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#<- she is abnormal. she has a lot of problems.
jahiera · 7 months
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I kind of want to just restart emrys so I can play her again more perfectly this time... kill even MORE fiends and such. but also I speedran grymforge a bit & the thing is that. emrys rolls up to moonrise towers already have a deep-seated and intense paladin-specific beef with ketheric. babygirl heard that he was 1. an evil paladin 2. broke his paladin vow to TWO gods prior 3. was like That and decided Actually, I'm going to project All of my own personal issues and insecurities onto you. And then I'm going to kill you. and then she still offered to spare him. so I need the buildup to that from grymforge. you see.
#you understand.#one thing that emrys will do is have extremeeeely specific problems in regards to needing to be the Best Paladin In The Room#<- she is abnormal. she has a lot of problems.#Ketheric is such a ... dark twisted mirror / I can see myself in you / I do not /want/ to see myself in you.#of course she resents his crimes but more than that she resents what she Sees in him that she feels is also in her self#there's something ugly in you thats also in me etc etc#so. this beef NEEDS BUILDUP.#(alternatively: she latched onto Dame Aylin almost immediately as a figure of holy righteousness and divinity that she craves for herself)#(if Ketheric is close to what she COULD be at her worst; Dame Aylin is suuch a. Being You Could Fix Me. moment for her)#(also objectively not normal but very funny. ah yes I know what will make me a better object and sword for Tyr. if I was nothing but a#channel for divine righteousness greater than myself. not even a person just a violent weapon made to STRIKE.)#(and she can never be so close to the divine + never be such a weapon but she sure does TRY.)#(OF WHICH dame aylin is not either; but she IS a blinding light in the dark & Ough. the complexes that inspires.)#Anyways.... the NPCs we latch onto as the narrative parallel / reference for our Tav PC huh. Yeah!#act 2 is just... it gave me SOOOO much for her. Shadowheart/Ketheric/Aylin in different measures for different reasons#Orin. she's weird about but for different reasons. In that orin's fanaticism and madness kind of#tickles a part of her that wants. very desperately. to smite down the most obvious of evils in 1v1 combat#which is a violence that once again! comes uncomfortably close to the fanaticism of Ketheric + Orin + their own propensity for god-driven#violence & horror. as it is and such.
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edgybutnotveryedgy · 8 months
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tortademaracuya · 1 year
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I'm still so mad at convenience store woman
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avoxrising · 5 months
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The Feral One - Prologue
I had an idea for a mini Finnick x reader Tumblr series so I wrote a short prologue to gage y’all’s interest. Lmk if y’all want to see more!
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“I want you guys to forget everything you think you know about the games,” Haymitch states as the District 12 team sits down to eat.
“Last year was child’s play,” Haymitch continues. “This year, you’re dealing with all experienced killers.”
“All right. What does that mean for us?” Peeta asks.
“That means you’re gonna have to have some allies,” he replies.
Peeta starts, “ok I think that if we…”
“Whoop,” Haymitch interrupts. “You’re not the problem.”
“No,” Katniss states as she stares at the pair, seemingly upset that they even suggested allies.
“Look,” Haymitch sighs. “You’re starting at a disadvantage. Most of these people have been friends for years.”
“That just puts us higher on their kill list,” Katniss states.
“Do it your own way,” Haymitch tells her. “But I know these people. You go it alone, their first move is going to be to hunt you down. Both of you.”
“Katniss come on,” Peeta sighs.
“How could any of us even trust each other?” she asks.
“It’s not about trust,” Haymitch responds. “It’s about staying alive.”
After the group eats they move to the lounge to watch the recap of the reapings. Haymitch proceeds to give his tributes a rundown of their competition.
“Cashmere and Gloss,” Haymitch states. “Brother and sister, District 1. They won back to back games, capital favorites, lots of sponsors. They will be lethal.”
He clicks to the next clip. “And the other half of the career pack, Brutus and Enobaria.”
“What’s with her teeth?” Katniss asks, noticing the abnormally sharp teeth in her mouth.
“She had them filed into fangs so she could rip peoples throats out,” Haymitch explains.
“She’s committed, I’ll give her that,” Peeta declares. Haymitch moves on to the next clip.
“Wiress and Beetee,” he states. “Not fighters, but brilliant and weird, real tech savvy. He won his games by electrocuting six tributes at once.” The tributes absorb this information as Haymitch moves on to the next clip.
He moves onto the next clip and Katniss speaks out. “Finnick Odair right?”
“Yes, he won his games at 14, youngest, ever, extremely humble,” Haymitch replies.
“You’re kidding,” Katniss gapes.
“Yes, I’m kidding,” Haymitch sighs. “He’s a peacock, a total preener. But he’s the capital’s darling, and they love him here; charming, smart, and very skilled at combat, especially in water.”
“What about weaknesses?” Peeta ask and Haymitch skips back to the escort calling out the female tribute’s name.
“Y/N Y/L/N,” Haymitch states. “Known in the capital as ‘the feral one’, winner of the 69th games”.
Katniss and Peeta shrink deeper into the couch.
“Isn’t she, um, a serial killer?” Peeta stutters.
“Well technically most of the victors are,” Haymitch responds. “But yes, she has killed outside of the games. She’s a deeply misunderstood creature.”
“Why is she Finnick’s weakness?” Katniss asks.
“She was Finnick’s first victor that he mentored,” Haymitch explains. “It’s hard not to get attached to the ones you bring home, especially your first. However, those two are a bit more complicated. I’d says it’s probably more of a… situationship… than an actual relationship but if you mess with either of them I can assure you that you’ll be dead pretty quickly.”
“So we should avoid them,” Peeta states, taking a mental note of Haymitch’s explanation.
“No,” Haymitch states, confusing his tributes. “The best move is to ally with them. They’re your biggest competition in the arena besides the careers, but they’re arguably more reliable and you don’t want to get on her bad side. They call her feral for a reason.”
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samkerrworshipper · 4 months
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exile | alexia putellas x reader
songfic based off of the song exile by taylor swift
warnings: pure angst, hurt/no comfort, cheating (sort of), divorce
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I can see you standing, honey
With his arms around your body
Laughin’, but the jokes not funny at all
Tonight isn’t much different from your normal Sunday night.
Barca had beaten Atletico convincingly early in the day, unsurprisingly.
Locker room celebrations had very quickly been moved to a popular Barcelona club, a place that a lot of your teammates were thriving in.
There was dancing, drinking, partying.
It was the Barca way, Sunday nights were a good time.
You were seated in a corner of the club, surrounded by the likes of Keira and Aitana, your more introverted group watching your friends on the dance floor.
Your eyes didn’t budge from your girlfriend, who was on the dance floor.
It wasn’t abnormal, Alexia was one of the first people to hit the floor after a good win, you were happy with that.
The part you were less happy with was who Alexia was choosing to dance with, and how she was choosing to dance with said person.
Alexia was tipsy, which was clear in her mannerisms and the constant laughter falling from her plump and beautifully red lips which were softly singing along to the song that was thrumming against the floor of the club.
She was in the middle of the floor, surrounded by other teammates, grinding up against Jenni to the beat of the music.
Their bodies were practically intertwined, Jenni’s arms tangled around Alexia’s waist whereas Alexia’s arms were reached behind her back, resting on the small of Jenni’s back.
It was almost pornographic the way they moved up and down against each other, more like an organised rhythm that was well practised in contrast to an alcohol influenced jig.
You don’t want to feel jealous, but you can’t help it when Alexia is grinding up and down on her ex girlfriend in ways that you wished she would to you.
No, the grinding, the public displays of attention, any evidence of love between the two of you, that had faded long ago.
I think I’ve seen this film before
And i didn’t like the ending
You’re not my homeland anymore
So what am I defending now?
You’d love to be able to say that this isn’t a common occurrence, but it would just be a lie. Alexia is shamelessly attractive and dances like a stripper in all of the best ways.
You have appreciation for that, but a part of you always feels betrayed when Alexia so openly flaunts herself on somebody else, especially her ex, but it’s also something you’ve become accustomed to, whether you want to admit it or not, Alexia was never yours to keep, maybe for a short amount of time, but never long enough for her to take a permanent place in your life.
You don’t try and make excuses for her inattention to you anymore, not like when at the end of your honeymoon phase when Alexia started to drift.
It just hurt more, making up excuses when they were all untrue, you couldn’t defend Alexia’s actions, not to yourself, not to anybody on the team, not to the general public.
You were my town,
Now I’m in exile seein’ you out
I think I’ve seen this film before
For whatever reason it doesn’t bother you as much anymore.
You’ve watched Alexia walk out the door hundreds of times, and every single time she’s come back.
It’s some kind of weird toxic attachment where neither of you really love each other anymore but for whatever reason Alexia has chosen you to become attached to and you can’t do anything but sit by and watch as she detaches herself everyday only for her to reattach herself when she falls into your arms every night.
Once upon a time, Alexia was your everything, the reason your heart kept pumping, the solution to every single one of your problems.
I can see you starin’, honey
Like he’s just your understudy
Like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me
The worst of it all, Alexia looks, Alexia dances, Alexia smiles that same way she used to with you. You wonder if she’d smiled at Jenni the same way when they’d been together, if she’d loved her so viciously before becoming bored with her.
Alexia dances with Jenni like they’re the only two people in the room, and you’re frightfully aware that if anybody were to even attempt to get between them Alexia would put up a fight.
Second third and hundredth chances
Battling on breakin’ branches
Those eyes add insult to injury
It’s not like the whole situation is new to you either.
There has been plenty of women before Jenni, and there will be plenty afterwards.
You’ve stopped trying to count the amount of women that Alexia has toyed around with whilst being in a relationship with you.
She doesn’t cheat, she doesn’t break that barrier, she dances, she smiles, she laughs, she gives away every part of herself that matters the very most to you.
Sex and libido be damned, you’d spend every single day of your life in pain if it meant you got to experience Alexia smiling at you once again, laughing or craking jokes in front of you.
Those moments, those chances, are long gone.
Her eyes, the beautiful greenish hazel orbs no longer bother themselves with you, it’s almost insulting how she so easily can smile at Jenni when she can never manage to even give you a little quirk of her lips here and there.
I think i’ve seen this film before
And i didn’t like the ending
I’m not your problem anymore
So who am I offending now?
You don’t even flinch when the dancing turns into an extremely intimately looking hug, the two women continuing to grind up and down on each other as they stare at each other with a kind of earnestness and conviction that would make any girls’ heart flutter.
Alexia long ago learnt that you would never dare to object to her rather unprofessional moments with her teammates, you didn’t have the heart to.
She didn’t care if she hrut you, didn’t care if it killed every single organ and burst every single blood vessel in your body if it meant she was having a good time.
You were my crown
Now i’m in exile, seein’ you out
I think I’ve seen this film before
So I’m leavin’ out the side door
Ever since your Alexia, your heart, your soul, your home, became La Reina, she hasn’t been the same.
She had her crown, she had her throne, she had the world beneath her feet.
You would never be good enough for her, how could anyone be?
It’s fine, you're used to it, you're used to the sideways glances at other women, your okay with Alexia partying with other women. What you aren’t used to, or okay with is Alexia making out with her ex girlfriend, right in front of you, in the middle of a club, with all of your teammates surrounding.
Suddenly, before you can think or breathe or do anything your standing up, before Keira can try to stop you and bolt from the club, finding the nearest door and pushing it open.
The cold rush of the Barcelona air in the empty alleyway is the only thing that forces you to take a breath, the brittle cold air forcing it’s way into your lungs and burning against your wet and tearful eyes.
So step right out, there is no amount
Of crying i can do for you
All this time
We always walked a very thin line
You don’t want to cry, not when subconsciously you are crying over a woman that hasn’t been remotely yours in a long time.
You are though, big fat tears are rolling down your face unceremoniously as you try to regain your composure.
You don’t ask much of Alexia, you don’t expect much when it comes to receiving affection from her or receiving anything much from her.
You do expect one thing, if she’s going to be in a relationship with you, then she is going to stay loyal, there is no room for infidelity in your life.
You can’t handle that, you can’t handle spending every minute of every day that you are apart from Alexia wondering what she’s getting up to behind closed doors. You trusted Alexia with one thing, and she managed to betray that one piece of trust you harboured for her.
You know that Alexia has always teetered on the line of things, often blurring the lines of infidelity, but she’s never crossed it, she’s never kissed another girl, she’s never stepped out on you.
So this, it feels like a train has hit you straight in the chest.
You didn’t even hear me out (you didn’t even hear me out)
You never gave a warning sign (I gave so many signs)
You're not left out in the cold by yourself for long, the sound of the club side door opening, pulling you from your own mind.
Alexia is standing in front of you, hands fidgeting in front of her stomach as she looks at you, her front teeth biting down on her front lip as she tries to assess the damage.
“Bebita-I.”
You cut her off with your teary eyes and croaky voice.
“Ale I don’t want to hear it, I don’t want to know.”
The Alexia you’ve grown used to would walk away, leave you in the dust and go back to whatever fun she’s having, but she doesn’t.
“You won’t even hear me out?”
You look up at her, the tears instantly drying and your look of pure agony transitioning into something of anger.
“I won’t hear you out? Alexia you just fucking cheated on me, no warning, no signs, just kissed your ex girlfriend in front of me, I don’t want to know why, I don’t care, clearly you didn’t care when you were making out with another woman in front of me.”
Alexia bites down further on her lip, teetering on the edge of drawing blood as she observes you.
“It’s not like that.”
All this time
I never learned to read your mind (you never learned to read my mind)
I couldn’t turn things around (you never turned things around)
‘Cause you never gave a warning sign (I gave so many signs)
So many signs, so many signs
You didn’t even see the signs
You’ve known Alexia for ten years, you’ve been dating her for seven, married for four.
Those years don’t matter to her, they hardly matter to you anymore, but they mean something, you’ve devoted ten years of your life to a woman and sure, she’s not perfect, she’s everything but, it’s ten years of history though.
“It’s not like what? Alexia I can’t read your fucking mind, I can’t decipher everything you are thinking, so please, enlighten me, how the fuck is this not like that?”
Alexia, in all her years, has never seen you like this, you’ve never once raised your voice at her out of anger, she figures it’s a long time coming but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.
“Can we just forget about it?”
That hurts you even more, unless Alexia has a magical brain wiping machine, you know that neither of you will ever be able to forget this, your teammates won’t forget it, it’s not something forgettable.
“Of course, let’s just forget about it, god forbid La Reina ever had to put in the work to turn her shit around and get her life together and admit she fucked up, no we just have to forget about all of this. Let’s just go home, sí? We can go hop into bed together and I’ll just pretend that the woman sleeping next to me doesn’t have her ex girlfriends scent and kisses all over her.”
Your tone is cut throat, as harsh as a sharp knife.
“Nena, please.”
Alexia looks genuinely upset, and your kind of glad, she deserves to feel a fraction of what you are feeling, a slither of the turmoil and insurmountable pain that you’ve experienced in the last five minutes.
“Did I miss the signs? Was I so blind to realise that you love Jenni more than me? You sure kiss her like you love her more than me. God I don’t even remember the last time you kissed me like that. Our honeymoon? The first Ballon D’or? It’s been years Alexia, years of me sitting around waiting patiently for you to turn this all around, to realise that I love you more than anything else in the world. It’s fine, you want out, you can have out, I’ll get my lawyer to draw up divorce papers, I’ll move out, I’ll move clubs.”
Alexia’s face drops, that;s the last thing she wants, the very bottom of her list.
“Bebé, no, we can work this out, I’ll go to couples therapy, we can make this better, we can turn this around.”
You shook your head, a new wave of tears dripping down your face and onto your favourite night out top as you struggle to keep your composure.
“Alexia, I won’t be married to somebody who’s cheated on me, you broke our vows, sacred vows that we made in front of god. Marriage to me is a commitment, it’s a promise, you swore to me, for better or for worse, until parted by death. One of us might not have died, but a part of our relationship did when you kissed Jenni, I’m done, all the sleepless nights, the lack of love, the borderline cheating, you’ve toed the line but this time you’ve obliterated the line, so I’m done.”
You push past her, back into the club so you can collect your things.
You don’t even make it to the table before Keira has you in her arms, shielding you from the music and people.
“Need to leave, I need to go.”
Keira nods at you, Lucy has now joined the huddle around you, the two of them working together to keep you away from the eyes of any of your teammates or general bystanders in the club.
“We’ll get you home, let’s get you out of here, hmm? You can come back home with us, you're always welcome in our spare room.”
From back out in the alley, Alexia feels sick to her stomach, and there is not much more she can do than pick her phone out of her pocket and dial the only number she can think of.
“Mamí, I’ve ruined it all.”
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radioactivesweet · 1 year
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Hi darling! May I have some headcanons for Sasaki, Buddha and maybe Hades or Hermes dating Nyx s/o? She's the goddes of night and the ONLY goddess Zeus feared ('cause she's older and stronger than him) Sorry for my english :(
Hello! Hope you like it^^ and dw, your English is fine :) I was having some problems with my laptop while writing this, so there may be some mistakes
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Sasaki is abnormally chill about dating a goddess feared by Zeus himself, one of those occasions where you can't tell if this human is brave or just incredibily dumb and reckless. Either way, he actually knows how dangerous you could be, but this doesn't mean he would leave you. You may be strong and ancient, yet one of the few deities he could get along with, not trying to exterminate humanity and such.
Sasaki believes that as long as he treats the way he would treat anybody else, without showing fear and trusting you, you will get along just fine. You are no different from other humans to him, so is treating you as one. You have just the same felings as everybody else and doesn't want to feel different in his eyes.This may lead to him straight up forgetting you are one of the most powerful deities out there and just act like you were the same as him.
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Buddha doesn't really care which goddess are you as long as you gift him candies don't try to give him orders and limit his own freedom. The reason he got close to you in the first place was the fact that Zeus feared you - so having you around meant not getting the latter close to him. Also, believing in his own strenght doesn't really make him scared of you. He respects you though and also sees you as a valuable ally. If you actually gift him food though, that's a faster way to reach his heart. He is even willing to share his with you.
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Quite literally a match made in hell. You're both ancient, strong, feared, related to darkness - with you being the goddess of night and him the god of teh dead - and quite misuderstood. You immediately got along and had known each other for a very long time - before Hades' brothers were even born. It was actually Hades who had later introduced to Zeus, who has been scared of you ever since. At parties you are basically that couple nobody approaches. Even though you actually aren't that scary, everybody seems to think so - which actually grants you both some quiet time together, without anybody bothering you. On the other hand, Cerberus loves you.
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Hermes is used to adapt and deal with a lot of different deities, being the messenger of the gods, so you aren't that challenging to him. At first he was quite interested in youi because of of his father being scared of you - but really he hadn't met any difficulties with getting to know you, thanks to him knowing how to interact with others. He finds it really amusing when he invites you over for dinner - with Zeus and Ares, since he gets to see them strangely and unexpectedly silent. You are usually gossipping together - since you've been around for longer than him and know quite a lot about other deities, old legends and other facts he wouldn't otherwise have never heard of - you are someone he can learn a lot from, which of course has its perks.
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scientia-rex · 10 months
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Hysteria isn't a fucking thing
ok fun fact: I'm rapidly becoming a cult favorite doctor among our local privileged elderly white ladies, which I have mixed feelings about, but the #1 reason is that I just don't leap to "anxiety" as an explanation for symptoms unless the patient tells me "I am anxious, and then I feel these symptoms, and when I am not anxious, I don't feel these symptoms."
The sheer number of women I've seen who've been told for years to decades that the only thing wrong with them is anxiety is fucking staggering, in this Year Of Our Lord 2023, and I just keep digging. We checked a basic lab panel, sure. CBC. No anemia. CMP. Kidneys are fine. (Electrolytes are basically always going to be fine if someone is well enough to walk into my office under their own power to talk to me. Exception is mild chronic hyponatremia.) And we check thyroid. TSH and free T4. We check blood sugar. A1c, if the fasting is a little weird. Fasting insulin, if I'm still suspicious. We check cortisol. Inflammatory markers--ESR and CRP.
And eventually, if the symptoms support it, or right away, depending on my level of suspicion, we check rheumatological labs for abnormal autoimmune function. Anti-nuclear antibody. Rheumatoid factor. There's at least a dozen you can check, and which ones you should check is always a matter of debate and also of expertise that I 100% lack. We are out in the sticks. There are no "local" rheumatologists for me to send people to.
But a couple of weeks ago I found a woman--she has bipolar disorder and has been told for decades that's all that's wrong with her--who has an anti-centromere antibody titer that's fucking through the roof. I found an anxious 19-year-old with an ANA of 1:1380. And yesterday I found out why a sweet elderly woman I've seen for a year or two now started feeling crappy months ago: her rheumatoid factor is over 90.
Rheumatological disorders are always difficult. Our understanding of them varies from "pretty good, actually, and here are useful treatments" to "Well I Guess That Exists." Labs aren't always a slam-dunk and even labs plus symptoms can give you misleading impressions. Your immune system can decide that virtually any short chunk of protein is an enemy, and the problem with that is that your body is made up of many, many, many short chunks of proteins, so the odds that you'll develop some kind of antibody against yourself just keeps going up over your lifetime. Immune disorders tend to travel in packs; there's a clear genetic element to it, so the more first-degree relatives (parent, sibling, child) you have with any kind of autoimmune disorder (including Type 1 diabetes), the higher your risk of any kind of autoimmune disorder is, and if you already have one autoimmune disorder, you're at higher risk for developing another one.
But I think it's precisely because they're difficult that a lot of mainstream primary care prefers to pretend they don't exist, rather than try to sift through the utter fucking mess that is Mixed Connective Tissue Disorders, a title that has fallen out of favor since I learned it in my third year of med school. And women are at higher risk for autoimmune disorders than men. And older women are at higher risk than younger women.
So if I, as a family doc, just keep digging, just keep poking at the tangled knot of symptoms, there's a decent chance I will uncover something interesting. Hopefully something treatable. Sometimes we have nothing to treat with, and I just get to offer someone more understanding of their disorder, which feels pretty paltry but is better than the casual dismissal of "You're just anxious."
Never, ever, ever take anxiety as a diagnosis for a symptom other than anxiety. Not even as a rule-out. Keep those symptoms as an open question mark on the patient. Don't say "anxiety" just so you can close the door. And damn sure don't do it to women.
I'm actively working on learning more so I can be more helpful, in our Rheum-less community, so if you have good lectures or books, please drop me a lead.
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tvseries-writings · 23 days
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Bad addiction
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Plot: After an interrogation gone wrong, it is hard not to fall back into old habits and make questionable choices
TW: alcohol addiction, past suicide attempt, depression
Wandanat x Bioquake (Jemma x Daisy) x Bobbi x reader
Many people say that silence is the most deafening sound, more so than any other sound, even more so than the sound of a mine being blasted to extract the precious minerals it contains. And now, as you sit in one of the chairs at the kitchen table, looking down at the still-unbroken bottle of vodka in the complete silence that surrounds the room, you realize that these people are right.
It is 3:45 a.m. on a dreary Saturday morning, and that boy's face, imprinted in your mind, has kept you from sleeping and at the same time made you open the bus locker that Jemma had diligently locked as soon as she learned of your "not-so-little" problem.
In your world, everyone has tattooed on their body the first words their soul mate will say when they first meet.
You have to admit that in the unhappy and violent family you grew up in, it was no big deal to have five different phrases tattooed on your back due to some hideous flaw in the system. Two soul mates was abnormal enough, but five? Inconceivable, and Mark, your stepfather, had reminded you of it over and over again until one fine day he died of a heart attack. Of course, the moment he had collapsed in front of you, you hadn't run for help... Besides, they say there is no such thing as karma.
Bobbi was the first of the five mysterious soul mates you met and fell madly in love with. It was Bobbi who brought you into S.H.I.E.L.D. shortly after recruiting Daisy (then Skye), and who finally put a face to two of the people whose words she had tattooed on her right forearm.
"I want to be your sponsor, I want you to get better."
It was Bobbi who helped you out of the maelstrom that had engulfed you, who helped you to what would become six full years of sobriety. Six years without a single drop of your trusty friend alcohol in your stomach. She became your sponsor, was with you day and night, held you while you puked your guts out in the filthy bathroom of a bar at five in the morning, and whispered tough words to you when you told her you wanted to quit. You don't know where you'd be without her. In fact, you don't know where you'd be without all of them. Jemma, Bobbi, Daisy, Wanda, and Natasha are your rock and always will be. But today, today you have to forget and they may be your rock but unfortunately they have far too many demons to face and yours you might as well keep to yourself.
With a knot in your stomach and nausea, you uncork the bottle. The pungent smell of vodka burns your sinuses as you carefully place the cap on the counter. The concave side facing down, just like at the bar. Your fingers tighten around the thinnest part, the contact of your skin with the cold glass makes you shiver, and for a moment, just a single moment, you think you don't want to throw away these six long years of sacrifice, and then... then the boy's face hits you like a slap in the face. Actually, the slap would hurt a lot less.
He was just a boy, a young soldier molded by Hydra who had killed himself to give in during your interrogation. You had been too harsh and too slow to stop him, and you had not stopped him, and he had broken his right cheekbone, causing the small cyanide capsule placed there, just below the surface, to rupture. That boy was walking around with a time bomb between his eye and his nose, and he had done it voluntarily, killing himself with that same bomb. He had killed himself in front of you, his name was Gideon and he had just turned nineteen. And he was dead, he was dead because you were not focused enough, because you were the one who pushed him to do it and now he was gone. He should have had his whole life ahead of him, he had just been subjugated, but now, now there was no chance of redemption for him. So you punished yourself, nothing new, the bullet in your right leg is proof of that...even though you had stopped the bleeding by now. You just needed to punish yourself, that's all. And the bottle you hold in your fingers serves the same purpose as the bullet.
"What are you doing?"
The sound is so sudden and unexpected that you let go of the bottle and it shatters on the floor of the bus. The plane continues its course as if nothing had happened. How fascinating machines are, so emotionally numbing and yet indispensable.
Bobbi approaches you slowly, as if afraid to frighten you. Her hair is disheveled and her expression is a mixture of concern and weariness. You swallow, begin to shake your head and fall to your knees, repeating the words "I'm sorry" and "I'm sorry" as you fiercely pick up the shards of glass from the bottle.
"Stop or you'll get hurt."
The blonde girl is not even in time to say these words before a piece of glass gets stuck in your hand, causing a deep cut that begins to bleed profusely. You don't notice and Bobbi is scared to death. You don't feel the pain and, on the contrary, you continue to clear your mind.
Perhaps you have become a machine too, emotionally numb. Damn, how you want it; to feel no more pain - isn't that the human dilemma?
Bobbi snaps forward, tired of seeing you hurt again and again, and grabs your wrists with her hands to stop you; it works. You suddenly freeze, avoiding eye contact and not saying a word. Bobbi never loses sight of you for a minute as she gets up to get a cloth to dab the wound and stop the bleeding.
You stay like this for about ten minutes, in silence, while Bobbi bandages your wound with two stitches for "safety". He wraps your hand, but when he is done, he does not pull away, contrary to what you expected. Instead, she tucks a strand of hair behind your ear, making your eyes meet before breaking the silence.
"Do you ou want to tell me what happened?"
You always said that Bobbi, as an alternative to super badass spy, might as well have been a psychologist (as well as a model, of course). In fact, her tone is exactly what one would expect from a psychologist; gentle but detached. In a warm but cool clarity of action. In the art of weighing words that only Bobbi is capable of, and in which she is the first even to Jemma.
When she realizes you have no intention of answering, her hand quickly finds your leg.
"Have you been drinking?"
You bite your lip and shake your head slowly.
A small smile curls her lips as she leans in to plant a kiss on your forehead.
"Well... you did good rockstar."
Bobbi rests her forehead against yours, caressing your cheeks as if you were the most precious thing in the world.
"We're both tired and need to sleep, especially you. I'm not dropping the subject, and it's definitely something we'll discuss in the morning, but until then, until then, we're going to bed with the others. And I don't want to hear any objections."
You follow her, whatever she wants, you're going to give it to her. You owe it to her after the shit you wanted to do tonight; not that you wouldn't have done it if you had gone back. But now, now is a thought that has to be put off until the morning.
Bobbi tucks you in and wraps her arms around your sides, hugging you from behind. Your nose breathes in the lavender scent of Diasy and the vanilla scent of Wanda as Nat's soft snoring and Jemma's recovered words accompany you into the world of Morpheus.
.........................................................................................
As soon as you wake up, the weight of the conversation you're likely to have with your soul mates hits you harder than you'd like. And if you hate getting up on other days, today is even harder.
You get out of bed and walk down the hall with the same agony as a condemned man on his way to the gallows.
No, a condemned man is better off than you. At least he has the consolation of death; you, on the other hand, have only the certainty of a head-spanking from your girls.
It's barely 10 a.m., and your girls' voices echo down the narrow, cold hallway leading to the kitchen. As soon as your head pokes through the door, the voices stop.
"Hey."
Your stomach turns as you sit down in the only empty chair.
Wanda is at the stove, Natasha behind her, trying to help, even though you all know the Russian spy is anything but a good cook. Instead, Daisy, Jemma and Bobbi are all three at the table. Needless to say, all eyes are on you.
Wanda places a stack of pancakes on a plate in the middle of the table and with a shy smile invites you to help yourself to her delicious masterpieces.
You are not hungry. The silence between you is so strange, so different... that it has created a knot in your stomach. You are sure that if you even tried to take a bite of Wanda's pancakes, you would immediately run to the bathroom and throw up.
It is not you who breaks the silence, nor is it Bobbi; contrary to what you might have expected, it is Daisy who does so. Well, maybe you should have seen it coming.
"How could you even think that?"
You know very well that it is not a question. The others know it too.
The young superheroine wants to know the reason that almost made you break your promise.
Not that you could forget that promise. How could you?
It's hard to forget the feel of your girls' damp, heavy clothes and the sting of their deeply disappointed stares as you limped into the foyer of your simple, unassuming Manhattan apartment, staggering around with a bottle of vodka in your right hand and a gun in the other with only one bullet in the clip. It is hard to forget the look of terror on her face as you squeeze the trigger three times in a row, the cold metal of the barrel burning your temple. It is impossible to forget their screams as Natasha lunges at you, at the exact moment when you pull the damn trigger for the fourth time in front of their disbelieving, frightened, terrified eyes, and the bullet lodges on the wall behind you; inches from your head, as the gun, now unloaded, is kicked away from the Russian spy. It is impossible to forget the promise you made to them about never touching even a drop of alcohol again.
Over time, you have learned so many terrible things that you have trouble falling asleep at night. And when they say that addictions of any kind don't change a person...they lie. Fuck, how they lie. Lying bastards in an age of lies. An addiction changes you. No choking.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, I - yesterday was hard, the mission - I'm sorry."
You don't look up, you don't meet the eyes that you learned to love and accept only after a long time. You don't have the courage, you can't look at the most important people in your life, knowing that you made them suffer again. How many more times will you have to hurt them before they realize they no longer want you in their lives?
Bobbi sighs and shakes her head slowly. He gives you a small smile, just a hint of the one you loved before anyone else. She squeezes your thigh and reaches her hand out from under the table.
"We're not mad, we're just worried rockstar."
"Bobbi's right, Detka, we are scared that what happened years ago might happen again."
Wanda plays with the rings you exchanged when you all decided to move in together.
Natasha doesn't speak; she just watches you in silence. So does Jemma.
Daisy, on the other hand, seems on the verge of exploding, and that's exactly what she does.
"You can't do this to us again, okay? Do you know how long it took us to get over that? We still have nightmares about that night and you know it! How could you even think of drinking? You had to talk to us about it, you had to..."
Bobbi interrupts the inhuman, wrapping her arm around her hips and holding her close as she plants small kisses on the top of her head.
"He killed himself right in front of me, Daisy! He was a young boy, he had his whole life ahead of him and I didn't stop him!"
You slam your hand down on the kitchen counter, carefully away from your soul mates, using so much force that the deep cut you made the night before reopens and the bandage quickly soaks with blood.
A small grimace crosses your face as soon as your hand hits the marble surface.
"Y/n!"
Jemma takes your hand between her own, examining the wound medically and glancing at Bobbi as Wanda runs to the first aid kit in the bathroom.
"Honey, it's not your fault. The only culprit in all of this is Hydra. Yes, the boy was young, but he was aware of his choices."
Natasha strokes your back as Jemma uses needle and thread to sew up the cut on your palm. Jemma is about to put the fourth back on when you pull your hand away from her loving care and turn away from your girls.
"Y/n, please come back, I'm not done yet."
You look away; your left arm falls back at your side and small drops of blood run down your hand and fall to the floor. Your only desire now is to hold on to the bottle and drink until you see the empty bottom. You do not deserve their love, let alone their understanding.
"You're thinking very hard, detka," Wanda whispers, holding out her hand to you, and when you don't take it, intertwining your fingers, the hurt look on the Sokovian's face makes your heart clench.
"I thought I had overcome my addiction, and yet when some event shakes me, I am still in the grip of my emotions and it sucks....You want to know if I still want to drink? Yes, it gets stronger and stronger and it will never go away. That's the problem, I... I don't know if I can live with that for the rest of my life.
You all feel the small gasp that leaves the telepath's lips as she looks into your mind.
"Last night I... I took your gun," you whisper, turning your gaze to Natasha, "I know the password to the safe where you hide it; besides, it's not hard, just remember the day you first came into my life, and yes, yesterday I took the gun and put it to my temple, but I didn't pull the trigger, I didn't, okay? Just like I didn't touch the bottle of alcohol in front of me, so yes, I'm not okay, I'm shaken by what happened and part of me will always want to end it, but I'm not going to make you go through this again. I love you too much to hurt you like that again."
You scratch nervously at your wound, pinching your stitches before a gentle hand stops you. Jemma takes your hand back and makes the final stitches as the girls surround you.
"It's going to be okay honey, we're going to get through this too, but you need to go back and see Dr. Garner."
You sigh and shake your head before being stopped by a rather pissed off inhuman.
"I don't think you have a choice, so you're going to do what we say, okay?"
You sigh, nodding slightly as you begin to find the steel floor beneath your feet particularly interesting.
"Y/n, where did you leave the gun?"
Bobbi whispers and the question that has been hanging in the air until now is asked.
You teleport to your bedroom and retrieve the gun from its hiding place, where it had been masterfully concealed among some of your old clothes, and then Teleport back to the kitchen and hand the gun to Bobbi. The blonde takes it and slides the magazine out of the black Glock she holds in her hands, and when she does, your heart stops. You didn't think he would check.
"Y/n...? One bullet is missing-"
Daisy grabs the clip before Bobbi can finish her sentence,
"Are you fucking serious? You did this? You lied to our faces?!"
"I, it's not what it looks like."
Your throat goes dry as you look for the nearest chair to sit in; you wrinkle your nose as the bandage you've been so busy tightening around your thigh rubs painfully against the wound. And while the other girls are too busy trying to figure out what's going on, Wanda reads your mind and her eyes go wide as she falls to her knees in front of you. The other girls look at her with confusion and concern before the Sokovian speaks.
"Detka, Detka, where is the wound?"
Your breath catches and you freeze. They can't take away the pain you feel, they can't - you don't deserve the relief, you don't.
"N-no! Me, it's okay, I took care of it, I'm fine."
Natasha, who had been silent until that moment, steps forward and pulls your pants down before you can even think of stopping her.
The blood-soaked bandage shifts to reveal the bleeding, red wound; an ongoing infection, most likely -- after all, you didn't put any disinfectant on it, and the only thing you cared about was wrapping it tightly with a bandage so you wouldn't lose too much blood. You don't even know if the bullet got out, but considering your teleportation skills, it probably did. The only reason you don't stay naked every time you teleport is because Fitz made all your clothes out of a dwarf material that apparently allows you to stay clothed.
"Damn it!"
Natasha says, leaning over your thigh and looking at Jemma, urging her to get the first aid kit. The biochemist runs to the bathroom and returns in less than a minute with the kit in her hands. You kneel down next to the former Russian spy before putting on your gloves and cutting off the now completely useless blindfold.
Bobbi walks over to you and places a hand on your forehead to check your temperature before asking Natasha to hand her the thermometer.
"She's warm, I think the wound is giving her an infection."
Bobbi puts the thermometer to your lips, and when you make it clear that you are not going to take your temperature, Bobbi raises her right eyebrow and looks at you intently.
"Rockstar, I don't want to force you to open your lips, but you really messed up, your health is not the best right now and we're really worried, so please, please... help us help you, okay?"
Bobbi's voice breaks as her look of pain and concern finally makes you realize how much this, how much YOU are costing them...so you do everything they tell you and a full twenty-five minutes pass before you are finally patched up and lying on a cot in the infirmary.
"Why did you do this? Are you... do we have to take you off missions? Are you trying to hurt yourself?" Natasha approaches the edge of the bed, resting a hand on your good leg.
"Obviously, considering what he did."
Daisy blurts out, and the fact that she relies so heavily on her sarcasm lets you know that she is genuinely worried about you.You bite your lip, a small sigh rippling the air around you as you trace the bandage on your hand with your thumb, distracting yourself from the conversation you are about to have.
"I... just wanted... I needed to feel physical pain, and not the kind of pain that tears you up inside. I just needed to feel nothing, just for a little while...I'm sorry."
Jemma squeezes the IV bag and, after a final glance at the monitor showing your blood pressure and heart rate, sits down in the empty chair to your left before taking your hand between her own.
"We're going to help you, okay? It's going to be okay, we're going to be with you every step of the way, and we're going to get through this, just like we did before."
"But we need you to help us, rock star."
"And you need to tell us how you feel, especially if it makes you do things...dangerous for yourself, detka" Wanda comes over and gives you a small smile with eyes full of concern, just like the other girls.
Daisy crosses her arms under her breasts and you see worry and anger distorting her face and then, to the surprise of you all, the inhuman bursts into tears. Sobs shake your body and your need to embrace her makes you get out of bed and reach out to her, hiding a grimace of pain.
"Dee, Daisy, hey, it's okay love, I'm sorry, I know how that night left a deep scar on you, I... when certain thoughts come, I can't think straight... I can't think at all, damn it. I don't... I don't think about how much damage what my mind is telling me to do could do to you. I'm sorry, my love."
Daisy throws herself into your arms, causing you to fall back onto the cot as the inhuman wets your shirt with her tears.
"I know what it feels like to want the pain to stop, many of us do it”. Your body stiffens at the thought that at least once both Natasha and Wanda and Daisy felt exactly what you felt and are feeling now, "but you are not alone, I know you feel alone but you are not. We are here and we love you so much it hurts..."
"I am so sorry...I, I will try to get better, I want to, for you and to finally be well without having to resort to pain or alcohol."
You whisper, leaving kisses in Daisy's hair as you hold her close. Your girls stand still, letting the inhuman vent before they too join your embrace.
They say nothing, they don't need to. The fact that they are there, their warmth is more than enough and they bring you a slight relief and the burden you have been carrying for so long finally lightens... at least for now.
Thanks for reading! Spoiler: some poly!aos x wandanat x reader is coming! Comment, like and support me on ko-fi. Have a great day!
Taglist: @wandanatsbaby @bioquake-archives @bioquakeweek @daisyjohnsonx @wandanatsgirlfriend @chaekhan @station19 @resilientpendragon @so-no-kissing-then @thearchpitbullmx @ashadash0904 @kingshitonly @alwaysgoodnight @callistic @xjule @yuleni18 @simpforwandanat @alexxislexi @mrsdanversromanoff @coollemonsaresour @hushed-woodsman @razorscooteer @eponine-xx @maniacallinc @michelle170 @classyig @elenaguarnieri @scarletwidow @tati3001 @cristin-rjd @your-my-mission @mr-nicely @hi-i-1 @anniethurs @ktstwice @scarlet-raccoon @maria-403 @goldfishthegr8 @wandanatfan @looiegirl-blog @bioquake-blog @daisyjohnsonx
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zeestarfishalien · 5 months
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I Am Your Dad But Also Not?
[DPxDC Week 2023 Day 7: Clockwork // Accidental Baby Acquisition // Misunderstanding]
• In which, Danny is Richard Grayson from an alternate universe (the dna matches even if all the names and history don’t)
“Papa, hold me!” The words were Danny’s only warning before the bundle of flying child plowed into him. He spun with the momentum, hands quickly gripping the little girl so she didn’t go tumbling away.
Despite her sure and enthusiastic greeting, she was not in fact Danny’s child. Or maybe she is now? He’s starting to get really confused. Apparently he looks and feels like her dad since she’s so clearly attached herself to him. Clockwork’s cryptic smiling is not helpful so he takes his newly acquired magical toddler and leaves.
At least he’s assuming her powers are magic or something. The last time he tried asking something that “obviously papa knows already” she got a look not dissimilar to a sad baby seal. Sad baby seals are not something Danny can resist evidently.
So, asking Clockwork is out and asking the child in question is out. Danny is running out of options and he has half a mind to just assume she’s his child from the future.
Luckily Danny is a genius, maybe not literally but his point still stands.
His idea? Brilliant.
Implementation? Flawless.
Hotel? Trivago.
The little one is outgoing enough that when Danny prompts her to introduce herself to Sam and Tucker (visiting on holiday), she goes off into a rambling of questions and information without even pausing for anyone to answer her questions.
That’s how they learn that she’s Mar’i Grayson and she lives in Blüdhaven most of the time, except when her Papa and Mama go on trips, then she’s stays with Grandpa Alfie and Grandpa B and Uncle Damian, but also sometimes Uncle Damian comes to stay with her and Mama and Papa because he sometimes gets into disagreements with Grandpa B.
She says disagreements in such a careful and proud way that Danny makes sure Sam and Tucker compliment her on her awesome vocabulary.
That just leaves them with the problem of getting Mar’i back to her own home dimension and parents, who are probably worried sick by her disappearance.
Danny really really hopes that Mar’i’s actual dad and mom have such an abnormal life that they might be able to find the infinite realms because trying to find her exact universe from his side of things without Clockwork’s help will be nigh on impossible
He really hopes she’ll recognize her real dad. Danny is not equipped for parenthood.
Or at least not equipped for a toddler. He was able to skip the whole toddler part with Ellie.
Speaking of Ellie and her horrible timing, she has chosen this exact time to get back from her grand adventure aka traveling the worlds and she proceeds to laugh so hard she can’t even stay on her feet. She resorts to floating along behind Danny and Mar’i cackling and occasionally heaving non great gasps of air only to fall back into the laughing cycle once more.
Danny’s shooing motions are ineffective and he’s not about to show a five-year-old the violence or language necessary to get Ellie to go away.
When she finally does stop laughing, she starts snapping pictures at every angle she can imagine. Which is a lot given that she’s a half ghost like Danny. She has yet to let her feet touch the ground but that doesn’t bother Mar’i who seems to have similar ideas about gravity. Her own feet rarely touching the floor as soon as she realized that beings work differently in the zone.
~•~
In the end Danny can only keep the ruse of fatherhood up for a couple of days. Mar’i is no fool even if she is five. She figures him out and she’s not even mad when he explains that he didn’t want her to be scared if she knew she was alone with strangers in a new place like this. Her magnanimous forgiveness is one of the best things Danny has ever experienced. He understands why people have kids now.
At the end of a week with no news from Clockwork and an increasingly homesick Mar’i, Danny takes her back to Clockwork’s tower to demand some action himself or at least get some ridiculous riddle to keep him and Mar’i occupied until the “time is right.”
Clockwork’s smile upon their arrival is bordering on deranged in Danny’s eyes and he hugs Mar’i closer as though to protect her from Time’s hands.
“It is time,” the god says and bangs his staff on the metal flooring of the tower.
Before Danny can demand an answer about that, a portal opens beneath him and both he and Mar’i go tumbling through.
YOOOO by my time, I am not late on any of these prompts (even though they are a lot shorter and more vague than I’d like. Can’t help it with the thumbs being the way they are). But like legit I am proud of myself. Deadlines are a thing I struggle with especially when it comes to writing. But I’m finally getting better with it. Middle school and high school me would both be crying tears of joy rn.
I love that we started with found family fluff and ended with it. Danny and Mar’i are going to have a very lovely and entertaining adventure together. It’ll be great.
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birdofmay · 1 year
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Autism/Support Levels & Support Needs Masterpost (this list will grow)
With autism acceptance month coming up, this post aims to make the difference between autism levels and support needs more clear, because there's a lot of confusion - especially regarding the DSM-5, ICD-10, and ICD-11.
In short: autism levels are about the DSM-5 autism diagnostic criteria. If your country uses the DSM-5, you're often assigned a level with your diagnosis (though not always)
Support needs are about IADLs and BADLs and have nothing to do with your autism level. Not even with autism. The DSM-5 doesn't ask for IADLs and BADLs for assigning you an autism level. These two things may often align, but are two entirely different things.
Please note: support needs are a medical thing. Not every autistic needs help with IADLs or BADLs. These autistics are "no support needs" if you will; they simply don't have support needs regarding IADLs and BADLs. Again: Completely ignore that autism levels say "requires support" - this support has nothing to do with the support needs discussed here!
First: What are autism levels?
They have the two categories "Social Communication" and "Restricted Interests & Repetitive Behaviors", and it's possible to be for example level 1 in the first category, but level 2 in the second. It depends on the therapist. This is what it generally says:
Level 1:
Social Communication:
Without supports in place, deficits in social communication cause noticeable impairments. Difficulty initiating social interactions, and clear examples of atypical or unsuccessful response to social overtures of others. May appear to have decreased interest in social interactions. For example, a person who is able to speak in full sentences and engages in communication but whose to-and-fro conversation with others fails, and whose attempts to make friends are odd and typically unsuccessful.
Restricted Interests & Repetitive Behaviors:
Inflexibility of behavior causes significant interference with functioning in one or more contexts. Difficulty switching between activities. Problems of organization and planning hamper independence.
Level 2:
Social Communication:
Marked deficits in verbal and nonverbal social communication skills; social impairments apparent even with supports in place; limited initiation of social interactions; and reduced or abnormal response to social overtures from others. For example, a person who speaks simple sentences, whose interaction is limited to narrow special interest, and who has markedly odd nonverbal communication.
Restricted Interests & Repetitive Behaviors
Inflexibility of behavior, difficulty coping with change, or other restricted/ repetitive behaviors appear frequently enough to be obvious to the casual observer and interfere with functioning in a variety of contexts. Distress and/or difficulty changing focus or action.
Level 3:
Social Communication:
Severe deficits in verbal and nonverbal social communication skills cause severe impairments in functioning, very limited initiation of social interactions, and minimal response to social overtures from others. For example, a person with few words of intelligible speech who rarely initiates interaction and, when he or she does, makes unusual approaches to meet needs only and responds to only very direct social approaches.
Restricted Interests & Repetitive Behaviors:
Inflexibility of behavior, extreme difficulty coping with change, or other restricted/repetitive behaviors markedly interfere with functioning in all spheres. Great distress/difficulty changing focus or action.
Ok, so: What are BADLs and IADLs?
According to this website:
BADLs include six skills typically needed to manage basic physical needs:
Bathing and showering: Bathing self completely, or requiring assistance with only one area of the body, including hair and skin and oral care (note: I think shaving your body is included here too because "hair")
Continence: Having complete control of bowels and bladder
Dressing: Including selecting appropriate clothes and outerwear and donning them independently, including fasteners
Functional mobility: Including walking or transferring from one place to another, specifically in and out of a bed or chair (note: this, and from room to room or general orientation within your own home. Climbing stairs is included here too.)
Self-feeding (not meal preparation): Moving food from plate to mouth or having the ability to chew and swallow
Toileting: Including getting on/off the toilet and cleaning oneself
IADLs are more complex activities required for independent living:
Cleaning and housekeeping: Including maintenance and other home care chores
Laundry
Managing money
Medication management: Taking prescribed medications
Preparing meals: Including food preparation
Shopping: For groceries and other necessities
Transportation: Including changing residences and moving
Using communication devices: Including the computer or telephone (note: this is for elderly people especially)
What support needs are about:
Who determines if you're low, medium or high support needs (if you have support needs)?
The overlap between autism levels and support needs, and a general info pamphlet:
"Do autism levels and support needs always line up?" with examples (credits to @notabled-noodle ):
Why disability support services often equate autism levels with support needs:
An overview of what autistic adults in Aotearoa whose autism levels line up with their support needs could be like - this is not a symptom or criteria list, it's simply an example! (credits to @whalesharkpasta ):
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too-antigonish · 5 days
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Morse and drinking in the 70s...
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Long....because I can't write short. And obviously, a lot of you will already know this stuff...
Just want to take a moment to talk about alcohol and alcoholism in the context of the early 1970s and remind folks of how totally and completely different it is from how we see it today.
Drunk driving had not been outlawed in most countries. Not only that, it was widely regarding as funny—funny enough to be used as a regular “gag” in movies. Problem drinking was also seen as funny. There were regular cartoon strips about it. The “drunk” was a funny stock character in all sorts of plays and movies.
Alcohol was ubiquitous. We’re not just talking liquid lunches. We’re talking drinking at work, while you work—just as you see in Endeavour. Think about that for a second.
And politely saying no wasn’t something you did without social consequences. It wasn’t just seen as a personal preference. Unless you had a specific, acceptable reason, turning down a drink was often seen as stand-offish and judgmental or as a social snub. Teetotalism was regarded as rather naive and ridiculous—not something any man or woman of the world would embrace.
In the early 1970s, there was no widespread understanding of alcoholism as a disease. It was still seen very much as the consequence of personal weakness—still a matter of “If you cared enough or tried hard enough, you wouldn’t do this so it must be a character flaw.”
Plus, most people, “normal” people don’t have problems with alcohol, so if you do then there’s something abnormal and defective about you—most likely something you brought upon yourself.
And as a “personal weakness” and a “defect,” the shame around it was profound and the secrecy matched. If someone went away for treatment, it was very much akin to an unwed mother going off to have her baby and then returning without the child. You never spoke of it. You pretended that it had never happened.
If you were a kind person, you also didn’t go out of your way to parade babies in front of her or talk constantly about children when she was with you. But refer to it directly? Never. Ask for help? Never. It was always something to be hidden. Everyone did their best to forget that it had ever happened and saw this as the "kindest" thing to do.
When Morse returns from his “cure,” it would simply be assumed that everyone would pretend that nothing unusual has happened. Why he’s  just been off on a tour of the West Country and nothing else! Hope you had a lovely time! That sort of polite fiction was exactly what he would have expected upon his return. Anything more direct—at least in a public setting—would have been shocking to him and everyone else.
Where things break down, however, is in the more personal interactions. His relationship with Thursday is such that they can at least broach the topic of drinking. When they do, my impression is that Thursday is well-aware that Morse not “cured.” However, in the context of the time, saying this would be akin to saying, "You failed," because there was no disease model of alcholism in widespread use. You went to be cured and it worked or it didn't.
However, I'd also add that Thursday is almost to the breaking point with the cumulative strain he is under. He can’t cope with the “burden” of Morse being in a precarious state and he knows it. He feels desperately guilty about that—as well as about other things like Strange and Joan or about life having moved on so much while Morse was gone—and so he just shuts down. 
Shutting down is Thursday’s go-to strategy when he’s overwhelmed. We’ve seen him do it many times before. And part of that for him, is that he pretends that the people around him are ok—even if they are anything but ok. Not surprisingly, he does it the most with the people he has the closest emotional ties with—Win, Joan, Sam, and Morse.
So the only way that Thursday can cope is by having Morse be perfectly fine. Conveniently, his preferred coping strategy fits exactly with his society's expectations about how alcoholism works. If Morse is "cured," you don’t need to worry about sparing him the constant offers of alcohol in the same way that the young unwed mother might hope to be spared babies. You certainly wouldn’t embarrass him (especially after he’s been through the humiliation of rehab) by drawing attention in any way to a possible to the idea that he still has a problem. 
And finally, a last note on time context. The scene in the pub where Morse has that first drink after finding out that Joan is marrying Jim is utterly heartbreaking for so many reasons. One of those reasons, however, is that we know it’s the first drink—and that the first drink leads to the second, and so on and so forth. Then Morse says to Thursday, “They said the, the odd beer, the odd shot, does no harm…"Everything in moderation," they said,”  and we automatically assume he’s lying.
I’m fairly sure that those scenes were meant to be interpreted through our modern viewpoint. However, it’s worth noting that again, the model of alcoholism in the 1970s was nothing like what we have today. The idea that someone with a drinking problem/addictions needs to abstain entirely was not even close to universal at that point. It’s perfectly possible that the advice Morse is quoting is the advice he received!
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olderthannetfic · 3 days
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I just got a comment saying I should have tagged for dom/sub undertones and I'm a little confused. In canon, this guy always bosses his wife around re: doing shit that's healthy for her - napping, drinking water, remembering to eat more than once a day, getting more than 3 hours of sleep - and she lovingly calls him "Boss Man" as a nickname because of it. On some occasions where she's gone more than a day without eating he'll swipe her phone and order her to eat before she gets it back, something she always seems to find endearing. There's a lot of 'I didn't mean to worry you', 'you're worth worrying about, now here's your favorite homemade walnut bread' stuff, all there in canon, just lifted from canon and transplanted into my fic.
Is this dom/sub stuff? I'm aroace so I've never been in a relationship, but I assumed "take care of yourself" "I will but I will call you a silly nickname over it" was regular relationship stuff. Or is it that the frequency of it makes it dom/sub stuff, and I'm just not grasping that because my neurodivergency is making me not read the social cues correctly? I was only recently diagnosed but this has been a problem for a long time, the whole line between normal and abnormal behavior, so I thought I'd ask you. You're much more well-read than I am and know a lot more about shipping dynamics and how they're tagged. I feel like you're an expert whose opinion carries a lot of conclusions-informed-by-knowledge and so your take could help me figure this out.
People who are doms or subs or write them, if you have a guide on this stuff, that'd be cool, too. I want to educate myself more so I know if I should tag something. After all, I can't get my story to people who want to read it if it doesn't show up in the tags they're searching for. Readers aren't mindreaders. It's on me to make sure they can get ahold of the things they're looking for. I just need to work around my own ADHD-addled brain to do it.
--
I think this is the usual pattern of demanding silly tags that would only make sense in that reader's own bookmarks.
Yes, caretaking and food control of various kinds can be a part of BDSM. No, your description of canon does not make it sound like this has obvious undertones.
Readers are going to have different interpretations. It's possible that other readers would agree with this one. I have my doubts. I suspect they're projecting. But sure, maybe other people would think there was some of that vibe.
However, if you did not intend the fic to read this way, I would not add the tag. This is not what the fic is about.
--
As for what this kind of thing can look like when it is intended as a dom/sub activity, the movie Secretary has a bunch of examples. She calls him on the phone to tell him what her family's dinner looks like that night; he gives her instructions about which things she can eat how much of. The way she acts while making that phone call makes it clear it's an exciting game to her. Another time, he tells her she's not allowed to cut herself anymore: he will provide what she needs.
Even if the characters are being playful, just nagging someone to do basic self care doesn't really come across as this. It's more charged when it's an intentional power exchange thing.
It's more like... hmm... if you and a friend agreed to LARP as characters for a day. Even if you were acting fairly normal and doing things you'd often do anyway, there would be this added extra vibe to it that someone who knew you well could probably detect.
It's not so much about the specific behaviors: it's about the extra meaning those people ascribe to them. If it doesn't seem like the canon characters think of this caretaking any specific way and you, as the fic author, don't see it that way, then I don't think it will generally read as a dom/sub thing to most readers.
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reyanfia · 1 year
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the warrior and his healer — neteyam x reader ☄. *. ⋆➢ part one!
other chapters are up! read it here -> chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 4
setting: awa'atlu, pandora
pairing: neteyam x fem!metkayina!reader
warnings: nothing much in this part, but if we are talking about the entire series, mentions of bl00d, a bit of angst, teyam survives!
summary: the newcomer seems to enjoy your company! he seems to like what you do, too. let's hope nothing bad happens to your study buddy.
a/n: I actually requested this to @bonnibuckets, and they did great at writing it! but I wanted to try and write it myself. pls enjoy ^^ by the way, I'm replacing y/n with _____ because I personally find y/n weird to read. and yes, it is like loaksky's style, but I don't think it should be a problem. :)) a lot of the medicinal stuff in here is made up since little about healing is known in avatar.
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"ah! here she is." tsireya smiled as she skipped into your marui, dragging the eldest sully boy from behind her.
you looked up from your papers, meeting eyes with them both. figuring she brought him to you to fix up some injuries, you placed your studying materials aside.
you hadn't acquainted yourself with any for the sully kids, but you have watched them train with tsireya, ao'nung and rotxo.
from your observations, you thought that the younger sully boy, lo'ak, was the first one who tsireya would bring into your marui for any injuries that had to be healed. it didn't cross your mind that the eldest would be hurt before him.
you weren't an official healer, to be exact. but you are training to be one. ronal, the tsahìk, had announced that due to the lack of healers in the village, she will be choosing a few more girls to help out the elders. but to be qualified to do so, they must have enough knowledge about medicine and healing.
tsireya dubbed you to be the best among the other girls, as to probably why she brought neteyam to you.
tsireya's beaming smile stayed on as she sat neteyam down in front of you. "here, he scuffed himself by the corals. would you mind patching him up, ______?"
you glanced at his bleeding forearm and back to her. "no, I don't mind." you gave her a small smile, which she enthusiastically returned before she ran off.
you then got up and went to your shelves. "i'd thought that your brother would come running in bleeding first," you stated as you grabbed the covered bowl of healing salve.
neteyam laughed. "well, he did get hurt. but it seems tsireya has taken him for herself to tend to."
you smiled, and though you were facing away from him, he could see it. "she has talked a lot about him the past few days. i've heard more about him than the firstborn son of toruk makto."
you set all the things you needed onto the floor. you sat where you previously were, preparing to tend to the cuts on the arm.
he felt his face warm when you said it. "you don't have to call me that," he could barely look into your eyes, something you found odd. you'd expected him to be a little more confident than his brother. seems the roles have switched.
"why not? i suspect people call you that all the time back in the forest." you dipped the cloth into the bowl of water, and started dabbing around the wound to clean it.
the boy before you winced. "ah— well, yeah. i guess it feels weird to have somebody new saying it to me." he replied, clearing his throat after.
you nodded. you also took notice of the abnormal rasp in his voice, possibly because of all the breath-holding and accidental swallowing of the ocean water.
after you finished cleaning the wound, you took a small amount of the healing salve. "this is going to feel a little cold," you warned, applying it onto the cuts. it only soothed the pain more. neteyam felt instant relief as you gently rubbed it into his azure skin, the sting immediately going away.
as you were busy tending to the injury, he sat still. but his eyes roamed and observed.
he watched your brows furrow in focus, your clean hand going up to your hair to tuck it behind your ear every now and then. he looked at the plants and scriptures you were studying, there was a pile of it by your right.
you reminded him of himself. hard-working and busy.
"what's all that?" he asked, pointing towards the pile of things. your head snapped up to him first, then to where he pointed. "oh that, it's uh— stuff that i need to know to become a healer. tsireya thinks im good at it — probably why she brought you to me."
neteyam glanced from your face, and down to your hands. you were done with the paste — you took a long strip of soft dried seaweed, wrapped it around the wound and secured it in place by expertly tucking the ends in.
"all done. better?" you released his arm, letting him have a look at your handiwork. "much better. tsireya may be right." you smiled at his indirect compliment, as to which he did back.
"maybe i should go now?" neteyam suggested. you were about to let him, but his voice reminded you about that medicine you needed to try out.
"oh! before you go, try this medicine that i made. it'll help with your hoarse voice."
you reached from behind him, revealing a large, curved flower petal that contained a golden-amber like liquid. "it matches his eyes." you thought as you handed it to him. he drank it.
it was surprisingly sweet, it tasted like what humans would call honey, and it alleviated the discomfort in his throat. "how is it? does your throat feel any better?"
he stared at the ground for a few seconds. how on pandora did you manage to come up with such a thing? it worked like a charm.
he nodded vigorously. "it's amazing. now tsireya was definitely right."
you laughed along with him, glad that the mixture you made helped.
you may have just made yourself a new friend.
— ☄. . ⋆✧ .
neteyam can feel kiri's eyes piercing through the side of his face. sighing, he turned to her. "kiri, did i do something wrong?"
she shrugged and looked to his wrapped wound. "you seem oddly happy."
he shook his head at her answer, lying down onto the marui floor. "hm. i wonder why."
and he knows exactly why.
it was calming being in your presence. tranquility was a stranger to him. with all the pressure and expectations, neteyam has not known a day of peace. no one he knew before gave him peace. except now that he's met you. that's fun.
kiri wasn't stupid though. copying him, she sighed. "I wasn't born last night neteyam. what's her name?"
he froze. he remembers tsireya mentioning your name when she dropped him off at your marui, but he forgot it. somehow.
"oh damn. I'm not sure. she's that girl that tsireya always hangs out with. we've seen them together a couple times—"
she cuts him off. "_____? the healer in training?" neteyam nodded against the marui floor, slightly scratching his head in the process. "yep. her."
kiri turns her head upwards, as if remembering how your face looked like. "hm. she's pretty. would be surprised if she liked you back though."
"oh cut it out, kiri." neteyam swatted at her arm. "I don't like her."
she rolled her eyes in response. "yeah well, not yet."
"who are we talking about?" both kiri and neteyam get hit by a blast of cold wind when lo'ak opened the marui entrance. "ah! there you are. had fun on your date with tsireya?" kiri teased, barely dodging whatever it was that lo'ak had thrown her way.
"shut up! it wasn't a date." neteyam couldn't see much while lying down, but he saw enough to catch a glimpse of his brother's blushing face. he chuckled to himself at his siblings continue to bicker.
and as eclipse settled in, he slowly fell asleep then, his last thought being about you.
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©ronalsgirl
tagging: @azaleaniath @theycallmesia
those who request to be in the taglist under this chapter, will be tagged in the next one. thank you!
next part will be out soon :] [next part is out! check top of this post.]
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So I can’t help but think that some of the owl house designs are sort of weak at times because since they could gone a bit more to look none human instead of them just having pointy ears and the poc as well could been better especially for Gus, luz, and willow since they’re supposed to be black especially willow.
i agree! i've seen some other people talking about this too, for a show that claims to be about “accepting weirdos”, the main cast sure looks very Normal™. like„ the boiling isles is a place full of monsters and demons and a lot of characters with interesting and unusual character designs, but luz's friends are all very human-looking?? except for vee, i guess, but even she takes a human form 99% of the time.
and honestly none of luz's friends are that Weird™, they're all mostly normal with normal human problems like getting bullied or being taken advantage of. not that that's a bad thing but i expected the show to delve deeper into the abnormality of the boiling isles.
if anything, i would have expected luz to immediately befriend someone like hooty, but in s1 and for the first half of s2, she seems to find hooty annoying just like eda and king does. what was all this talk about weirdos sticking together then? i guess you can be weird but not too weird because that's annoying. /s
and yes, i was really surprised when i learned that willow was supposed to be blasian because she has no black features at all?? they could have given her something, darker skin or curly hair, anything that indicated that she was half-black.
i didn't really know how the magic system in toh worked when i was watching s1 so i just assumed that willow was either adopted or one of her dads was her stepdad. idk they just made her look asian and called it a day.
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samkerrworshipper · 3 months
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narcotics | arsenal x reader
summary: reader has a drug problem.. her arsenal teammates help her to realise and overcome it
warnings: mentions of drugs use and abuse
this was so tough to write for me and hit home sooo fucking hard buttt also very fulfilling so i hope you enjoy
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You’d never intended for it to get this bad.
Injury, surgery, recovery, drugs.
So many drugs.
That was what happened when you had major surgery, when you were an athlete, they showered you with every single kind of drug that they could, to distract from the pain and to try and start the recovery process as soon as possible. It was good, especially post surgery when you felt absolutely no pain, it was great, and it allowed you to be a lot more mobile after the operation than you would have been if you hadn't been medicated.
It was good, being pain free was so incredibly good.
That was all you could focus on, your whole recovery revolved around being pain free, tearing your tricep was a pain in the ass, but as far as football was regarded, you were hopeful to return to the pitch as soon as possible.
You didn’t need your arm to kick a football or play on the pitch, so the whole entire focus of your recovery was to make the pain bearable so you could return to the field as soon as possible.
For this reason, the doctors just kept refilling your scripts, handing you bottles and bottles upon pills, it was their job to get you back on the field to help Arsenal redeem themselves from the fall from the champions league.
You were back on the pitch in three weeks, which was almost psychotic considering that your tricep scars were still bandaged and covered in gauze.
It was procedural for you, you fell into a routine of relying on the drugs to get you through a game, to take off the edge of the pain that originated in your arm.
It was fine, it was good.
For months, the doctors filled the bottles for you, they kept filling them, past the point of where you medically needed them anymore, it was just routine for you, just a part of your day.
You woke up, and you took pills with your morning protein shake and breakfast, then you car pooled to London Colney with Beth and Viv. Once you arrived at training you ate a protein bar, which you consumed another set of pills with. Then typically as a team there would be a morning gym session, after gym there was lunch, where you would consume another set of pills. Then there was training, afterwards before recovery you inhaled another set of pills.
It didn’t really worry you, you needed the pills, they were the reason you were able to play, they were the only thing that was keeping you on the pitch.
It felt that way to you at least, even if you were months past the injury, it just felt like you needed them, that without them you would be hopeless.
So, even as the weeks passed by you continued your routine, but as every day passed by it was clear that your teammates were becoming more aware of your reliance, the concern and questions becoming far more frequent.
You insisted that you were fine, that it was the doctor's orders, even if the doctor had told you months ago that you needed to eventually wean yourself off the pills.
He was the same doctor though who continued to fill your scripts and hand you pills like they were candies.
Eventually you would stop, you would, some time, it was just something to get you through the day, something to make it easier for you to deal with everything that was happening in your life.
The first time the word addiction was thrown at you was in the most abnormal situation.
You were sitting in the locker rooms, early on a wednesday morning the likes of Katie, Jen, Beth and Alessia surrounding you as you all casually joked around.
It was all common conversation, trivial basic stuff, until Katie pivoted towards you, her whole body turning in your direction as she sent a question your way.
“Y/n, is there any history of addiction in your family?”
It’s spoken so casually, and for whatever reason you’re the only person in the group taking a double take over what she’d just asked you.
Everybody else was just kind of waiting for your answer, all eyes on you as they watched on carefully.
“No, why?”
Katie just nods her head, her eyes not leaving you and the curiosity in them.
“Just curious, Less and I were talking earlier about it, one of her cousins struggled with it majorly after having surgery, just interesting to think about, it’s just a really tough topic.”
It was blatantly obvious that there was an underlying message underneath her words, at the time though you had been completely oblivious to it.
“Yeah, well I couldn’t give any info on that, both of my parents were in the army and were as clean as whistles, my two brothers were the same, and as far as my aunts and uncles go I’m fairly certain they’ve never touched any drugs beyond paracetamol and tylenol.”
Your words are measured, calculated, trying to decrypt the overarching question lying beneath the surface of Katie’s random spiel.
“It’s definitely interesting to think about, considering how many surgeries our team has encountered in the last little while.”
Katie is digging around, for something, but you aren’t quite sure what.
“I’m not the one to ask about it, Viv and Beth are the ones who have been doing all the research.”
Katie seems to get the message that you don’t want to talk, but you can’t ignore the way she continues to look at you with a mixture of concern and annoyance whilst you tugged on your uniform and trainers.
When you thought her eyes had slipped from you, you turned into your locker, taking a sip of water before pulling two pills from your bag and slipping them past your lips as discreetly as you could.
You thought you were discreet, but when you turned back around to head out of the rooms and into the gym, and realised that all of your teammates' eyes were on you, you realised that this whole ordeal had become quite the spectacle.
You ignored the on looking eyes, especially those of Katie and Beth’s, which were practically burning holes through your body.
You avoided their eye contact, knowing that if you met their eyes it would give them a space to confront you, something which you were looking to avoid for as long as possible.
You somehow managed to make it into the gym without any further troubles, but when you did make it inside the gym you were met with some similar looks from your teammates and captains who were already occupying the space.
You got straight into your program, your mind reeling about how exactly your teammates had come to the point of pretty much accusing you of addiction.
You weren’t addicted.
You just needed the pills to take the edge off, there was nothing wrong with knowing your body's limit. Sure, you’d been told it was safest to start weaning off them after about a month on them, but you needed them, you needed them to be the same you, the old you, the pre-injury you.
You weren’t an addict, addicts were frantic and uncontrolled and definitely couldn’t play football.
The gym plan for you was fairly simple, a lot of tricep exercises and some upper body work that you finished off fairly quickly, within the hour you were heading back to the locker rooms, to grab your jumper and some pills before heading off to the lunch room to see what the chefs had cooked up today.
Kim, Leah, Katie, Viv, Beth and Jen were all sitting inside the rooms, the six of them hushedly talking between themselves. You did your best to ignore them, beelining straight towards your locker, throwing on your hoodie first before reaching into the pocket in your bag where you’d left the container early.
You felt around, confused for a few seconds when you didn’t immediately feel it.
You shoved your hand deep into the pocket, again your fingers touched nothing but the mesh of the inside pocket in your bag. At this stage, your hands begin to shake, you pull your hand out of the empty pocket, maybe you put them somewhere else.
You begin to rifle through your bag, searching incessantly for the one pill bottle that you need so desperately.
It’s not in your bag, three searches confirm that.
Maybe it’s fallen into your locker somewhere?
You pull out your things from the cube, searching desperately for your sweet relief.
This can’t seriously be happening, how the fuck could you have possibly lost them?
“Kid, what are you looking for?”
You ignore Beth’s question, continuing to toss your locker, even though it’s blatantly obvious that they aren’t hiding anywhere, they’re gone.
“Kid, what’s wrong?”
You pivot on your heel to address Beth, but your eyes are glued to Leah’s hands, or more so what Leah has resting in her hands.
The little orange bottle, the sacred fucking bottle.
“This whatcha looking for?”
You try your very hardest not to slip up, not to give it away too much, not when it’s very likely that whatever this is, it’s a test.
“Why have you got my pills?”
You decide to pivot with a question, it seems like the best decision.
“Why are you still on pills?”
Leah’s words are cut throat, they hit you hard.
“Because of my surgery.”
It’s an ominous answer, maybe it’ll save you from the vice captain's anger, maybe it won’t.
“You had surgery four months ago.”
Leah’s words, whilst they are a statement, hold questioning behind them.
“I don’t see how anything between my doctor and myself matters to you, he’s given me a script for medication, one that I use.”
It’s definitely the wrong thing to say, Leah looks offended, Kim looks like she’s about to kill you, Beth and Viv just look sad, Katie and Jen look like they don’t really know what to say.
“It’s not our fucking business? You should have been off pills three months ago, it’s my blood business to know when my teammates are continuing to take drugs way past the point of it being logical.”
Kim’s voice is angry, but not the kind of anger where it’s directed at you, it’s more the kind of angry where she clearly wants answers that you aren’t giving her.
“I don’t know what you want me to tell you, my doctors fill my scripts, beyond that it’s none of your business what I take and don’t take to get through sessions.”
Kim’s face scrunches up, Leah’s looks similar, it’s funny to you sometimes how similarly they captain.
“You haven’t had any complications, you should have been completely pain free months ago, why do you still need pills? Why do you need them so frequently? Don’t think that we all haven’t realised how often you are taking them, you’re going through them like a bag of candies, it’s not healthy.”
Kim’s right, it leaves you a little bit gobsmacked and takes you a little bit to recover from what she’s saying to you.
“I’m playing well, am I not? Beyond how I am playing on the pitch it’s none of your fucking business.”
When you think about it, swearing at Kim was possibly the stupidest thing you could have done, but you suppose there isn’t any coming back from it now.
“It’s not my fucking business? Beyond being your captain I give a shit about your health and mental wellbeing, so when I see one of my best mates and teammates looking like they are fucking addicted then I am allowed to ask questions, questions that you are going to answer or else we will be having a very different conversation, one that includes Jonas and the medical staff and I promise you that it will end with a very different result.”
Kim’s words hit you right in the chest, you force yourself to take a seat, looking at the six women and taking in the guilty look across both Viv, Katie, Beth and Jen’s faces.
“You guys fucking ratted on me, for nothing? I’m not fucking addicted, people who are addicted are frantic and stupid and fucking unhinged. Do you think if I had a pill addiction that I’d be able to play, do you think I’d be able to do half the things we do if I had an addiction, I just need them to get me through the day, to get me through the work outs.”
Your justification is weak, you know that, but you still believe in what you are saying, you don’t have a problem.
Kim’s face deflates, it looks like whatever she is about to say is going to be a lot more emotional and heavy then you are prepared for.
“Kid, you have a problem. How you manage to do it all baffles me, truly, you should not need pills to be getting you through the day, not when you are in recovery, not when your tricep is almost fully healed, Beth and Katie told me about it because they are genuinely worried, I am too. We’re all here for you, whatever you need.”
You shake your head, you don’t need help, you don’t need support, what you need is your fucking pills back.
“Can I have my fucking pills back?”
Leah shoves the bottle into her pocket, you know that you aren’t getting them back but it was worth a try.
“Are you fucking serious?”
It’s apparently Katie’s turn to be the bad cop.
“They fucking belong to me.”
Katie looks absolutely fuming, if it wasn’t for the whole situation you were in you would probably laugh about it.
“Not anymore they don’t, you’ve lost that fucking priviledge. This is how it’s going to go from now on. You’re going to move in with Beth and Viv for now, Lia’s searching your apartment as we speak, you’re done with pills, no more, you’re cut off. You’re going to get a fucking handle on your life and all of this shit or else you’ll be benched and sent to rehab or wherever Jonas thinks is the best place for you to sort out your fucking addiction, because that’s what this is. You can’t survive four hours without slipping some pills, that is seriously fucking concerning and all of us are so fucking worried about you. If you want to continue playing then there are going to be a whole set of rules and conditions because this can’t keep going, it’s unsafe.”
All the other women nod along with Katie’s words, you realised that you are definitely fucked.
“I’m a fucking adult, you guys have no right to be doing this to me, I don’t have a fucking problem.”
Katie rolls her eyes, standing up from her seat to walk over to you.
“Kid I am so sorry none of us realised earlier, maybe if we had it wouldn’t have been so bad, but you have to understand how bad it is, you should not be reliant on drugs that are prescribed to a person after a serious surgery, your attached. Not all addicts are frantic, you definitely aren’t, but that doesn’t change the fact that you have a problem and if you don’t stop it now, you never will. We all want to help you, however you need.”
You don’t really know what to do, everything Katie is saying hits you so hard, you can’t help but let tears fall, they’re wrong, you don’t have a problem, you need the pills, how are you supposed to be okay without them?
“Please, just give me the pills, I’ll do whatever you want, please, I need them, I’ll do anything please just give them back.”
Katie wraps you up in her arms, so tight that you worry about your ability to breathe, it makes everything stop for a few seconds, you forget about the pills, forget about how much internal pain you are struggling with.
“You know I can’t do that kid. How about we get you home? I don’t think you're in the mindset to train, Viv and Beth will leave with you, they’ll take you back to theirs whilst we finish up here for the day and then we’ll all have a chat about it later, okay?”
You pull yourself out of Katie’s arms, your face in a deep frown.
“You don’t understand, I fucking need them, I can’t live without them, what am I supposed to do without them? This is fucking crazy how am I supposed to play when you’re all forcing me to go cold turkey on the one thing that I rely on most.”
Katie’s hands move to your shoulders, planting themselves down firmly on you.
“No you don’t. It’s going to be a hard adjustment but it’s for the best. If we’re right and you are addicted, you’ll go through withdrawals, it’ll suck, but we’ll be here for you through it, we’re here to kick you in the ass but pick you up when you are hurting, we’re here for whatever you need.”
In a split second decision you lunge forward and directly at Leah, the blonde doesn’t expect it, and definitely doesn’t expect you to reach right for the pocket that you’d previously seen Leah push the pills in.
You don’t really know what your plans where for once you’d managed to obtain the bottle, but you knew one thing, you needed those pills and Leah was standing in the way of that.
Within seconds Jen and Kim’s arms were linked around yours, pulling your desperate form off of Leah.
“Please-Fuck please just give them to me, I’ll do whatever you need, please, I need them. I don’t need you guys, you guys don’t give a shit about me, I’m fine, I don’t want our help, just give me the drugs and leave me be, I’ll be fine, I’m always fine, I don’t need you guys. J-Just give me the pills and I’ll leave, I’ll never bother you guys again. ”
Kim managed to tug you completely away from Leah, whilst the older woman is significantly smaller than you, she was far stronger and you stood absolutely no chance against her.
You ragdolled in an attempt to make it harder for Kim, she replied to that by dragging your limp body up onto a seat, resting both of her hands on your soldiers just like Katie had, except for the fact that instead of Kim’s face being one of care and genuity, hers was stern and concerned.
“You don’t get to do this. You do not get to push us away because you want a fucking dose of drugs. We are family, family means so much more than some stupid object and the kid who worked her way here through the academy would have told me the exact same eight months ago. I know you have been through a lot, I know this injury has sucked, I know that you are going through a lot but you can’t push family away. We’re going to be here for you when you are at your biggest high and your lowest low, we are here through thick and thin. I can stand for you breaking down at ever minute of everyday if it means that we can help you, you can hurt us all as much as you want and we will continue to come back because whilst you might think that you are breaking us, you aren’t.”
Kim’s words just send tears running down your face and sobs coming out of your mouth.
Everything from the last hour is barreling directly at you, the realisation that maybe you aren’t as fine as you’ve been telling yourself, even if it feels wrong, you know what they are telling you makes sense, it hurts way more admitting that to yourself though.
Kim removes her arms from your shoulders, reaching for your torso and bringing you into another big hug, it’s suffocatingly painful and you swear that your skin prickles with the contact.
“I’m sorry, fuck, I’m sorry.”
You don’t know what you are sorry for, which probably makes the apology pointless, but it feels like it needs to be said, like you need to make some kind of attempt to recognise your wrongdoing.
“It’s okay kid, we’ve got you, it’s going to be okay, we’re all here for you, let’s get you back to Beth’s, hmm? I think you could do with a good nap and a proper feed. You’ve been working yourself to the bone, it’s time to let yourself rest. Take it from me, this whole routine you have for yourself, the over working, the pills, it’s only so long before you completely burn yourself out and trust a woman who’s been there, that is the last possible thing you could want, especially considering you are so young.”
Kim’s opinion and words are gospel to you, being another midfielder ever since you’d become a part of the arsenal senior team you hung onto every single word that she spoke, so having the Kim Little calling you family, it was something else completely.
“Please, just take me home.”
Kim nods, pulling back from you to reach into your locker to grab your bag before handing it over to Beth who gives you a little smile, it doesn’t quite reach her eyes though, that’s how you know that whatever is happening, it’s not good at all.
You try your hardest to wipe away the tears with the sleeve of your hoodie, but it’s a losing battle, the salty liquid continuing to flow freely down your cheeks.
Viv replaces Kim, her arm flinging itself over your shoulders and shielding you from the outside world.
Without much fuss the couple pulls you out of the locker rooms and as quickly as they can towards the car park and back to the same car you’d arrived in this morning, this time though it’s so much harder, it feels nearly impossible, especially knowing that instead of the normal routine that entails the couple dropping you back to your apartment, this time you are going back to theirs.
Normally, you’re very happy to participate in a dinner or game night with the duet, but you know what going back to Viv and Beth’s means, it means accountability, change, pain, things you aren’t really sure if you’re ready for.
Viv makes the decision to slide into the back seat with you, a constant comfort as you try to navigate exactly what has just happened.
The ride to Viv’s and Beth’s is a blur, Viv drags you out of the backseat and into the elevator, then into their apartment.
You're too lost to do much more than let Viv lead you to the couch dropping Myle into your lap, who is apparently more than happy to cuddle up under the blanket that Beth throws at you.
All you can think about is what your teammates had to say. About the nights where you’d doubled up on pills to mask the mental pain of all the pressure you were taking on of leading a midfield without Kim, about how you felt like you would cripple up and break if you went a day without your pills, about how for the last few months the highlights of your day has been the pills in the bottle instead of the people around you, about how you’ve been finding more happiness in drugs instead of the life you are living, about how your whole life revolves around pain meds which you didn’t even need anymore.
Addicted wasn’t a word you had ever used in a sentence with you and drugs before, but now, it’s all that you can think about.
Addiction.
It had never been a possibility for you, how could you be addicted? Nobody you knew had ever had problems with pills, you’d done countless injuries including pain meds and never had a problem. No injury you’d ever done had such a negative reception though, the fans were fuming, your teammates were stressed, you were pressured. You needed to recover, for the good of everybody, pain meds were the way to get through that so you’d taken them, to fix all of the problems.
That was the reasoning your brain was using, it wasn’t perfect, but it made enough sense.
Beth sat down next to you and you felt at peace enough to meet her eyes.
They were calmer than before, you felt similarly, calmer, less like you were at war with yourself.
“I was so stupid that I didn’t even realise, I thought I was doing fine, I was so fucking stupid.”
Beth takes a deep gulp of air before she says anything, it’s hard to watch somebody who you’ve come to care about so dearly look like they are struggling so heavily to communicate with you.
“You’re not stupid. It’s not your fault. A lot of people enabled this to keep happening and you couldn’t have known better, what matters most is we are here for you now, the sooner before the later.”
You nod along to Beth, bringing a asleep Myle up to your chest and clutching onto him, the puppy is so soft, a big contrast to how you feel at the moment.
“I didn’t want to let everyone down.”
Beth sighs an oh so familiar sigh, the same sigh you heard every single time someone out of the acl crew mentioned how they felt like they were a burden or a problem or like they were letting the team down.
“You could never let any of us down, not really, sure we’re all very worried about you, but shit happens, life fucking happens. Every single day we all struggle, every person on this world, life is a bitch and the worst part is that we have people holding us accountable for it every single day. Fans, social media, teammates, we don’t get a break, even when we need it the very most. As teammates, it's our job to love you no matter what anybody is saying, you are different to every single human on earth, you have different needs, you don’t have to try to be someone you aren’t, we love you best when you try not to. Do not think for a moment that you will ever disappoint us, sure we can be angry and annoyed and disappointed with your actions but never you directly. We all love you no matter what, just be whoever you need to, not who you think everyone needs you too.”
You don’t know what to say, so you chose to say silent for a few seconds, really observing what Beth has just said, the complete honesty behind her words.
“I want to do better for you guys Beth, I don’t want to be reliant on drugs that I don’t need, I just don’t know how to live without them.”
Beth nods, her eyes all glazed and watery.
“Then we’ll help you, we’ll do whatever is necessary to help you, just let us in, let us be there for you.”
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b1ackgh0st · 3 months
Text
Writing as many HCs for Trolls characters as humanly possible!
Starting off strong with the Snack Pack + Poppy & Branch!
♡Poppy♡
She was a later bloomer. Most (pop) trolls have a little bit of tit, but she was flat as Branch's voice at the beginning of the first movie.
Had a toxic best friend at one point. Nobody liked Poppy when she was young, but as soon as she became an adult, she was mote liked than anyone else.
Prefers black coffee over any other kind
Her favorite flavour is strawberry!
Even though she likes almost any flavour, any candy she has that's lemon or watermelon she gives to Branch because he is very addicted.
Speaking of which, she can't stomach spicy food at all and tends to projectile vomit.
Gets sick pretty easily, but won't admit it.
No one knows how she does it, but she can appear almost instantly. Whether it's in Branch's room at midnight or behind anyone in a crowded area, it's alarming.
Not physically violent.
However...
Poppy is deranged AF!
She will verbally and mentally threaten people... and lord it's probably scary.
Too much of a morning person
By that, I mean she wakes up at around 3 am everyday after falling asleep at around 7 pm and starts her daily routine.
Refuses to wear make-up
Has never had acne or anything similar
Most Pop Trolls, Poppy included, have extream hair growth. She has to shave her legs daily.
Has literally no skincare routine
Unfortunately, she has to make her own shampoo because anything she can find in shops doesn't work and just causes dead ends and very greasy hair.
Very fidgety ADHD-er
□Branch□
Branch has the most excessive skincare routine ever
Wears A LOT of makeup to hide scars and stuff
Breaks out really easily
Autistic! Not Yay!
Or maybe it is Yay
Anyways, he had problems with bright lights, loud sounds, being close to other people, some kinds fo texture, and some scents
Has around seventy homemade candles around the bunker, all scented slightly different.
Most of them smell like citrus
Sucks at making coffee at home, therefore his coffee orders are pretty specific.
Despite going back onto society, he's still a feral troll.
Which means that, while pop trolls are omnivores who need lots of plants and sweets in their diet, Branch's diet is almost exclusively meat, sweets, and breads.
Has bitten Poppy before. (It was an accident, I promise. No trolls were harmed.)
While he may not overreact on safty stuff or the Bergens anymore, he' started overreacting to everything else.
Oh, Guy tripped and scraped his knee? GET HIM TO THE DOCTOR HE'S DYING!
Mr. Dinkles is lost again? HE COULD BE ANYWHERE WE'LL NEVER MIND HIM!
Yeah.
Insomniac, unfortunately.
Biggie!!
Eats bugs. (Small stuff like ants)
Also kind of deranged.
Or he had some undiagnosed mental stuff
Prefers tea
Also has ADHD
I ddont really have much since he's pretty perfect when it comes to the movies and his character-
SMIDGE
Oldest in the gang, actually
She's thirty-eight, and witness Poppy hatching UP CLOSE
Poppy kind of sees her as a mother figure, mostly because Poppy never had a mother.
Smidge tried to have a kid once (yes, it was Milton's.), but it was a miscarriage
Her short stature and abnormal strength is actually a very rare genetic phenomenon
She used to have a really smooth, "feminine" voice,but after years of working out and screaming at the top of her lungs, her voice is scratchy now
Wants to do speech therapy to try and get her old voice back, but... well, Pop Village doesn't have stuff like that.
Has low self-esteem
Has been married to Milton for about a year (By the end of TBT)
Only drinks energy drinks, always Cherry flavour. (Or something similar)
Just a little crazy, but aren't we all?
The reason she's so close to Poppy is because right before the tunnel thing to get away from the Bergens, she worked with Peppy.
Won't continue with that.
Enjoys playfully bullying Suki because she's the only one who doesn't take it seriously.
Guy Diamond ◇
Oh man
Did NOT get enough attention as a kid
His parents were either too busy, and were both taken while running through the tunnels
Sky Toronto (From TBGO and Trollstopia) is his uncle, but neither of them know that
The only clothes he'd ever wear would be a scarf and leg warmers, maybe gloves.
Either he just dislikes it or he's genuinely afraid of it, he won't drink alcohol.
Secretly likes to eat things that aren't really edible
Also, scroll past this if you wanna because imma explain how it's not awkward that the glitter trolls are almost all naked.
So, since Glitter trolls are a subspecies, one which probably derived from a tribe long ago, their anatomy is a little different
They have protective slits that hide their genitals until needed
Essentially, the glitter trolls that have dicks.. their disks are hidden kn that slit, and will start to come out when said glitter troll is aroused.
For the one that don't, the slit will just start to open on it's own
Having a cock or not doesn't decide the gender of a Pop Troll, BTW!!
Cooper & Darnell
Darnell yassified him.
He ended up with silver tattoos on one arm, multiple silver bracelets, necklaces, and earrings, and silver dread cuffs
C & D spend a lot of time together
C had a hard time deciding, but ultimately chose to stay woth the Funk Tribe and his family rather than with the Pop Trolls
He stolll visits them <3
I'll make more later, dw.
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