt could tell that she was shocked at something that neither he nor she could see because it happened in her brain and slapped her across the face. “Where should I put the brownies?” she asked. 

“You don’t have to put them anywhere,” Maggie insisted, “I’ll take care of it.”

“I should take care of it though.”

“If that’s what you want–“ she handed the Tupperware back to her. “Put it on the table over there,” she told her. “With the rest of the food.”

Eliza peeked over at the mentioned table that stood aside from the commotion of children and nuns that played in the garden. Willing investors were standing around, ready to donate money to keep the orphanage up and working, and others were simply there for the free food. Mostly those who couldn’t afford it by themselves, but that was the point of the summer fest. It was meant to bring people together. 

She nodded, “I’ll be right back.”

The table offered her some space to breathe away from now deep conversations between Matt and… Maggie. It all made sense now and she hated the knowledge she put on herself. There was no solid proof, but her gut hardly ever betrayed her. 

“Eliza,” Father Lantom appeared behind her. He smiled when he saw her. “So nice of you to join us,” he said. 

Her fists clenched. “Did you know?” 

“Sorry?”

“Did you know?” she asked. Her eyes switched to the pair at the other end of the backyard. “Did you know that she’s his mother?”

She had been betrayed before, told that her parents were dead, and withheld information on the whereabouts of her biological father, so she knew how bad it could hurt to find out the truth. 

The priest stuttered. His eyes were wide and he looked over to where Matt was standing with Maggie, still talking. It seemed he didn’t hear any of what Eliza said because he simply wasn’t paying attention and his senses didn’t quite work that way. If he didn’t consciously fan them out and focused on something else, he would tune the rest of the world out, and then a statement such as the one Eliza made would go over his head. 

He leaned into her. “How?” he asked. 

“Answer my question,” she shot back through gritted teeth. 

She already knew that Father Lantom did know and that he didn’t say anything to Matt, not even once in the time he went to church, prayed, and asked for guidance. He had been lost to the point he tried to kill himself when he was merely a child and everyone lied to him. Maggie was there to raise him after his father died. She worked at the orphanage, took care of him, and she knew who the lost blind boy she was supposed to take care of was. She knew and she never said anything. 

“Yes,” Father Lantom lowered his head, “I knew.”

“Great. That’s just… fucking great!”

But then Eliza realized something else. If Matt found out the truth now, it would shatter him. It would shatter him to know the lengths his own mother was willing to go to so he wouldn’t find out who she was, and the man he confided in lied to him too. It would shatter him. It would absolutely destroy him the same way it destroyed her when she revealed the truth. 

“Listen, I can explain,” he said. 

What explanation could there be? It was the same thing she had to go through all those weeks ago. She searched for answers for years and found them in the lies her friends told her, the people she thought she could trust, the people who loved her the most, and who she trusted with her life. It was the same fucking situation. 

She shook her head. “He doesn’t deserve this,” her voice sounded low, “He doesn’t deserve any of this.”

The priest sighed in exasperation, pulling her further aside. “There’s a reason we kept the truth from him.”

“What reason could there possibly be to lie to him about his own mother? She’s right there.” Her glowing eyes resembled those of a snake, a venomous being born from fury. “She’s right there and he doesn’t know.”

Eliza remembered her telling her that she was a mother but didn’t have any children. She had done things she wasn’t proud of, committed sins she had to repent for, and found her way back from the dark void despair drove her into. Maggie used to lead support group meetings for lost children, for those who had nothing left and wanted to be better for whatever reason. She was a good person but she lied. She lied to Eliza and she lied to her own son, the man that she was now talking to as if they were long-lost friends, but she never once told him. They spent years together and she never found the guts to lay the truth out for him. 

She didn’t want to hate her, she was a good person after all, but it was hard not to get angry at her. And Father Lantom played a huge role in it as well. She trusted him with her secrets. She misjudged him. She thought he was a righteous man, but he was nothing but a liar. 

“He’s not supposed to find out, and you weren’t either, Eliza. This is a secret we’ve kept for decades—“

“That’s even worse!” she snapped. 

He pressed a finger to his lips, “Not so loud.”

“I’m gonna be as loud as I fucking want because I’m gonna tell him.”

“No,” the Father stopped her by grabbing her arm and he said, “Please, don’t.” Was he begging or telling her not to? 

“You can’t keep this from him,” she said, “it’s not fair.”

“I know, but there’s a reason Maggie hasn’t found him sooner, a reason we didn’t tell him. It was never my choice to make, it was hers, and I swore to protect her as well as make sure he was okay. If he finds out now…” he trailed off, looking at the chatting pair. “He’s gonna be devastated, you know that. You’re the closest person to him, you’re the only one who understands him. Tell me, would he be able to survive to hear the truth?”

She hated the answer. She hated that the truth was that no, he wouldn’t survive. She hated that she now knew something so crucial and she hated that Father Lantom was right. He would be devastated and he would suffer. He would question everything he ever believed to be true and he would drown. She could try to catch him, but he would fall faster than she could run to his rescue. All of this for what?

“The people in my life lied to me about my father too,” she said. 

“I’m sure they had the same intention in mind.”

“They told me it was to protect me but I lost myself too. It broke me. I deserved to know and they took that right away from me until I found out the truth some other way. I would have understood if they told me themselves, but they were so adamant about lying I had to find out myself and that completely destroyed me. He deserves for the people who care about him to not lie to him,” she swallowed, “and if the truth breaks him, so be it. He deserves to know and he’d hate me for keeping this from him. I can’t live with this burden. I wish I never connected the dots, but I did, and this information is more than I can carry right now, so I have to tell him.”

“Eliza please,” Father Lantom begged. His hand was still on her arm. She broke free, glaring holes into his head. She hoped he could feel the hell she wished upon him. 

She stood her ground, “No.”

“If you tell him now, his world is going to end.”

“It’s not. He caught me and I’ll catch him. I know I will. I can.”

“You can’t know that and I think you know that you can’t.”

She hated him and his words and God for putting her in such a position. She hated her curiosity and how easily she could make connections even when she wasn’t trying. But most of all, Eliza hated herself for the decision she made. She was no better than the people who lied to her.

“I have to tell him,” she whispered. 

“No, you don’t.”

“I have to, but I won’t,” her voice dropped an octave and her eyes turned a terrifying color of maroon, “because if he does find out, he’s going to be devastated and he’s been through enough pain already. I’m doing this because I love him, not because of you. If you know what’s good for you, you stay away from me.”

“Eliza, wait-”

“Matt,” she walked up to him, the smile on her lips fake, but she managed to convince him. “Are you ready to go?” 

“Sure, yeah,” he said. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she assured him.

“Okay then. It was nice meeting you again.”

The nun nodded with a curt smile. “It was nice seeing you, Matthew,” said Maggie. “I hope we’ll catch up more soon.”

I hope the fuck not, Eliza cursed her inner monologue. But it was right. The more time they spent together, the guiltier she would feel, but by God, if she told him now he would break into a million pieces and their life was just starting to get better again. She didn’t want to steal the sparkle from his eyes. Matt didn’t deserve that. He also didn’t deserve to be lied to, but she loved him too much to break his heart. If he ever found out, he would hate her, but it was a small price to pay to keep his heart safe. He had lost enough for a lifetime. 

The thought kept her caught in the moral conflict that wrapped its hand around her soul and squeezed, its claws dragging her down into an abyss of endless guilt and shame. If she wasn’t careful, it would consume her whole soon and there would be no going back. She loved him so much, but was the sacrifice worth it? Was risking their relationship worth it just to protect his soul from breaking? It was wrong. She knew how much it hurt when the Avengers did the same, but carrying this knowledge with her now, she realized why they kept the secret of her true parentage from her. She understood the purpose of protecting the people you love by omitting now better than she ever did, but she still cursed herself to hell and back for not opening her mouth. She should have, but time had passed by since they were at the fest and she was already too deep into the lie to pull out now. She had to walk to the edge of the grave she dug and hope she wouldn’t fall in. 

The cool night air blew through her hair as she walked next to Matt over the dark rooftop. He had picked up on a commotion in the distance, gang activity, he had told her. They were partly responsible for the rising drug numbers in Hell’s Kitchen and Daredevil wasn’t pleased with what his city was turning into. He had to salvage what was left. Eliza tagged along, of course. She always did. Ever since he got her the suit, she felt more comfortable in her skin and her fighting abilities. She didn’t care much about her powers when she was around him because he told her every time, focus on your fighting skills not what’s going on in your mind. Channel your anger into something else. And she did. She channeled her feelings into her fists as she beat the criminals into a puddle. 

That night though, she was so stuck in her mind, her entire body was vibrating with the energy that she pushed down so many times before. She refused to study them further, but the need to let them out was growing with each passing day, and the more she thought about it, the more scared she got about what she would do once the stone decided it had enough of being pushed down. With the empathy gone, she thought she could catch a break, but her fingers always tingled and her soul craved the power. Her body craved to rise to its full potential, whatever that was. 

“How about Chinese?” Matt asked. 

Eliza shook her head. “No, we had that yesterday. I can still taste that fucking awful sushi on my tongue,” she said. “I feel like it was purposely made to not taste good because how the fuck can you screw up Sushi?”

“I think they might have put too much salt in the rice.”

“And used moldy cucumber.”

“If they did, you would be having serious stomach problems right now.”

She shrugged. “Maybe I am.”

“You’re not,” he said.

“Well okay, we’re not doing Chinese. How about Indian instead?” she asked.  

Matt contemplated before scrunching his nose in a disapproving frown. “We had that the day before that, and honestly if I have to taste Kurkuma one more time, I’m gonna puke. I love Indian food, but we’ve been eating too much of that lately.” 

“Okay, I get that. We’ve been spending a lot of money on Indian food. How about pizza? Italian, maybe even pasta and some breadsticks.  There’s a nice place around the corner from your apartment. And they got Uber Eats.”

“Yeah, let’s do pizza. But only if it has—“

“Cheese crust.”

“Exactly.”

“And I’m craving garlic bread,” she said.

He hummed. “Oh, yeah, garlic bread.”

“And if we both eat it, we can still kiss.” 

“That is a good argument, Miss Bennet,” Matt said, “I think you might have won this discussion.” 

“Pizza it is then,” she decided. 

Was it wrong to talk about dinner choices while walking into the arms of one of Hell’s Kitchen's many gangs? Possibly, but they had long stopped caring about what happened before or after. The fight became their life’s purpose. They couldn’t see themselves doing anything else. Eliza was a hero, she craved to be one, and Matt craved to help his city out in any way he could. He still believed it was his god-given purpose to be Daredevil, and he stuck to his principles. 

Sister Maggie is Matt Murdock’s mother. She bit her cheek. If the thought kept pushing against her head, she would burst. She had to and she said she wouldn’t, but fuck! Father Lantom wasn’t the boss of her and she knew better than let him tell her what to do. She knew better than to break Matt’s heart by lying to him and risking what they had because she didn’t want him to hate her, ever. She didn’t want to break his trust. She promised not to lie to him, and she was physically incapable of doing so, anyway. 

“Matt,” she caught his wrist and he stopped, giving her a puzzled look that she could read even behind the Devil’s mask, “I have to tell you something,” she said. 

Now or never. Fuck Father Lantom and Maggie for their lies. She had to be better than them. She was better than them. She wouldn’t make the same mistake Tony made because, in the end, he was more sorry than she had been safer. 

“What’s up?” he asked, his lip tilted down in a confused and worrying frown. “Are you okay?”

It was sweet how he suspected it was something about her rather than something that would tear his entire worldview down. 

She opened her mouth, putting aside all reservations. Eliza was going to tell him the truth about his mother right then and there and then wait for the music to come. He was going to implode but fuck, she couldn’t keep the secret any longer, it was eating away at her insides and it was driving her guilt to an all-time high that she seemed to be tumbling off any second now. It suffocated her, knowing the truth about him and keeping him in the dark. She wasn’t going to do that to him, not again. She made so many promises, she had to keep them. She promised she would keep them. 

“I-” 

The blast that sounded in the distance cut her off. 

They flinched at the same time, ducking behind the ledge of the roof. “You hear that?” he asked. 

She nodded, “Loud and clear.”

Something strange lay in the atmosphere. It was a familiar feeling, a tingle that shot up her spine and caused the hairs on her arms to stand up. 

Looking down at the layer they were supposed to stake out, she caught the blue glow through the dirty windows. The smoke from the blast clouded the inside. She tilted her head. It couldn’t be—

“You have to stay here,” she said. Her breath hitched. “You can’t go down there.”

Matt chuckled, the confusion written on his face as he asked her, “Why?”

“I’m not kidding,” and her serious expression told him as much, “You’re not going down there.”

“Angel, calm down. What is going on? Why do you-”

“It’s Chitauri tech,” she stated. The blue glow mixed with the almost radioactive-looking smoke told her everything she needed to know. Her hair bent in the direction of the alien force and her fingers tingled; this could only mean one thing - the Battle of New York had left a significant number of weapons and alien remains behind, and many people had stolen parts and taken them with them, and the weapons that came out of playing with such technology would always be life-threatening to any human being. 

“Chitauri as in–“

“The Battle of New York, yes.”

“Are you sure? How do they- how would they even get their hands on the technology? I thought Stark cleaned up all of it when his foundation paid for the reconstruction of downtown. That was four years ago, Eliza. Are you sure that blast wasn’t just a manipulated machine gun?”

“The glow, Matthew. You can’t see it, but you might feel the energy in the air. I do, I can feel it creeping up my spine and toying with my brain. It’s alien, definitely. I felt the same when I stood in the ruins of this city and had aliens jumping on the buildings around me, shooting their funny little guns at us.”

It was true, he felt the static change in the air, but he thought nothing about it. Explosions often manipulated the way air would graze his skin. She seemed convinced though and her heartbeat showed no signs of doubt. This was her arena. This was what she was best at. He had nothing on her ability to sniff out what he couldn’t see. She felt deeper than he did, she was more susceptible to the atmosphere and reality spoke to her in ways he couldn’t comprehend. When she told him it was alien technology they were dealing with, he had to believe her. 

“That day, death and destruction rained from the sky,” he said. “It wasn’t just a random incident. The world almost ended, New York City was destroyed, people died… why would humans want to acquire the tech that almost got them killed?”

“Why do humans hurt each other in dark alleyways in the middle of the night?” Eliza challenged. “Why do humans resort to violence when they can’t get their way? We’re animals, Matt,” she said, “we’re predators, we want to be better than any other species, so that’s why some humans don’t even fear God when it comes to ruining other people’s lives.”

“Well, then we need to stop them.” He made a move to get out of the crouching position, ready to reach for his Billy Clubs. 

She put her hand atop his. “Don’t,” she said. 

“They could seriously hurt a lot of people. If we don’t do anything—“

“I need to stop them, not you.”

“Did you miss the part where we decided we would fight together because we always have each other’s backs?”

“This is alien tech. You’re only human. You’re not indestructible. You don’t even have a shield. If they hit you, you’re dead.”

He only scoffed. “I’d like to see them try.” 

Usually, she found his confidence more than alluring, but at that moment she wanted to hit him. He wasn’t invincible, but he seemed to forget that from time to time. If she was right with her suspicions, he would be dead the second they stepped through the door. She could never forgive herself if that happened, which was the precise reason why she tried her hardest to stop him, even if she had to tie him to the roof. She would do it. 

“No,” Eliza insisted, “stop.”

“What are you so afraid of?”

“I don’t want to lose you,” her voice cracked. 

He hung his head low, exhaling a heavy breath through pursed lips, then turned his head up enough for her to meet his red eyes. His hand reached for her cheek, cupping the rosy skin and caressing her cheekbone with his gloved thumb. He sighed again, this time louder. Her eyes fluttered closed. 

“You’re not going to lose me,” he said. “Hey, look at me—“ She opened her eyes. Tears glistened in them, tears that came from a dark place of fear deep within her heart. It tore her apart to think about what could possibly happen to him. “You’re not going to lose me,” he said. “I promised I’m in it for the long run and I intend to keep that promise. We go in there together and we both come out alive. I love you, okay? Alone because of that, I would show death the finger.”

She dropped her forehead against his. “Promise?” she breathed the word into his mouth. 

He pressed his lips to hers ever so gently, barely brushing them, breathing her in as if she was the last thing keeping him alive. “Promise,” he said. 

“I love you too.”

“I know.” He kissed her forehead. “Trust me, I know.”

“Promise you’ll stay behind me until I tell you otherwise?”

He crossed his heart. “Promise.”

She prayed to God he would keep his promise. 

The inside of the garage was quiet. Occasionally, metal would scrape against metal and the whirring of a saw cut through the sound barrier. Sparks flew, lighting up the room, but as soon as it was over, the room fell silent again. Every person seemed to have their work cut out for them. 

They entered through the back, inching their way behind one of the shelves that protected them from the careful eyes of the men in leather jackets and their guns. It was a cliche, the way they looked, but gang members had their ways of fitting into cliches even when they weren’t trying. 

She eyed the structure of the building, the workbench, and the several weapons that were scattered all over the room. She couldn’t make out the source of the blast. The glow had disappeared. The saw whirred again, longer this time and metal thunked to the floor. Eliza craned her neck to get a closer look; she saw the blue core before she saw the man behind it tightening the screws on the gun. 

Nodding toward the front, Eliza patted Matt’s shoulder. He got the message. Using the furniture that adorned the garage as cover, he made his way forward. She stayed behind, making sure he landed safely where she wanted him, and when he stopped behind another shelf soon after, she exhaled. She calmed her heart and focused. 

“Now,” she breathed only loud enough for him to hear — and he did. She could have moved her lips and he still would have heard. 

He tossed one of his Billy Clubs into the room. It managed to hit the first man over the head. He tried his best to be subtle about it, but the metal hit the ground loudly and with how quiet it was, the sound resembled a gunshot in a silent neighborhood. 

She was about to warn him that they would start shooting, but the words died on her tongue when the first bullets started to fly in the direction they suspected the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen to be. Her target was the man at the workbench, his fingers wrapping around the gun he was working on. He never got around to using it. 

The blade graced his jaw. “Drop it,” she hissed into his ear. 

He lifted his arms and put the gun down, swallowing against the dagger that hovered dangerously close over his neck. Satisfied, she lowered the blade and instead, pushed him forward until his head collided with the wood of the table. His brow burst open at the impact, painting the brown surface red with his blood. 

She flipped the knife. That had been fairly easy. The tip of the blade collided with the blue Chitauri core of the weapon, breaking the glass and shutting off the only power source there was — the core itself. The gun could no longer shoot and with the first weapon out of service, she could move on to the next. 

The men that came at her underestimated what she was capable of. She dodged the first one’s punch, ramming her knee between his legs, and she buried her entire fist in his face. His nose cracked under her knuckles. 

Her knife flew across the room and hit her target’s shoulder while she flipped another man over her shoulder. She knocked his head into the floor, spilling blood in the process. The man holding her dagger headed for her, but she gracefully ducked under his arm, slinging her arm around his neck and single-handedly flipping him onto his back on the ground. The last thing he saw was her towering over him before her fist knocked him into oblivion. Wiping his blood on her suit, she hummed. This was going better than she expected. 

Eliza searched for Matt in the mess. Her eyes caught on him as he fought one of the larger guys. He looked graceful, pushing him back and further until he stumbled over his own feet and hit the ground. At the sound of a gun cocking, she turned her head to see one of the members he must have knocked out before rising to his feet and pointing his gun at the back of his head. 

She sprinted toward him. He saw her coming from the corner of her eye, now pointing the gun at her. It was a normal glock. With so many men, it was hard to tell who carried what weapon. She still hadn’t seen the source of the gigantic blast — the gun she disarmed couldn’t have caused it, as it was way too small — but she was sure she would find it soon enough. For now, though, her brain stopped functioning and she simply stormed toward the man with the gun, and she stared right down the barrel as she had back when Ivan rose from the ashes of the White Room and buried three bullets inside her chest cavity. 

She fell to her knees, much to the man’s surprise, and she slid her knife over his kneecap. The gun dropped to the ground. He toppled over, holding the pulsating wound with both of his hands. Jumping to her feet, she pushed her boot into his back, forcing him to his knees. Matt was safe, for now. 

Her eyes switched to him only for a second, but a second was enough for the man to pull the hidden knife from his boot, turn around and jab the blade into her side. Eliza cried out, the intrusion sending sparks of fire through her abdomen, a feeling too familiar. He definitely cut through many nerves and it went deep, too deep. Her flesh squished and she caught onto her attacker’s wrist, staring into his eyes. He grinned. She tore the knife out of her side together with his hand, punching him straight across the face, and as pissed as she was at him for stabbing her, she lifted her knee to knock his teeth out. He dropped to the floor. She kicked him again just to make sure he would stay down, then finally pressed a hand to her bleeding side. 

If the wound didn’t kill her, Matt sure as hell would. He would call her reckless and berate her. He would tell her that she was the one worried about him for no reason and that she should have taken better care of herself because she got hurt, but he didn’t. He would say a lot of things, but for that, they had to make it out alive, which suddenly seemed highly unlikely with her side throbbing as if she was losing pints of blood (she wasn’t). 

The Chitauri weapon was gigantic. It looked like a grenade thrower only two times bigger and the glow was already visible through the barrel she found herself staring into when she looked up. 

“Woah,” she called out when the stranger pointed the weapon at Matt. She lifted her hand, diverting the attention toward herself. 

She suspected them to pull out the big guns, but this was exactly what she tried to prevent — having Matt in the crosshairs. 

“Listen, I know you’re probably not planning an uprising or some other gang-related shit, but the weapon you’re holding in your hand right now is definitely not made for men like you,” she said. 

He laughed. “Men like me?” he said. “Who gave you the right to judge that? You and your little friend here came into our home—” he looked around himself, his men moaning and groaning on the ground, blood spilled and bones were broken, “and you think I’m just gonna let you get away with it?”

“I saw the blast.”

“The gun over there malfunctioned. The one you destroyed. Thanks for that.” His smile was bitter. 

Matt, the idiot that he was, stepped forward and she was about to yell at him for being so reckless, but he couldn’t be stopped. 

“We came here to get answers on the heroin that’s being sold on the streets right now. The laced heroin, the one currently killing dozens of kids and addicts alike,” he said. “We didn’t come here to be shot at or start a war. We just want answers and then we’ll go. You just have to put the gun down first.”

The weapon swung back over at him. 

“Daredevil,” the man stated, “I figured you’d come one day.”

“I’m not here to shed any unnecessary blood, but if you keep being a dick, maybe I will.”

“You already shed unnecessary blood. In fact, a lot of unnecessary blood has been shed lately. Instead of blaming every New York gang for selling drugs, maybe you should look into the murders that have been happening around you. ‘Cause, my people are dying and no one seems to care about that, not even the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. Tell me,” he said, “Are you really that heartless?”

The pair shared a look. “What are you talking about?” asked Eliza. 

“Someone shot up the Dogs of Hell a couple of days ago. Each had about twenty rows in ‘em. Then, last night, someone shot up the Skulls’ layer up the street. Figured we are next, so we loaded up.” He pointed down at the gun. “We had the tech stashed away for emergencies, and since someone is slaughtering gangs here in Hell’s Kitchen — hell, they’re slaughtering gangs all over goddamn New York City, I thought it was necessary to get the big guns out. For our protection. Don’t tell me you didn’t know.”

“We didn’t,” Matt said. He sounded just as confused as she was, and perhaps he felt a little guilty for not realizing what was going on. He was so focused on a problem New York has been having for decades he lost focus on what else was happening around him. 

“Someone’s shooting up gangs? Are you guys trying to start a war or something?” Her voice drew the attention back to her. “Because that’s what it sounds like to me. Is it because of drugs? I used to be an addict, I know how strong heroin is, but the stuff you’re cooking up is killing innocent children in a way I have never seen before.”

He scowled, “We didn’t shoot up anyone. We’re not that stupid. And especially not because of some stupid drug trade. Not every fucking gang is involved in that. We’re family, if that even matters to you brainless fuckheads.”

“Then who else would be shooting up gangs here in New York if not a rival gang looking for more power?”

“Woman, don’t you think I figured that? But it’s not us.”

“Okay, first of all, don’t call me a woman as if it’s a bad thing,” she said, “and second of all, if not you, who is?”

“I don’t know!” he cried out. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you guys but you seem so adamant about blaming us. So tell me why I shouldn’t shoot you on the spot for what you just did to my guys, huh? Tell me, woman.”

“‘Cause you don’t want to risk pissing me off,” Matt cut in. His teeth bared, giving the man a good sense of the darkness that lurked behind the mask he put on. The Devil came out to play. “And you don’t want to risk pissing her off either,” he said, pointing his finger at Eliza who simply smirked. “I’m not kidding, right now she’s holding back because of me but when I tell her to raise hell, you’re done for, and you really don’t want that.”

“He’s got a point. You don’t want that.”

“Don’t underestimate the power of a woman scorned, and she’s got plenty of rage where what she did to your men just came from. I will let her, trust me.”

He made her sound like a guard dog on a leash, but perhaps she was just that when they fought — his dog on a leash. It shouldn’t have been as exciting as it was.

“I don’t give a shit. You trespassed on our territory,” the man charged his weapon, she felt the sizzling in the air getting stronger and her hair tilting further in the direction of the alien power source. His body craved a taste, just a small one. She wanted to see beyond the blue core. It was almost as if a completely different being possessed her, her eyes wide as she stared into the barrel, but she wasn’t scared. She was far from it. She was intrigued. 

“Do you even know what you’re holding?” she wondered. “The kind of power you’re trying to wield without the necessary knowledge?”

“Oh, and you do?” he challenged. 

“You have no idea.” 

Her hands started to glow bright red. The maroon in her eyes faded into black, stars of scarlet dancing in her irises, and her lip remained curled in a smirk. The red rushing through her veins was natural, a familiar feeling that consumed her. 

The man’s face fell. “Fuck.”

She wanted him to surrender, it was all she planned to do, but she underestimated the lengths he was willing to go to prevent getting caught in the crossfire of a possible gang war or going to jail. He pointed the gun back at Matt, her weak spot, and he fired. 

How it happened, Eliza wasn’t sure. She only faintly remembered reaching her hands out toward the blast, redirecting it toward herself. As it hit her, her palms faced forward, a red wall of smoke and pure energy building between her and the alien force. Both clashed in the middle, red meeting blue, fire meeting water, energy bursting into energy, and foreign particles soaring through the air and setting the atmosphere on fire. The universe seemed to explode, her reality clashing with that of an entirely different world, a universe beyond theirs. Both forces crashed together like two cars driving at high speed over the highway. As soon as they drove head-first into each other, the force caused a chemical explosion. 

It was a blow-out of epic proportions and the force pushed her back. In the air, she was weightless, but pride goes before the fall and when she crashed into the shelves at the back of the room, her head hit the metal. She slid back over the floor, landing right in front of the wall. The back of her head collided with the brick wall. The energy compressed her lungs, a fire burning bright above her head, but she must have hallucinated. It couldn’t have been real. The fire slowly turned into dots of blackness, silence overtaking her, and her ears fell into silence as she fell victim to the compelling darkness. 

She, however, did not stop falling once her vision turned black. She fell through the dark void and barely caught herself on her feet when the ground came in sight. It was the red ground covered in sand and smoke; she could barely see her feet. She was still wearing the suit and otherwise, she seemed more than alive, but she had been tricked once. The wasteland was a familiar land in her mind. Something that she had once felt comfortable in only caused a numb thudding in her chest. It was so strange, so foreign now. 

The darkness around her fell into scarlet so dark it turned maroon and it twisted and turned in circles until it formed six individual stones formed like a rhombus floating around her being, the glow turning different colors wherever she looked. Six stones, six different elements, six broken pieces of the universe’s core. 

In the distance, she could make out the faintest of purple resting on the skin of a gigantic stranger, but he didn’t have a face. She stared at his back, unmoving, and when she tried to see more, he moved further into the distance. The stones kept her trapped in their circle and she bit her lip, trying to get closer. 

The red one called for her, but so did the blue one, and the others joined in. They were silent screams of her name, a pull, unlike anything she had felt before. Several threads connected her to each rhombus, a two-way street of invisible strings. She called for them as they called for her. Her body craved to be whole, and it would only be whole with all stones close to her, it seemed. So she stepped forward and reached out for the glowing red stone that seemed to scream her name the loudest. 

Where she was, her mind seemed to be malfunctioning. There was no voice of thought or reason in her head. It was just her, the stones, and the purple stranger in the distance, trapped in the maroon her mind called home. At least it had once been when she could still sort emotions, now it was void of anything important. It was just red now, as was the stone she reached to touch. 

She realized too late that it was probably a mistake. The middle of her forehead started to glow the closer she got, and when she finally touched it, the world around her exploded again. The stones broke, crystals soaring around her head as the floor opened up beneath her, fading into smoke, and the walls around her broke open to reveal a vast space of different colors - blue, purple, red, and golden, stars dancing across the endless sky and the glass of mirrors broken around her. 

She was falling again. Eliza tried to catch herself on the red stone, but the gem was gone like all the others, her head glowing, her hands glowing and somehow her soul was on fire. She could see the universe from the outside, could see the world, could see the reality behind a red screen, susceptible. Reality was open to being controlled and even manipulated. Not everyone had the power, but the stone had called for her and she had the power to manipulate reality. It felt strange like reality was an object she could hold in her hands, but it was invisible to the eye. 

Pictures flashed across the screen, faces dancing in the galaxy, planets passing by and she could have sworn she remembered some of the places she saw. Her face was there, Matt was there, the Avengers were there - she saw Tony and everyone she ever loved dead on a battlefield, but on the opposite side the world was prospering with life. She saw death and destruction, and happiness and hope. She saw the world end at one point and start anew at another. It was strange and not everything seemed to be in her grasp - it wasn’t her reality. Those she couldn’t touch, couldn’t feel, weren’t in her control. Time and space blurred together, she saw the blue line drawn across the universe, and the streaks that suddenly broke out of the line formed a new web of glittery roads across the galaxy. Green, it was definitely green. Space was blue. The pictures she saw were both red and orange, and she herself seemed to be floating in a yellow bubble. The pull she felt was the strongest and it made the world around her explode in a burst of pure energy; it was purple. Everything was suddenly purple. Those weren’t the colors of the emotional color wheel, they were much different and with every passing color she could feel a different aspect of the invisible ball of reality she held in her bare hands. 

Her back shattered through a mirror below her, glass splattering everywhere, the sharp pain cutting her skin open and bleeding into the vastness of space. She hit the glass and at the same time, she hit the ground. Her head thudded, her side burned with the wound of the blade that had cut her, and the darkness replaced the beautiful colors she saw. She woke up with a gasp, shooting up from her position on the floor. She reached out, panicking, and latching onto the leather next to her. The suit felt oddly familiar, and once her eyes adjusted to the light, she realized she was in Matt’s lap. 

He had removed his mask, leaning over her as if to protect her from the world. Tears glistened in his eyes. She wondered how long she had been out. The alarm bells in her head were still ringing, but the dull gray of the room they were in gently brought her back from the edge she had been standing on. She was no longer falling, she was safe in his arms. 

Her vision was working, but her lungs still struggled for breath. She pulled at his suit, not sure whether to push him away or pull him closer. She was oh so scared, and it showed in the way her heart raced against an invisible clock. 

“Hey,” his voice pushed through the cotton in her ears, “Hey, you’re okay. You’re okay!” he said. “Look at me. Look at me! There you go.”

Looking into his soft eyes, her heartbeat started to slow and so did her breathing. Her lungs deflated, then filled with air and she coughed. The action alone caused another sharp pain to rip through the back of her head, following all the way down to her side where she could feel the blood pooling out of the cut still. 

Matt smiled, his tears fading, but the redness of the hint of them was still there. “There you are. Hi.” He brushed the hair out of her face. “You’re okay, I’ve got you.”

Her hand shot up to her head. “Fuck,” Eliza cursed to herself. 

“Don’t ever do that to me again,” he said, his hand still running through her hair. “I thought I–“ He refused to finish the sentence. 

She weakly touched his cheek with her blood-stained hand. “I’m okay,” she said. Bittersweet Deja Vu, the blood stains on his suit. 

“You’re bleeding,” he was referring to the wound on the back of her head, which he touched with gentle fingers, but the amount of blood he could smell didn’t match up to what he could feel. 

He listened closely to her skin, the way it shifted over the bone as she breathed raggedly, and he followed the coppery scent of her blood, a scent that reminded him of a trauma he long tried his best to bury. 

She hissed when his hand found the hole in her suit, the knife had gone straight through the spot that was not made out of bulletproof material. The hot liquid coated his fingers, the cut deep and the fabric around the wound soaked already. 

“What happened?” Matt ground his teeth. “Which one of them did this to you?”

“It’s just a cut, I’ll be fine. My head-” she groaned, “hurts like a bitch.”

“You probably have a low-grade concussion and one hell of a head wound, but the one on your side… Sweetheart, this is bad. We need to get you out of here.”

“I’m ok-ah!” He lifted her up into a standing position, but the stretch helped neither her throbbing head nor the stabbing pain in her side. “Okay, maybe I’m not,” she grunted before she toppled over, hand pressed to her side in an attempt to stop the new gush of blood that came out. 

She felt a little dizzy and her muscles hurt. But most of all, the dream she’d had while she was unconscious kept her wondering about what she saw. It had been so much at once and still nothing at all. 

Matt caught her. His arm wrapped around her waist, hand applying pressure to where hers already laid over the wound. “Okay,” he murmured, “I’ve got you. Hold onto me.”

Her nails dug into his hip, a vice grip to keep herself from passing out. 

“You good?”

Eliza nodded through gritted teeth, “Just get me home.” She wasn’t sure how much longer she would be able to stand. 

He had never walked home that fast. With her in his arms, it was harder than without, but they eventually managed to stumble into the apartment. He set her down on the couch, her lips parting in a silent cry at how much the skin around the cut moved. Her nails clawed into the leather of the backrest, head resting against it. A thin layer of sweat covered her forehead, but it wasn’t the heat that caused her pores to open up. 

He knelt beside her then, she didn’t hear him coming, and he splayed out the first aid supplies on the living room table as well as a bottle of water and some rubbing alcohol. The thought alone pained her and he hadn’t even started yet. 

“Can you remove your top?” Matt asked her. His coordination was off, he couldn’t find the zipper. 

She nodded again weakly, somehow managing to slip out of the top half of her suit and dropping the soaked fabric next to the couch. She was left in her sports bra, the cold air of the room sending a shiver down her spine. 

Tipping the cotton swab into the alcohol, he pressed the other hand to her abdomen. “This is gonna hurt,” he said. 

She knew it would. The disinfectant burned on the fresh wound. It felt as if her skin was being seared off and skinned alive. She cried out, “Ugh- fuck!” Her nails dug deeper into the leather. 

“I’m so sorry, but it’s only gonna get worse from here on.”

The needle pierced her skin and once again, she cried out. Her eyes rolled back, the tears at the corner of her eyes spilling over. She was used to getting stitches, but something about the wound felt different than usual, and it hurt. 

Matt stopped, his eyes faced downward guiltily, almost. 

She assured him with a hand on his head, “Keep going, it’s okay.”

“It’s not okay, you’re in pain,” he said. 

“I know, but you can’t change it. Just do it as fast as you can, okay? Please.”

He sighed, squeezing her flesh again and forcing the needle and the thread through. Her cries continued muffled through the back of her hand that she bit down on, the tears mixing with the sweat of blood loss and the aftershocks of the concussion. She forgot about the headache, the sharp pain in her side seemingly doing its best at burning her entire body on a stake. 

His work was thorough, but he rushed anyway because he could no longer hear her cries whenever he had to pierce her skin, and her pain projected onto him. He hated hurting her, he hated that she got hurt because of him and that they had almost been at the same point they were a month ago. He didn’t want to lose her, not again. 

Eliza finally relaxed into the cushions when he cleaned the wound with some water, put salve on it, and bandaged her up. An ice pack on her head eased the ache, too. The wound wasn’t deep so he decided to forgo the stitches and instead put a bandaid on it. The fight took it out of her. 

He listened to her slowing heartbeat. “For a moment there I thought–” he began, not sure where he was going with the vulnerable confession, “I thought I’d lost you again, and I- I felt hollow,” he said. “So fucking hollow, I thought- I really thought I’d have to hold you again, I’d have to hear the breath leave your lungs and your, uh, heart stop again.” A tear slid down his cheek and soaked into his suit. “I thought I’d lost you, Liz, and I realized- I don’t ever want to feel this way again.”

Her eyebrows furrowed. She couldn’t separate reality from dreams anymore. Surely she had seen the same picture as she was falling, and it didn’t end well for either of them. 

She sat up straighter, as much as she could with her injuries. “Are you–“ her breath shuddered and the tears reappeared, though this time the pain was entirely mental, and the fear paralyzing, “Are you breaking up with me, over a stupid gang fight?”

He was taken aback by her question. Matt blinked, licking his lips and reaching out to grab her hands. He caressed them, squeezing them in reassurance as he made sure not to terrify her further with his terrible choice of words. “No, no of course not!” he said. “I would never. God, don’t think that. I wasn’t- I phrased it wrong. This was not what I wanted to say, at all.”

She relaxed. “Oh.”

“What I was trying to say was, I don’t ever want to lose you. Never. I love you too much for that. You are- okay, I don’t know how- my feelings, they’re complicated. I don’t know how to phrase them or- or understand them. I–“ he grunted in the back of his throat, frustrated to the point he considered not trying to find the words to say what he felt, but he was already too deep in to pull out now. “I think…” he fidgeted with her fingers instead of his own now, “You are, by far, the best person I have ever met and you make me so fucking happy, but also so fucking scared something might happen to you. I might be traumatized after what happened, and I’m sorry if I scared you by being scared, I just don’t ever want to feel so empty again.”

Her heartbeat was still racing out of her chest. 

“I’m in love with you, Eliza,” he said, “I’m so in love with you, it hurts. And I just realized that you — insufferable, reckless you — might just be the only one for me. You are… you are the love of my life, and I don’t say that lightly because well, I have no fucking idea what’s going on inside of me, I just know that you are all I feel and it scares the crap out of me.”

The tears were streaming down her cheeks at this point and he didn’t have time to comprehend before her lips were on his. He held the back of her head, cradled her cheek, and drowned in the love she poured into a single kiss. 

“I thought you were breaking up with me,” she said. 

“I’m sorry, that wasn’t–“

“I’ve never been in love before, so I don’t know much about it, but I do know one thing,” Eliza held his face in her hands as she admitted what had been on her chest for so long, “You are my first and I want you to be my last, which means that you’re the love of my life too and you’re not getting rid of me, no matter how many knives to the stomach or- or alien blasts I have to take for you.”

He breathed a broken chuckle. “I’m so fucking happy to hear that,” he said. “But please, for the love of God, don’t ever take a knife or an alien blast for me again.”

“I can promise you a lot, but I can’t promise you that.”

“I know.”

She placed her head in the crook of his neck. “Take me to bed?” she said. 

He lifted her into his arms, carrying her to the bedroom where he placed her down softly enough so her stitches wouldn’t get disturbed, and he began to strip her of the suit. She was too tired to protest. He helped her into one of his shirts, soon enough returning with his own suit shed in the bathroom and nothing but his boxers and a white shirt on his body.

As Matt settled into bed next to her, her mind began to reel again. The vulnerable love confession was real. She was the love of his life and he was hers. That much she could tell wasn’t a fever dream. They were real, they were made for each other.

What she didn’t know where to sort were the pictures she saw, the infinity stones, or the creature she saw hiding in the distance. The stones screamed her name and the red one seemed to have screamed the loudest, almost like a warning. She saw the galaxy when she fell, and she places and people she recognized but were never the same. And the lines of glitter she saw, the splitting roads at the core of the universe seemed like they had a deeper meaning too, but she couldn’t sort them all, she couldn’t even sort the different colors or where they belonged. They were just there. They existed. It was real, but perhaps not in her reality and another instead. 

“Matt,” she broke the silence. His eyes were closed, but he was still awake. He hummed, telling her he was listening. “Do you believe that there is a multiverse?” the question came out of nowhere, surprising both herself and him. 

She had thought about it, but she never thought she would be asking a devoted catholic such a question. 

“A what now?” he asked. He frowned and paired with the small smile he gave her he looked way too adorable to be real. She traced her finger over his nose just in case. He shivered. He was real. 

“Multiverse,” she said. “Multiple universes existing simultaneously to ours, with different versions of ourselves and a different reality that is under someone else’s control.”

“Like in physics?”

“Yeah, like in physics.”

“Are you asking me if I believe in the string theory, physics, or the possibility of multiple universes in my personal opinion?”

He was just toying with her now, not taking her words too seriously. Considering how tired he was, she couldn’t blame him, and her question sounded too absurd to come out of her rather educated mouth. He blamed it on the concussion, surely, which was why he entertained her thought with amusement. She was serious though and she wanted to know because she was slowly losing her mind, it seemed. She needed to stop herself from splitting in two. 

“Can’t you just answer with what you think?” Eliza looked at him intently, her gaze burning through his closed lids. 

He shrugged. “I don’t know, why?”

“Curiosity. Reality is subjective, after all, and can easily be manipulated. You know what I can do, so I was wondering if you think a multiverse is a possibility that we, as a civilization, should eventually concern ourselves with. It happened with aliens,” she said. “It might happen with the string theory too. It might be proven right. We don’t know.”

“You just answered the question yourself. We don’t know. I guess we’ll find out eventually the same way we found out about life beyond our world. What else do you need?”

“A thought.”

“Do I get a penny?” Matt mused. 

She sighed, “Sure.”

“I believe in God, which means there is only our solar system, our planet earth, and our galaxy. There is no other universe but the one we live in,” he told her, “because there is only one God, and how would a civilization in another universe even exist without a God? Now, I know about biology, but evolution is essentially part of the Bible. God can’t be copied, so he wouldn’t be real outside of this world, and a godless universe seems wrong to me. So no, I don’t think we have more than one universe. We’re just fine with the one we’re living in, don’t you think?”

The statement itself deserved more argumentation, but she was too tired to argue and Matt seemed less interested in the topic than she was, anyway. 

“So,” he raised his eyebrows, “Answer enough for you?”

Eliza, too tired to protest, pecked his lips. “Yes,” she said.

“Okay then. If philosophical questions are what it takes to keep your concussed brain awake, keep ‘em coming.”

But she didn’t want to talk about it. She wanted to sleep. 

“Sleep is off the table,” he read her mind, “It’s too risky.”

“I fell asleep the last time. That was after we had sex, remember? People with concussions shouldn’t have sex either and I am so tired, Matty,” she pouted, “So please, let me sleep.”

He sighed. “Alright,” at the sound of her voice, he could only cave, “but you have to be okay with me waking you every ten minutes to make sure you’re still alive.”

Placing her head on his chest, Eliza inhaled his scent and felt his heart under her fingers. Real. Everything was real.

“That’s okay,” she was already yawning, half asleep.

Placing her head on his chest, Eliza inhaled his scent and felt his heart under her fingers. Real. Everything was real.

His soft 'I love you' was all she heard before she fell asleep.

[thekrows-nest]

(anon)

Oh. Ohohoho. The peafowl? Perhaps Krow broke with the cultural norms of his family and that’s why he left/was made to leave. But I’m still not entirely sure that’s it. Or the sole reason. The other unhatched eggs imply he may have siblings, either younger or simply remaining with the family.

The falling feathers? Over a passage of time he was sinking, spiraling, drifting. No idea if this is a deterioration in the relationship with his family, the period of time after he left or him languishing before he met Dove, but this was an aimless negative time without a lot of personal control before the fresh start.

I do fear for Gabby and LT. Not to infantilize them at all (especially due to disability) or discount their competence. It’s just being outside the kyriarchy in any way can magnify the amount of brutal crap someone will catch and reduce the tools at their disposal to defend themselves. Especially in America. It’s systemic.

Also I’m hoping LT secretly has mad skills and immense physical power because after my previous ask about extremely tight security measures and the power of numbers - if Dove went to Gabby and LT for help I’d be very apprehensive of what Krow could do to them.

(I’m also still incredibly sus of Eliyah too. He continues hanging around near Gabby/her friend Dove despite knowing she hates him, twists the narrative of what had happened to make her look irrational and himself like the victim. Mansplain, manipulate, malewife.

His work means he has a long range lens and an alibi for publicly carrying photography gear or shooting at unexpected times/locations, plus the ability to try and lure Dove off alone with paid modeling work. He is resentful of Gabby limiting his access to Dove and expresses that he finds Dove interesting because Gabby does…

I clown on this soft looking pompous dude but his actions make the hair stand up on the back of my neck. I feel he’s some kind of a threat and hasn’t learned or been forced to hide it as well as Krow. He may also have bad intent and need to be dealt with by LT.

If he even thinks of touching LT though he may already be drinking the finely ground glass of the long range lens in his morning latte. Or perhaps he likes his coffee flavoured with almonds :)

Dove is a smart little birdie, I’m sure they can learn some cute tricks. Perhaps if Dove could even bring themselves to flirt a little bit the problem would take care of itself.)

Anon again with some very neat observations in regards to Krow. well, Eliyah too. Lmao.

I will just say... I had thoughts when I went about seeing of Krow's tattoo. I'll say that much (and again, a friend helped me with the design! I am very grateful to them! I forget if they'd want me to tag them though so I am not.)

And those are valid fears to have for them. I will say... LT is... something. (:

Lol clowning on Eliyah. But he doesn't get why you do such things to him. ): He just wishes to to let bygones be bygones, and would like to get to know more of Dove and be able to enjoy his photography. u_u

LMAO the protectiveness for LT. Love it.

LOL, weaponizing Krow and his jealousy as a means to take care of Eliyah lmaooooooo. I'm wheezing.

[thebibliosphere]

#dont biodegradable plastic straws exist?

I really don't want to get back into the straw debate, but I have seen numerous variations of these tags popping up a lot in my notes since I reblogged this earlier, so I'm just going to draw attention again to the chart up above where biodegradable straws are listed as allergens -- and yes that includes biodegradable plastic.

Many are made using corn, cactus, potato starch, and occasionally wheat starch. Supposedly, they have been processed to remove the allergen, but speaking from personal experience, it's still possible to react to them.

I found out in a fricken hospital that the hospital canteen had switched to biodegradable cups and straws and ended up needing to be treated for an allergic reaction on top of the reason I was already there. All I drank was water. There was nothing else I'd ingested during my time that could have caused the reaction. I also had blisters on my lips and tongue where the straw touched me, so it wasn't a mild reaction either. All from a biodegradable straw and cup.

Single-use plastics are a vital necessity for many individuals.

The sooner people make their peace with that and start targeting the industries doing actual quantifiable harm to the world, the sooner we can fix this shit, and disabled people like me can stop being worried we're going to be harassed for using disability aids.

The vitriol I received back in 2018 for saying I need plastic straws to drink so I don't risk aspirating is so bad that I won't use a straw to drink on stream. I am that self-conscious about it.

I know I shouldn't be. I know ableists can go fuck themselves, and I should be telling them to fuck off, but the trauma caused by people telling me over and over that the world would be better off without people like me in it because my existence contributes to the pollution killing the planet is real and lasting to the point where I'll risk choking in front of a live audience to avoid someone commenting on my use of a straw.

And I know that's bonkers! I know it is! I know I'm being irrational, but that's what this site put me through in 2018 when the initial straw ban debate broke out, and I'm still processing it in therapy.

People who I thought were friends told me they'd rather I was dead than keep using plastic straws because it was "killing the sea turtles."

A lot of left-leaning people who think they are disability allies need to unpack the eugenics in their green-washing. And it can start with people minding their own damn business when it comes to single-use plastic straws.

If you dare come at me about banning straws, I will throw you into the sun cannon. I’m disabled, I’m crippled, I need disposable plastic straws, and all those pricey ridiculous alternatives aren’t working as well. Plastic straws were invented for the disabled.

Way to shit all over a vital access need because you think straws are worse than corporate greed.

We all care about the turtles, the seals, the oceans, obviously. Notice how the easiest thing to yell about was something that would barely affect anything but appealed heavily to emotional discourse.

The disabled community is huge, and it can be joined by anyone. Most of those As Seen On TV products were invented for us. Society still mocks us and ignores us, and often outright harms us in multiple ways.

Communicate better. Listen better. But stop putting us out in the cold because you are inconvenienced by our simplest needs.

[chisiuwu]

sorry for disappearing from here, i'm still drawing but i kind of took a break from social media some weeks ago and i didn't bother to update tumblr. i will come back and post my latest drawings soon, but i probably won't read dms, reblogs, notes or asks for a while. maybe months. a friend showed me my inbox messages (i was too anxious to open them myself--) and most of them were nice, so thank you for supporting me, it genuinely means a lot that you took the time to write nice words and reach out to me; to the person who asked me to tag more properly certain arts, i will take your critique into consideration too

if you follow me in other social media, you probably already noticed i disabled notifications, replies and dms, and it seems that i'm pretty much unreachable. i don't particularly enjoy it either, but this is better than having strangers making me uncomfortable – i said it on twitter but, fandom drama* apart, i'm not a very social person and comments are a bit overwhelming now that my art is popular (⁠´⁠ ⁠.⁠ ⁠.̫⁠ ⁠.⁠ ⁠`⁠) i do appreciate every single good reply i get, but twitter and instagram (especially twitter) are very hostile towards art, in the sense that it gets seen for only 5 seconds and people act either like the artist won't read what they have to say or like they need to please people's desires. the good thing is that i'm not a very emotional person either and now that the Big Thing is over i can just relax and enjoy the very few interactions i get from my mutuals and friends

(*the fandom drama in question was adressed in a twitter thread i don't regret making even though it got blown out of proportion. i said what i said and i thought about it very carefully before posting it)

the reason i'm spilling my thoughts here is precisely because tumblr posts survive better than tweets or whatever the hell insta stories are. i can freely say what i need to say not having to adjust my words into a certain format. for example, i wanted to remind everyone that i'm not mad over people who unfollowed or broke the mutual for whatever reason. especially if you're an artist and we kind of got along, i genuinely hold no resentment and it'd be okay for me to interact again (except if you subtweeted me in that case k1ll y0urself). i also ran a chainblock extension on google chrome that basically blocked every quote i had on certain tweets, or people retweeting tweets calling me out. i have literally zero memory of who said what, and if you either got caught up or you have changed your mind and want to get unblocked, you can try to get in contact with any of my mutuals to tell me! last thing i want to say is a bit obvious, but i ever create something that makes anyone uncomfortable, i can't care less about being unfollowed over it. i am educated enough to understand what kind of impact my art has, and if anything i ever did was truly hurtful, my friends would tell me. i am just drawing anime lesbians

so, if you've read this far: 1) i won't stop making art, don't worry about me because i will come back and i am also one of the very few mentally stable lgbt people in the world 2) it always makes me incredibly happy to connect with others through my works, and i'm very thankful towards every person that has ever left a positive impact on my life, even towards those who are silently following for any reason they may have. i hope you are all having a nice day ♡

[omegasamwilson]

I literally had a panic attack when I watched Ayo take off Bucky's arm. I was born without my left arm and see a lot of myself in Bucky. I have a prosthetic and had to stop the episode and watch it later. And it really hurt me to see your completely disregard that and say I have no right to be upset. It really pisses me off. I'm fully acknowledging that Bucky did a terrible thing, and he needed to be stopped. But she didn't have to remove his arm. He wouldn't have hurt her. To see you refer to his arm in the tags as a weapon further hurt me. It's not a fucking weapon, it's his fucking arm. You're trying to twist this into a race issue when it's about fucking ableism. I'm brown not black so I don't know if you'll accept my concerns with your post

Hi, one, I apologize for what is sure to be a very long and very frustrated statement. But I’m dealing with a lot of shit rn (actually related to race and ableism specifically) but I wanted to respond because my ADHD ass will forget otherwise.

Okay. One, you say “he wouldn’t have hurt her.”

We, the audience, knows that. Ayo did not. What she knows is that the man before her was an assassin and sniper, even before he was captured and forced to kill by HYDRA. He was a WWII sniper and seemed to be quite skilled (I’m going to assume that’s one of the reasons HYDRA tried to experiment on him and picked him to he the winter soldier.) In any case, this newly reformed (and at the time, just barely reformed. As in, he was healed a month, maybe two months before the events of infinity war. So he’s been healed for a whopping seven months.) This newly reformed assassin, who had been the victim of either chemical or otherwise mental subjugation freed a terrorist from prison.

Not only did he free a terrorist from prison, he freed a terrorist that was obsessed with HYDRA. If any terrorist knew a back door to unlock the winter soldier again, it would be Baron Zemo, who knew each and every one of HYDRA’s secrets.

While Shuri is definitely brilliant, it’s entirely possible that HYDRA buried a safety within their “asset” just in case he was able to break his programming. It’s entirely possible that it was so well buried amongst the labyrinth that is the brain that even Shuri couldn’t find it. After all, Shuri isn’t a neuroscientist, and the brain is largely regarded as the final frontier. So it’s entirely possible that she missed buried programming.

So, we have a person that got rid of HYDRA’s programming seven months ago that just freed one of the only people on the planet that could have the information that could potentially reactivate the winter soldier. And THEN, we have a video of this man “acting” as the winter soldier in madripoor. This was uploaded on the internet and I’m assuming that Ayo saw it.

What proof does Ayo have that he won’t hurt her? That she won’t weaponize his arm and hurt her? What proof does she have that he’s not under Zemo’s control, that Zemo can’t control him in a second. The only thing she knows are that Bucky Barnes freed a terrorist that had access to all of HYDRA’s information, the terrorist appeared to control the winter soldier in madripoor, and it is entirely possible that there is buried programming designed to deactivate the winter soldier.

She deactivates it, realizes he’s fully in control of himself and says, “bast damn you, James.” As in, “fuck you for freeing a terrorist and acting like it isn’t a big deal. You are clearly acting on your own accord in this.”

And yes, it’s different being Black vs. being Brown. It isn’t to say that racism and ableism don’t intersect with Brown folks because obviously it does.

But l specifically asked for Black opinions bc of the demonization of Black folks, especially the trope of “big scary Black women” or “big scary Black men.”

It’s ironic I see this today when I have a story that is so relevant and anger inducing.

I work with white parents of Black children, usually through adoption since I work primarily with lgbt parents, but I do have some cis het white parents raising Black biological kids. One of the parents and friends got into it today because her autistic Black child got into it with their sibling (also disabled). The sibling intentionally triggered their older sibling and punched them and it escalated to the point where the bigger sibling finally reacted and shoved the younger sibling. It broke the younger kid’s glasses. The youngest is legally blind and needs very expensive and specific prescription classes to even have 20/40 vision.

The mom called the police on her child and the kid was arrested and charged. She is 15. Mom described the kid as aggressive and awful and terrible and all sorts of names. A ww called the police on her Black 15 year old child having a meltdown. And she played into stereotypes that Black people, Black women, are aggressive/scary/angry. A ww could’ve gotten her child killed for having a meltdown because she broke a white child’s disability aid.)

A ww couldve gotten her child killed because she played into anti-Black stereotypes. That white people need protection from them. Even when the white child was initially the aggressor in the scenario.

Sure, it’s different, but it plays to the same stereotypes. Poor white disabled person needs protection from the aggressive scary Black person, and we’re just going to assume that the Black person was being unnecessarily aggressive because it plays into all of the stereotypes about Black people. No, there’s no way that this Black person was making a decision based on a series of evidence that could point to them genuinely being harmed.

(By the way, in the scenario of the two kids, I think they both needed help and support, and that the police shouldn’t have been called period.)

Nope, it’s just an aggressive Black person being ableist.

The same systems that have everyone seeing Bucky as a cute little uwu cinnamon roll in need of protection are what caused everyone to see Ayo as an aggressive ableist Black woman. White people usually get the benefit of the doubt. The best intentions are believed even when the evidence clearly says otherwise.

The evidence Ayo had indicated that she had no idea whether the winter soldier could’ve been reactivated and whether or not Bucky could’ve been under zemo’s control. She had no idea. None. She made a decision based off that information. And the fact that Bucky didn’t react strongly indicated that he was acting on his own accord.

Mayhaps, Ayo might even have been trying to trigger the winter soldier. I just thought of this but it makes sense. That the WS would react very defensively and even potentially deadly to that level of fighting, even if his previous orders were different.

In any case, this situation isn’t comparable to every day disabled people because our disability aids to not double as weapons. Most people can’t do more harm with a prosthetic limb than they can with a regular limb. Bucky can. Bucky’s arm is also a weapon and that fact complicates matters considerably. If bucky’s arm were simply a regular arm with typical strength, it’d be a no brainer situation. But it’s not. We don’t know the wakanda enhancements of his arms, but we know in the comics, he could kill with a single punch using his arm. He uses his arm tactically to map his surroundings. He uses his arm to send off EMPs that can disabled weaponry. It even has a retractable blade for close combat. It is a disability aid that it also a weapon. It was designed to be a weapon. The normal conversations around disability aids don’t fit it because no one today has a disability aid that could kill someone in seconds and even cause larger scale damage with a targeted EMP.

And finally, I want to say this, I am truly sorry that you had a panic attack while watching the episode. That is never fair and it’s never fun to be triggered by television shows.

I do hope this helped to better explain and clarify my perspective.

[inevitably-johnlocked]

can we adress how toxic some of these self/harm and suicide fics are?? as someone who has struggled with these issues, treating them as just a way for the two characters to get together, or one character to be the savior who cures someone of their problems? I'm so frickin over it. continuing to put your partner in limbo by threatening this behavior when they don't give you enough attention is a symptom of something major. This is not something i like seeing romanticized. at all.

[CONTENT WARNING FOR ENTIRE POST: heavy discussions of trauma, suicide, self harm, depression, political issue mentions, and eating disorders. Please proceed with care. I am not cutting the post because I think the message is important, so scroll past until my icon disappears <3 Stay safe, My Lovelies.]

Hey Nonny

Okay, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt here because you mention you DO have struggles with these issues, so I’m going to state right up front here and say I AM NOT DISREGARDING YOUR PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AT ALL. Your view of this topic is valid, and it’s not something I am ever going to say is wrong for you. 

I would like to offer an olive branch, here, Nonny, and give you an alternative take on this, because I’m concerned that perhaps you are still coping with your own struggles and in return, you unwittingly and unintentionally are coming off as unsympathetic to other people’s coping mechanisms.

I KNOW how hard it is to see another view when yours is the only one that seems right, especially after a tragedy or after dealing with heavy things. But all I am asking is for you to temporarily extend some empathy as I discuss my thoughts in this post, and I apologize in advance if I come off as dickish, because, again, it’s hard to see past your own feelings, and I tend to give a “firm but understanding” approach to asks like this. It’s NOT meant to call you our personally. Just asking for an open mind.

I will tackle this ask in a similar fashion to this post here, which talks about shipping vs fetishization so CW for that, as well as like this post here, where we discuss pet peeves. My assumption here is that Nonny is unsure about what “romanticizing” actually entails, and how much this ask is basically Gatekeeping Fiction 101, a thing that’s been going on since the beginning of storytelling. The ask is perceived by me to be emotionally unaware of how unsympathetic it actually sounds, and in turn can unintentionally upset people who engage in these stories.

First thing’s first, Nonny, and I said it before, I GET IT. I understand what you’re going for here, why you feel it’s toxic, and why you think it shouldn’t exist. Here’s the thing, though: what you’re ACTUALLY calling for here is censorship and gatekeeping because YOU PERSONALLY take issue with something, want the fandom specially curated just for you, because it PERSONALLY OFFENDS YOU. And that, it itself, is what’s really toxic, here. Just because YOU are offended, does not mean that it’s not helpful to SOMEONE ELSE, and it’s selfish to make such a demand of people.

Let me explain.

As I mention in the link above re: shipping, many people read and write fics to cope with the reality of their own experiences. Nonny, your experience is NOT the same as someone else’s. Your pain is NOT universal, and you DON’T KNOW what that author has been through; for all you know, they spent 6 months in-hospital after attempting suicide, and they are now simply processing their trauma through storytelling. 

Or, “continuing to put your partner in limbo by threatening this behavior when they don't give you enough attention” ? It’s a VERY REAL THING that ACTUALLY happens in real life, and perhaps it happened to that author, or they want to write an alternate ending to their pain.

Or, “one character to be the saviour who cures someone of their problems?” is something a suicide survivor WISHES someone did for them. Because they feel alone in the world and don’t want to be alone anymore.

These stories are simply escapism for people, either to learn about or share what these mental illnesses do to people, or are the “fantasies” of survivors, of their ideal outcome to their own tragedies. Coping with guilt over the loss of someone they feel they could have saved. The brutal truth about realty.

And sometimes, it is because some people need a good cry and a feel-good happy ending, because real life? Well, it rarely has those happy endings and so few opportunities to let us cry, and sometimes life is just easier when we view it through the eyes of fictional characters. Do you not want someone to save you sometimes Nonny? And I mean metaphorically here, too. Someone to just take all of your hellish burdens off those shoulders for one day. Someone who will come in to save you from yourself. I know I do.

And, well, sometimes, Nonny, it makes people feel less alone in this socially distanced world.

They’re not glorifying that issue Nonny. They’re telling their story.

Here are some thoughts:

Romanticization: Some trendy teen outlet selling a shirt with “mentally diseased” written across it.

NOT Romanticization: A character in a story coming to terms with a diagnosis of mental illness and learning ways to adapt. Their partner is involved 100% and they learn together.

Romanticization: Sherlock merchandise being sold with “I’m a high functioning sociopath” (not mention ableist as all heck)

NOT Romanticization: A character self-harms because of depression, and character B helps the character through their pain and together they get proper therapy and treatment.

Romanticization: Calling yourself “OMG I’m so bipolar!” because it’s trendy.

NOT Romanticization: A clinically depressed author, who survived a suicide attempt, wanting to tell their story through characters the world is already familiar with, and one that a touchy subject can be expressed and understood by other people, because they’re not ready to write the “real” book. Fandom is a safety net for them.

See what I mean Nonny? We don’t KNOW what kind of pain these authors have PERSONALLY been through, and to censor them from having their voices heard and their stories told is just not on for me.

And let me be clear: YES OF COURSE romanticization happens EVERYWHERE. I am not denying that. But your ask is coming off like EVERY STORY EVER WRITTEN is glorification of something. By your logic:

Disabled people shouldn’t write about their disabilities because they’re romanticising themselves.

The authors with medical degrees shouldn’t write realistic med-fics because some where in the world, ONE person MAY HAVE had a similar experience as Character A and B.

Someone broke their foot in ballet so they shouldn’t write a story about a ballet dancer who broke their hip because it may offend ONE ballerina SOMEWHERE in space and time who got sideline at the prime of their career? 

Stories about LGBT+ people shouldn’t be written because homophobes think it’s icky.

We shouldn’t write about wizards because it offends high school catholic pastors (an actual thing that happened)? 

How about cancer stories because kids die of cancer all the time? 

Non-fiction autobiographies about holocaust survivors is not okay.

Science books offend flat earthers, so we shouldn’t write those.

Books about the Big Bang and a 4.5 billion-year-old earth offends creationists, so burn those.

A now-adult child rape victim writing their survival stories to help get their often-in-power abusers behind bars are taboo.

True crime stories from detectives on those cases shouldn’t be told because they weren’t the victim.

Non-fiction in general because someone somewhere may have had that one singular thing happen to them.

How about coping with grief over a parent’s sudden death because I personally might find offense in that since that was a horridly traumatic experience in my life?

Do you see how progressively out of touch this argument is? (the answer to all of these: authors should be allowed to write them, because stories make us human). Your argument leads down the very dangerous path to censorship of books, the internet, and history... to have people only read and learn what someone else dictates, leading to... well.

I’m not trying to be a dick here, Nonny, I’m really not. But I think you’re really missing the entire point of fiction and story telling. I feel you’re failing in the empathy game here, and failing to understand what romanticizing really actually is. 

Whenever I get asks like this, I always feel like the Nonnies don’t really know much about pre-Ao3. I come from “early internet” fandom age, and I’m talking before tags existed. Back when I had to go buy a book at Coles and guess what was in it based on a cover description. No “amazon reviews”. No “harmful content warning” stickers. You just picked up that book, and sometimes you get a sweet story about a friends exploring an alien landscape, and other times WHOOOPS ACCIDENTAL ALIEN SEX I DIDN’T SIGN UP FOR. And sometimes, it ended with a dark story about death, and the reality of coping with it.

Twenty years ago, books on the shelves at bookstores and libraries were the only place you could do your reading and they certainly do NOT have tags on them... Modern tagging of stories are a REALLY recent thing introduced probably no less than 15 years ago and was perfected by Ao3 (which was started in 2009). 

These days, there is no excuse if you only consume fanfiction on Ao3. Fics are tagged with proper possible-trigger tags 90% of the time. They have a VERY METICULOUS filtering system. You aren’t being forced to read the fics, you don’t have to read the fics, so use those tag filters, they exist for a reason.

So, with that in mind, I genuinely DON’T GET this attitude about people wanting everything sugar coated and saccharine by default. Especially when you can LITERALLY CURATE YOUR OWN CONTENT. Life isn’t sugar coated. And fiction shouldn’t have to be either. People tag fics with triggers for a reason.

As they used to say back in my early internet days: Don’t like it? Don’t read it. Don’t comment, skip, next story.

And to put this ALL into perspective, so that you don’t think I’m talking out of my ass, I’m going to reveal something here: Do you know what fics I can’t read, Nonny, because they trigger me? Eating disorders. That’s self harm, Nonny, in a very different way. But you know what? I know that those fics DO help other ED people so I’m not going to sit her and tell people NOT to rec or write them. And some of those authors who write those stories are processing their own ED through those stories, healing in their own way. And you know what I do when I see one of those fics? I don’t read them, move on, next story.

I’m sorry if you perceive this as me being harsh with you here, Nonny, and you DON’T have to agree with me and you can block me and never talk to me again, and I’ll understand. As I stated at the beginning, I’m offering an alternative perspective, and helping you to see that some people take comfort in these types of stories.

I think what this all boils down to Nonny, after all of this, and rereading your question a final time to see if I missed covering anything, is that (and feel free to shit on me if I am wrong here) I’m getting the impression – as an unprofessional outsider looking in – that you’re still struggling with your inner demons, whether you realize it or not. The tone and brashness of your ask has me believing this... It feels like it was written after a trigger-moment and you needed to vent AT someone because you are alone, and that hurts my heart so much. I truly hope you find peace in your mind, soon, and I hope you have someone to talk to professionally, or at least a friend. (tw under link, suicidal ideation discussion and links to phone numbers that can help you). I only wish the best for you, my Nonny.

Anyway. I welcome other people to chime in here, respectfully, and let me know if I have the wrong take here. Because I genuinely don’t think I do, but I am not a professional, so my entire thing that took me 3 hours to write here is probably moot. I’m especially interested (on anon in my asks if you’re not comfy with revealing yourselves) on thoughts from other people who have survived the original topics here, as well as any therapists and authors as well.

Take care of yourself Nonny. And please curate your own content for your mental health. Ao3 has an “exclusionary tag system” as well, please use it. *hugs*

[i-can-even-burn-salad]

Last night it was like 3 am, so I couldn't. Which is bad btw, because now I am dead, but I couldn't avert my eyes from this train wreck 😒 only made it to like 30% tho.

And man, I am torn. Usually, I don't leave negative comments. Recommend the ones I love, ignore the ones I hate, at most bitch in my private discord club of book connoisseurs. But this book pissed me OFF!

Obvious ableism under the cut 🙃

I was looking for a book with a protagonist with cerebral palsy. Which is hard enough already. All you usually find are children's books or books that are listed under the tag for a side char. I found one, and it's a romance. A christmas romance (gagging noise) but ok, I'm not judging that. One person's unnecessary showing and random meandering thoughts is another person's beloved prose, one (aroace 😂) person's unrealistic behavior because they're in looooove is another person's reason to read this.

So the protag is a woman with quadriplegic CP. She walks with crutches and has motor issues as well as speech issues. Sounds not too bad, right? Now I don't have CP, but I raised an eyebrow when she was mentioned to use her computer with eye tracking software. Ok ok perhaps I am wrong but that seems unnecessary complicated for someone who still does most of her own household chores and even some makeup. But whatever. The real issues.

Something something genre expectations. I am not on board with the blanket advice of never having a disabled char talk negatively about themselves or their disability, especially depending on genre (cough whump cough). But this? This is a whole other ballpark. Every few pages, she laments how unlovable she is, how broken her body is, how hard it would be for anyone to build a family with her, up to a self-proclaimed pity party in which she remarked on sometimes wishing the doctors hadn't saved her life at birth.

I've read a lot those past months. I have no doubt that there are people who think that about themselves. I am, however, not sure someone reading a fun christmas romance wants to have it thrown into their face like that. Do they really want her body to be called misshapen in the middle of a make out session?

She was aware that her speech was slurred and accented in a way that made her seem like an imbecile. How could he be happy with that?

thousand yard stare

The moment I started yelling at discord in all-caps btw was when the guy she's in love with invited her to dance, and afterwards she decided to be daring and - ran off with him LEAVING HER CRUTCHES IN THE RESTAURANT. Her only pair of forearm crutches. Without knowing whether her sister would notice and fetch them. To ride a motorcycle (which he remarked on "he couldn't fit the crutches anyway"). And then say good bye to him at the door because she didn't want him to see her having to crawl all the way through her house because SHE CANNOT WALK WITHOUT CRUTCHES. To her spare pair of underarm crutches in the bedroom, which she doesn't like. Which weren't even hers but her sister's from when she broke her leg or whatever. As if you'd need an excuse to have a second pair (she's not lacking money.)

And next day when they were out and about he just TOOK THE CRUTCHES FROM HER to put them back into his truck and helped her walk around town instead, so she doesn't have to be worried people would give her strange looks :) I AM INTERNALLY STILL YELLING. You CANNOT tell me she would just give HER MOBILITY AIDS AWAY LIKE THAT?? HELLO?? What if she needs to pee, will this guy she's been seeing for all of ONE DAY carry her ass into a public toilet?? (Yes yes it's romance toilets don't exist) How is it ROMANTIC to take her independence away because boohoo mobility aid bad let's make you look more NORMAL???

And again, it doesn't feel like I have a "right" to complain, but all of this just feels icky to me. This isn't a book for disabled people. This is a book for abled people to be like "awwwww so inspiring, writing this must have been so hard" and be on their merry way.

This has 88% 4 and 5 star reviews on goodreads, btw.

[ID: An xkcd comic turned into a meme. It shows two stick figures talking. They have been edited to say: Disability representation is second nature to us, so it's easy to forget that the average person probably only knows not to call a char the r word and one or two mobility aids. And daredevil, of course. Of course. Bottom text: Even when theý're trying to compensate for it, experts in anything wildly overestimate the average person's familiarity with their field. End ID]

Would be nice if I could read a good book this year.

[onemanzerosquad]

New York Blackbeard Diary Pt. 3

Day 11.......Woke up.....Started my day getting breakfast then headed to my neurologist office to get my form from my job in regards to my restrictions. After, went to the library to print out documents in regards to a situation that led to someone purchasing something from a PayPal. Pretty much someone hacked into my PayPal and purchase a monthly subscription to watch a show smh. As I was heading to work, I thought about all of my problems and have decided to take care of all the problems. Feels like time is not on my side in my opinion and I can no longer deal with the bullshit no longer. As take care of the problems head on, I have no problem dealing with consequence even if my body limitations is at risk cause. I'm alone in this and that's no one fault cause everyone has their own problem to fix.

On on to the side story......2012.......

The new year started and I was in a long distance relationship. Unfortunately, It didnt last long. Obviously, communication was the cause of the problems. From there I was talking to girls got into a relationship but that didnt even last too. Then I saw her. Now I'm not gonna write her government name. So I'm gonna name her HopelessRomantic. Unlike every women I've been with physically, I actually found her online. I didn't expect her to give me a chance but she did. At first, we were back and forth breaking up and making up. Then mid year, she broke up with thru a inbox smh. She was right tho, I wasn't doing anything with my life and she felt I had no ambition. It's crazy because before she broke up with me, I wanted to let her know that I finally got a job lol. During that time til September, I was dating and talking to other women but at the same time trying to get back with HopelessRomantic. Then at one point, HopelessRomantic was going through a tough time. So I took an opportunity to help her out. I was making sure she was okay. Then one day there was a BWA (beach) reunion show and since I told HopelessRomatic about my backyard wrestling career, I invited her to the show. That day was interested as I got to see some of the guys even my first love and by the night, I brought her home and "Netflix and chill" happened lol. It was our first time doing something after 9 months of us knowing eachother. From that moment on we were back together but this time she trusted me and gave me another chance of love again. On to other things,in that year I started wrestling officially in BWA (Bronx). I had a chance to wrestle in RCW but I decided not to go. I knew I wasn't going to be comfortable there and plus the only people I would mostly trust would be the DIW wrestlers that I meant in 2011. Everyone else ehhhhh (the white boys weren't really there lol). BWA (Bronx) hands down was the best time of my backyard wrestling career. Holy Convictions Tag Team with Genocide, 4 aces, matches with Loco, Dixon, Dom The Don, my epic match against Gencocide that open everyone's eyes, and the match of the event of SuperShowDown (their Wrestlenania), against Joker. I had a epic time in the BWA (Bronx). Now back to HopelessRomantic. Our relationship was great. Our families liked us together, I got to see her often, I was working, the sex was great lol, and she even motivated me to actually go to college. The original plan was to go study Criminal Justice. Then December hit and after the hurricane, I came from chilling with a friend and HopelessRomantic send me a message on Facebook breaking up with me. There wasn't a particular reason. She wrote like an essay but it had nothing to do with me. I can only assume she wasn't interested anymore. So the year was heading to its end. So I decided to live it up with Black, Red, Green, and Blue Label with some 40s. Regardless of the break up, I still had good year.

Day 12.......Woke up and started my day with a cup of coffee. Went to my job to pick my check check my app to see how much since I started last week and today was pay week and apparently I got no pay listed on this week. So I can only assume my next check will make up for last week or something. Money is always with no value hard to get by but hey whatever. So went on my morning and TD Bank to fax the people apart of my dispute case and unfortunately the bank printing machine doesn't work doesn't work. So another Negative Nancy in the poison air of New York City. After work, I saw my Autismo crew (J God, Weirdo, and Porn Plug). Chopped it up a little bit and by the way F**K WWE 2K!!!!!

On on to the side story......2013......

2013 new year.....still working on and off. Surprisely, me and HopelessRomantic kept in contact regardless of the breakup. One day I brought her over just to chill. She got cozy which didn't bother cause she was single as was I. From what I remember, we were talking and it led to her being emotional and she was crying. So held her tight then boom......we had sex......The next day we were talking and I kinda express to her I wanted to get back together but she didn't want that. I actually cried but accepted and got over it. Probably like a month later, she got into a relationship with someone else which sucked even more. Other than that I signed up for a program that dealt with Digital Media and did well in the program. I was still working but not as much. My birthday but on that day I was sick (for about a week). After I healed, I started this new job that my guy Dirty Sandchez aka Eyevrows from Getaway hook me up with. It was an maintenance job. Did the job and all. July 4th hit and partying up drinking doing my thing. I woke up and got a call from HopelessRomantic letting me know that her Aunt passed. All I had was tears cause her aunt meant a lot The last time I talk to her was Mother's Day so the pain was more. I was mad and I played Dante's Inferno with anger. From morning til night, I beat the game. The one thing I notice alot that day was I had double vision that whole day. I would think that would be gone by the morning but it wasn't. After hanging out with my boy. I started to fall easily and constantly told I looked crossed eyed. By August my left leg felt like I or sprained it. August I finally hit the switch and started college. I was studying Mental Health/Domestic Violence Counseling. First semester went well. All As and 1 B. I even had my own little crew.

SIDE NOTE: One person in that crew ending up being my girlfriend (2016)

During the first semester I was still dealing with my health problems. Things got worse. My hands were so numb that I couldn't write. My double vision was there everyday and I had a hard time walking on my left leg. After going to the emergency room doing MRIs and Catscans and testing my strength with a group of neurologists and constantly hearing that I'm so young (I was 22), I saw a neurologist and he told me that I have Multiple Sclerosis.......

Day 13........Woke up, got ready, and speed walked to the bus stop to get to work. Unfortunately, I got a little late due to the bipolarness of the bus coming on schedule. When. I got to work, I couldn't punch in due to the app I punch in on couldn't connect to the server. After work, I went to see a friend that I haven't seen in quite some time and that was pretty much my day.

On on to the side story......2014.......

2014 came. I finally got my finally treatment after waiting for months for insurance reasons smh. I had to take it every week. I continued college by taking free classes inthe winter semester which was apart of Fall semester. As a result passed both classes with an A. From there my GPA was 3.6. With my education background with a learning disability, D equalivent grades, being in special ed classes, and receiving services due to my learning disability, for a guy with a incurable health condition that pretty much messes with your body depending on the central nervous system state, it was remarkable for something like that to happen. Spring semester hit and once again did my thing in classes, went on dates, and followed the routine of being on grind. Then the summer semester hit and I was offered to take a short summer class and I took it of course since it was free. That morning of first day of the class, I wanted to do the impossible and walked from my home to school (Albemarle and East 19 to Manhattan Beach). It took about 3 hours. Got to class on time and kind sat around or whatever. Some other people got inthe class and informed the professor that they were in the other classroom. For some odd reason I was more aware of a woman saying that then the others. Crazy cause that same woman ended up being my girlfriend by the end of September. We ain't saying government names. So her name for this post is Hermione (she likes Harry Potter). She had tattoos, smart, and she was honest for what I feel most of the time. Eventually the relationship didn't last and ended the same way.......a message. Her reasons made sense I guess (went too fast). Honestly I don't believe time should be a determining factor for a relationship to happen. If you feeling this person then give it a shot but that's just my opinion. Also, in 2014, I officially ended my backyard wrestling career against my friend, my brother, and my on screenplay rival Rodney Banks. It was the perfect ending to the legend that was called Heavy D.

Day 14.......Woke up. Gather some clothes and did some laundry. Sat outside for a little bit and headed back to the shelter and took a power nap. Woke up about 3 and watch One Piece Episode 901. I'm already current with the manga. So I'm basically watching what I already read. That was pretty much my Sunday. Plus I need all the rest for the upcoming days of this week. I gotta say, I'm slowly getting myself together to the point that people inthe shelter are noticing me more as hardworking individual. I'm always on the move and that's being notice and respected by people in the shelter.

On on to the tragic side story......2015

2015 started off okay. Winter semester was a success. I saw Hermione. But I didnt really give her attention after the break up but after we talked, we became friends and that was it nothing more. Spring semester came and I did my thing again and lived the college life but got a job. So now I'm get on my grind and officially had no time for much. Summer was here and my mother was working getting her passport to go back to Jamaica and see her family after years. One time I came from work and as usual expected my mother to be home since she doesn't like to be out late. She nevered came home which was extremely alarming. Call the police and I was informed that she was in the hospital in the city. Got to the hospital and use the phone to locate and she was in the 3rd floor ICU. I didn't know what ICU meant at that time but I knew it was something bad. Got to the ICU and saw my mother........Hospital covered with a bandage on her head as if someone bash a metal bat on her head. Come to find out, she had a seizure and fell on head in the street very hard. I was in tears. All I can remember was that the last time I saw her she told me that she was heading out. My mind was wtf like this ain't real. Called everyone I can call and every got the news that my mother was inthe hospital. She eventually got transfer to a rehab center in Far Rockaway Queens. Things seem to be okay. Then I come home from a hard day at home and I get phone call from a friend informing me that something happened and my younger brother didn't sound okay on the phone. Went to the hospital my mother was sent to. Her eyes was closed. Next couple of days saw her as the machine was helping her breath not responding or reacting inthe room. The doctor spoke to me and younger brother and pretty much said there a very little chance they can help. By October 12th. My younger brother called me and informed me that our mother died........

Day 15......Woke up.....Had to skip gym again. I had to get my mail and sent some emails. After, I went straight to work. After work, I happen to see a face I haven't seen in quite some time and we actually introduce our names after knowing each other for years. It's kind of cool knowing someone and finally just engaging in a conversation (just regularly). Then mailed my my money order to this One Shot Deal that I owe money to unfortunately. While on my way back to the shelter, I started thinking.....now knowing that just about everyone knows that I have Multiple Sclerosis......Hawk's Eye will be on me and my refusals from any assistance will make things a little more tough and edgier. So at this point, I have to be smart on everything I do. But I'm sure I'll get through this someway.

On on to 2016.......

2016 was here. After a hard 2015, I was able to keep the home, still work, made sure my health was good and survived a hard semester. I made the impossible possible. On the other hand, things were different. I started living somewhat a independent free life. I went to school, work, and party on the weekends. I was even going to the strip clubs and bars just living it up with my people. Eventually, I had this feeling like I needed to be what I was and I felt it was time to look for love again and I found it. No government names revealed. So her name was SoReal lol. I knew her since I started college (2013). We kept in contact and eventually we got together in July. It was love again. I haven't felt this type of love since my first relationship. She was smart, hardworking, and very determined to finish college. I was in love. When she felt she needed me, I was ready to help. We went on multiple dates. We talked all the time and we expressed that we loved each other. Other than love, I GRADUATED FROM KINGSBORO WITH AN ASSOCIATES!!!!! By September, I was city bound at City College. By the fall semester thing weren't good between me and SoReal. She distanced herself from me and with that I got less focus on school. Our relationship was so back and forth. When December hit, I got a letter from the landlord informing me that I must pay 3500 dollars in two weeks or I get evicted. So rent is not really being paid by my roommate, I'm barely getting thru college, and my relationship is a mess. As a result, I was still in relationship surprisingly, I pass my classes (barely), and I had to ask for assistance from this service called the One Shot Deal (where your whole rent is paid off but you got to pay back the money that was covered. 2017......would finally bring me to the limit.....

Not everything was meant to be......

Jikai........One Last Time. The Past From The Last View 2017 The Fall Of A Headliner

Mad King Recharging Arc

[let-me-vibe]

2:57- I hope she dies, her hair's too nice

4:08- Imagine letting people into your house

5:37- | Imagine not having mommy issues

6:08- || Saaaame, nothing like feeling your mom's presence at night

8:29- || Possession movie!

| 👁👄👁 I worry about you

10:46- | What a dumbass

11:37- || Someone's about to get bitch slapped, I sense it

|| Hush with the depressing comments*

12:01- Oh my god, that trope

13:35- || See, he---

| I don't think he means it

14:07- It be like that with siblings

17:27- || And that's why you should have practiced your lines before the day of

18:15- | It's the almost slur for me

Maybe she's queer

| True

18:28- | WHY.

It's a horror movie, it had to happen sometime

18:34- || Same

| Koji---

21:43- | The man that lives in the vents is an imposter

23:55- | If being disabled made you unattractive I'd be very happy, personally

Your legs broke, seriously. You're not CrIpPlEd

25:31- Thanks, I hate it

25:59- || This girl is the opposite of me, I have a mirror on every wall so nobody can sneak up on me like that

| Like what?

|| Behind her.

27:15- || I love how loud this movie gets out of nowhere*

29:54- || When weird things happen after somebody tells you a vent man who showed up after you did supernatural shit is in your room, you don't turn the lights off

30:05- | HHeh. Listen to Koji.

|| 😌

32:21- | Wish I got paid for being a nutcase that makes things up

35:21- | Oh, good*

35:32- | Please do not

36:11- | Well I am, turn a light on

37:44- | Good lord

39:23- || Time to move

40:28- || And then her face was eaten and she was never seen again

| I'm not sure this is good for your paranoia

41:12- Well fuck that

41:37- || You see, everything I do is well founded. If my room is ever dark, I am being murdered.

| ....Yeah cool.

46:38- || So Tomura, how's wishing her dead going

Great, I'm hyped

47:16- It's kinda funny though, this girl breaks her legs and then some demon's like "what if I tossed her around like a ragdoll for apparently no reason"

48:38- | The dad's gonna die

49:25- Why did I laugh

Shu's right, it's hilarious

50:49- || She gets it

| Koji....

57:20- || There's a place in the inner world like this

59:28- | What a bop

1:05:22- They're a gay couple because I said so

1:09:03- Weird flex but okay

1:09:54- || It is a possession movie :D

| Jin, do you wanna....?

| No.

1:12:53- || Tag yourself, I'm the parasite taking the body to the dark ✌

1:16:56- | Akio trying to avoid all problems like

1:17:58- | Ugh, not a romantic subplot

1:19:18- As an expert at being manipulated, that's a liar

1:22:03- | Yes queen

1:24:09- Imagine the mom just walks away

1:26:42- Sounds like hell

1:27:26- || No death, no exorcism, 0/10

1:30:29- | Fuck you

two outta three insidious horror movies are on youtube too!!! those ones are the besttt

Happy Halloween week