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imonthinice · 3 years

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The Criminal Psychology Majors, Jason Todd x Fem!Reader Part 8/?

Word Count: 1.6k

Author’s Note: Y/N - Your Name, A/N - Any Name (Your Best Friend’s Name)

This one is shorter because of the last one’s length.

Hi everyone! By the time you see this, I will probably be out and therefore cannot update the other parts with this one’s link, so don’t worry about that if you notice it.

Warnings: Swearing, Mentions of Jason’s Trauma and his Death, Lightning, no beta bitch we die like Jason Todd

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5) (Part 6) (Part 7) (Part 8) (Part 9) (Part 10) (Part 11) (Part 12) (Part 13) (Part 14) (Part 15) (Part 16) (Part 17) (Part 18) (Part 19) (Part 20)

Going on day 5 of knowing each other, Jason and Y/N would spend the day apart. Why? Because they gave each other the chance to have family time, Jason got it by playing around with his baby siblings, playing Assassin.

Fluff Head canon came from frownyalfred on Tumblr, who wrote about Jason playing Assassin with his brothers

He would go running through the halls playing the game that he and Dick knew all too well, it had been the only ‘no contact’ game they were allowed to play at a summer camp Bruce had sent them to all those years ago when they weren’t adults with a bunch of other siblings, and girlfriends. But here they were, explaining the game to their younger siblings while Alfred and Bruce hung out with Barbara, who wished she could play, but was paralyzed.

Everyone missed playing games with her like they used to, but with the video game consoles in the house they did transfer a lot of their gaming to online so they could relive memories with Barbs. It was bittersweet, and everyone remembered when she became paralyzed like it was yesterday, but she always wanted them to play games like they used to, with or without her.

Jason admired his, hopefully, one day older sister for how she treated her disability, like it was a gift, not something that impacted her everyday life and made her have to hang up the cloak of Batgirl.

But running around chasing after Dick, because of course, he got Dick, the universe wanted them to play again, was something he missed so much. They hadn’t had so much of this time, family time, ever since they all became vigilantes, and they never realized how much they missed the thrill of running around with each other.

Jason ended up getting Dick and throwing him out of the game, calling it a ‘selfless act of brotherhood so you can hang out with your girl’ and they both laughed at it. Titus, Damien’s dog, ended up barking up a storm at Jason when he killed Dick, like the big dog was rooting for Dick to win the tournament.

“Down boy! It’s a game!” Jason would whisper-yell at his dog.

“Yeah! Good boy, Titus! Get him!”

“No!” Jason would yell while running throughout the house, Titus on his heels. Passing by Alfred, Bruce and Barbara, where Titus would stop and go lay at Bruce’s feet, but Jason didn’t know that.

Jason would end up coming in just 10 minutes later, with a green slash on his neck. Tim, who had pulled Cass but killed her, Cass, who had pulled Jason. Tim now had two kills in the game and both were to people who could have easily overpowered him.

“Jase! Welcome to the land of the dead,” Dick greeted him.

“God dammnit I’ve already been here,” Jason whined in a joke.

“You and your ‘I died pity me’ jokes,” Barbara said.

“It’s called a coping mechanism, Barbs. And hi dad, Alfred,” Jason said as he waved slightly at both of them, Alfred waved back and Bruce nodded at him.

“You could just to go therapy, Jase,” Barbara said, seeming concerned for someone who she considered her baby brother. She remember when he came into the Manor, she was older than him, sure . But he had nightmares and she and Dick would switch between who would sleep at his door at night, they both had terrible backs until the nightmares calmed down. Jason never knew they did this.

It also happened when he was resurrected, but the nightmares were worse and he’d wake all sweaty and upset. There were too many nights where batkids would be in Jason’s bed with him from 12am to when Alfred would greet them in the morning. The nightmares had slowed down a lot in the past few years with the introduction of his Goddaughter into his life, but they still came by to remind him of what happened.

He didn’t talk about it much. They would always try to edge him on about about really happened, but he was stubborn. It made sense, sure, trauma is trauma. But they all wanted to help him get better. It hurt them all that he was hurting and they didn’t know how to help him get through it.

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Y/N would sit on her bed that morning and finally finished organizing her criminal psychology and regular psychology notes when she came across her printed copy of Dr. Barry Allen’s dissertation she had studied so hard. She found it so weird that she was so close to someone who she looked up to in the field while also being so far in the same breath.

She didn't dote on it for long, she stocked it away with her forensics notes in their place. This, the relationship she had with Jason that intertwined her with so many people, was something she was getting used to by the minute, but it was never something she’d get fully used to as time goes on.

She would put on a JCS - Criminal Psychology video in the background as she worked and tried to make her journal look nicer when Jason texted her,

Good morning. He said.

Good morning :) She said back.

I just lost a game against a 16 year old.

Huh?

My brothers and 2 of my sisters were playing Assassins with me right? Well my 16 year old brother, Tim, he ended up getting the better of me and beat me.

Oh! So you suck!

What!? No, I’m literally so cool what do you mean? He said, it clearly had sarcasm undertones to it, so Y/N wasn’t worried if she offended him with saying he sucked.

Oh yeah? Then why’d you lose?

Well, I killed Dick.

Okay so you didn’t lose, Dick lost.

It started raining a little bit, the sounds of it hitting lightly against her window, and she felt at peace. It was never hard for her to feel peace when she was by herself. She only had one roommate because she liked the silence, to be alone to collect her own thoughts in her head.

Her parents said it was because she probably had underlying mental illness that they never had the money to diagnose. She agreed. But she still didn’t have the chance to do it.

Jason and her deserved so much more than what the world have given them up to this point, so when they found each other it was, in a way, the universe saying ‘I’m sorry, you deserve this’ and with each passing day it made the pain they had both felt in their lives just a little bit more tolerable.

No, I guess Dick sucks at the game more than me.

Where’d you even get the concept for that game?

Dick and I used to play it at a Summer Camp before we got kicked out.

For playing the game?

No, for being unruly children.

You seem like you were a handful back in the day.

I was, I was the worst kid to raise, my dad has a shirt that says ‘Proud parent of a kid who is sometimes an asshole but that’s OK’ and he wears it all the time.

What a dad moment. Don’t tell my father that shirt exists, he’ll get one for my mum and himself to represent my sister and I.

Were you an unruly child as well?

I was a troublemaker. Getting into arguments with my authoritative figures about dress codes, rules, why girls couldn’t carry chairs, literally anything that was unequal, I was at their throats about it.

I mean, as you should. My older sister, Barbara, and my younger sisters, Stephanie and Cassie, they would like that about you.

I feel like in someway I’ve won over every part of your family.

The rain would get more violent as time went on. Strikes and hits of lightning would strike all around the city, hitting those gargoyles on every building, she always figured they were decorative, but A/N explained that their horns were made out of copper so people wouldn’t get struck by lightning. Bruce Wayne actually made that a thing, A/N said.

Y/N got a message from the dance competition that she signed up to, turns out, California was hit with a hurricane and most people evacuated. No one was allowed in or out. She guessed weather was being funky everywhere. It sucked, but she already was wishing she could spend time at home instead of out in the world.

A feeling she hated.

She would spend the rest of the day on and off the phone with Jason while it stormed. She would go to bed early that night.

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Jason slipped on his vigilante uniform, the Red Hood was going to be on patrol over this night, stormy or not, it was his duty and he knew that. Did he want to go? Yes. He was killing for some action and he was going with Dick. They would probably have some ‘Bro Time’ which Jason wanted.

Even if it was silence, having Dick nearby him meant enough and gave him peace of mind.

He grabbed his guns and loaded them while packing a few extra magazines in his belt, when Dick placed a hand on his shoulder, “You have to be careful tonight, Jase,” Dick said as he gulped down tears, “Just come back to me alive if you break off from me, okay?”

“Alive but bruised,” Jason joked.

“I’m serious. I can’t lose you again and tonight is going to be massively dangerous.”

“You won’t.”

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okay-victoria · 3 years

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Random Personal Rant

For anyone somehow here not from the original thread, this started off me getting asked what finishing school is and me getting shit off my chest that is only mildly relevant about how I could both be of the social class that gets sent to finishing school and grows up on welfare.

With an understanding that in many parts of the world it wouldn't qualify as so, as far as the US goes, my dad is from what counts as a very old money family from Baltimore & Philadelphia. Both his siblings went to college and one now owns a major hedge fund, and his sister is married to a C-level executive at a huge conglomerate. His parents went to college. His grandparents went to college. All eight of his great grandparents went to college. My dad...did not go to college. He was not about that life, and while I don't mean it as an insult, when I say his primary occupation until I was ~5 was a drummer in a mediocre band I mean that he opened for a lot of great acts, and if you lived in the Boston to Atlanta area in the 80s you may have heard him play, but he was never a huge national name. But he wasn't an amateur band playing for free at some random local gig either.

My mom grew up on a chicken farm in a Mennonite family in Pennsylvania but also completely rejected her heritage and became a model, sort of like my father, of mediocre status. Not Giselle Bundchen, but had national contracts and if you have a Graco ad/box from 1990-1993 you might see both me and her on it. They met because my mom's friends placed bets, one each, on who could sleep with a member of their favorite local band first and my mom picked my dad and...my mom was actually supposed to go be a model in Tokyo and found out she was pregnant with me and couldn't go 😂

So, after my parents had two kids back to back with a third on the way and determined they needed lifestyles more in line with having three children, they became much poorer than they originally were because my mom stopped working and my dad, with a barely-passed-high-school education but needing a true "day job" worked day labor in construction. My dad's father was too proud to give us money/help if my dad didn't beg for it; despite having eventually four young children my dad never did so we ended up on all the state assistance programs one could imagine. My grandma jokes that dinners at my parents house were BYOC - bring your own chair, because we didn't own any.

My mother and paternal grandmother had no such pride issues and I live in eternal gratitude that my welfare childhood was not as crappy as it should have been because my grandmother would have my mom accompany her on grocery runs and buy us food without my father or grandfather knowing, and every Christmas and birthday my grandparents/godparents could give us the one big ticket gift all the kids wanted that year. But, on the other side, I once got stung by a bee inside my mouth because my brother threw a hairbrush through a cracked window at me and broke it and we couldn't afford to fix it for about two years and a hornet got in one day and rested himself in my coke can (my parents were the very American type that fed me coca-cola in baby bottles at age 8 when I was jealous of my younger siblings lol).

It is hard not to believe in "toxic masculinity" when two men warring over dumbass pride issues would rather their children/grandchildren go without food than suck it up and decide 'help' isn't the worst word in the English language, and you know you've only been saved by two women who came from totally different backgrounds and entirely disapproved of each other but reached out the hand to shake when it came down to toddlers getting the short end of the don't-bend-the-knee stick. It wasn't that either of the men were bad people, I loved them both and got along great with both, but on a societal level I feel they were socialized in a very fucked up way if that was the end result, as both claimed "male pride" in these instances [my dad took multiple thousands of dollars I'd saved from working during college from me during the 2008-2010 financial crisis and didn't tell me and that was the reason I was given for why I hadn't been informed/asked, because it would be too emotionally difficult for an adult man to ask a young woman. My graduation present was them repaying me 1/3 of the money they'd taken from me without asking because I'd like, trusted them when it had been in a joint account that was a holdover from when I was <18 and couldn't have my own bank account].

While in some ways my parents on the surface achieved the American dream of going from nothing to a bunch of money, the real factor in play was that my dad's father was the bank. My parents had no credit and couldn't get real loans. My dad worked construction and during the two major periods that flipping houses was very lucrative, he never had to get an actual loan or pay actual interest, he just had to ask his father to pay out cash and then repay him at a flat 2% interest rate that didn't even accrue over time, just...whenever you are ready, repay the value of the loan + 2%. Because my father was doing something productive, in these instances, my grandfather was happy to pay, because it wasn't giving away money, it was loaning it. I had a very weird situation of mostly being poor but like also getting taken to the "big donors" events at the Kennedy Center and my grandparents regularly buying me a dress as a child worth more than my mom's wedding dress and also needing to pretend I fit in with these people.

And look. When I say "these people"...honestly, by and large, most wealthy people, whether inherited or not, are not the assholes you want to imagine. Most of them are extremely nice. Most of them are generous when it comes to the less fortunate who are in their personal sphere of being. Most of them are just really out of touch. The 100% kindest of all of them that I know once relayed to me that she thought people would be happier if once a year they did what she did...go to the airport with a purse packed full of absolute necessities, buy a one way ticket to the most appealing destination on the flight board, buy your clothes and book your accommodations after you'd arrived, and come back after you felt you'd 'centered' yourself. She didn't understand why there were so many unhappy people who weren't taking this very obvious route to being happier. I didn't quite know how to explain that saying "most" people couldn't afford to do that either financially or from a job/career angle didn't even cover it, as "most" sounds like 70% instead of 99.7%.

I was both my parents eldest son and eldest daughter in the worst combination possible. I was the eldest son because I was the most stereotypically male of all my siblings, in everything from desire to physically fight the battles I was given to dislike of shopping/fashion to lack of emotional connection to my relationships, so I can now fix your average household plumbing/drywall/electrical issue better than most "city" guys I interact with and remain less clingy to them in the process. I was also very much the oldest daughter from a responsibility perspective, I managed our household and from age 10 - 24 managed the finances of our family business, my mom almost died giving birth to my youngest brother after a ruptured uterus that should never have happened in the first place if we had adequate insurance to get her a non-emergency C-section (I was just past 9 years old at the time) and I was informally withdrawn from school for two years to take care of the family when she couldn't because there is no paid parental leave in the US and we got double-fucked by the medical industry because she got a bad "mesh" put in and then had to have a further surgery to repair that which we also had to pay for and didn't have the money to win a lawsuit over.

I don't know quite how to put this, but in the deepest fuck you of the universe, my rich-immigrant-ggggg grandfather's money led to him owning banks, insurance companies, etc, and the family cashed out in a big way when their ownership was bought by and merged with what is now Cigna, one of the biggest US healthcare insurers, and my nuclear family specifically got screwed by the American health insurance industry, but anyway, we were the people selected for that karmic comeuppance so if you want to feel schadenfreude at my expense, I'll allow it without begrudging the sentiment, my family might have fucked up your family’s life too, not just their own.

I got up twice a night to feed my brother because my dad had to sleep unmolested in my room to get to work and my mom was too weak to carry my brother or even hold him against her while she nursed so I had to hold him up to her. Adjusting to living in a city and hearing lots of random noises all the time was not easy when I'd had mom sound instincts from age 9.

I learned to drive the fall my youngest bro was born because my mom couldn't and I had to get my middle brother to preschool and go the grocery store on my own. While I hold absolutely no ill will towards my father or grandfather for this and given that about 1/3 of my paternal family either has an autism diagnosis or should, I fully feel the struggles they both went through to be communicated with, my father wouldn't ask for help, and my grandmother that lived 20 minutes away couldn't give enough help because my grandfather refused to do a single dish on his own as that was outside their "marriage contract" type agreement and she couldn't ever stay with us overnight when there wasn't a clearly-communicated need, so they let the burden fall on a 9 - 11 year old child and that really shaped a lot of my life in both good and bad ways. My youngest brother is 22, and we have only just climbed out of the medical debt his birth left us with between my dad's life insurance and my oldest brother and I paying for the extra cost of out-of-state college tuition.

The irony of all of this is that because my father died before his father, when my grandmother dies, my siblings and I will all inherit enough money (as a non-blood relative my mom, despite keeping her vows to part at death and not having remarried in eight years, is cut out entirely) to make this a non-issue, but my grandfather couldn't conscience spotting his unluckiest child some money in the end of days to pay for my youngest two brothers' education and take that worry off my father as he was dying. The day before he died I had to hold him down in bed to keep him from trying to climb in his truck to go to work because he was so anxious about trying to provide for us in spite of his father having fuck you money, because his father didn't think it was fair to the other siblings (who, at the time, still owned a major hedge fund and were married to a C-level executive of a huge conglomerate). A day and a half later I went back to my job because at the time I was then the sole provider for the family and didn't want to risk asking for the standard week's bereavement leave when I knew I was capable of showing up at work the next day and was fresh out of college so hadn't built up a reputation yet.

My father worked the day each of us was born, so I suppose it is only fair and he smiled at the choice. In spite of what it may seem, I gave a baller and very heartfelt speech at his funeral to all his rich friends that over and above everything, he'd taught us how to be happy with our own lives no matter what, and multiple of them emailed my mom in the aftermath to say they'd reassessed their relationship with their children in light of it, although...tbh I kind of doubt that lasted and they probably changed nothing 😅. The last good talk I had with him, two weeks before he died [his liver was going and it sent toxins to his brain that de-personed him after that and he no longer recognized me as his daughter, but as his sister], I reassured him that though we would all be sad he'd gone, we'd live on just fine without him because that's how he'd raised us, and according to my mom that was what gave him the final bit of peace he needed. Although honestly, I don't think I will ever see the strength in another human again that it took my grandmother to sit next to him and stroke his hand and tell him to close his eyes and imagine he was happy on a beach and die, for God's sake, because he was unaware and in pain and just prolonging it for our sake by then.

That type of obsession my grandfather had with assessing his children and grandchildren on the basis of economic productivity and a very black and white idea of "fair" is one you don't easily forget, I promise you. My hedge fund uncle is currently positioning himself to screw us out of our inheritance because of janky writing in the will and I'm doing my fuck all best to gain the wherewithal to go toe-to-toe with this cold motherfucker in court as the oldest and representative member of my happily much nicer and softer younger brothers who I want to remain that way not because I even care that much about the money, I know what bills affect your credit first and what you can put off paying and all of us have good enough career prospects to do our own thing, but just because I want to give the middle finger to a man that was a multi-millionaire and drew lines on his milk and orange juice bottles when I came over so he knew if I drank what my parents couldn't afford when I was approximately six. Anyway, ask me why I support major reforms in wealth taxation. I don't care who it goes to, just not that guy, you feel?

Having expendable income was very exciting for a bit after I started working but once I got to the hateable point of assessing my annual bonus and internally complaining that I'd spent the money I should have spent on a Sauternes cellar to drop five digits on bedset materials (to be fair they are drop dead gorgeous, very comfy and the factory pays a living wage for people to handmake the sheets/duvets/pillows to people in San Francisco, which is not cheap, so maybe I did more good than harm with that), I two seconds later nodded to myself and went "the government needs to confiscate more money from me". The narrative is always that the "undeserving" will use it for dumb things they don't need like iPhones or refrigerators...?...but like...I could also have gone to Bed Bath and Beyond and bought a very nice sheet/comforter set for at most a tenth of what I paid so am I really spending it responsibly either....?....who is going to get more joy out of this misspent money....?....not me, that is for sure, I probably would have had more fun going to BBB and laying on all the demo beds and buying something there.

My lifelong dream, which may become possible if/when I do have something of an inheritance, is to provide food security for one of the many towns in the US were most residents don't have it. It's the thing I remember the most distinctly over the years. I never could quite believe it when I got to the point that I could just...pay to eat at a restaurant. One of the most disappointed my mother has ever been in me is when I was twenty five and confessed I actually had no idea how much a gallon of milk cost in a city grocery store besides that it was probably between $1 and $5, because I didn't have to know. For now I make a weekly drop off of my excess produce to a mom group I met under somewhat weird circumstances but I was walking through the cut-through that went through the low-income housing back to my apartment at like 2 AM on a Saturday and these moms were out there partying and smoking weed with their kids all strapped in strollers around or the older ones watched by a rotating member of the group and I felt very safe and like these moms had a very good vibe of both living their own lives [seriously for mental health parents but in most cases specifically mothers need to be able to keep up relationships with people their age] but keeping their children safe and accounted for while doing so and trying their fuckin' best against all the odds to figure out how to make that happen when life had dealt them a shit hand.

...anyway, looping way back to the original question of what finishing school is, when I was almost done with middle school my dad had built a legit construction business that then very quickly took off because we lived in a commutable zip code to the now-rich-in-their-own-right people he went to high school with who trusted him to redo their homes. We eventually moved to that zip code but I stayed and commuted back to my old high school. But, i was a pretty wild kid which my father appreciated for a long while because I would follow him around on jobs and enjoy doing physical labor, but once I was mid-puberty and also he had to maybe show me to his high school friends that did not fly.

I snapped - not broke, snapped - my left thumb and my parents had to trap me like a wild animal to get me to go the hospital. Then I got a deep cut that partially injured a tendon in my leg and at eleven I tried to beat the shit out of my dad to prevent him from picking me up to strap me in the car and go to the hopsital. Next I got a deep splinter due to my eternal-barefoot tendencies and it wouldn't come out so got infected and I refused to go to the doctor [another weird back story but I was minorly sexually assaulted [[to be clear, not raped or anything big traumatic]] when I was eight and had to stay in hospital for a week and my parents couldn't be with me all the time so I have a permanent heebie-jeebie about going to the hospital, not true anxiety, I will go if I know I need to and I don't breathe heavy or anything, and I'm actually not permanently weirded out by sex or anything, just doctors in hospitals specifically I kind of unconsciously try to justify not needing to the extent I can rationalize it] and my dad was tired of my antics so he was like "fine if you don't go I will slice your foot in half with a Swiss Army knife to get it out" and I called his bluff and laid down on the floor, stuck my foot on his lap, and he didn't really know what to do when a barely fourteen year old girl called his bluff so my brothers watched in fascinated but horrified awe as I got my foot sliced open spectacularly so that the infection/splinter could come out and I didn't even make a sound out of spite despite it being quite painful to my recollection almost twenty years later.

They saw me cry from pain exactly one time when while trying to break up a fight between all three of them (it was over ice cream) I got pushed and my ankle got dislocated and what actually made me cry was snapping it back in place and they realized it was not a joke. These dumb assholes that I love have ragged on me for "skipping" chores the day after I was in the hospital because the day before that I had to spend 18 hours running Thanksgiving as a good sub-hostess like I didn't have a serious infection that needed treating and couldn't rest because none of them were up to any task beyond peeling potatoes.

After the Swiss Army knife incident, my dad's discussion of sending me to finishing school became real, which I knew when my mom made me take a walk with her and talked about it. Finishing school is like...etiquette school....? In ye olden day when finishing high school was not the norm for anyone, wealthy men finished high school and wealthy women often went to "finishing" school to have a combined education on being a proper lady but also being able to hold a decent conversation with your presumably-educated husband, so it wasn't entirely etiquette non-academic. It was more just like "what a rich man wants in a wife" school, which was sort of household management and knowing enough about cleaning/cooking to correct the staff if they fucked up, how to be a polite hostess, and how to not entirely bore him when you were alone together and had done your five minutes of sex or whatever so actually had to have a conversation. In modern times it has obviously expanded to be less bleak.

I said miss me with that, I can be a girl on my own, so I went full throttle into the girliest sport they offer in high school and ever since have gained the inestimable advantage of knowing how to also use femininity to my advantage, which I am very grateful to my parents for making me learn. It would be great if we lived in a world where that didn't count, but it did/still does, and they really set me up to operate in all the worlds.

It is weird for me to tell the story to Internet strangers because it's one of those things that makes your parents sound terrible and abusive in the general tone of the Internet nowadays, and while I support gender nonconforming children I don't remember my childhood or parents that way. But, I feel like the bits and pieces of my life I've given don't always make a ton of sense together without the context, so here it is, and in the end, I think a number of parts of it are areas where you can probably understand where it makes me have the opinions I do when I write.

Anyhoo, this makes my life sound far worse than it is, I actually have a great life and I am not unhappy with it at all and feel I was on the whole blessed with many more turns of luck than unluck, so, please, do not take this as a depressed artist rant, it is more like a rant of a very energetic person who rants about a lot of things all the time and didn’t need to come out but just did because the question was asked and the time was right with my life being in a bit of flux to think about how I got where I am and where I want to go and why.

Always remember no matter what problems it seems like I have, if I didn’t solve them on my 2 year round the world traveling hiatus I took from working, it’s my own fault, I definitely had the time and money to solve them and just chose not to.

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embeanwrites · 4 years

Text

Finding Home Gavin Reed x Reader

Chapter 15

Masterlist

Connor had driven me home after we finished the movie and now, I was laying in bed looking at my phone. I decided to send Gavin a text before heading to bed.

How’s burning the midnight oil with Nines?

lame, i wish i was with my cats

Me too lol

how was dinner

Pretty good, we watched Into the Spider-Verse after. Connor had never seen it!

i haven’t either

You’re joking, right? Is this the Jameson and Ginger Ale thing again?

i barely have time for new movies, let alone old ones

We’re watching it ASAP

lol ok pipsqueak

hey i have bad news

Damn, you couldn’t secure a place for the Dead Mom Society to meet? Or is the bakery out of chocolate chip cookies?

no i have to work through lunch on monday

What are you going to have for lunch then?

idk a pb&j from the breakroom

Would it ruin your “working through lunch” if I brought you lunch and we eat it in the breakroom?

nines wont be too happy

Tell him it’s revenge for lying and setting us up!

ok ill work on him and let u know

Awesome! Good luck saving the city tonight, Batman!

ur the biggest nerd ive ever met

yet for some reason i like u

Awwwwww you like me

…hm

Yeah, yeah I like you too

I gotta go to bed, talk to you later

Sleep tight, pipsqueak

I smiled at the screen for a moment, even if that nickname was rude and had started as an insult, it was his thing for me now. I'm an adult woman. A nickname shouldn't make me feel this giddy, but here I am, grinning at a now black phone screen, thinking about how he only grins and never smiles and how handsome it is when half his face scrunches up to accommodate those grins. I wonder if he's grinning now, a small one at his desk, maybe into a cup of coffee to hide it while he returns to his case files. I hope he's grinning, feeling like a stupid teenager. I hope he likes me as much as I'm starting to like him. I fell asleep soon after, thinking of what I should bring him for lunch, trying to guess what would surprise him most without being too flashy, what I could do to make him grin for me again.

I woke up the next morning around 10 am, and laid in bed for a moment questioning how necessary it was for me to get out of this nice warm cocoon of blankets, with the sunlight streaming in gently just out of my eyes, and sighed loudly when I remembered that it was indeed necessary that I get out of bed, as Tina would be here to pick me up at 11:30. I kicked the covers off, grabbing my phone off the charger and moving to sit on the edge of the bed to check it before truly getting up. The first notification was a text from Gavin, sent around 5 a.m.

u can come on monday probs around 11 bring whatever im not picky

Will do, Batman!

I turned on a throwback playlist while I got ready, a quick shower where I debated too long over shaving my legs before I actually did so, thinking about how Tina might have me try on a suit or dress for the wedding. I hadn't decided what I wanted to go for yet, hence the indecisiveness with the razor. Eventually I bit the bullet and just took the extra five minutes to shave just to the tops of my knees, not bothering with my thighs as I highly doubted I'd be wearing a mini dress to a formal event, though it might be fun to see how Gavin would react to more revealing clothes. I filed the thought away while I got out of the shower, toweling off and tying the towel around my hair and brushing my teeth. By the time I had thrown on a pair of well loved jeans and a plain tee, Tina was calling me, I answered and before I could even put the phone to my ear, I could hear music blaring in the background, and then Tina screamed "HERE BITCH!" and promptly hung up. I pocketed the phone, and hurried looking for my Birkenstocks, of course they weren't by the door, they were in front of the fridge, where I had stopped last night upon arriving home to grab some food before heading to bed. I slid the sandals on, stopping for a moment to grab two packets of the applesauce squeezies for a quick breakfast.

By the time I got to the car, Tina was listening to a different song, but the volume was the same, I'm sure my poor neighbors who were trying to sleep in on a Sunday morning were not very pleased. I opened the door and slid in, Tina turned the volume down. What a shame, she had excellent taste in music, ‘Do I Wanna Know?’ by Arctic Monkeys isn't a song you just turn down!

"Took you long enough!" She laughed, a smile stretching across her face.

"Shut up I couldn't find my shoes!" I shouted, holding up my feet and wiggling my toes in the most comfortable pair of shoes ever made. She looked at my feet and raised her eyebrows, snorting.

"Jesus Christ I’m a lesbian and I still wouldn’t wear those ugly ass shoes, (Y/n)!” I gasped and smacked her arm.

“You’re disrespecting your culture!” I shouted, as the car silently started and began to pull out into the street, heading towards the dress store. Tina just giggled and I huffed.

“For that, I’m not giving you the applesauce I brought for you.” I tore open the packets, double fisting them and squeezing all their contents into my mouth. Tina howled with laughter

“What are you, fucking two years old! I cannot believe you!”

“You’re just jealous that you aren’t as stylish as me and now I’ve had a healthy breakfast which I assume you didn’t as you were at the station all night. I was going to be a good, kind, maid of honor and offer you sustenance but if you disrespect the birks, you disrespect me.” I joked, crossing my arms and looking out the windshield past her.

“Oh my god my maid of honor is two years old!!”

“Hey! That’s uncalled for, I’m not a toddler, if anything I’m like a seven year old, I make sense but just barely.” I joked. She laughed and nodded.

“Still can’t buy booze.”

“That’s why there are other best people who are of age who can.”

There was a natural pause in the conversation, the song changed and we both listened for a moment before Tina turned to me, a devilish grin on her face making me nervous.

“What?”

“So, I noticed something strange at work last night.”

“Yeah, what did you notice?” I laughed.

“A certain someone kept texting on their phone and smiling AND Nines wasn’t giving them a hard time for being on their phone.” She smirked. “I thought the date went bad?”

“How do you even know it was me, future Detective Chen?”

“Well, I may have glanced over his shoulder at some point and saw your name.” I laughed.

“Tina! I was going to tell you. You didn’t have to spy on Gavin!” She laughed.

“It was the heat of the moment. I promise the next time I spy on him I won’t tell you.” I shoved her shoulder and we both laughed.

“Man, I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too.” The automatic car pulled into the bridal shop and we both squealed, jumping out of the car and practically running inside.

"I win." Tina said smugly as she crossed the threshold of the store before me.

"Hey who's the kid now!"

Time went by fast in the shop, the consultants immediately brought us back to a sitting area, offering us complimentary champagne that we happily took. Our consultant, a happy-go-lucky android named Lance, brought out a selection of pantsuits for Tina to try, and offered excellent counsel on all of Tina's concerns. She wanted something elegant and more masculine. She tried a couple things before deciding pinstripe made her feel like a mobster and that white was definitely not her color. Lance was always smiling and laughing with them, not minding at all when they laughed at one of the options or didn't like what he had brought for her. He was very efficient in bringing options, and after three 'no's' he brought out a selection of black jackets and pants, assisting her in a pair of slim fit high waisted slacks with a center vertical pleat to help her look taller, a simple white dress shirt with a short popped collar, and a sleek black satin jacket, with a black lining. The fabric shone nicely in the light, a little bit of a sparkle in the thread. She looked gorgeous, and I could tell she felt it too, the way her eyes shone a bit, and her cheeks flushed, though she would probably blame that on the champagne if I brought it up later.

“You should try on some bridesmaids’ dresses. I’ve got my suit and now I want to judge others!” Tina plopped down on the couch next to me and took my champagne from me.

"You haven't even decided on the style you want! Are you matching both bridal parties? Doesn't Valerie have a say in it then!" I squawked, reaching for the champagne flute she'd stolen from me.

"We actually have talked about it, and we decided that as long as everyone has blush pink or yellow in their outfit, whatever style they want is best. It eliminates the drama and keeps our wedding day happy." Tina said, tipping her head back and downing my champagne in one big gulp. I smacked her arm.

"Ah, I'd be happy to help you find a dress Miss. (L/N)." Lance offered, moving to sit next to me and offered out his hand, images of dresses popping up on his hand.

"What are you thinking Miss (L/N)? Would you prefer the blush tone or yellow?" Lance asked, looking at my face instead of his hand.

"Ah, blush please." I requested.

"Not a problem, it's a popular color so we have a lot of options. Now, what style cut do you like?" I looked at him like a fish out of water.

"I'm not sure, what do you think would look best, Lance?" He smiled, before pulling up a couple of images on his hand and explaining the styles and what design choices would flatter my features. I nodded, and he guided me back to the dressing room.

"I'm going to run and grab some of the options we discussed Miss. (L/N)." He told me, before shutting the door. He knocked when he returned about five minutes later, hanging six dresses on the wall for me. "When you're ready, join us in the showing room, and we can adjust the fit and see what the bride thinks." He told me. I shouted 'Thanks!' through the door before turning to decide which dress I wanted to try first.

“Wow.” I murmured looking at myself in the mirror. From the tag on the dress I learned it’s a ‘long chiffon dress with halter neckline.’ I didn’t really understand what any of those words meant, but this dress was…amazing. It made me feel like a goddamn princess.

“What’s taking so long!” I heard Tina shout.

“Give me a minute, you drunk!” I walked out of the dressing room, towards where Tina was sitting.

“Holy shit.” I laughed and spun around.

“It’s pretty good, right?” She got up and walked towards me.

“You’re getting this one. No question. I’m not letting you leave without it!”

“Are you sure? I can try a light-yellow dress if you want.”

“No, this one is perfect.” She smashed her cheek on mine and we both looked at ourselves in the mirror. I was smiling so wide my face was starting to hurt. She quickly grabbed her phone and snapped a picture of us, and I laughed.

“Tina!”

“What! I want to remember this moment.” She kissed my cheek. “I can’t wait to come back here with you when Gavin proposes.” She teased, causing you to laugh.

“We’ve gone on one date! How much champagne have you had?” She shook her head.

“Just three glasses, I’m drunk on happiness! Come on, change back and buy that dress!” I laughed and walked back to the changing room. I picked up my phone and saw Tina had sent me the picture already. Smiling, I sent the picture to my dad.

Got my dress for the wedding!

Beautiful kiddo!

#gavin reed x reader #gavin reed #detroit become human #tina chen #dbh #hank anderson #x reader

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writingthingsisdifficult · 5 years

Text

Oh my god they were roommates part 4

You are forced to take over the monitoring of Loki. Snapshots from the life of being a god handler.

It’s weird how a phrase or sentence can inspire a whole story. In this case it was “A polished turd is a turd nonetheless.” This is what grew from it. The whole story is almost 13.000 words long, so I felt I had to split it into parts.

This is the last part. Hope you like it, though I have to put a warning on this one: blood, insects, death, maggots are the ones that come to mind first. And angst. But it’s me, so :P

If you like it, let me know. Knowing that people enjoy my writing is what keeps me posting my stories.

Word count: 5010

Part one Part two Part three

_______________________________________________________________________

You beckoned to Loki. “Come on. They’ve called me in.”

He sighed heavily, but followed you through the shop, still carrying the shopping basket. “Oh joy! I guess there’s no time to drop me off before you go?”

Looking down on the phone in your hand, you shook your head. They wouldn’t send a text like that if it weren’t urgent. “Sorry. Guess you’ll have to wait in the car or something. I’ll drop you off once I get my assignment.”

Loki shrugged. “I should’ve brought my book.” He put down the shopping basket next to the cashier and nodded politely as you left. Better he put the items back on the shelves than leaving the basket in an aisle somewhere. Besides, you doubted he would mind much.

He had developed a little crush on you both, and you had yet to come up with a good way to let him down gently. Loki had jokingly suggested gauging the poor guy’s eyes out. After laughing it off, you still weren’t a hundred percent sure he was joking.

Another solution had popped into your mind too, but you had dismissed it just as quickly: pretending to date each other would probably get him off your back, but that would place you in an uncomfortable position. For your part, the pretend part would hurt a little too much for your liking.

Loki’s book remark made you wonder. “What do you mean you should’ve brought a book?” The car roared to life.

“Waiting out missions tend to get tedious,” he explained patiently, leaning his temple on the window. “Especially after they got their hands on those cursed manacles. I blame Thor for that.” His eyes darkened. Frost swirled over the glass.

“It’s happened before?” You almost stopped the car on the side of the road, but a fleeting image of Maria Hill’s disapproving face popped into your head. “More than once?”

Loki nodded. “Oh yes. Before Agent Powell they would not let me out of their sight at all. Made for some interesting days, I’ll tell you. Even when Agent Reed took over my… care, I was confined to a cell or the back of a vehicle when he was needed somewhere else. Granted, their missions were less frequent than other’s, but yes, I’ve seen my fair share. I imagine – hey! Watch out!”

The road in front of you exploded in purple, and you swerved, barely avoiding hitting the lump of unidentifiable mass in front of the car. You sped up, muttering under your breath. “What the hell?”

“I made a habit of always carrying something to read,” Loki continued, unperturbed.

As you got closer to HQ, you got closer to the fighting as well, but for a tiny second all you could see was Loki’s dejected expression. Patting his knee, you tried an encouraging smile. “Listen, I’ll try to… I can’t promise anything, but…” You fell silent for a while before muttering: “At least I’ll make sure you’ve got a book.”

The large, dark grey gate loomed over you, and you flashed your ID to the guard in the booth. He nodded to you and took an extra good look at Loki before waving you through.

Parking in the lot behind the lab, you marched quickly to the office building. “You better wait outside,” you said, gesturing to the long line of personnel vehicles.

“I know the drill,” Loki replied and turned right by the door.

Inside, Director Fury himself was involved in handing out the assignments, together with Agent Hill. An uncomfortable pressure settled in your chest. The situation must be really bad, but you took a seat next to Agent Torres and a new recruit you hadn’t seen before. Shaking your head slightly, you thought about how the recruits seemed younger every year.

Agent Hill quickly briefed the room on the situation while Fury stood in the background looking grim, but collected. Nothing threw that man out of balance.

“We have yet to determine the origin of the attackers,” Hill said, confirming your suspicions, and allowing for a collective gasp to go through the crowd.

Uncertain origin always meant aliens, extra-terrestrials. You swore silently. There would be a lot of casualties.

Hill continued: “The Avengers have been notified and will focus on the main threat, aided by the armed forces. Your mission will be damage control and civilian evacuation.” They had put together a pretty decent plan in such a short time, and you wondered if they had one ready, and just changed the dates and locations according to need. Soon you were queuing up to get your assigned tasks.

The recruit in front of you let out a curse on a trembling breath.

“Hey, don’t be scared,” you whispered. “We’ve been through worse. Just stick to your mentor and everything will be okay.”

He nodded and squared his shoulder, before hurrying after a more experienced agent. Rubbing you eyes, you tried not to think too hard: he wouldn’t last through the day if he didn’t manage to get his nerves in check.

When it was your turn, Maria handed you a big, yellow folder. “You’ve been assigned to Sector 3; yellow. Some families, mostly senior citizens and immigrants. How’s your Spanish?”

“Non-existing,” you replied with a grimace, taking the folder and headed for the exit. Just as you reached the door, you turned back.

“Yes?” she said. The question must have been obvious in your face.

“Ma’am, as I have custody of Loki –“

“He knows the routine,” Fury interrupted.

“Yes, sir. About that… I would like to request him coming with me on this assignment.”

Hill raised and eyebrow, but Fury nodded once. “And he will. The handcuffs are being brought down as we speak.

Inhaling deeply, you decided to just jump in. “I meant with us, as an agent. He –“

“Agent Y/N, that would be unwise. Loki is hard to control.”

“With all due respect, Sir, I believe he has proved himself trustworthy. Since I took over the charge, he has had several chances to do ill, but he has refrained from doing so. He is on good terms with the neighbours, and the community knows him as a helpful person. Hell, Lydia, uh, Mrs Martin all but worships the ground he walks on – though I’m not sure that counts in his favour,” you added silently. Looking up at both Fury and Hill, you tightened your jaw, pulling out your last argument. “God knows we need an extra pair of hands, and he is experienced in combat, should it come to that.”

“Fury, she has a point,” Hill said, surprising you with her support.

“Fine.” Fury rolled his eye. “But that’s your ass on the line. If anything happens – if he tries anything, that’s your responsibility.”

“Understood. And thank you,” you added. You could’ve sworn you saw a smile cross Fury’s face, but it was gone before you really registered it. It might as well have been a figment of your imagination.

“Run along before I change my mind.”

Outside you ran into Agent Reed. He looked like Christmas had been cancelled. “You’re gonna get us all killed. That blood’s on your hands. Loki can’t be trusted.”

Glaring, you didn’t really want to deign him with an answer, but he blocked your way, and you were getting angry. “We need all hands on deck, Benjamin.” When he didn’t move right away, you raised an eyebrow, staring at him with contempt in your eyes. “And to be honest I trust him more than I trust you. Get lost, Reed.” You pushed your way past him, leaving him looking like a goldfish.

Loki was waiting by the car, eyeing the crate with the magical manacles and the guards standing on each side of the crate. His face was neutral, but you knew he hated those manacles more than anything in the nine realms.

“Looks like you don’t get to sit this one out after all,” you told him with a mischievous grin, clipping in place the clasps on your vest. “Of course I tried to dissuade them, but Fury was adamant it was all hands on deck.”

When he registered what you said, his stance visibly shifted. You hadn’t noticed before, but it was clear he had been slumping. Now he was standing tall, a new spark in his eyes. “Oh no,” he said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “No quiet evening in the back of the truck for me. Whatever shall I do?” As he spoke, his armour grew, and you sucked in an extra breath.

It shouldn’t have affected you the way it did, but the confidence in him at that moment was almost too much to keep you on your feet. Adjusting your earpiece, more to distract yourself than anything else, you manage to shake it off, and opened the car door. “Let’s go.” You held up your hand, and he looked at it, then at you.

With a contemptuous sneer he slapped it, then shook as if he had just touched something slimy. “Never again, Y/N,” he said and slid into the vehicle, pushing the other agent further in.

“Yeah yeah.” You grinned and got in after him. Closing the door with a slam, you knocked on the window to let the driver know the car was ready, and sat down. Seconds later you were en route to the second alien invasion in three years.

The car stopped and the doors opened to reveal a crumbled building. Frightened people were running in every direction. Some tried to jump in standing cars, but the chaos affected the traffic as well. It was a miracle your evacuation convoy had even gotten this far.

Within minutes you were set to work. The team leader had directed you to a pair of buildings that were partially collapsed.

Helping shocked civilians and digging through the rubble together with Loki and the other rescue teams was hard. The concrete crumbled upon touch, releasing puffs of white dust into the air, making it harder to breathe.

Suddenly you stopped in your tracks. You heard whimpering, but it wasn’t coming from the building. Rounding the corner, you spotted a little girl.

She couldn’t have been more than four or five, and she was completely alone. It was obvious she had been crying, but when you found her she was silent like a stone. Her face was grey with dust, her skin only showing through the paths her tears had taken.

Someone had already dug her out of the rubble, but for some reason they had left her standing in the piles of concrete. You cursed and reached out to her, but Loki beat you to it.

Crouching down, he stretched out his arms, inviting her to come to him. And she did. “You’re okay now,” he said in perfect Spanish, stroking her hair and brushing dust from her face. “Such a brave little girl. What’s your name?” She didn’t answer, but he continued to talk calmly until he reached the evac bus, where a team of paramedics and agents were ready to take over.

The girl remained silent until he tried to hand her over to a kindly looking woman with curly hair. She buried her face in Loki’s neck, tangling her fingers in his hair, straight up refusing to acknowledge the woman at all. When she was lifted away from Loki she started wailing. Her tiny hands grabbed the empty air.

It was heart breaking to watch, but you knew she couldn’t stay. At the shelter she would get food and water, and maybe, just maybe, she would find her parents there.

Loki smiled gently, shushing her and brushing away her tears. “It’s okay, brave one. Don’t be afraid.” He continued to speak for a while, and finally the girl calmed down and allowed them to carry her to the waiting transport.

You got through the day with only a few scrapes on your knuckles and a small cut under your right eye. Loki, of course, looked like he hadn’t even broken a sweat, even though he had lifted and carried and comforted more civilians than the rest of the team combined.

You were slightly envious, but you were also more than ready to forgive him the rudeness of his perfection if that meant you could just go home and collapse on the sofa and do nothing for the next three weeks. Getting rest was the only thing that mattered, and the sole thing standing between you and it was one last check of a nearby kiosk.

The building was far from safe, and uninjured people had begun to rifle through the scattered goods as people usually do in event of a catastrophe. Your last task as the sun was setting, was to make sure none of the looters were caught if the building collapsed, and to properly block the street after the last evac bus had left.

Suddenly a man came sprinting right at you. Before he stumbled over a pile of concrete, he stopped, panting and watching you with wild eyes. “My wife!” he shouted and started climbing over the rubble.

“Sir,” you began. “This is not a safe area. Please move.”

He didn’t react.

“Sir. Your wife is not here. We have scanned the building, it is empty, and those who were buried have been excavated. The evac –“

“Move!” he growled, still advancing, apparently intent on entering the building.

Loki stepped forward. His appearance would stop most men, but this one was clearly not aware of what he was doing, and worse: in his hand he held a big bundle that looked vaguely like a gun.

“Stop,” Loki began, and you reached for his arm.

“Are you insane? You don’t know what he’ll do.”

He grinned widely. “Jury’s still out. Probably lots of people who would argue for it. But trust me. I know what I’m doing. I can help him -”

“No, Loki! He’s got –“

The man drew the weapon and before you could reach for your own, the street exploded with purple light and a high-pitched screech. You shielded your eyes, expecting to be ripped in half any moment, but you felt no different, and when you looked again the man was sprinting down the street, the gun tossed aside like a banana peel.

The next thing you saw froze your blood. “Loki!” Dropping to your knees, not caring that the jagged edges of the concrete rubble lacerated your skin. You fumbled for his hand. It was so cold, and covered in blood, and he was gasping for air. The armour on his chest was melted away, revealing a blistering gash. He was bleeding heavily.

“No, Loki,” you whispered over and over. “You’re okay. Everything’s gonna be okay.” If he died, you would never forgive yourself.

In a moment’s clarity, you fished out your phone, almost dropping it because your hands were so slick, and for backup. That weapon was not of human origin. Besides, you couldn’t very well call an ordinary ambulance for Loki.

A small crowd were forming by the time SHIELD arrived. Some were filming your feeble attempts to keep Loki’s blood on the inside, others were just watching, but all stepped back once the black cars showed up and agents swarmed the area, collecting evidence and mobile phones and witness statements.

You noticed nothing of that, though. The only thing you heard was Loki’s ragged breath as you focused on keeping him awake. “Listen to me,” you said with a trembling voice, failing horribly to sound stern and confident. “Don’t you dare die! Not like this!”

Loki coughed and smiled weakly. “Well, I figured this was the only way you would leave me alone.”

Laughing grimly, you shook your head. “What, am I such a bad roommate you have to die to get some peace?”

He nodded once before his eyes started to glide shut.

“This is bullshit!” you yelled just as the paramedics ploughed their way through the onlookers. Once they started working on him, you sat back on your heels and closed your eyes. Your tears were indistinguishable from the rain, but you could not ignore the burning behind your eyes. All sound drowned in the rush in your ears, and distantly you registered someone hoisting you to your feet. Supported by an agent, you let yourself be lead to an ambulance so they could take a look at your bleeding legs.

Someone strapped you in and attached beeping machinery and devices to you, but all you could see was Loki’s ashen and bloody face lying lifeless on the pavement.

_______________________________________________________________________

Loki opened his eyes and blinked in confusion. You rushed to his side and handed him one of the white plastic cups. “Don’t try to speak. Drink.”

He nodded and sat up, gulping the water down greedily. Some of it dribbled from the corner of his mouth, but he didn’t seem particularly bothered by it. When he was finished, he put the cup down on the little side table and looked around.

Once he noticed the balloons, he burst out laughing. “What the –“ His voice was raw, and the effort made him cough.

“Better not talk to much yet,” you said, grinning now that he was awake and didn’t seem insulted by them. “Let me jump start your memories.”

He reached for the nearest balloon and examined it while gesturing for you to go on. The balloon in question read Get well soon you attention seeking twat on one side, but as it slowly revolved, the other side revealed It can’t always be champagne, cocaine, and hookers. (Get well soon.) Loki let out an amused chuckle.

You felt like crying with relief, and you hoped your voice wouldn’t crack. “Basically you had to be a hero and scare the shit out of me. You’ve been in a coma for almost two weeks! You dick!”

His eyes shone with remembrance, then widened from your sudden outburst.

Suddenly aware of what you had said, you started sputtering, ears burning with embarrassment. “And I wasn’t the only one who were upset. When Thor found out you were in a coma he let loose a storm that almost flooded the city. It wasn’t until the doctors finally confirmed you would live he let it go.

To be fair the lightning show was kinda pretty, but it made it hard to sleep. The curtains aren’t exactly lightproof,” you added, looking at the windows over your shoulder.

Loki followed your gaze, before his eyes landed on the crumpled blanket on the chair in the corner. He swallowed and grimaced. He never thought you would have resort to such uncomfortable methods to keep an eye on him.

“The hit you took caused significant injuries to your torso. The doctors contemplated a skin graft too, but they were unsure how your body would react to Midgardian technology. Luckily you’re a fast healer.”

It took another week before the doctors deemed Loki well enough to be discharged, and you were more than happy to have him home again. The apartment, though unharmed in the attack, seemed so dark and ghostly without him, and you had even snuck into his room a couple of times when the anxiety shot through the roof.

Pushing the wheelchair through the glass doors, you headed to the waiting car. “Ready to go home?”

“Yes. And ready to get out of this ridiculous chair. I can bloody walk on my own.”

You snorted. “Yeah, sorry about that. Standard procedure, I think. So that you can’t sue the hospital if you stumble over a mat or something.”

Loki snorted too. “Right. Well, this is beneath my dignity.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve made spaghetti for dinner,” you said, hardly able to contain your laughter.

Loki let out a loud groan and got into the car.

_______________________________________________________________________

His face was grey and spattered with blood. It flowed rapidly from the deep slash across his chest, and no matter what you did it would not stop bleeding. Soon you were slippery with blood, both on your hands and on your feet. It became increasingly more difficult to find foothold, and you slid over the slick surface trying to keep pressure on the wound. Blood seeped through your clothes, warm and sticky, his life force coating your skin in red.

You called his name, over and over, but got no answer; his unseeing eyes turning milky white as you watched the ground swallow him inch by inch.

Mid-scream you were yanked backwards, landing on a soft surface with a silent oof. Dreading what you would see, you opened your eyes slowly – and looked straight into Loki’s concerned eyes. He was holding your shoulders harder than what was comfortable, pressing you into the mattress, but once he got eye contact, his grip loosened.

Blinking, you tried to orientate yourself. You were in your room. The bed was where it ought to, and you were tangled in your blanket. The t-shirt you usually slept in clung to your sweaty skin, and your face felt raw and stiff.

Seeing the wildness in your eyes, Loki let go completely and stepped back. “You were screaming,” he said softly, as if he expected you to scream again. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Frowning for a second, you didn’t know what he was talking about. Then a light flicked on in your brain. He had misunderstood your terror. “No, no. You didn’t. I… I had a nightmare. You…” You hesitated. “I didn’t know where I was. Thank you for waking me.” It hurt to talk. You wondered what the neighbours thought had happened.

“What did you dream about?”

You shook your head. “Don’t wanna talk about it.”

Loki nodded. “Alright. Sleep well, Y/N. I wish you pleasant dreams.” He turned to leave, but before he could close the door, you called him back. “Loki, wait.”

He poked his head around the door. “Yes?”

You drew a deep breath. “Will you stay? Just a little while?”

He came back and sat down on the edge of the mattress, looking both confused and concerned.

“I’m scared the dream will return,” you explained with an apologetic smile. His lifeless face appeared each time you closed your eyes, and it made you nauseous. “Maybe if you, if you distracted me, I’ll fall asleep again. I mean, if you… oh, but you probably want to go back to sleep. Nevermind. Sleep well, Loki.”

You curled up and tried to think about nice things. Puppies and kittens, balloons. Summer. Flowers, meadows, grass, dirt… holes in the ground, sinking, maggots, dead Loki… You shivered.

Loki shifted next to you. “I was reading when you… uh,” he said quietly. “Perhaps I could, if you want to… I could read to you? Mot– Frigga always did that whenever I could not sleep when I was young.”

“I’d like that.”

He smiled and conjured a book out of thin air. “I just procured this wonderful edition of old fairytales. Some of them remind me of my childhood stories.”

You turned over on your side, resting your forehead on the side of his thigh. The warmth and life and movements calmed your nerves even further.

Loki opened the book, leafing through it until he found the page he was searching for. “Dapplegrim. This is one of my favourites,” he said. “Once upon a time there lived a rich couple with twelve sons…”

You glanced at the page, admiring the gorgeous illustrations. “Wait, Loki… that’s not English. You… are you translating as you read?”

He nodded, a red tint appearing in his face. “Yes. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course not,” you murmured, and soon his smooth voice wrapped around you and carried you off to dreamland.

_______________________________________________________________________

Bugs and maggots. He was green and bloated and decomposing. You were stuck. Can’t get away, can’t get away, can’t get away. Invisible hands pulled you closer and closer. Chalky eyes stared into emptiness. It’s your fault. He’s gone. Never. Never. Never.

Gentle hands shook you out of the dream. “Y/N!” Loki repeated your name until you opened your eyes. “You were screaming again.”

Your throat was so sore – it hurt to swallow, and you could taste blood. A raw sob escaped, and you hid your face under the blanket. Every time you closed your eyes, his dead face swam into view. Would you ever be able to sleep again?

He gently stroked your hair, letting you cry until you could breathe evenly again. Then he asked for the seventh time in just as many days: “Will you not tell me?”

You clutched your blanket and shook your head.

“Do you want me to stay?”

“Please.”

When you stumbled into the kitchen the next morning, Loki handed you a cup of coffee, sat down next to you and crossed his arms. “You look like hell, Y/N.”

You scoffed. “Why thank you, Loki. How kind of you.”

Rolling his eyes, he grabbed you by your elbow and dragged you to the door, coffee abandoned on the kitchen table. “I did not mean it like that, and you know it. Come. I’m buying you a hot chocolate down at the Bean, and then you’re going to tell me what’s bothering you so much you can’t sleep at night.”

Sighing in defeat, you wound a scarf around your neck and said a silent goodbye to the flat that had been your home for so long before following Loki out the door.

The Bean was a no nonsense café just a couple of minutes walk down the street. Fortunately it was unharmed in the attack, and you found yourself visiting almost every day, and the owner always greeted you warmly when you came by.

Loki sat you down by the table in the back, making sure he had a clear view to the door and window, then ordered two large hot chocolates with extra whipped cream.

“Come on,” he said, licking cream from his lip. “This is getting out of hand. Tell me what those abhorrent nightmares of yours are. It can not continue like this. You haven’t had a good night’s sleep in… how long?”

“A week,” you answered meekly. “Sorry I’ve been keeping you up.”

Loki shook his head. “Don’t worry about me. Now. What is it that you dream about?”

You looked at him and he wiped a tear from your cheek. “I… It’s you.”

Loki’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second, and he straightened up. Suddenly he was cold and distant, and the change startled you, it was like he was a stranger.

Closing your eyes, you inhaled deeply, finding comfort in the lingering sensation from his touch. “I see you,” you continued. “Dead. Decomposing. Gone. And it’s all my fault.” Now that it was out in the open it felt like a boulder had been lifted from your shoulders, and you dared to look up at him again.

He was no longer emotionless and stiff; his face had softened, and his eyes showed a new gleam that you had never noticed before. He took your hand in his and squeezed. “It was just a dream. You know that? I’m not dead.” Tilting his head, a small smile spread over his lips. “How could I sit here if I were?”

You swallowed hard. This could destroy a wonderful friendship, or if you were lucky – no, you didn’t dare to even think it, let alone hope. You gave up all pretence. Your old apartment was still there, and you could always volunteer for more fieldwork.

“Don’t you see? It hurts me so bad seeing you…” You swallowed again. Even saying it out loud was painful. “…dead, because I… I’ve fallen in love with you.”

Mouth slightly open, he slid off his seat and crouched in front of you, holding your hands in between his own. His face was serious as he looked into your eyes. “That is not a wise decision, Y/N,” he whispered, and you felt your heart plummet to the floor. “I am not an easy person to love.”

“I know,” you muttered, struggling to hold back your tears. “But I can’t change what my heart tells me.” You sniffed and twisted in your seat, trying to manoeuvre around Loki. “I’ll send someone to pick up my things.”

You tugged on your hands to free yourself, but Loki would not let go. He straightened and pulled you closer. “You misunderstand me. I am not an easy person to love, but if you are willing to try, I will do what I can to ease the effort.”

“What?”

“Y/N, I had given up hope that someone would ever love me, and to find that that someone turned out to be you? It is more than I could have asked for. You have been in my dreams since the day we met, and I tried so hard to be civil when you met that fool. Tommy? Wasn’t that his name? And now… now you tell me that… that…” His voice broke. Instead of continuing, he lifted your hand to his lips. His touch was feather light, but it still sent a chill through you. Resting your hand against his cheek, he looked up at you, and you saw nothing but love in his eyes.

Many hours later, as you walked up the stairs hand in hand, Mrs Martin quickly poked her head out the door, then withdrew and closed it again.

“Oh shoot, now the whole building’s gonna know by morning,” you said, imagining the gossip spreading like fire from neighbour to neighbour. In your head you could see them staring, and the little knowing looks her and Mr Howard in number 15 would share.

Loki chuckled and brought your hand to his face, gently brushing his lips against your skin. Goosebumps erupted over your entire body.

“Yes, she will never shut up about it,” he murmured, looking fondly at the closed door. “Guess we really do have to invite her to the wedding.”

Your brain fizzed out, and you stopped mid-step, staring at him.

_______________________________________________________________________

Tagging:

@80percentmarvel @tardis-is-mine @schwarzwaelder-kirschtorte @jessiejunebug @thefuriousquake @wolfgar15

#loki x reader #loki laufeyson #reader insert #fan fiction #oh my god they were roommates #fluff #flangst #angst #tw: blood #tw: insects #tw: maggots #tw: nightmares #tw: death #writing is hard

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sailorshadzter · 4 years

Text

soon you’ll get better.

part 2 to my taylor swift lover album inspired jonsa series. (<--- thats really a mouthful lol)

im really excited to get further into the album, but recently, it was one of my best friend’s mom’s birthdays, though she passed away about nine years ago now. she was like a second mother to me & i miss her a lot. there were so many days i spent with her while she was sick & a lot of time i spent with her daughters. her younger two girls are like my little sisters.

anyways, i originally wasnt even going to INCLUDE this song in the series, but thinking about this “second mom” of mine inspired me to write this instead.

also, next time, i’m not certain ill follow this same set up.

it might be a time skip, it might be an “inspired by” rather than using the lyrics themselves. who knows! we’ll see what happens.

hope you guys enjoy. :)

It's been several long, grueling weeks without seeing her.

Jon frequents Seasalt Tavern, even on trivia night, if only to catch a glimpse of that shiny red hair. But each night, he's let down. Even now, he hears her song in his brain. The echo of her words, soft and true, sing him to sleep when he closes his eyes each night. She haunts him, in a way no woman has ever done before.

Lunch break. It comes every day, a glorious hour where Jon steps away from his desk if only to stretch his legs. He joined the Westeros Special Forces unit only six months ago, a transfer in from the Northern faction, deciding to head South for a change of scenery post break up. Ygritte had been... Well, a spitfire, to say the least. And hard to forget. Their relationship had been as fiery as her temper and her hair. Yeah, he has a type, so sue him. While he didn't miss the fights and the theatrics of the relationship, he missed being with someone. Ygritte cared about him in her own, weird sort of way, and he misses the companionship she had provided him for nearly three years.

Jon sighs as he steps out into the afternoon sun, deciding the local coffee shop would suffice for lunch today. It's only a short walk up the street and Jon finds himself stepping inside within minutes, the blast of cold air refreshing. Six months in of living in the South and Jon still hasn't quite adjusted to the heat. He misses the icy cold air of the North- somehow, it felt cleaner up there. That ache in your lungs you felt when you took in the first breath of cold, morning air... He misses that almost as much as he misses the fiery warmth of a woman in his bed.

The girl behind the counter smiles and offers a wave- she's a University student, Jon has learned in his time coming here, eager to graduate the following spring and step into a new world as a nurse. "Hey Jon," she greets as he approaches, "the usual?" It's Jon's turn to grin as he nods and turns to head towards his usual table, but is surprised to find it already occupied.

And just like that, there she is.

She's surrounded by notebooks and a textbook or two, though she seems focused on a single notebook. Her red hair is twisted back into braids and tucked up with pins, though a few strands have fallen free to frame her face. Jon sucks in a breath as he watches her for only a moment more, for she looks up then and notices him staring. At once, she sits up straighter, squinting her eyes as recognition spreads across her face. "Hey," she says after a moment, folding her arms over the tabletop as she leans forward. "Jon, right?" She says, though she's not forgotten his name. She's recited it over and over and over again since the night they met. "Nice suit." Her eyes trail him up and down and Jon feels warmth spread to his cheeks, her lip gloss lips curving with a smile. If she notices the gun strapped to his hip, she doesn't mention it.

"Call it a drawback to the job," Jon jokes a moment later when he finally finds his voice again, the sweet sound of her laughter ringing in his ears. His heart soars. "I haven't seen you, at the bar I mean." He says and at once, he regrets it. She sits up straighter, those ocean blue eyes widening ever so slightly as she regards him closely. "I-I mean, they're talking about you. About your song, your voice." Smooth, he thinks as he can only hope a hole opens up on the floor and swallows him up. Just then, the barista appears with his steaming drink, to which he grins and gives his thanks before the girl is gone, leaving him there to probably continue to embarrass himself. But to his surprise, she does not send him away with a scowl or cruel words, rather her face softens and she gestures for him to sit.

"If you want," she says, an offering, her head tilted to the side, the stray strand of hair falling just across her forehead. He wishes he could push it back, he wishes he could feel it between his fingers. It takes him only a moment to take the seat across from her, his to-go cup warm despite the cardboard slip around it's middle. "I've been busy," she says by way of explanation, a fleeting look of sadness crossing her features as she looks back at him. For some reason, despite not knowing him, Sansa feels as if she can trust him. His dark, solemn eyes give her a sense of hope she's not felt in a long time. "Besides, I couldn't come back without another song."

"So there's another one?" He asks, taking the first sip of his coffee. It's a simple order, a caramel macchiato with an extra shot of espresso, one which he never deviates from. "Open mic night is next week, isn't it?" She grins and nods, telling him she heard from her friend Margaery about the next date and that she would be there.

"Margaery has been trying to drag me out for weeks now, I haven't-" she stops, realizing she's about to dump something on him that's probably beyond a normal talking point for a first real conversation. As if Jon senses her uncertainty, he offers her a smile and encourages her to go on. "It's my mother..." Sansa shifts in her chair, absently swirling the last swallow of coffee in her mug as she looks anywhere but Jon's face. "She's sick and I... Between taking care of her and my little brothers and sister..." She looks up and it's written all over Jon's face- sympathy, yet understanding. There is no judgment, there is nothing but warmth. Somehow, it's as if she's known him all her life, not a single conversation in a dark bar. "Anyways, Margaery says it's good if I get out sometimes, you know? So I let her drag me out every now and again." She smiles as she thinks of her friend, who she knows loves her dearly. Margaery was a good, no a great, friend and Sansa reminds herself to give her friend a hug.

"I'm sorry... About your mother." Jon says after a moment, knowing the pain of losing a mother, though he doesn't mention such a thing to her. The last thing he wants to do is remind her of what she certainly worries about often. "You have siblings?" He asks instead and is delighted to see the smile brighten up her face as she nods.

"Three of them. Two brothers, Bran is thirteen and Rickon is nine. Arya is fifteen." Her little siblings are her entire world. They have always been close, the Stark children that is, especially so in the four years since Robb had died. But even as kids, even with the years between them all, they had always been close. And with her mother's illness and her father's business, it left much of raising them to her. She could not remember a time where she was not with the little ones, though now that they're older and mostly taking care of themselves, she wishes she could go back. It hadn't always been easy, but she loved every moment spent with those little siblings of hers. "What about you?"

Jon smiles when he shakes his head. "I don't have much family at all, well aside for a distant cousin who lives in Essos." He had never known his father and his mother had died when he was just a kid, leaving him to be raised in foster homes until he came of age. "It's just me and Ghost, honestly."

"Ghost?" She asks and Jon can't stop from reaching for his cell phone, pulling up the most recent photo of the big, white dog he means. "A wolf dog?!" She blurts without warning, excitedly reaching for her own phone, which lay beside the notebook she'd been writing in. She taps the screen and shows him the background photo- a family photo of five kids with varying shades of hair, each proudly standing with shaggy pups that were as colorful as them. She draws the phone back towards her and when she hands it back, there's a photo instead of a beautiful gray wolf like dog, who's eyes are more gold than yellow. "That's Lady."

"You all have them?" Jon is surprised- he's never met another person with a wolf dog like Ghost, let alone a family of them.

"My father... He found an entire litter when we were kids," she explains, the memory burned into her brain as if it had happened only yesterday. "My family's sigil is a direwolf, so my father said he couldn't just turn them away. He said they came to us for a reason." For a litter of pups to be born, five pups for the five Stark children, it had surely been a sign from the Old Gods, and so despite her mother's wishes, all the puppies came home to the children. The way he's leaning over the table, he can see the soft curves of her handwriting on the paper- small and neat, her handwriting fits her perfectly. She must notice him looking for she grins and slides the paper towards him. "Next week's song," she says, tapping the top where she's written the apparent name across the top. "I think it's finished... I hope it's finished."

Jon reads only the first few lines before he pushes it back towards her. "I want to hear it when it is," he says and drains the last sip of his drink. "Listen, I have to head back to the office now but I uh... I'll see you next week." He rises up to his feet, the scrape of the chair against the floor the only noise in the room for a single moment. Sansa smiles and yet again, Jon is rendered breathless by her. If only this moment could last forever.

"Yeah, next week," she replies, barely breathing herself.

When Jon approaches the desk to pay for his drink, he tells the barista he wants to pay for her drink too. Though she's surprised, the young woman does as he's bid and waves to him as he takes the receipt and his change and heads for the door. Just as he goes to toss it into the waste bin, he peaks at the receipt and to his surprise, sees that she must have ordered the very same drink as him.

[ x x x ]

The bar is quiet as Sansa climbs up to the stage again.

Again, accompanied only by her guitar, she gazes out into the crowd of people, smiling down at her brunette friend before she speaks into the microphone. "I had an entirely different song planned for this night a few weeks ago, but my mother... She's sick and she's relapsed so I wrote this for her." In the long nights beside the hospital bed, the beeping of the machines her only melody, she had penned these lyrics. She had scribbled these lines onto napkins and the back of her hand. She had written this song to remind herself that in the end, her mother would step out of the hospital and home would become home again. Taking a deep breath, she strums the guitar and finds the right note.

And then she sings.

"The buttons of my coat were tangled in my hair In doctor's-office-lighting, I didn't tell you I was scared That was the first time we were there."

Jon sits at the bar again.

It's his usual spot, with his usual drink in hand. He had saw her come in- red hair in curls and her impossibly long legs wrapped in denim- but hadn't got a chance to talk to her. Her friend, Margaery he thinks it is, sits where she sat the first time, but this time the guy she had been crushing on sits beside her, arm around her waist.

The song Sansa sings... He recalls reading those first few lines in the coffee shop but hearing her silky voice singing them makes all the difference. She's stronger this time- less nervous than she must have been the first time around and Jon is surprised when from across the room, their eyes meet.

And he swears his heart must stop.

"Ooh-ah, soon you'll get better Ooh-ah, soon you'll get better Ooh-ah, you'll get better soon 'Cause you have to."

Those words are the soft plea of a daughter to her sick mother, the simple view that there was no other option than to recover. Jon glances around the room and can see there are at least five others in that room who know the feelings she's singing about.

Yet again, Sansa's song is reaching people.

"I know delusion when I see it in the mirror You like the nicer nurses, you make the best of a bad deal I just pretend it isn't real I'll paint the kitchen neon, I'll brighten up the sky I know I'll never get it, there's not a day that I won't try."

One of the women Jon had noticed earlier is openly crying at her table now and he recognizes her as the one who had lost her mother only a month before. Jon recalls that pain himself, despite the years that it's been since he lost his own mother. He can still recall the sweet scent of her perfume, but he's forgotten what her voice sounded like or how warm her arms had been whenever she hugged him. It's been many years since he lost his mother, but the pain of it never goes away. Not entirely.

On the stage, Sansa too sees the woman that cries softly at her table, the man beside her wrapping his arm around her in comfort. She wishes she hadn't made her cry, she feels bad about that, in truth, but there's no stopping now.

"And I hate to make this all about me But who am I supposed to talk to? What am I supposed to do If there's no you? This won't go back to normal, if it ever was It's been years of hoping, and I keep saying it because 'Cause I have to."

As she breaks into the final chords, the final repeat of soon you'll get better, she looks out into the faces around her, wondering just how many of them out there got the message. How many others besides that single woman understood the pain of watching someone they loved go through an illness? Probably too many, she realizes.

When her hand finally falls from the guitar and silence descends, she lets out the breath she's been holding and her heart skips a beat when the first claps begin. And then it's every person in the bar that's clapping, some even cheering as she smiles for them and descends down to join Margaery at the table.

Jon watches as she escapes from her friend and instead crosses the room to approach the other crying woman. They embrace and when Sansa pulls back, the woman holds her at arm's length as they talk. When they finish their conversation, Sansa does not return to Margaery's table but to his shock, she comes towards the bar to stand before him where he sits on his usual stool. "Buy me a drink?" She asks with a grin and for a moment, Jon is too stunned to say anything. But then he nods and she slides onto the stool beside him, so close that again he catches the scent of her sweet perfume.

They talk for what could be several hours, Jon seems to have lost track of the time as he sits there with her. It isn't until Margaery approaches her, a touch to her shoulder, a quick but silent it's time to go home. "I have to go," she says, brushing a curl behind an ear, revealing the three little studs she wears in her lobes. "Maybe we don't have to wait until the next mic night to see each other," she grins as she slides a piece of paper towards him as she hops of the stool, a little wobbly after her three drinks. Before Jon can speak, she's rushing after Margaery who waits at the door for her, her guy already out in the lot to fetch the car.

Jon lifts up the piece of paper and he finds his heart is racing as he realizes it's her phone number written there. Pre written, he realizes, meaning she had always intended on giving it to him. He feels warm and it's not just because of the four drinks he's consumed sitting there with Sansa. Okay... That might be partly to blame, but mostly he's just beyond happy. He reaches for his phone and adds her into his contacts list, clicking the new message icon, though he hesitates for a moment. Was it weird if he texted her so quickly? No, he decides, she gave him her number, which meant she wanted him to text her.

And so he taps the message space and begins to type.

Sansa is climbing into the backseat of the car when her phone beeps.

She fishes it out of her purse and her heart skips a beat when she sees it is a number not yet saved to her contacts. "He texted you? Already?" Margaery is excited in the front seat, the one who had encouraged Sansa to talk to him that night, the one to write down her phone number for Sansa to give to him. "I told you," she mumbled as she turned back around, smiling to herself as she thinks of the way the dark haired, brooding sort of man had been staring at her friend both last time and tonight. After the last relationship Sansa had been in, she deserved someone who looked at her like this Jon looked at her.

On Sunday's I take Ghost to the dog park. Maybe Lady would like to join him?

Sansa smiles and types a quick reply.

Just as he's sliding off the stool that his phone lights up on the bar. Jon can't help but to chuckle when he sees her response.

Lady would love that, but I hope I'm invited. 👀

When she reads his response, she's grinning, a strange warmth filling her up, threatening to spill over. Sorry, I forget how to act when I think about cute dogs owned by cute girls. Another text comes before she can reply to the first. I'll see you and Lady both there, say noon?

She nods, though he can't see, and hits send on her own message.

Jon climbs into his car and hears the beep of her reply. We'll see you there. :)

He drives himself home and it isn't until he's settled into his apartment that he realizes his phone went off without him noticing. Unlocking the screen, he's surprised to see it's a picture message, rather than just a normal text. This is how she looks at me when I tell her we have plans tomorrow. The picture is of Lady asleep on the couch, or at least pretending to be, as she has one yellow eye open looking up at Sansa who must be leaning over her to snap the picture. We're going to bed, see you tomorrow. I promise she's as excited as I am. Her next text comes a moment later and Jon grins down at Ghost, reciting the message aloud to the dog. "She's excited..." He murmurs as he sinks back into the couch, not fully prepared to head to bed.

In her bedroom, stripped down to nothing but a t-shirt, Sansa is climbing into bed when her phone vibrates on her bedside table. Reaching for it, she blinks against the brightness of her screen so she can read Jon's last message. Ghost on the other hand... A pause and then the photo comes, making her smile as she clicks it to enlarge it. It's of the great big white wolf, grinning like only a dog can, clearly excited by something Jon is doing or saying. Sleep tight, girls, comes last and as Sansa curls up beneath her blankets, she smiles to herself, not yet daring to believe that this is entirely real. Jon seems almost too good to be true. Though, she supposes there's only one way to figure it out. She hasn't dated in well over a year... Not since Joffrey... But something tells her Jon is the farthest type from Joffrey that could ever possibly be.

As she closes her eyes, she thinks of him, of those deep set brown eyes, and falls asleep.

#jonsa #jonsa au #modern au #jon x sansa #taylor swift #album: lover #now i really want to write their date at the dog park lol

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mk-asks-and-headcannons · 5 years

Text

The Kombat Krew’s Signs and Sorting Houses

Erron Black: (Scorpio and Slytherin) Handsome and enigmatic, this chaotic neutral knows what he wants and how he wants it. No hesitation. He strictly follows this mantra: “Me myself and I,” as he puts himself before anyone else. This doesn’t mean that the mercenary is heartless though. Erron is more than capable of expressing intimacy and vulnerability however, the man has lived a long life. And he’s seen some stuff. He’s been crossed before in his life so don’t be surprised if he thinks you want some money or his head (literally or sexually) when you first approach him. That said it would take the right person to break that tough guy exterior. And when it’s broken, you get to see all of him. The good the bad and ugly. You’ll see him without the mask more, maybe even hear him sing in his private quarters (he loves singing). That is if he trusts you after all.

Kabal: (Leo and Slytherin/Hufflepuff mix. Allow me to explain.) Let’s think pre burns here. This man was born a Leo. He’s confident (and possibly cocky), enjoys the limelight, and know he has this special charm about him (partially pertaining to him valuing his appearance much more). So he really isn’t shy. Much like his cowboy pal Erron, he seeks thrill in relationships, but because of his impulsiveness, it isn’t surprising that he can be rather emotionally driven. That said, he’d be a rather loyal partner and if he didn’t make his partner feel like friggin’ royalty, he’d wager he must be doing something wrong. Post burns, he totally wouldn’t appear to be the type guilty of hubris, but his Leo ways are just buried in there. He is not shallow, but again he values his looks, he always has. And when he looks in the mirror he wants to see something he can show off, something that gets him stuck in a trance with his own reflection! But all of that has been charred up since the accident. One of his main defense mechanisms is humor, most of that humor being crude which is why he appears snarky and insensitive when there’s just much more dwelling under that.

Cassie Cage: (Taurus and Gryffindor) Being the leader of her squad I was ready to dismiss this Cage as a Leo. After all, she has the confidence and spunkiness of her father, but that’s just all surface. I mean, no one gets to be the leader of their krew and get promoted to a general herself in a matter of years. Cassandra Cage didn’t have the most normal upbringing. Though she had a funloving movie star dad, it was emphasized (with the help of Sonya) that if Cassie wanted something, she had to get her hands dirty and work for it. With that, her laid-back-ness easily gets confused with laziness. Well, sometimes. But is it really a crime if the girl wants to treat herself with snacks galore and all of the Netflix she is physically capable of watching? I think not. Now as a friend she’s can be brutally honest but she won’t disappoint as she’s a sweetheart. She’s also like a bad rash. Once you got it, it’s not leaving anytime soon.

Jacqui Briggs: (Virgo and Hufflepuff): Observant. Analytical. Practical. These are adjectives to describe Jacquelyn Briggs, but trust she is not robotic. Her upbringing just like everyone else’s here is quite unique and for Jacqui, she essentially had to be her father’s crutch (whether Jax knew that or not) and things were hard even with Vera still around. Needless to say, if you have a parent who had a screwed up life, chances are your life wouldn’t exactly be dandelions and roses (those two flowers are related in no way whatsoever?), but of course, this isn’t a guarantee. But Jacqui was forced to slowly watch someone she had love for, someone she looked up to, her father crumble like a cookie. But Jacqui ended up being as tough as she is resilient and level headed. She had to learn quickly to be smart and that a lot of the time, things are only as hard as you make them (this of course not taking away from Jax’s trauma or mental illness in general). She just taught herself to retain information in a different way over time. And because of her intellect, lots of people come to her for advice or help. That said in romantic or platonic relationships, she’s the gentle type. She simply doesn’t see the need to be aggressive in her approach and she’s not the type to willingly chase someone for their attention. Her own dignity comes first. Mad respect.

Johnny Cage: (Gemini and Hufflepuff) Johnny has had a lot on his plate being a dad, a husband and being a successful Kombatant. But there’s only one Johnny. In his youth, Johnny was a nerd who loved comic books as he didn’t have many friends and these fictional fantasies were the only things that kept his innocence sealed when he was a boy. It also didn’t help that the poor Cage also had an emotionally abusive father. Way before his days of ninja mime, his very first acting gig was something his dad forced him to do. And boy was Cage modest back then. Shy even. But through the world of acting and art, he met some extremely valuable contacts, some of whom played as mentor figures for him. He got to thrive in an environment in which he learned that you don’t have to be shy or ashamed. And from then, the Cage ego was born. Even if he doesn’t mean it, most (well some) of the blunt things he says aren’t meant to cause harm, the man just speaks his mind. But his experiences with Sonya and having his first child taught him that there are times where you gotta be a big boy and there are times where he’s gotta cut that charismatic playboy shit out.

Jax: (Cancer and Hufflepuff) That tough guy act? Total defense mechanism. Jax’s brash exterior is used as a form of protection as like plenty of people here, he’s been through a lot. With a military upbringing with also swishes of toxic masculinity being encouraged, he’s been raised to bottle up of his emotions as it was supposedly a man’s duty to be strong and dependable. And that’s what he tried to be for his daughter. After his trauma, it pains him to see Jacqui do more than she has to. He can easily come across as an overprotective doting father who shackles his kid, and even though he slowly is becoming this, he loves his daughter more than life itself. And that love is incomprehendable.

Sonya: (Virgo and Slytherin...at least in the later mk games) Oh look! Another person of military background? Here we go! So it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that Sonya is disciplined and that she means business. Despite it not being talked about, Sonya has also had her fair share of trauma. How does she deal? She doesn’t use humor like Kabal or project like her friend Jax. It’s denial hook line and sinker. Trust is scary! And let’s not even get started on emotional vulnerability (*shudders*). She felt an extra dose of obligation to not be an emotional wreck as she was the highest-ranking female general in her time and she had a reputation to live up to. She even buried her feelings for Johnny at first because she didn’t want to paint that classic damsel in distress narrative (she was battling some inner demons when they met), but almost like Johnny, she’s learning to soften up while Johnny learns that not everything is a joke. This learning process bonds the two like glue, but it doesn’t stop her from being hard on Cassie as she sees so much potential in her girl. Another thing about Sonya? Family comes first. And that means Cassie, Jacqui, Jax, and yes...even Johnny.

Raiden: (Libra and Ravenclaw) He tries. Even though he has made mistakes, he tries his best to keep Earthrealm on sturdy ground as it is a huge responsibility. Much like Erron, Raiden has been alive for eons as an immortal who has seen so much destruction and betrayal he values only one thing: stability. Raiden values strength and wisdom as he loves to learn (knowledge IS power) however qualities such as arrogance makes his nose wrinkle up. He’s too old for that shit. As a friend and partner, consider this thunder god your right-hand man.

You know this was supposed to be a simple zodiac sign/sorting house thing, but I think I just spilled these guys’ life stories on Tumblr...oh well!

#mortal kombat 11 #mortal kombat #mortal kombat headcanon #astrology #sorting hat #erron black #kabal #cassie cage #jacqui briggs #johnny cage #jax briggs #sonya #sonya blade #raiden #star signs #moon sign #mk #mk 11 #headcanon

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thatyanderecritic · 6 years

Text

Yandere Simulator

Title: Yandere Simulator

Media: Game, created by Yandere Dev

Yandere(s): Yandere-Chan (Ayano Aishi)/ Yandere-Kun

Yandere Scale: 0/5

Criticism written by: Kai

Editor: Julie

The Review:

(Warning! This is one of our most highly opinionated critic piece on our blog so far. Be wary and come to your own judgement in the end. m(_ _)m )

It was only a matter of time till we finally reviewed Yandere Simulator… With both the game and the main protagonist sharing the name “Yandere”, it made sense for the Yandere Critics to swoop in and see if this game truly lives up to its name (spoiler alert: it doesn’t). What horrors will our two critics discover in their pursuit of the truth?

This time on ThatYandereCritic…

Hello everyone, Kai here! It’s no secret that Julie and I absolutely hate Yandere Simulator and how the Yandere Dev is handling everything (from how he’s creating this game to the sort of person he is). We would state time and time again how we think that Yandere Simulator is pretty much hot garbage and is a bad representation of yanderes in general. Good concept but awful in execution. Now it is time to give a proper critic to the game that’s became the “face” of our community.

I would like to clarify that we’ll only be looking at the story and the main character (Yandere-Chan/Yandere-Kun). We will not be discussing about the Yandere Dev and his drama. If you want that, there’s plenty of “Yandere Dev rants” videos on youtube that goes in depth about the things he done and currently doing. If you’re curious, I recommend watching this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY-aqqCFjnc With this being said, now for the proper review!

Let’s kick things off by talking about the story… The game starts with our protagonist, Yandere-Chan, accidentally running into her Senpai on her way to school. It was love at first sight when she first saw him. But Yandere-Chan soon found out that a girl named Osana plans to confess to Senpai under the school’s cherry blossom tree. This is like, totally bad! Everyone knows that confessions under that specific cherry blossom tree is guaranteed to be accepted! It was at this moment, Yandere-Chan knew what she needed to do… she must eliminate everything that stands between her and her Senpai.

First, can I just start off by saying how laughably lazy this story is? It’s one thing if this game was just some sort of parody or comedy. A game that is self aware that it’s just a joke and nothing more. But with how much the Yandere Dev hypes about the story and give it a “deep lore”, we can’t give the excuse: “It’s not that deep. It’s just a joke.” No. This game doesn’t have that shield anymore. The story is half assed and it can’t give a well developed yandere character a proper chance to shine. But… let’s ignore the story for now. We have seen examples of an awful story but a fantastic yandere (Example: Joe from the TV show, You). Let’s look at Yandere-Chan.

Thanks to Yandere Dev’s channel, we got a plethora of lore and background about the characters from the game. The office website is also a gold mine of information that we can analyze as well. So… thank god that Yandere Dev is more invested in those two things than his game. Can you imagine if we had to actually play his buggy game to get this information? Lol.

Let’s get on the same page here about Yandere-Chan’s backstory: Yandere-Chan had an odd childhood. Throughout her childhood, she was inflicted with an incurable condition that made her have no emotions. Growing up, she was bullied at school (because she couldn’t feel I guess). But Yandere-Chan learned how to fake having emotions and live the easy life. Oddly enough, Yandere-Chan’s mom had the same condition as well when she was growing up. Yandere mom reassured Yandere-Chan that “When she finds that special boy, [she’ll] be able to feel.” But Yandere-Chan’s dad went “Nah, bitch. I’ll make Yandere-Chan have feelings.” Of course, that didn’t work. In the end, Yandere-Chan lived her life as an empty shell till she finally met Senpai. Yada yada yada…. Start of the game.

So… what the fuck?

This is the literal definition of a psychopath, dude. Why are we skirting around what Yandere-Chan has?! “Incurable condition” my ass. It’s psychopathy (maybe sociopathy but the evidence leans more towards psychopathy). Next, in the video, why would a general practitioner know that Yandere-Chan is a psychopath?! At most, the doctor would notice something is odd about her before recommending a child psychiatrist to examine Yandere-Chan. Mr. Yandere Dev, you make it sound like Yandere-Chan has a cold; not a mental illness. It was also mention in the video that Yandere-Chan felt pity for her father who was struggling with her mental illness. If she can’t feel any emotions, as you said, then please explain how she felt pity for her father? Can I also point out that Yandere-Chan started faking her emotions for her father’s sake AND THEN started getting bullied because she wasn’t normal. But wait a minute… Yandere-Chan learned how to fake emotions because of the bullying. So how does this logic work? Did she take two steps forward but ten steps back? Why did we have the whole doctor fiasco if Yandere Mom already knew all this about her daughter? WHY DOES YANDERE-CHAN’S BACKSTORY HAVE MORE HOLES THAN A SLICE OF SWISS CHEESE?!

Kai.exe stopped working… now resetting program… reset is now complete

Phew… sorry about that everyone. I was going insane after going through a bunch of videos by the Yandere Dev and the Yandere Simulator website.

For a character called Yandere-Chan, she’s more like Psychopath-Chan. Like geez. If it isn’t obvious, everything about this character screams “psychopath”. Sure, she is portrayed to have “lovesickness” but Yandere-Chan breaks so many rules that her “lovesickness” can’t save her.

A couple of rules she broken:

1. The yandere shouldn’t go on a random killing spree as if she’s/he’s in an all you can eat buffet. Bottomline, a serial killer isn’t a yandere but a yandere could be a serial killer.

2. Shallow background, shallow person. Why were you even created man?

3. Instalove is a pretty cheap cop out for a female yandere to start liking someone. We noticed that sometimes they would fall in love for shallow reasons like: “Kyaa, he passed me the salt shaker, I think I’m in love!” This logic makes me cringe, honestly.

“But, Kai! This game is all about killing the rivals! It isn’t fair to Yandere-Chan to tick her off on that!”

Um… there are many different ways a yandere can get rid of a rival without killing them. Mr. Yandere Dev even suggested a mechanic where the player can hook up love rivals with other NPCs. Yet the core “tactic” Yandere-Chan (and the player) would chose would be to kill the rivals. Not only that, it’s also encouraged to go on a killing spree for extra points for Info-Chan and the Yakuza (not yet implemented). So… this absolutely is a tick against her.

Moving on! I also find it incredibly hard to even call Yandere-Chan a proper “yandere” considering her creator doesn’t even know what a yandere is. On Yandere Dev's website, he defines a yandere as: “A Yandere girl is a girl who loves a boy so much that she is willing to threaten, harm, or kill any other girl who seems interested in him.”

Uh… W.H.A.T.

That’s literally the definition he puts on his website, people. And don’t even get me started on the definition he uses during videos (“A yandere is a person who is crazy for someone else”). Okay, let’s give Yandere Dev the benefit of the doubt and say: “He sort of right… if you squint hard enough”. But if we refer back to our Yandere Actions post, just using the “yandere snap” doesn’t make Yandere-Chan a yandere. In the end, Yandere-Chan is nothing more but a psychopath.

To those who are reading this: As individuals who are part of the yandere community, I am appealing to you right now. We may disagree on a lot of things. We may disagree on what is and isn’t a yandere. We may disagree on some characteristics of what makes a yandere. But I hope to agree with everyone that “Yandere Simulator” is not the thing we want to define our community.

I’ve heard people compare Yandere-Chan as the “New Yuno Gasai”. I’ve heard people call Yandere-Chan as “the perfect example of a yandere” or “the ideal yandere”. I’ve heard many misinformed comments about yanderes thanks to this game. It may have brought to light our community but this is a double edge sword. It’s one thing if there’s only a couple misinformed users out there. It’s expected and no offense to them. But what’s troubling is the popularity of this misinformed game and the spreading through popular youtubers (again, no offense to them since they don’t know). This game is basically our face to those outside of the community. I talked to several people who are quick to judge me as “one of those perverts” thanks to this game’s reputation (water off my back). You can still like the game or the characters. I know Yandere-Chan generates lots of yandere aesthetics and the fandom has done way better with her than her own creator. But can we all agree to denounce this game as a “yandere icon”. Use it as a conversation starter and use it to point out myths about yanderes… but don’t let this define us. I believe we’re better than that… we’re all better than that. “Romance turned Horror” and “Horror turned Romance” lovers… Aesthetic yanderes, Yandere Recommendations, and Yandere Analysis blogs… We’re all in this together. Let’s shake on this, friends.

Overall score: 0/10

(Post-edit: I forgot to mention Yandere-Kun; there is a bit of a difference between him and Yandere-Chan. He is the genderbend version for Yandere-Chan (for those who want to play as a guy) but Yandere Dev stated that Yandere-Kun’s reasoning for chasing Senpai is purely sadistic. So, regardless how you paint things, Yandere-Kun is just as psychopathic as his female counterpart)

#yandere simulator #yandere-chan #yandere-kun #yandere #male yandere #review #opinion #Yandere-chan? More like Psychopath-chan #yan sim #yandere sim #indie game

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theswartzreport · 5 years

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Musings: Extras

Bitter Tea: Extras and the Exploration of Self-Loathing

Ricky Gervais is, in his own vernacular, a twat. Once hailed as a comedic visionary for the truly transformative work of the original UK version of The Office, it has since become clear – through years of tone-deaf comments, myopic responses, and simply increasing nastiness to anybody who would question his “comic sensibilities” – that Gervais' David Brent was not, as Steve Carrell's sublime re-interpretation would seem to be, a work of fiction, a joyfully vicious skewering of a despicable, petty man with no redeeming qualities beyond commitment to a bit. Rather, Brent is the ur-Gervais, a repurposed version of Gervais' inability to accept criticism and seemingly blanket insensitivity, who happens to wield his ill-gotten power over a small office in Slough instead of via the airwaves of BBC and Netflix. (Gervais' collaborator, Stephen Merchant, escapes some criticism, although his solo outing into the cringe-y comedy he helped popularize with The Office, HBO's Hello Ladies, is so mind-blowingly inappropriate for the #MeToo era that it's hard to tell if it was too prescient for its own good, or actually sinister creepiness dressed up in self-deprecation).

And yet, it seems (or seemed, anyway) that Gervais did have some modicum of self-awareness, an insight into the fickle nature of fame and his own distinctly uncomfortable place within that construct. Extras, Gervais and Merchant's follow-up to The Office, remains a fascinating time-capsule, not just of the pre-smartphone era of celebrity (Kate Winslet providing vulgar dating advice while dressed as a nun remains a quintessential and suitably squirmy-hilarious portrait of how a famous person's public persona could be utterly at odds with their private lives in those heady days before Peak Internet), but of Gervais' halting, fleeting, excruciating discomfort with his new celebrity – and, crucially, whether he deserved to be famous at all.

Belying the promise of it's title, Extras does its best work after Gervais' Andy Millman has left the background acting life behind for (nominally) bigger and better things. Series One is a confusing mishmash of skewed celebrity cameos like the aforementioned Winslet riff, half-baked jokes at the power dynamics on film sets, and positively boorish behavior from Andy. As Andy's good natured-but-dim pal Maggie Jacobs, Ashley Jensen is often the butt of his jokes, while being too sweet and simple to understand that his abuse comes from a place of deep, profound insecurity – or that it's really abuse at all. That his onscreen bestie is presented as hopelessly idiotic is a clue to the esteem in which Gervais holds himself; that his character's professional and personal life withstand the shockingly minimal blowback from his racism, insensitivity and – particularly and least-fictionally – homophobia indicates unabashed contempt for all the enablers who never called out his abrasive shtick.

While often a broad continuation of the punching-down/punching-self dynamic that made The Office a cringe-inducing revelation, Gervais' newfound position of power – and the implicit power dynamic within the show, where Andy is an extra, put-upon by forces beyond his control – makes the target of his satire opaque. A self-punch registers as punching down at the plebs he so clearly despises; a jab at the Hollywood (or BBC) industry reeks of “it's not my fault, it's their's!” By removing his own icky persona from critical examination, he points his finger squarely and consistently at his own petty grievances – and perhaps to Gervais' continued indignation and bafflement, his grievances aren't the biggest problems in the world.

Which is why Series Two – and particularly the hour-plus Christmas special that serves as finale – contain such intriguing seeds. Here, we see Andy rise to fame as a catchphrase-spewing sitcom impresario, a lowest-common-denominator cash grab that inverts the contempt for the audiences who consume such dreck (although such contempt is still clearly evident) into an almost-cogent skewering of the mindset of fame itself: the self-loathing, unhappy drive that pushes untalented people like Andy to debase themselves for a scrap of recognition, even as they cannot escape the fact that they don't deserve their accolades and remuneration.

Here, Gervais seems to point to his own dark soul. While Andy still isn't (really) punished for his bigotry and misogyny, he does feel the weight of his unrealistic expectations as they come crashing down, shepherded by his general dickishness. There is genuine pathos in Andy's eventual, inevitable landing place: on the Celebrity Big Brother couch, surrounded by tragic caricatures of the type of revolving fame-seekers who populate such fare. This, after all, is where Andy belongs. This is where he is his truest self: a fame seeker who lucked into his chance, only to realize that he had no talent, no work ethic, no friends and no prospects. He's doing Big Brother because, as a frantically tap-dancing Lionel Blair explains, “it helps to keep the profile up,” whether or not the profile deserves to continue.

For most any other performer, this would be standard “price of fame” fodder, a narrative about how the soulless industry churns through Bright Young Things and leaves them broken and alone. But because Andy – like, by all appearances, his creator Gervais – is such an insufferable asshole, it serves more as a karmic referendum on his worthiness, specifically. It's not just that Andy forgot the little people, ordered extras fired, acted like a prima donna. It's that he did all of that stuff before he became famous, because that's just who he is: a mean, small man, who blames the world and everyone in it for his failings.

Despite the de rigueur happy(ish) ending, where Andy epiphanies all over the Big Brother house and rides off into the sunset cracking (mean-spirited) jokes with (at) Maggie, the remaining sour taste of Gervais' presence is sufficient to reveal the rot underneath his patter. Intentionally or not, Extras weighs and measures its star, and finds him wanting as a human being. It is perverse that his natural ability to reveal his own darkness has elevated Gervais to be hailed for mirroring our society, but perhaps – with a reality star villain in the White House, the U.K. pushed to the brink by small men dickering over whom to blame for their troubles, and a culture of fame that praises authenticity above example – he was the canary in the coal mine all along. In Extras, the canary clearly, emphatically died. We all just didn't realize it.

#extras #ricky gervais #stephen merchant #ashley jensen #brexit #celebrity big brother #kate winslet

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whatdoyoumeanitsnotawesome · 5 years

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Ship meme: Wayne and Katy 5, 9, 10

ship headcanon meme from THIS POST (check it out if you haven’t already)

5. Who says ‘I love you’ first?

That depends on how you’re counting. Katy says the words, easy as breathing, has done since she could talk, no problem. It’s never a formality or a reflex, it’s 100% genuine every time she says it. Wayne only says it a handful of times, but he shows it every day, cooking and doing dishes together, planting her favourite flowers in the vegetable patch, carrying the basket of wet laundry for her so she can peg it out, bringing her coffee in bed for their traditional Sunday morning lie-in.

Once Katy told him she was thinking about keeping bees, to save them some money instead of hiring them every Spring for pollination. So he looks up plans and builds her some boxes the very next day. He calls around town to find a hive that someone wants shot of, and buys a secondhand but still-in-good-nick spinner and a beesuit and veil. It’s worth it, the splinters and stings and running around, all of it, when she pops the first bite of honeycomb into his mouth and smiles at him.

9. What is the most embarrassing thing they have done in front of each other?

This one’s tough, because they’re never really uncomfortable enough with each other that they get embarrassed.

The first time they get drunk, like, properly drunk, they’re in their study room, chilling on the secondhand loveseat they got from Uncle Eddie and Aunt Marian. They’re sixteen tomorrow, and consider themselves very grown up, capable of handling pretty much anything, including liquor. Their parents are the lax sort, so they’ve had a wee dram here and there, usually in tea, or warm milk with honey if they’re ill.

Tonight though, it’s the day before their birthday, they’re supervision-free, it’s the height of summer, and their parents are away on a date, so the twins decide to start their revels early. They nick the whiskey from the kitchen and make sure to load up on snacks to bring upstairs with them so they don’t have to chance sneaking back down to the kitchen after their parents get home. Very responsible, very forward-thinking; they’re totally nailing adulting. They’re not even going anywhere, so they can’t possibly get into too much trouble, right?

Wrong.

They’re getting quietly tanked, chirping an old episode of MST3K, and booze is as booze does, so Katy has to wee. She stands up to go, or rather, she tries to stand up. All the alcohol goes to her head all at once, and she immediately over-balances. The only thing that saves her from taking a header into the coffee table is Wayne throwing his arms around her and pulling her back into his lap. Concussion successfully avoided, yay, but the pressure around her middle only exacerbates her original problem.

‘Wayne, you gotta let me up, I gotta go.’ She pats his arm, tapping out.

‘You gonna be alright?’ Wayne seems sceptical, but releases her nonetheless. It’s not fair he sounds so much more sober than she feels.

‘I’ll be fine, I just wasn’t expecting it.’ To be honest, Katy’d expected being drunk to feel kinda similar to smoking pot, which she’s pretty used to by now. She stands up much more slowly this time, moving very deliberately, and makes her way to the washroom between the study and their bedroom. Her fingers refuse to cooperate with the pocket door and the button of her shorts, but she does eventually get things sorted before she gets too desperate.

While she’s sitting there, she decides to make things easier on her future self and change into pyjama shorts. She’s a genius, she’s handling this so well. The pocket door to the bedroom gives her just as much trouble as the one leading to the study. Rather than tempting Fate by attempting to stand on one leg, Katy sits on the bed to get changed. She’s just pulling her shorts up when Wayne chooses that moment to bang on the door.

‘Are you okay in there?’ he calls through the door.

‘I’m just putting on some pyjamas.’

Wayne sounds disgruntled. ‘It’s been twenty minutes. I thought maybe you’d fallen again.’

Awwwwwww. He was always looking out for her. Katy slides the door open and leans against the frame, smiling. ‘Were you worried about me?’

Wayne’s habitual squint is a bit uneven, so maybe he’s not as unaffected as she thought. Good to know. ‘I don’t wanna hafta explain to our parents that I’m suddenly an only child, no.’

Witty as ever. ‘C’mon, let’s go back to the sofa.’ Katy slides an arm around Wayne and they lean against each other as they walk a little unsteadily back to the loveseat. Once they’re settled back down, they keep absently nibbling their snacks and passing the whiskey back and forth. It gets late enough that they hear the truck coming up the laneway, and they share a moment of visceral, heart-stopping paranoia, like somehow their parents are gonna just know, via telepathy or some other Spooky Parent Power.

Normality reasserts itself when after a couple of minutes, there’s a complete lack of doors opening and shutting. Wayne barely leans out the window before he registers the slight sway of the truck, and for the sake of his sanity he launches himself backwards before he can see anything unfortunate, but he hadn’t counted on Katy being right behind him and he bowls them both over in his haste.

‘Oof,’ is all she says, staring up at the ceiling. A moment of silence passes between them before Wayne speaks.

“They’re gonna be in the truck a while.’

Another moment of silence while this works its way through Katy’s brain. ‘Oh my God,’ she moans, voice full of despair, ‘we have to ride in that truck!’ She rolls over next to him and buries her face in his shoulder. ‘I really, really wish you hadn’t’a said that.’

Wayne sighs, puts his arm around her shoulders, and pats her sympathetically. ‘Sorry, kiddo, but if I have to suffer, so do you.’

‘That is not covered under for better or for worse,’ she says, muffled.

‘Twins for life, honey. No getting divorced.’

Katy raises her head to look at him and digs her pointy little chin into his ribs extra hard, just ‘cos she can. ‘You’re a terrible person. I’m gonna trade you in.’

Wayne adopts the snootiest Customer Service voice he can muster. ‘I’m afraid the sixty-day return policy has lapsed.’ He grins. ‘You’re stuck with me.’

She hums, ‘Well, if that’s the case. I suppose you do have your uses.’ Katy snuggles closer and lays her head back down. ‘You’re pretty comfy, for a start.’

‘Oh, well. As long as I’m useful.’

‘Like a good piece of furniture. Decorative and sturdy.’

They giggle quietly until they hear the back door open and shut. There’s the sound of feet on the stairs, and then a quick tapping at the study door as their parents wish them goodnight in passing, and they warmly return the sentiment from their spot on the floor.

When they hear their parents’ door close, Katy whispers, ‘There’s one way to try and erase that image.’

Wayne nods. ‘That’s a Texas-sized 10-4.’

They relocate back to the sofa again, piling pillows on one end and stretching out across it as they resume passing the bottle back and forth. Eventually, the television switches over to a new programme, and by that time, their parents’ snores are echoing through the house. They’re both so relaxed it almost feels like a Sin, breaking the peace, but Katy’s had the most excellent idea and it would be rude and selfish if she didn’t share it.

‘Hey, Wayne,’ she queries.

His hand pauses petting her hair. ‘Katy Kat?’

‘Wanna go have a smoke on the roof?’

Oh, that’s class. ‘I’d have a dart.’

The biggest benefit to their room being on the complete opposite side of the house from their parents’ is that it’s practically soundproof. They don’t hear any night noises they don’t wanna hear, and they get easy access to the roof via the porch gable and the big window in the study. Wayne gets the gear from the sock drawer and they climb out on top of the porch, only a little wobbly. From there, Wayne hoists himself up onto the roof proper, then pulls Katy up after, and they settle in for a dart and a joint respectively. They’re flushed and warm from the drink, and the smokes go straight to their heads, leaving them dizzy and giggly; but the night air is bracing and helps cool them off.

They lay back together and point out all the constellations they can remember, then start making up new ones and giving them the most ridiculous backstories they can come up with. After about half an hour, the whiskey jacket wears off and Katy gets cold enough she wants to go inside. Getting down is a lot more of a challenge than getting up had been. Any other time they’d just jump for it, or else they’re sneaking out and shinning it down the tree, but those are both too noisy to be real options. They eventually work out that they have to sit down and then lower themselves in a weird sort of reverse pull-up type manoeuver. Or, well, Wayne has to lower himself and then lift Katy down. There’s a close call as she shifts her weight forward when he’s not expecting it, but they recover and no one falls or breaks anything, so they carefully climb back in the window.

Safely ensconced back on the couch, they’re in that space between drunk and sober where judgement has left the building, but you’re absolutely certain you’re making an unbiased, totally objective decision to have another drink. Killing the last third of the bottle seems like a brilliant idea. Things take a sharp nose-dive from that point. Where before they’d been slowly sipping at the whiskey, now they take gulps; after all, they’d handled it so far, right? The television plays softly in the background, but they’ve long since lost the plot. Whatever’s going on, it involves a robot, a Cat-man, an idiot, and some prick with an H on his forehead. Drunchies are no joke, and before they know it all the snacks have mysteriously disappeared and they’ve no memory of finishing them.

That was the tipping point, it seems, because the nausea comes on, creeping up like a thief in an alley, the heartburn and the churning bile and the spins, and oh fuck, the spins. Katy’s head feels tight like a migraine, but also weirdly floaty, like she’s too high. Wayne’s not doing much better himself, breathing slow and heavy and focussed on one spot on the ceiling to try and quell the urge to spit. If they’re very, very still, they might be able to power through this.

Luck is not on their side. Katy needs the bin, now. She turns to ask Wayne to grab it and-

A strangled ‘Wayne,’ is all the warning he gets before Katy hurls right in his lap. For a moment, he’s too stunned to do anything, but then she retches and does it again, and that’s what triggers his gag reflex, the sound and the smell and the warm liquid splash, and Wayne tosses his cookies even as he’s reaching for the rubbish bin. That sets Katy off again, and they’re caught in a vicious cycle of calling Huey until there’s nothing left in either of them to bring up.

They have to use every towel in the bathroom to clean up the mess, dry heaving the whole time, until it’s as good as they’re going to get it in the middle of the night. They rinse their mouths out and brush their teeth very gingerly, trying not to set off another round of gastrointestinal rebellion. Katy still feels hot and woozy and not a little gross, and she refuses to get in bed like this and mess up the nice, clean sheets. Wayne doesn’t exactly smell like a bed of roses either, so they sluice off and get into fresh, non-puky pyjamas. Katy’s head is clear enough by then that she has the foresight to make them both drink some goddamn water and take some aspirin before they get in bed.

The next morning is a special level of Hell, ‘cos it turns out their parents are totally on to them. Busted. As if being wretchedly hungover weren’t punishment enough, their parents make sure to be extra loud and unsympathetic to their misery. Birthday pancakes bring no joy, the smell of frying bacon is revolting, and the very idea of anything as acidic as orange juice has them both on the razor’s edge of being ill again.

Wayne and Katy Suffer through breakfast and cleaning up the kitchen after, until some buckets, brushes, and heavy-duty surface cleaner are shoved into their hands. They trudge upstairs and start scrubbing the puke out of the floorboards. Every part of the sofa needs to be cleaned as well; the cushions, the upholstery, the cover. Even the remote for the television. All of this on top of their regular chores leaves them shaky and exhausted by lunchtime.

The bollocking they get is definitely well-deserved, but neither of the twins has the strength to tolerate it. Wayne just crawls under the table and lays face-down and still, waiting for death, and Katy pillows her abominably sore head on her arms and tunes out until it’s over. They’re grounded for the foreseeable future, and just to make sure they don’t have any time to get into any more mischief, they’ll be doing chores over at Uncle Eddie’s as well as at home. The only pity they’re shown is a sleeve of dry crackers and some ginger beer to settle their bellies. The rest of the day is spent hauling bales and mucking stalls.

After dinner they go straight to bed, no shuckin’ and jivin’. They pinkie swear that next time, they’re gonna take about fifty percent off the whiskey and double down on the water. They grow up to be champion lushes, the pair of ‘em.

10. What two songs, two books and two luxury items do they take to a desert island?

Katy:

Music: House of Tom Bombadil by Nickel Creek, ‘cos Katy’s secretly a huge Nerd, and A Thousand Years by Christina Perri even though it’s so Basic White Girl, because no matter how cheesy, she genuinely loves it.

Books: The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson Burnett (her favourite since childhood,) and How to Invent Everything by Ryan North, a surprisingly useful survival guide.

Luxury Items: A tarpaulin, because Katy’s nothing if not Practical, and sunscreen for Wayne, ‘cos he’ll never think of it and he burns like paper.

Wayne:

Music: Wayne actually has the most rubbish taste in music. If he likes anything good, it’s purely by accident. He brings a cover of Can’t Hold Us by Macklemore as Gaeilge and Animals by Nickleback.

Books: Le Petit Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery. It’s his favourite, and it’s set in a desert, so. And since he knows every word off by heart in English and in French, to keep him engaged he’ll also bring Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T. E. Lawrence. Sure, it’s on-theme and all.

Luxury Items: A flint and a hammer hatchet. With these he can make simple tools, and with simple tools he can make complex tools, and with complex tools he can make anything.

(Edit: I only just now realised that perhaps this meant two total, as in one of each item for each of them, rather than they both bring two of each item. Oh, well. What’s done is done.)

#letterkenny #wayne #uaithne #katy kat #caitríona #Anonymous #original post #my writing #fanfiction #ask meme #ship headcanon meme #fanfic #fic

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metaphoricalplutowrites · 6 years

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Please never fall in love again

On ao3 here | Masterlist of my fics

Authors note: Okay, im sorry for this. I heard the song “Please never fall in love again” by Ollie MN and imediately thought of some Roman angst i could do with this. So here it is! Also, this is my first time finishing a song fic (woop) so im sorry if its kinda bad aha. But yea, ill shush now lol

Summary: Roman falls in love, but after a broken heart, he’s not sure he wants to fall in love ever again.

Pairing(s): Prinxiety (moving to moxiety in the second half)

Warnings: heartbreak, breakdown, crying, faking emotions, angst, breakup (please tell me to add more if i need to)

Words: 2617

Tags: @novagalaxy4real @tree4life25 @ultimate-queen-of-fandoms @say-no-to-this-but-its-laurens @magicmapleleaf @moxiety--sanders101 @vrexemi @theresneverenoughfandoms @patchworkofstars @virgilssweaterpaws@ravenclawicecream @theonlyjelly-iwillput-inmybelly @eye-of-terrific

Could have been one lonely night,

Just like the others

It was well known that out of the sides, Virgil was the one who got the most anxious. The one who holed up in his room sometimes for days. The one who was sometimes the loneliest.

However, what wasn’t really known was how the creative side felt.

He always seemed so enthusiastic and extra it wasn’t really easy to see how he felt through it all. He jokes about his ‘lonely nights’ spent ‘lying in wait for a young fellow to hold in his arms tightly’. And sure, the others took them as jokes, as Roman had originally intended them to be. But in reality, they weren’t fully jokes.

There were many nights where he found himself lying in bed, the empty space around him reminding him of how alone he was. Sometimes on those nights he cried, something he just stared lifelessly at the ceiling. Things became even worse once he developed a crush on the resident emo of the 4 of them.

On those lonely nights he found himself imagining what it might be like to hold him close in his arms, what it might be like to not be so alone and have him by his side. Sure during the day he was able to be with the other sides and Mr Edgelord himself, but that didn’t really do much for when he was alone. There was still no one to hold, to talk to, to be there for, to be with. It was just Roman, and Roman alone. And there wasn’t much he could do about it as he was too scared to talk to Virgil about his crush, afraid of rejection.

So Roman just stayed like that, lonely nights coming often, tears in the came capacity. And still no one knew of his solitude.

He was lonely.

All until Virgil came up to him and said he had a crush on Roman.

But you lit up my life

This is what it’s like to be lovers

Once the two of them had sorted things out, Roman confessing back to Virgil. Tears may have been shed and that night was the first in ages that Roman had not spent alone.

The next day was spent much the same, just admiring each other and enjoying the presence of each other, and how they both felt next to each other. Smiles and gentle kisses were shared in abundance. Both glad to be with the one they love.

The week following the confession was much the same as well. Both happier now they were with each other. Virgil was still a little slow on the relationship/opening up side, but Roman would be willing to wait for as long as the other needed. Even if it took months, he’d wait.

You may never be lonely again

It was a promise Roman had told Virgil one night as they lay in bed together. Now they were together there would be no more nights spent alone – for either of them. They’d both smiled with the sentence, both hoping, promising for a future where they’d be together.

Even Logan and Patton could somehow tell Roman was feeling a lot better – even if they hadn’t known his previous struggles. Roman no longer made lonely jokes in vain, but as actual jokes, sarcastically asking ‘what he would ever do without his dark knight be his side’. Solitude was banished from the prince’s room, no more tears and crying over empty space as now it was no longer empty.

Roman was happy and so was Virgil.

Spin with me, endlessly or at least until the end

Dancing was one of the things Roman was known for being good at, and he definitely showed that to Virgil.

Date nights, while most were mainly movie nights and lounging on the couch, were sometimes occasionally ended with Roman taking the darker side’s hand and leading him into a slow dance. Swaying from foot to foot in time with the slow beat of the music playing softly in the background. Huddled against each other, holding on as if they planned to never let go again. Sharing moments of raw affection, soft whisperings and secret promises to never be apart again until death.

They often took up the whole living room, their swaying taking them in circles, spinning gradually as they went. Times like these seemed to go on forever, not that either of them were complaining, they were tunes they both treasured dearly.

Eventually they would have to stop for the night, mostly due to the fact that it was late and also because they were tired.

Even though the slow dance may have stopped, it didn’t mean that they stopped showing their love for each other even after and continued until they fell asleep in each other’s arms.

Please never fall in love again,

Oh, please never fall in love again

Roman knew that he was happy with how things were at the moment. He had found the love of his loaf, his prince, and he was able to spend every moment with him. He loved Virgil dearly and he hoped that wouldn’t change.

He hoped to hell and back that this would stay forever. That they would both stay in love forever. He knew how sometimes people’s feelings changed over time. And he knew how much that hurt when that happened, while it may not have happened to him, he’d seen it happen to others. but he was determined to make sure that didn’t happen to him.

Besides, he and Virgil were oh so terribly in love at that moment, it was hard to see them ever breaking up. So Roman payed this train of thought no mind. It didn’t matter after all.

He loved Virgil, and Virgil loved him, there wasn’t anything that could change that.

Right?

And if some other guy, catches your eye

It was a weird feeling. After a good number of months of being together, Roman felt as if Virgil was becoming distant. Sure, he could have put it down to the other having possibly more work to do than usual – though Roman couldn’t see any reasons why he would have more work – but it felt like something else.

Date nights became few and not as often as they used to be. When Roman asked if Virgil wanted to watch a film, these days more often than not, he’d politely decline, giving some kind of excuse and Roman would be left to himself once more. Just like those nights before he got together with Virgil.

Kisses became fewer and while Roman reminded Virgil everyday how he loved him, the other responded with hesitation, if at all. Sometimes it was only a mere nod of the head.

He could feel Virgil slipping away slowly, and he had no idea how to fix it. It was then that he started to realise.

Virgil’s glances at the moral side. The way his eyes lingered and looked at him the way he once looked at Roman,

How he saw Virgil trying to get closer to Patton, but also staying away as if his anxiety was holding him back – to be fair he was the embodiment of anxiety after all.

After a while it seemed like Virgil spent more time with Patton than he did with his boyfriend – if you could still call him that at this point. They always baked cookies together and more than once when Roman had requested a date night, Virgil had declined as he’d apparently already made plans for the night with Patton.

Honestly, Roman became to question if Virgil even loved him anymore. He didn’t know what hurt more, the thought of it, or the fact that he had thought about it so much recently, when he saw the two together it was all he could think of. So he just had to go around saying he was fine, even when he saw Patton returning Virgil’s gazes sometimes, he had to continue on with a slowly breaking heart.

Please just text me your goodbye

It was an evening when Virgil decided to speak up. Roman had asked him to watch a movie with him, but Virgil had once again said no, but also said that he had to admit something to Roman.

By this time he kinda guessed what was coming, but he still had to keep hopeful. Just in case what he though was coming wasn’t actually, and maybe he was just imagining it all.

But alas, at some point the truth had to come.

Virgil carefully explained how he had come to no longer harbour any romantic feelings towards the creative side anymore, and that he now had feelings for Patton instead.

God it would have been so much easier if this was all written down in a letter or a text. Roman wouldn’t have to deal with the grief and emotion in Virgil’s voice as he confessed.

But Roman had to stay strong, this wasn’t going to break him. Besides, he had kinda already guessed it before Virgil even said anything anyways. He had guessed for a while now. But hearing Virgil say that he didn’t love him anymore just hurt more than he thought, even as Virgil apologised.

You know i don’t look pretty when I cry

He reassured Virgil that it was fine, that it was perfectly okay. That people change and he’d support him and Patton’s relationship if they ever got together. All the while, while saying this he fought back tears. He was a good actor, so the emotions were hidden behind a mask he put up.

He didn’t want to look pathetic in front of Virgil.

However when he returned to his room after bidding the other goodnight, all walls and masks he put up to shield his sadness from Virgil crumbles and he fell to the floor, sobbing his heart out. He had been on many a quest before and had experienced pain, but nothing like this.

So he cried and cried, until there were no more tears to come and all that was left was simply a hollow shell, not sure of what to do next. Tear tracks trances the sides of his face and his eyes were red, his hair a mess from where he had ran his hands through it in an attempt to make himself feel better.

Patton had come to check on him at some point later that night. He didn’t open the door as he knew he looked like utter crap, but he tried his best to sound cheerful and like he was actually okay as he replied through the door. Which seemed to be enough for Patton to leave him alone, satisfied with Roman’s answer.

He fell asleep, not bothering to get back up from the floor and onto his bed. All sense of motivation had left him and he felt so broken and lost. He’d lost the love of his life and he’d never felt so alone, not even the times before his relationship. So for that moment he just tried to sleep, too tired to do anything else.

And I don’t want that to be your final glimpse of me, baby

The next morning when he got up he still looked like utter crap. But he masked it with layers of makeup and put on a smile as he headed down to breakfast, pretending as if his breakdown hadn’t happened the previous night. He was given a curious look from Virgil, but he only smiled in reply.

Breakfast went as it normally did, apart from at the end he somehow found himself confessing to the others that he and Virgil had broken up, it was going to have to come out at some points anyways, better get it out of the way earlier than later. It received a shocked gasp from Patton, who asked if they were okay. Roman brushed it off of course, not wanting to concern him with his problems and troubles. So they all accepted it and moved on, due to Roman’s good acting and managing to get them to understand quickly enough.

The next morning when he came down, once again hiding his true feelings when he saw Virgil, it seemed as if afore mentioned side had something to announce. And it was probably something to do with Patton as the both of them seemed to be smiling at each other a lot.

Virgil and Patton were now a couple.

It took a few moment s for the information to sink in, but when he did he immediately congratulated the two of them, ignoring the pain he felt in his check as he did so. Everyone seemed so happy and cheerful. Once it was over, Roman once again retreated back to his room, the others believing he was fine. When in reality, he really wasn’t.

He got into his room and cried once more. Cursing the world and his heart. His makeup was ruined, so there was no point in going back and seeing the others again that day. So he just spent the rest of the day in his realm, fighting imaginary dragon witches to ignore how his heart ached. He fought until he could physically fight no more and he collapsed on his bed. Loneliness once again worming its way into his chest and making him feel slip back to the days he spent countless nights alone.

It seemed those days never really left for good and were now back with a vengeance.

But if you could please return my Shrek DVDs, maybe

Later in the week, he gathered the courage to go up to Virgil’s room after realising he’d leant said side some of his Disney films. He approached the door cautiously and just as e was about to knock, the door opened and revealed a slightly startled Virgil standing there, holding a small-ish pile Roman’s DVDs, and a few other things Roman had forgotten he’d given Virgil.

With little conversation, Roman took the items and brought them back to his room, turning back only to see Patton approach Virgil and see them share a kiss.

He proceeded straight to his room and set the things aside, once again going back into his realm to fight.

Roman could see Virgil was returning all the things he’d given him when they were in love. And Roman couldn’t honestly blame him. He wouldn’t want anything he’d given anyone either. But he was still upset and then turned that sadness into fighting rage as he tore through enemy after enemy.

Every day spending more time in his own realm than he did with the other sides. Not that they really noticed, they thought he was just trying to get some creative energy out or something like that.

Please never fall in love again

It was during one of his battles that he decided. It hurt too much to fall in love. Love hurt too much. Maybe it would be easier if it never happened again. Maybe it would be easier if it never happened in the first place.

Either way, he made a decision and he didn’t think of ever going against it.

He would close off his heart. He didn’t want to feel the pain of love again, didn’t want to deal with the heart ache which ensued afterwards. He didn’t want to fall in love ever again. He planned to stick to his decision, for as long as possible.

No, he wouldn’t fall for anyone anymore. After what had happened, he’d make sure it never happened again.

Ever.

Oh, please never fall in love again.

#sanders sides #prinxiety #moxiety #heartbreak #tw heartbreak #crying #fake emotions #tw crying #angst #breakup #tw breakup #metawrites

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takingtea-and-tellingtales · 6 years

Text

thoughts while re-watching ep. 2x12 of Gotham

*ice puns intensify*

wow harvey, interrogating jim gordon at this trial is a little two-faced of you (i will never stop)

drink for “someone tries to say ‘oswald cobblepot’ and with gravitas”

(and then drink like nine more times for the rest of the scene)

i watched a crack-vid that played “love crime” from the finale of Hannibal over Jim and Oswald killing Galavan and now I can’t unhear it???? i also can’t find it again to leave a link here????

“detective, did you have anything to do with the murder of theo galavan?” “what? no. what? who’s galavan. never heard of him. is it hot in here? maybe you killed him, didja ever think of that???” BE A BETTER LIAR, JAMES

prosecutor voice: “jim gordon, is there perhaps a small shaky mobster being tortured in arkham for a crime YOU committed?” (yeah, yeah, oswald has committed upwards of 50 murders at this point i’m AWARE but he didn’t do this one)

okay, friends, let’s TALK about SOME THINGS:

(1) I SEE YOU, JOKER-CULT SPRAY PAINT

CALLED. OUT.

(2) This:

i should clarify. i know i’m generally very excited about pretty much everything oswald wears because he is STYLISH AF at all times. but this is different. everyone get out your shipper goggles and strap in, this is going to be a ride...

these are not oswald’s clothes.

i know this for a few reasons

(1) oswald is a much better dresser than this

(2) oswald is a much less practical dresser than this

(3) that coat is too big for him

(i know this because @tigerinkangel and i spent way way way too long looking at the few shots of oswald in this coat in the episode and we determined that the coat is made for someone taller and with broader shoulders... gee. who was oswald just staying with who is taller and has broader shoulders? i wonder.)

these are ed’s clothes

ed has given oswald not just a coat but THREE LAYERS OF CLOTHES so he DOESN’T GET COLD including a little checked scarf (that surely would match ed’s fab red coat from later this season) and a knitted toque (a hat for all you non-Canadians)

this is PRECIOUS

i want you all to image how this went down:

“i have to go, ed, they’ll find me and you’ll get into trouble too”

“where will you go?”

“just lay low for a while”

“where?”

“around”

“you’re going to be cold and, frankly, recognizable in that getup”

“i can’t exactly go back home and change now, can i?”

“well then you’ll take some of my clothes”

“your clothes?”

“yes. i think i have some sweaters...”

*cut of ed forcing ugly knit sweaters over oswald’s head as the grumpy little murder-bird complains the whole damn time*

*cut to ed making sure he has a walking stick because the umbrella is a dead giveaway but he needs something for his leg*

*smash-cut to me being trash. oh wait. that’s all the time.”

alright. rant kind of over for now.

i am HERE FOR the moment in the lab where Ed has the police scanner running and he hears news of Oswald and drops the thing (tooth?) he is holding in his tweezers and stares at the radio. I AM HERE FOR IT.

i’m slightly less here for butch’s drill-bit arm though it does give him a nice bond-villain vibe

otp: strangely enough i am kind of fond of you

(Tabitha is me trying to flirt: “you don’t suck i guess whatever”)

come on, Mr. Fries, be cool

chill out, Mr. Fries, no need for such a... frosty reception

Harvey Bullock saying “you don’t deserve these lips” is now my preferred method of rejection

“froze her?” “told you it was weird” - oh my sweet summer child you don’t even KNOW how weird this is going to get

(when will there be live penguins wearing tiny rockets you cowards?????)

okay there’s a ton to unpack in this ed-explains-the-roses-and-liquid-nitrogen scene but i’m not going to unpack any of it because i spend a whole chapter doing that in my very long fanfic and i don’t want to spoil it for y’all... i promise it’s super extra, though, and very shippy. you’re welcome.

i will, however, take a tiny moment to FREAK OUT about ed shattering the rose and saying “i don’t like being called names, detective” through gritted teeth because DAMN that’s a good moment

also harvey looking at ed in this scene is harvey staring into the void and the void staring back - i like to think he saw the riddler in that moment. i just really love it it’s super powerful okay???

jim: “what is your relationship with oswald cobblepot?” ed: “i believe the kids today refer to it as “endgame”? i admit the terminology is a little fuzzy...”

(i’m not sorry)

“saying the word ‘Cobblepot’ with gravitas: Ed Nygma edition”

penguin looks so tiny being dragged through the GCPD bullpen in a coat that’s too big for him.

also ed watching oswald get thrown in the holding cell #hearteyes

i LOVE this interrogation scene. oswald is beat up, cold, arrested, wearing borrowed clothes and he still has all the power in the scene.

HOWEVER - why does he cover for jim, here? honest question. is he still kinda infatuated with jim? his he hoping this will pay off in the long run? what’s his game here?

victor, your research is cold comfort in this hard time of illness (#i’llneverstop)

dear victor, being able to freeze someone without bringing them back is just murdering them more slowly. delayed-murder.

hey it’s me, shipper trash, back again to talk about the scene where ed and oswald chat through the bars of the holding cell.

first - the overhead shot of ed pretending to look through files and oswald sitting in the cell is awesome. just... awesome

“you doing okay? you look kind of funky” - ED STAHP he’s the head of the gotham mob - ugh he’s too cute i mean, normal things. i’m fine

sub-point: oswald’s tiny smile and laugh tell me that my above freakout is also his internal monologue

ed just wants to helpppppp they LOVE EACH OTHER (i’m FINE)

i wish we had a scene of ed leaving flowers on Gertrud’s grave that would have been nice i think

gee, i wish ed had gone to visit ed in Arkham so i didn’t have to write 100k of fanfic fixing that (jokes, i loved writing it)

Lucius Fox explaining cryogenics to Harvey is the epitome of patience. he is a better soul than any in Arkham

oh this scene in Arkham is so cringey i feel so bad for oswald (yes i know he killed lots of people just let me be sad about this)

“my name is oswald cobblepot” is gotham’s “harriet jones, prime minister”

*dalek voice* “we. know. who. you. are.”

Victor’s a cool customer in this tense lab experiment. #i’mhilarious

i’m having Fringe flashbacks watching this body melt and not in a good way

any fellow Fringe fans out there? yes? no?

why the hell isn’t there a refill order on Nora’s medication? how did that happen?

Alright let’s take a moment to appreciate the hell out of BD Wong as Hugo Strange because holy shit he knocks it out of the park.

remember how i said earlier that oswald still has all the power in the scene with barnes? yeah this scene where he shakes hands with strange you can just see all the power gather around strange like - i was immediately genuinely afraid for oswald’s safety

he’s got to stand toe-to-toe with the worst of the worst in gotham and still have the upper hand and his presence on screen makes that happen from moment 1

those pink glasses are awesome and i love them

i really like Mr. Freeze’s homemade outfit it’s adorable

why is Freeze bothering to hide the bodies at this point? like he really should just run - he has the meds and doesn’t need the bodies

back to BD Wong because i love him

he’s so creepy i love the way he chuckles through the word “yes”

he’s just got this low, rumbling voice - never yelling, never talking faster - that you absolutely have to listen to whenever he talks. such a great contrast to ozzie’s scream-crying

oswald’s freckles are very cute in this scene which is a weird thing to focus on i realize but we don’t really see them much in other scenes and they are cute

the little power-play with the tea cup - i love it. oswald pouring tea for himself, hugo taking it away. so. much. intensity. and. passive. aggression. i. love. it.

now, after all this time, nora finds the murder-basement - freaks out, then just sits there staring at the body.

harvey and jim arguing over the name is pure though i love them they are absolute disasters.

while conceptually i’m aware i’m supposed to be invested in victor fries as a character i’m just not - it was a good call to push him mostly to the background after this.

jfc the guy in arkham gouging out his own eyes i forgot about that. did i mention i LOVE all the arkham plots it is my favourite setting in gotham

ed doing a little crouch to check for the missing dead body under the table then just going “huh” is like... peak gotham. ed’s got the hang of this city

“also seems to have had a rather unhealthy relationship with his deceased mother” - hugo strange, not afraid to tell the truth we all try not to talk about

everytime the newspapers give someone a nickname i headcanon it’s valerie vale, living her best life, naming literally every batman villain

... alright folks i know it’s been a year since i finished one of these but i’m back at it on the regular now so, stay tuned if you enjoy this sort of nonsense.

#gotham #gotham ramblings #gotham spoilers #gotham 2x12 #gotham 2x12 ramblings #mr. freeze

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neospacenerds · 6 years

Text

Notes on AU!Roman

Reversed Background

Almost everything about Roman’s home planet is explained in this post, though I've come up with a few amendments since them. Mainly regarding the name which is now KXT-49. But here are some additional notes.

- His family has weird hair and eye colors because at some point they volunteered as test subjects for cosmetic gene modification to make some extra money. It’s one of the many things that people can do on these corporation owned planets to earn extra cash.

- Was discovered to be an abnormally fast learner from a really early age, but that didn’t amount to anything seeing as hello, their lives are still pretty much corporate collateral.

- Access to reading materials is very sparse on his planet and internet access was limited, so anything he could read he would tear through repeatedly. He never attended an official school. Like most of the kids on the planet, the only education they got was from teachers from a voluntary organization coming over to give them lessons, which is how his sister-in-law Clairesse got involved in his life.

- Clairesse played a big role in cultivating his interest in learning, especially in science and math. Her being able to come and go from the planet as she wished allowed her to bring back lots of reading materials and learning aids that helped him immensely.

- His big break came when he got intergalactic attention for discovering a huge flaw in a prominent scientific theory that basically changed the foundations of modern science (I often joke that it’s Einsteins theory of relativity but I might actually have to research on this one)

- That’s basically how he earned a full scholarship to NEMI under the Technological & Systems and Support majors from one of the biggest names in R&D in the galaxy (possibly Nabaal, we’ll have to see when i start developing my concepts for the AU!Hyperion Collective).

- He’s got a very simple goal; make cutting edge breakthroughs in tech development that’ll earn him enough money to buy his family out of indentured labor.

- Naturally he’s practically guaranteed to end up in for Alpha in this universe, primarily because he doesn't have the glaring personality flaws his canon self possesses.

Personality

- My basis for his personality was basically what Roman would be like if he didn’t turn out to be so very jaded and cynical about everything. AU! Roman is intelligent, but more importantly he’s obviously constantly curious and isn’t reserved about it. He know’s he’s smarter than most but he doesn't rub that in everyone else faces. He’s not at all reserved when it comes to asking questions, and when he really hooks on to a topic those questions can get rapid fire and intense as all hell.

- He has an almost scary desire to improve himself and is always working on something. Doesn't matter if he’s reading, doing homework, learning some new skill or going ham in the workshop, it’s as if he constantly needs to be working somehow. A lot of that compulsion probably comes from the fact that he thinks he missed out on so much time to do so much while he was just a farm boy on his home planet. Now he feels that he needs to make up for that, not to mention the fact that his family’s basically relying on him to get them out of hell. No pressure.

- You know that one Hamilton song? Why do you write like you’re running out of time? That’s him. Part of him feels like this whole experience is a dream from which he might wake up from at any time, which is why he’s got to make the best use of it while he can.

- One thing he retains about his canon personality is how organized he is. In addition he’s very frugal and doesn't waste anything. Does everything to maximum effectiveness, which might come off as OCD a lot of the time.

- He’s definitely a lot more genuine. Oh yes he’s got no qualms about being open about his feelings. One might say he really took after his mother on this one. It might take awhile for him to ease into it though, since back home he’s very used to repressing his emotions just to make things easier on those around him. But once he gets used to the idea that he’s in an environment where he doesn't have to do that, oh boy are we going to have a fun time.

- I feel like he would also retain some of his manipulative edge. Not a lot of it, just enough to show that he’s self-aware about his motivations. He knows he’s there for a purpose and that’s to get rich. Anything that brings him a step closer to that goal, he’ll do in a heartbeat. Contrary to his canon self, he’d probably be very contentious about making friendly relationships, especially with others who could prove useful in the future. He especially would target individuals that’re well off, which I think at some point will lead to him befriending the wrong people (ie. AU!Aoife, if my ideas for her pan out, nudge nudge wink wink). Realizing where his morals stand in comparison to his ambitions is probably going to become a definitive struggle for him.

- He is very shrewd when it comes to making money and takes up any opportunity he can find. He will do a lot of things for money, even if they border on morally gray or take advantage of legal loopholes. Though he probably wouldn’t commit a crime. I’ve actually envisioned him plotting some sort of scam type scheme with Day to steal from the rich and give to the poor (himself) which might be a whole episode i’ll write about later.

- He tries not to lie, though he can and will twist/omit the truth. He definitely feels guilt about his ulterior motives but tells himself it's all for a good cause.

- He’s probably going to start as someone who avoids conflict and takes insults rather than fighting back since I imagine that’s the kind of treatment he’s endured back on his home planet. He’s also diplomatic rather than confrontational in nature. However he’s probably going to develop with time from being calculatingly passive to actually being able to stand up for himself. There’ll come a breaking point where someone pushes him a little too far and he snaps, giving rise to him easing into the iconic sassmaster9000 that he was meant to be.

- He might fight some people, though he’d probably since he's a scrawny farm boy with minimal combat training.

- I feel like he keeps trying to do ridiculous experimental stuff going out of his way to try to break the law of physics. Everyone else is just like Roman stop why can’t you give us regular exosuit upgrades like everyone else and he’s just like NORMAL ISN’T GOING TO MAKE ME RICH. He especially wants to build a portable temporal flux device ie. mini time travel machine. Imagine someone being able to zip about through time like tracer.

- He really likes animals. REALLY likes them. I swear he will befriend any animal in existence.

Family

- His family structure is essentially the same as canon, two half brothers, father, mother. Only difference being that his mom’s actually still alive in this one.

- His brother’s mother, Elizabeth was the sister of his mother, Victoria. She fell ill and died, leaving Victoria to take care of her young nephews. Somewhere along the line Frederick and Victoria fell in love and they got married and tada, Roman was born.

- Roman has a lot of respect for his parents, both of whom are ridiculously hardworking. They tried their best to keep the children away from hard work for as long as they could so it wouldn’t stunt their growth or affect their health, but it took a heavy toll on them. Frederick’s health has been poor over the past few years, and while Victoria’s determination to raise her children has prevented her from falling into the same pit of despair she did in canon, she can get really emotionally unstable, hysterical and is always stressed about making ends meet.

- Roman got a lot of his diplomatic personality from dealing with his mother who overreacts to things a lot. It’s an unspoken rule in their household that he’s pretty much the only one who really knows how to handle her when she’s like that.

- His oldest brother Alexander follows closely in their father’s footsteps. He is happily married to Clairesse and they're about to have their first child. Roman is really to Clairesse, She’s practically the sister she never had and they act like they’ve been siblings forever.

- His brother Caesar is the troublemaker in the family. To everyone’s dismay he’s constantly getting into trouble gambling, drinking and being an unscrupulous womanizer. He's been chased out of the house with a broom more times than anyone can count. He constantly tries to mooch money off his younger brother, and though Roman never gives him any he sneaks food out so Caesar doesn't go hungry. It feels a lot like he’s the older brother whenever he as to give Caesar a lecture about not being a fucking dumbass.

#I realized I never posted my character notes #ReverseAU #JEEZUZ THAT WAS LONG #AU!Roman

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choisgirls · 7 years

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What if the mysmes bunch +Saeran +V find out MC has an illness (can't think of a specific example) that meant they were constantly at a hospital (also MC is terrified of hospitals)

A/N: im afraid of hospitals until im actually admitted then im like yeah okay im here, /fantastic/.Also, I tried to be kind of broad and diverse? But I only know like one ofthese on a personal level so i hope nothing is completely off the wall ~Admin404

*YOOSUNG:

-I think he’d be afraid of hospitalsas well

-I mean pet hospitals are different!!That’s for pets! Hospitals deal with people! And he’S A PERSON!

-He COMPLETELY gets your fear, buthe’s gotta be tough for you!!! Gotta be the man!!

-HE HOVERS OVER YOU ALL THE TIME

-“MC don’t move, ill getit!” “I’ll fluff your pillow!” “Want a different tvchannel?? IVE GOT IT”

-You’ve been going through chemotherapybut that doesn’t mean you can’t moVE YOOSUNG PLEASE

-If you cry because you’re scared,he’s there crying with you

-But!!! He surrounds you with TONSof plush toys, and brings you food his mum he’s made

-MR. BEAR IS GOING TO PROTECT YOU,MC, HE’S GONNA DO IT!

-And honestly his innocence is socute? And gets your mind off of the fear? He’s always making some cutecraft thing with you, or telling you all about his LOLOL game (even brings alaptop for you to play with him when he has to go home!!) He isn’t very good atthe whole comforting aspect but he loves you and tries so hard for you!! ;A;

*ZEN:

-He heals quickly and strong

-You….do not…do that

-You get an infection and it’s SOHARD for your body to fight it

-Which often leaves you in thehospital over something like the flu

-And that makes him SO SAD like omgMC i’d give you some of my healing power if I could

-You are very vocal about yourdislike for the hospital, so he doesn’t have to guess or pick up on subtlehints

-But he treats you like ROYALTY herefuses to let you do anything for yourself when you’re in there because hejust wants to make up for not being able to stop you from getting sick ;A;

-He sings for you almost constantlybecause??? You can’t be afraid of anything in this building if all you canfocus on is him??

-He brings his scripts with him allthe time so the two of you can waste the day and practice together!!

-HAVE NO FEARS MC, FOR ZENNY ISHERE. Always watching the doctors and nurses like a hawk, always tries to getyou to focus on him instead of anything they’re doing (obviously not if it’simportant, then he lets you pay attention). Otherwise there’s a lot of cheekkisses, hand kisses, and just like…kisses everywhere come on it’s zen we’retalking about

*JAEHEE:

-You’re in the hospital often forbreathing problems

-“Jaehee, it’s because you takemy breath away,” you wheeze as she’s rushing you to the hospital

- mc shut the fuCK UP NOW ISNTTHE TIME

-She loves that you’re able to makelight of the situation though

-That is until you actually get tothe hospital, then she’s practically dragging you through the doors becauseyou’re too afraid to go in

-Too much sadness, too many machinesthat you aren’t familiar with, the weird feeling of being in a strange place,you don’T LIKE IT

-But she’s always there to read youa book at the end of the day, with a cozy throw blanket from home, and she’llbring you some coffee from your favourite shop!

-She also studies what all themachines and medications do so she can explain them to you and hopefully easeyour anxiety!

-When she can’t be there because ofwork, she leaves you a stack of books to get lost in so that you won’t evennotice you’re there. She’ll text you throughout the day as well to check up onya

-She’s small enough to cuddle up inbed with you which is GREAT the two of you watch zen’s dvd’s on her laptop allthe time

*JUMIN:

-???? Why go to hospital whenhospital can come to you

- jumin no i appreciate thegesture but no

-You’re a regular there because ofyour heart problems and it breAKS HIS HEART

- he’s threatened saeyoung a fewtimes because he keeps making jokes like “your heart must of stoppedbecause you saw jumins face” and things of the sort like stOP

-The first time you had a problemwith your heart when you were with him it scared the sHIT OUT OF HIM MC WHAT’SWRONG

-But he noticed the whole time youwere there, you were anxious and always on the verge of tears and Juju will nothave that

-Literally had a room made just foryou for whenever you need to be admitted and it looks just like home

-“It’s your home away fromhome. Funny, right? MC why are you crying it was supposed to be funny” noits because you’re so swEET JUMIN WHAT THE FUCK STOP

-He’s sad he can’t bring Elizabethto console you but he does his best. Always sits with you, petting your hairand kissing you softly

-His tall ass crawls into your bedat night too so he can hold you like duDE WATCH OUT FOR THE IV YOU’RE TOO TALLYOU DON’T FIT PLS YOUR KNEE IS DIGGING INTO ME

*SAEYOUNG:

-He knew your medical history, hedid do a background check on you after all

-So he knew that you’ve had frequenttrips to the hospital your whole life

-He did not realize, however, thatyou’d be this terrified of just visiting the hospital to see Saeran (after thewhole mint eye thing of course)

-It wasn’t very obvious to anyoneelse how afraid you were, but he could tell

-You were in a lot of danger whenthe two of you were saving Saeran and you didn’t bat an eye

-But the moment you stepped foot inthe hospital, you got quiet. When you did talk, you started to stutter and tripover your words. You had a lot of trouble looking around or at anyone and that wasn’t the MC he knew

-You explained that due to your weakimmune system, you’re a frequent in the hospital. You get sick easily and ithits you hard. But being surrounded by the multitudes of machines, hearing thesad sounds of people losing loved ones, you just couldn’t handle it

-From then on, every time you’readmitted to the hospital, he brings a back full of different outfits so he canentertain you, and get your mind off of everything that was happening aroundyou

- mc i’m your doctor im gonnahave to give you an exam wink wonk

-Full of stupid jokes, hand holding,and kisses to the cheek. He is the deFENDER OF JUSTICE and he will DEFEND YOUFROM ALL OF YOUR FEARS. He’s such a dork??? How can you even think aboutwhat’s happening around the hospital to freak you out. It was practically likebeing at home with him around

*V:

-You immediately told him about yourhealth conditions when the two of you met

-You unfortunately had to stay inthe hospital frequently because of bad epileptic episodes

-Well, you would go home of course,but some episodes were too risky to go immediately home, so you’d have to stay

-And you HATED it, like, THIS PLACEISN’T HOME

-So every time it happens, he makesit home for you

-Always bringing you favouriteblankets and pillows from home

-He even tries to bring calmingcandles so you won’t be as afraid you cant really…light those in here v

-He’s always talking in such acalming tone that you’re just kind of….relaxed. Please tell me some storiesV, lull me to sleep and ease my nerves . He’s always reading fairytale storiesto you

-On days that you’re extra anxious,he shows you videos he’s taken of you, of the RFA, and of random things youlove the ones he takes of dogs and you know he does it just for you

-Overall, he’s just always there tolisten to you. You can rant and rave and cry angry tears because you’re soafraid and just want to go home, but he’s there to wipe your tears away and theonly home that matters is the one you have with him

*SAERAN:

-He knows what it’s like to be inthe hospital for a long time

-I mean, right after Saeyoung tookhim from Mint Eye, he was in there a long time to get all of that shit out ofhis blood stream and all of that, so he kind of gets it

-When you have to go to the hospitalpretty often because your kidneys were weak and almost always on the verge offailing, he freAKS OUT

-HE HATES HOSPITALS JUST AS MUCH ASYOU DO AND IT’S HARD TO BE COOL CALM AND COLLECTED WHEN HIS LOVE IS IN ONE OFTHEM

-Pulls it together (well on theoutside at least) fairly quickly when he notices how nervous you are everytime, no matter how often you have to go

-You’re almost on the verge of tearsevery time because?? Every time you’re here you’re fairly close to dying andWOW that’s scary as fuck this place sucks

-But he’s always there for you, nomatter what. He might not say much (and nO ITS NOT BECAUSE HIS VOICE WILLGIVE AWAY HIS FEAR SHUT UP MC) but he’s there to hold your hand through itall, and tries to act like wiping your tears is an inconvenience though youknow it’s not and that hes just trying to be tough

-Actually stays up for days at atime to watch over you and make sure everything is alright which makes you feelbad but also really puts you at ease??

-Like nothing bad is gonna happenbecause Saeran will pUNCH IT IN THE FACE. That fear? PUNCH IN THE FACE. All thebeeping machines? PUNCH IN THE FACE. Doctor comes in the room in the middle ofthe night and scares the shit out of you? saERAN ITS THE DOCTOR PLEASE DON’TPUNCH THEM IN THE FACE

-He buys a bunch of sweets- likecake, cookies, ice cream, things of the sort- and pretends it’s all because hewanted it himself but he guesses hecan share with you, if it’ll help lift your spirits and take your mind off ofthe fact you’re in here

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gaiatheorist · 6 years

Text

Plastic straws, and platitudes.

I should be breathing an enormous sigh of relief, having the tribunal panel’s decision that I qualify for a three year period of having an ‘official’ disability on paper. It’s me, though, I’m caught up in a turmoil-Tsunami about what could go wrong next. Not the physical fact that my eyes have been consistently ‘bad’ for four days now, and the third aneurysm is sitting in the part of my brain that controls the blood supply to my retinas, that’s too obvious. I’ll have a scan in September, hopefully I won’t go completely and permanently blind before that. What I’m over-processing is the fact that DWP can still attempt to block or delay the legal overturn of their original ‘decision’, that I’m not-disabled-enough to qualify for support.

DWP’s ‘decision’ wasn’t really a decision at all, it was a copy-pasted nightmare of jumbled-assumptions, in the hope that I’d go “Oh, well, that’s that, I’d better just get on with it on my own.” Like I did the first time, I’ve found my original eloquent-articulate self-doubt post on one of the forums I used at the time of the first application, and, ‘reading for content’, I was a plastic straw person at that point. Not to be confused with a ‘strawman’, like, say “People faking disability to claim benefits.”

The plastic straw people have been out in force since the government had the bright idea of ‘banning’ single-use plastic straws, in a vain attempt to be seen to be doing something positive, in amongst all the negative, and all the nothing they’re currently doing. Straw-splainers are very fond of the phrase “Can’t you just...?”, because ‘just’ is a very tiny word to them; I can’t ‘just’ do a lot of things, ‘just’ is not a small consideration for me. Plastic straws are not an issue for me, but there’s another wave of insidious not-disabled-enough rhetoric bubbling up amongst sections of the non-disabled public, just what I don’t need after horrible years and a few very stressful months of evidencing that I am disabled-enough.

Before the brain haemorrhage, I still had a plethora of medical issues, I used to joke that I did my Christmas shopping on the NHS direct website, but I could mostly ‘pass’ for whatever-normal-is. I could ‘just’ say “Can I move seats, I can’t sit in this light?” or “Will you help me with this, please? My left hand has reduced function.” I could ‘just’ keep my office blinds closed to reduce the risk of losing working hours to photo-sensitive hemiplegic migraine, and patiently re-close them every time some other person came in and trilled “Oooh, I don’t know how you see anything in here!” I could ‘just’ wear extra layers of clothing, to ease the impacts of the Raynaud’s and Arthritis, I could ‘just’ say “No, thank you.” to foods that I knew would flare my stomach issues up. I could ‘just’ keep going through the sporadic stretches of poor mental health. That perseverance and pragmatism is hard-wired, even when I really, REALLY want to give up, I don’t, which has put me in mind of Venus DeMileage’s utterly beautiful book ‘The Avenue of Regrettable Farewells: A Tale Untold In The Telling’, but I mustn’t get sidetracked. I was a plastic straw person. I ‘could’ function, despite my veritable telephone-directory of underlying ailments, so I couldn’t see why other people couldn’t. (Another side-rabbit-hole I mustn’t go down is how consistent with Autism some of my beliefs and behaviours are.)

I know what the plastic straw people are doing, because, to a lesser degree, I used to be one of them. Some of them ‘see no ships’ from where they are, and some of them think that a stiff upper lip is a panacea. Some of them, however, are insensitively deluded that everyone has the same level of functionality that they do. The dismissive “Can’t you just...?” crew, lacking in the empathetic department. *I* can do all manner of things that ‘most’ people can’t, but, after the initial tut-and-head-shake that Brenda from accounts can’t un-jam the printer, or Doris can’t lift a five-litre water bottle, or Bob doesn’t know how to gut a fish, I don’t spend hours me-splaining, I ask if they want help. (Part of my undoing was seeing ‘help’ as a four-letter-word, most people learned to be cagey-cautious around offering to do things ‘for’ me. That tenacity was do-able before the brain injuries, less-so afterwards, but the pattern was embedded.)

What I’m seeing creeping through my internet window on the world is an increase in the not-disabled-enough nonsense, and I know that some of ‘us’, with less-visible disabilities are catching the sharp side of it. Personally, I’ve modified most of my behaviours and activities to ensure that my disability has as little impact on others as possible. I just don’t like inconveniencing people, so anything I ‘need’ to do is done early in the day, while I’m more lucid, and less fatigued. The dread-of-being-caught creeps in here, because I ‘can’ sometimes walk to Tesco, and manage a basket around the shop without incident. Only ever during the early part of the day, and certainly not every week. Process that, plastic straw people, sometimes I’m not physically capable of ‘popping into Tesco for milk.’ (There’s a 25-page document I didn’t present at my tribunal, detailing all the things I could remember having difficulties with, and how I adapted to avoid risk to self or others, I just chose ‘popping to the supermarket for milk’ as an ‘everyday’ example.) Yes, Janet, you DID see me in Tesco three weeks last Tuesday, and no, that doesn’t mean I’m fully functional, and a benefit fraudster.

In the same way as I ‘can’ do what I need to to survive, thousands, if not millions of other people in the UK are adapting to their limitations, at variable levels of cost to themselves. I don’t drive, so I haven’t been tutted at for parking in a disabled bay, and I consciously try to avoid the need to use public toilets, so I don’t have an argument with any randoms that “That toilet is for disabled people.” I don’t need to use plastic straws to drink, so I haven’t had to justify to anyone why their ‘just’ alternative wouldn’t be viable. ‘Had to’ is my issue, I don’t ‘have to’ explain myself to anyone, BUT I deliberately go out of my way to avoid situations where people might think they were owed justification of why I appear to have stopped to tie the laces on slip-on shoes. (It’s vertigo, I’d had instances of it before the aneurysm ruptured, it’s always there now, at a background level, sometimes it peaks, and I feel like I’m going to fall over, ‘tying my shoes’ puts me closer to the ground when I do actually wobble, and I’ll always make every effort to ‘get out of the way’ when I do squat down.)

The platitudes. Gods save me from the in-laws, who are due to pick up my son this afternoon. To their minds, I’m ‘better’, in part because I’ve minimised my difficulties for so long, and in part because I avoid them like the plague. They don’t see me shambling about the place half-blind, because I deliberately sit down when they arrive. (In my alcove ‘office’, so they can’t try to touch me.) They don’t believe in mental illness, and they’re ancient, so they know a LOT of people with disabilities and health conditions that they class as ‘worse’ than the level of superficial functionality they see in me. I didn’t have to have speech therapy, like uncle Roger did after his stroke. I don’t have visible scars from cancer surgery like two of my ex brothers-in-law. I don’t have a blue badge in my car. I don’t answer the door to them in food-stained pyjamas, so I’m “Looking well!”

They, and other older people, LOVE to talk about other people’s infirmities, but, with my adaptations that don’t include plastic straws, I appear functional for the narrow windows they see me in, so it’s platitudes-ahoy. “It could have been worse, lass.” “You’re lucky, lass.” I have to be very cautious with that one, because the father-in-law’s first wife died as a result of a brain haemorrhage. That cagey-caution led to one of my dodgy coping strategies, the practice of telling people I was ‘fine’ when they asked, because I simply couldn’t tolerate the platitudes that would pour out of them if I said anything else. Everybody seemed to have a next-door-neighbour’s distant cousin three-times-removed who’d had brain surgery, or a stroke, and were ‘so brave’ about it, putting the increasingly-automatic adaptations I was making just to exist into perspective. I rarely mention in ‘real life’ that I have a constant background headache, that most of the time I feel as if the room is spinning around me, or that I have roaming blind-spots that frequently join up, leaving me ‘legally blind.’ There’s a massive catalogue of constant and fluctuating symptoms that come with my damaged brain that I just don’t mention, because the emotional/psychological side of the brain injuries have reduced my capacity to deal with platitudes.

Yes, it could have been worse, and yes, it’s lovely that your next door neighbour’s sister-uncle had a stroke, and learned to ride a unicycle afterwards, but it’s not particularly relevant to me, is it? It’s not even just lay-people and random acquaintances, it’s medical-people, too, I wanted to bite my counsellor’s nose off every time he said “Some people wouldn’t have been resilient enough to come through that!”, and every time my (lovely) GP starts one of his rambling “Some people...” anecdotes, it’s really hard not to look at my watch. Even the neuro-psychologist did it, and I’m sure she wasn’t prepared for my ‘Good enough ISN’T enough’ response.

I know it’s social conditioning, that, faced with an unpalatable truth, the vast majority of people will default to ‘look on the bright side’ and ‘it could have been worse’ responses, before starting with the unsolicited advice. For me, no amount of mindfulness, or yoga, or fish-oil, or ANYTHING is going to undo the fact that I have brain damage. My son ‘gets it’, and will occasionally joke “Have you tried just NOT having brain damage?” when he catches me doing something more-odd-than-usual. I am relatively functional for a smaller part of the day than a fully-able person, and I’m only able to sustain that window of functionality through masses of exhausting adaptations. Have I tried not-adapting, to extend my lucid window? No, I haven’t, because the adaptations are what keep me more-safe. Without always knowing where the next thing I can grab, or lean on is, I fall over a lot. Without having sufficient notice to plan any journey, my anxieties about the potential difficulties I could have tip me into a what-if loop that makes me physically ill. There are multiple tedious adaptations to every aspect of my life now, and plastic straw people don’t see what I can’t do.

I don’t know where I’m going with this any more, I’m in limbo with the disability benefit and the unemployment benefit, and I’m scheduled to meet my work-coach AND be re-assessed by the mental health team next week. The work-coach will give me ‘chin up’ platitudes, and the mental health team will be baffled that I know what I’m doing wrong, but don’t seem able to stop it. What I’m doing wrong is trying to survive as a disabled person in a very able-focused world. The disability and unemployment processes in the UK are hideous, skewed-snapshots of whether I can hold a pen and such, rather than whether I’d be able to hold a pen all day without sticking it up my nose when the cognitive fatigue kicks in. The plastic straws that the government want to ‘take’ are the visible tip of the iceberg, the underlying part being the insidious restructure of support and benefit systems, that the people who don’t need plastic straws aren’t aware of. They’re aware of the bluff and bluster about ‘making work pay’, and ‘more rigorous testing to reduce fraud’, and, of course, they’ve all seen the newspaper reports and TV programmes about benefit cheats. The disabled aren’t just disadvantaged, we’re virtually demonized, then damned if we do/don’t. This ignorant backlash against something as seemingly innocuous as plastic straws is a ripple in a stream that was already turbulent, it’s spreading, while-ever fully able people feel they’re entitled to judge, question, and make assumption about the abilities of people with disabilities.

To some people, it’s ‘just’ a plastic straw, and, for some of those people a platitude about their great-uncle Bulgaria who lost both legs, and then crawled a marathon is meant to either motivate or shame the disabled person who still has both legs. We’re not looking at life from the same angle, it’s not fair to assume that because ‘you’ can perform action-x, everyone can, that’s how children think, not adults. (With the exception of adults with disabilities consistent with Autism...) It’s not ‘just’ a straw, for some people this guilty-until-proven-innocent society we’re becoming will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

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