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whythinktoomuch · 3 years

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attempt #37

This was the 52nd formula that Lena had come up with, the 45th solution that she had to wait several hours to synthesize, but only the 37th time she was injecting her shoulder with the resulting concoction.

It was bright green this time, which only made it seem all the more promising.

There’s a rush and some mild nausea that Lena had come to expect with the experiments, but everything else felt the same. For now. Setting the syringe aside, Lena called out, “Hope, think of a number between one and a million.”

Then, for the 37th time, Lena tried. She cleared her own mind, practiced the meditative mantras, stared intently into Eve’s eyes, bright blue yet blank with Hope’s quiet disinterest, and... nothing. Not a single digit came to mind.

No matter how hard Lena tried, the only thoughts in her head were her own.

With an exasperated sigh, Lena rolled her sleeve back down and directed Hope to log their latest attempt as yet another failure before storming off to start her day.

Lena emerged from the laboratory with wrinkled clothes and dark circles sunken around her eyes, which was probably why the first thing she heard as she stepped out of the elevator was her personal assistant’s hushed commentary of, Oh sweet Jesus, she looks tired.

“Oh, I’m well aware, Hector,” Lena said, lofty and without much malice. “Nothing a little coffee can’t fix though.”

Hector stared at her blankly. “I’m sorry, Miss Luthor?”

“Never mind,” Lena said, rolling her eyes. She took the outstretched coffee in question as she walked by the assistant’s desk. “Just hold all my calls until the afternoon, please.”

This time, when Hector grumbled under his breath about wow, she must be grumpy too, Lena ignored it. There were better things for the CEO to tackle, after all; as for example, some fitful sleep on her couch, perhaps?

Hours later, Lena was relatively well-rested, so she pored over her notes again, trying to pinpoint the exact variable she must have overlooked in her carelessness. Because by all accounts, the formula should have worked—Lena had been certain of it. But then again, she’d admittedly thought that of almost every attempt thus far.

When Hector walked into her office at some point in the late afternoon with a handful of contracts to be signed, Lena felt no closer to the solution and a slight headache coming on.

“Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“Another coffee would be great,” Lena said, as she sifted through the documents.

“Oh my God, if she takes in any more caffeine, her heart’s going to literally explode...” Hector muttered to himself. “Well, maybe she won’t notice if I get her decaf instead...?”

Lena dropped the papers onto her desk with a scoff. “You know I can hear you, right?”

Hector appeared startled, which seemed rather appropriate until he slowly said, “So... was that a yes on the espresso?”

“What?”

Hector maintained his slow cadence, carefully enunciating every syllable as if he were repeating himself, “Did you want to stick with your usual order... or maybe go with an espresso... because it’s a little stronger?”

But in a normal cadence, also in Hector’s voice and somehow clear as a bell in Lena’s head came, “If this woman doesn’t get another nap in pronto, she is going to drop dead, and everyone’s going to think I poisoned her coffee, because she’s always in—”

Absolutely stunned, Lena continued to stare up at Hector in silence, eyes narrowing as the assistant’s slightly panicked voice droned on and on in her head. Until a louder remark broke through the reverie.

“Whoa, did she just fall asleep with her eyes open?”

Lena blinked quite obviously, and her mild shock was accompanied with a loud and clear, yet unspoken Oh, thank God! from Hector.

But the Hector standing before her hadn’t moved his lips once, only watching the bewilderment play out on Lena’s face with some polite concern.

“The usual’s fine,” Lena interjected before her assistant could press again. “Or the espresso, or whatever. I don’t care, as long as it’s still hot and caffeinated.”

“You got it,” Hector said.

“Definitely getting her decaf,” Hector thought as he turned to leave, but Lena hardly minded. She was too busy restructuring the rest of her day around this most exciting realization.

After some quick bit of arithmetic in her head, Lena set a timer on her watch for five hours, which was presumably the amount of time it would take for her body to break down the serum and render it useless. Then she logged on to her private interface and happily directed Hope to re-record attempt #37 as a success.

The ability to read minds was, quite simply, quite the advantage.

Though it wasn’t so much “mind-reading,” as mind-receiving. The serum seemed to have granted Lena access to the loud and active thought processes of everyone around her—their inner monologue, if you will, everything put into words but left unsaid.

Lena had been hoping for more, to be able to break into other people’s minds so as to hack secrets, determine why supposed close friends would ever betray her, and the like. Maybe that would come with time and practice.

But as it turned out, there was rather plenty to be gleaned from the forefront of someone’s mind, as people often thought about the things they weren’t supposed to say before choosing more palatable means of expression. Which made the rest of Lena’s workday somewhat informative, if not a little fun.

For one thing, Lena found out that a lot more of her employees enjoyed working for her than she had thought. All of them respected her, several feared her, and quite a fair few entertained invasive thoughts about her décolletage before swiftly directing their attention elsewhere.

She also found out there was one board member in particular who liked to fudge the numbers during meetings, and that his face took on a very unappealing shade of off-white when Lena could inexplicably confront him with the actual results of his findings.

But most importantly of all, what Lena found out was that... she actually enjoyed this heretofore inaccessible sense of control this ability afforded her. She had taken on the experiments for a very specific purpose, but now, it was difficult to even imagine going back to how things were, even after the fact.

Lena walked into the DEO, and for the first time, the outpouring of distrust attached to the Luthor name was all but imagined. The disparaging thoughts followed her, even as the people who had them smiled or averted their eyes as she passed.

Nothing she wasn’t used to though.

Alex’s voice slid into Lena’s head in a whisper—... the hell?—one whole minute before she actually greeted her, “Lena, hey... Well, can’t say that I was expecting you.”

“Yes, that’s what it sounds like,” Lena mused, and Alex gave her a slight frown.

“So, did you need something?”

“Where’s Kara? I want to talk to her.”

Alex’s carefully composed face betrayed no emotion, but her thoughts sighed heavily, “Of course...” before ebbing away into something entirely indistinct and indecipherable.

Lena blinked. She hadn’t encountered anyone whose thoughts weren’t immediately accessible to her before. But here Alex was, giving directions to Kara’s current whereabouts, all the while muttering some underlying commentary in tones so hushed that Lena couldn’t quite make out any of it.

“... Is there something on my face?” Alex swiped her sleeve across her forehead. “What are you looking at?”

“What? No, nothing,” Lena said brusquely. “Thank you for telling me where Kara is. Bye.” She turned on her heel, headed for the hallway that would eventually lead to the training room.

“Well, that was weird...” Alex’s voice drifted after her, a literal afterthought. “But I mean, I guess she has a nice ass, so—”

Lena shot a dirty look over her shoulder, but Alex was already back on her computer, mind rattling off coordinates and running through tactical drills like a well-oiled machine.

Kara was wearing short shorts and a sports bra, panting, and absolutely drenched in sweat when Lena stepped foot into the training room. She looked over at Lena, her skin glistening against the dimmed green of the kryptonite-lined walls, and smiled wide.

“Oh, hey! What are you doing here?” Kara asked, giving the punching bag one last jab before tugging her gloves off. "Did something happen or...? I mean, not that I’m not happy to see you, of course.” She flashed Lena another bright grin before pressing a towel to her face and neck and chest.

It was enough to stop Lena in her tracks, and almost enough to put a damper on her plans. Almost.

“I need to talk to you,” Lena said evenly, eyes glued firmly to Kara’s forehead.

“Yeah, sure! Jeez... I’d give you a hug, but I’m like sweating in places I didn’t even know existed. Alex says that this is the only way to learn proper form and all, but wow. I can’t believe there are humans who actually do this for fun—”

“Kara,” Lena cut in, lips pursing in exasperation. “I’m serious. We need to talk right now.”

Kara blinked, then slowly nodded. “Okay, yeah, let’s talk... You wanna sit down?”

“I prefer to be standing.”

“Okay.” Kara remained standing as well, towel now crumpled in her hands. “So, what’s going on?”

Lena took a deep breath, quickly running through the meditative techniques meant to keep her mind clear and open, then asked, “Why did it take you so long to tell me that you’re Supergirl?”

Kara’s shoulders slumped. “Lena, I...”

“No, why did it take three years? Why didn’t you trust me?” Lena continued, her pace steady and firm just like she had practiced. “I trusted you. I trusted you with every part of me, which is extremely difficult for me to do, and you just... didn’t care, I guess.”

“Of course, I care. Lena... I never meant to hurt you,” Kara said insistently. Her voice was loud, emphatic, and at the moment, the only thing Lena could hear.

“Don’t!” Lena snapped when Kara started to approach her. “Don’t come any closer. And stop talking! Just listen.”

Kara exhaled sharply through her nose and raised her hands in tentative surrender in absolute, utter silence. Lena even paused for a beat or two, just to see if any of Kara’s thoughts would breach the surface, but none did.

“Why couldn’t you just trust me, Kara?” Lena asked, and regrettably her voice trembled on the last syllable. “Why did I have to hear it from Lex?”

Kara’s eyes widened. “Lex? Lex told you before I did?”

“Shut up. Do not talk,” Lena hissed out, waiting for Kara to snap her jaw shut before continuing with a bitter laugh, “Do you, do you even trust me now...?” Kara stared, gaze hardening. “And how do you expect me to trust anything you have to say for yourself now?”

Lena’s questions—all of the above and beyond—were met with silence, strained only by the sound of Kara’s heavy breath and Lena’s own thoughts.

Scoffing, Lena threw up her hands. “Do you even care that you hurt me?”

“... Can I talk now?” Kara demanded, seething like she had any right to it. But when Lena shook her head furiously, she held her tongue and apparently everything else as well, because Lena couldn’t hear a single damn thing.

When the alarm on her watch went off, Lena left, slamming the door on her way out. She contacted Hope through their private channel and had her re-log attempt #37 as just another failure.

Back to the fucking drawing board.

(next part here)

#who's ready for attempt 38 n' 39?#and did i honestly start another ficlet series when i already have so many ongoing?#WACK!#also wtf; why is this 2k words...?#my words.

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jonspurpleskirt · 3 years

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An Unlikely Befriending

Summary: Jon gets kidnapped. Jon gets bored. And Jon makes very unlikely friends because of it. Aka: Pen and Paper saves the day (world) and Jon finally gets to have a band. A/N: This is pure fluff, no warnings apply I think. ___

The worst thing about being kidnapped by a crazy mannequin murder clown monstrousity and sitting in a cold, room with creepy wax works, tied to a chair was not the ever present terror. True the fear of Nikola finally deeming his skin good enough and skinning him alive was quite potent, but it wasn't as bad as boredom.

Jon had never taken well to waiting. His mind needed to be occupied 24/7, needed something to latch onto, to obsess about. It's why he became a researcher in the first place. Having most of his freedom taken from him made occupying himself very hard.

At least they still let him eat and drink here and there. Nikola always visited personally, her overly cheery voice bubbling forth as she chattered away while slathering him with lotion or shoving bits of take out food in his mouth. His diet those last two weeks had been very varied and healthy and he had never drank so much water before.

He still probably looked a mess, what with no access to a shower and barely being able to sleep at all. And the constant terror. Oh yeah and the boredom.

Oh the boredom.

Jon was currently sitting in his chair as he was wont to do. Thankfully not nailed down despite all the nagging from Sarah Baldwin. The coffin was singing or moaning with a slight melody behind it, depending on who you asked. And somehow Jon found himself humming along, trying to find a good melody to go with the haunting tune. It wasn't like he had anything better to do and if he didn't start doing something creative his mind would start eating itself soon.

So he hummed, experimenting with the notes, twisting them into something that was reminiscent of circus music and airships. And then he kept humming the melody over and over, forming words in his mind to go with the tune. Once the spark was lit a fire started to burn, the story branching out and out into a twirling mass of chaos and fire.

He had gotten lost in his imagination, hadn't noticed how loud he had become, hadn't heard Nikola approach. Jon screeched when she leant down over him and grinned at him upside down, nose nearly touching his.

Nikola had the gall to laugh at him, no breath fanning over his face as she did so.

"Awww Archivist! I didn't know you had such a nice voice!"

"Hrmph."

"Yes your singing was also quite good!" She straightened herself, back cracking in several places. Striding around his chair she towered over him, tattered, bloody ringmaster uniform filling his field of vision.

"I'm glad you feel comfortable enough to sing, of course! And the broken repeat is lovely."

"Hm."

"Anyway water time!"

With gleeful cackling she ripped the tape from his mouth, amused enough to not immediately shove the bottle between his teeth.

"There are words to it, too." Jon rushed to say, not exactly sure why. What was he offering her here? A solo performance?

"Oh?" she at least didn't tape his mouth shut again. For now.

After waiting several beats where both stared at each other and nothing else happened Jon dared to speak up again.

"I ah... well I wrote it myself? Not wrote, of course. My hands are tied at the moment-" He was rambling. Nikola had given him the freedom of speech and he was off like a shot, telling her everything about what he had been thinking about before she had interrupted his impromptu jamming session, terror completely terminating his brain to mouth filter.

Nikola, for her part, took it all in stride. She even settled on the floor in front of him, blinking every now and then to indicate that she was still present.

"It's such a shame." she finally spoke, holding the water bottle to his mouth, letting him drink of his own volution for once. "You would have made a perfect piece for the choir. Hm maybe what will be left of you will do."

"I could sing for you now." Jon offered as soon as his mouth was free again.

Nikola startled at the offer and Jon just shrugged as much as he was able to. He'd rather sing to a creepy murder doll than spend one minute longer alone and bored out of his mind. And if he could delay the Unknowing (and the violent removal of his skin) by keeping Nikola entertained than even better.

That sounded like he almost had a plan. Which was untrue. He only had a very strong desire for entertainment.

"No sneaky questions." Nikola warned.

"Promise. I can't guarantee good quality rhymes, though. I'm still workshopping."

Singing out loud what had been in his head was always an awkward affair. He had wanted to start a band with Georgie in uni. But it was exactly because of this that he had never bothered.

"That was fun!" Nikola screamed after he was finished nontheless. Clapping her hands in delight, which created a horrible cracking noise.

"I'm glad? I also DM."

She tilted her head at him. "What's that?"

Jon explained the concept of pen and paper games to her while she rubbed lotion into his skin and had her hooked immediately.

Later that day (or maybe the next day, really Jon had no concept of time anymore) Jon was for the first time allowed out of his chair, carefully rubbing circulation back into his hands. Nikola had only briefly left him alone after watering and lotioning him. They had hashed out what kind of world and system they wanted to use (a horror setting, of course) and then Nikola was off and dragging Breekon and Hope back into the room so they had enough people to play.

Either Breekon or Hope sat down behind Jon, large hands lightly clasping his arms, squeezing every once in a while to remind him that should he try and escape he would only end up in pain.

Jon shifted awkwardly in the grip, unused to gentleness even if it was supposed to be threatening.

"Alright. First, character creation. Who do you guys want to play?"

It became a daily thing. The three beings in his group quickly became addicted to his story telling and to the characters they were allowed to play. Nikola tore through characters, trying on different personalities like pieces of clothing. She had a beautiful eery singing voice, Jon was surprised to find out when she had decided to play a member of a steampunk band.

Breekon and Hope were less manic, too attached to their twins to play anyone else. They changed voices and accents every session, though. Jon deigned to ignore their shenanigans, scared to make them angry. He hadn't had this much fun in ages, he didn't want to loose that.

The two delivery men took turns holding him down while they played, Hope holding onto his arms and Breekon using him like a child would a Teddy bear.

Eventually the three lingered after their sessions had ended, the ropes that tied him to his chair less tight. Jon tried to keep the conversations casual, to not ask all the questions that burned at the tip of his tongue. He found that he didn't need to. Tongue loose from goofing around Nikola was often chatty, Breekon and Hope throwing in their two cents every once in a while.

Eventually the topic about Tims younger brother came up.

"Danny Stoker? Grimauldi skinned him? Hm..." Nikolas head nearly dislodged as she stared at the ceiling in thought. "Noooo." She giggled. "We didn't skin anyone that night, silly! We were scoping out locations for the dance! Danny's little group stumbled into us and got a little confused~"

"But Tim saw Grimauldi rip Dannys skin off of a puppet."

Nikola shrugged. "An illusion. We're good at making you people see things that aren't really there. Yet."

"So Danny is alive?"

"I believe so!~ If he didn't die in a ditch somewhere."

Jon was very careful to keep his voice as soft as possible with the next question. "Could you find him again and bring him to the Institute? To Tim and... I don't know... maybe that's a stupid idea given that he can't be sure it's really him..."

"If I track him down do I get inspiration for my character next session?"

"That's cheating." Breekon complained under his breath behind Jon.

"I... yes?"

Nikola grinned. "Wonderful! I see what I can do!"

Days went by like that, Nikola or Breekon or Hope updating him on Dannys search, which had turned out to be harder than they had thought. Well at least Jon was keeping them busy.

They were in the middle of racing a burning train into the central bank of London when a door creaked behind Jon, bathing the room in technicolour and spiral shapes.

"That is not what I thought I'd find here." A voice that wavered between confused and gleeful mused.

Jon twisted in the grip Breekon had on him. "Hello Michael."

"Hello Archivist. You've found yourself in an interesting situation." The grin Michael shot him was a knife glinting in the light before striking.

"Yes. Why are you here?"

Nikola had let him practice after Jon had explained his lack of training, much more lax with her hostage now that he fed her fascinating stories of blood and gore. So there was no trace of compulsion in his voice when he asked the question.

Michael answered truthfully anyway. "I came to kill you of course!"

"I have dips on that!" Nikola said, voice pleasant and grin feral.

"I'm sorry about that. Would you like to join the game instead?"

Michael stared at him as though he had grown mad. Impressed, curious and lightly terrified. Then it laughed that horrible, headache inducing laugh.

"There's a lot of lies and delusion." Jon coaxed, heart beating out of his chest with nerves.

"He's a good storyteller." Hope added, Nikola and Breekon nodding along.

"Hm alright. I guess I can play for a bit."

It didn't stay just for a bit. Michael stayed through the finale of the story and then demanded to start another, their little ragtag group of definitely not heroes causing more chaos than any other player group Jon had ever DMed before. And that was saying something. Hours upon hours passed, Michael disappearing and reappearing to get Jon coffee and tea to keep his voice from giving out.

In the middle of it all Michael began twitching and twisting, glitching in and out of sight before slumping to the ground with a groan, form for once near comprehensible. Another door opened and out walked Helen looking down at the Distortion in disappointment.

"Oh that didn't destroy you. Shame."

"Helen?"

"Hello Jon! I was coming to rescue you given that Michael got a little distracted. Do you want to come to the archives with me?"

Honestly Jon should have been shocked, probably angry. He was definitely sad. And yet the most he felt was just an overwhelming sense of whelp.

Jon vaguely gestured towards Nikola, as much as Breekons hold allowed him to. "Ask her."

"We're not done yet."

"Later then?"

Nikola considered Jon for a long moment, both staring unblinking at each other. "Give us an hour."

To Jons great surprise Helen just nodded and delicately sat on the chair Jon usually frequented in his "freetime" all prim and proper except for the long sharp fingers curling at the edges like corkscrews.

"Now where were we?"

Michael groaned from the floor for once not smiling. Jon felt a twinge of sympathy for him.

"Are you alright?"

"Been better. Been worse. Let's burn this village down!"

There was no end to the tale they had been playing, not with just one session of playtime. Jon felt a bit bad about that, especially because he had left it at a cliffhanger. No one seemed to be angry at him for it, though. Michael had recovered fast and was again his usual ominous cheery, albeit lightly aggressive self. He poked and prodded at Helen like a curious cat while Nikola massaged lotion into Jons skin for the last time and handed him several expensive looking bottles, rattling down a step by step skin care routine he was to follow to the t or else she would break into his house and do it herself.

Hope patted him on the head. "See you around, Archivist."

"You're really letting me go? Just like that?" Jon still couldn't believe it.

Nikola shrugged. "I found another option. And I'd like to keep doing this after the Unknowing."

"Will that be even possible?"

The grin he got from was not at all reassuring. "I don't know~"

Well that was probably the best he would get from her. Jon gave a hesitant tiny wave and, flanked by both Michael and Helen stepped through their door.

Back at the archive no one had even questioned his disappearance. A fact that made Michael and Helen laugh, even though they both refused to leave as Tim, Melanie and Basira questioned him about his whereabouts.

Martin was the only one who took Jons forced vacation in stride. Maybe he even was a little too happy about a group of mannequins harassing him to take better care of himself.

"You're not compromised now, are you?" Basira asked when Jon had settled back into his office after a long shower.

"No? Because I still don't want the world to end?"

"Good."

Somehow Jon knew that she would still keep an eye on him from now on.

~~~

When the day came to blow up the ritual site Jon hadn't slept a wink in three nights and was overcome by guilt. Despite how aweful his initial time at the circus had been and despite him knowing what horrible things Nikola and her kin did in their freetime, Jon still felt bad about probably killing her.

He tried to rationalize his feelings away, connecting his rising anxiety with the fact that Danny still hadn't been found. It was a flimsy denial.

Tim stayed by his side the whole time, resolute in his burning desire for vengeance. Jon was scared that he would loose him to this, too. Had confessed as much to Michael and Helen, who had taken to keeping at least one door manifested somewhere in the tunnels at all times. The two had started to get along well after some initial disagreement. The Spiral, split as it was between the two of them, was weaker in its influence now, leaving more of Michael Shelley and Helen Richardson to make decisions.

They weren't here now. Daisy, Basira and Tim were, setting up explosives and arguing about rescuing people that were already long dead.

And then Nikola appeared and the dance started and nothing made sense anymore.

Jon woke up six months later, Georgie calling him a monster and Basira giving him a statement to "eat" catching him up on everything he had missed. Tim had miraculously survived, having been dragged through a door by either Helen or Michael. Daisy and Basira had encountered Breekon and Hope, who had argued about what they should do with "Jons feral friends" and in the end had led them savely out of the building before it could go boom, muttering about possible inspiration points.

The only one who hadn't been saved was Jon. He tried not to feel too hurt about that.

Coming back to work was as anti climatic as it had been after the kidnapping. The only one who seemed happy to see him was Martin. He had apologized profusely for the hug and promptly stopped doing so when Jon dashed forward and back into Martins warm embrace, finally breaking down.

He had been too caught up in his crying to make a note of the little kiss Martin pressed into his hair.

They all were a little lost after averting the apocalypse, normal everyday life eluding them. Elias might have been out of the picture for the moment, but Peter Lukas had taken over and fighting against the isolation was taking its toll on everyone.

They were all huddled in the breakroom, faces grim and stewing in silence so as to not break into an arguement when they got their delivery.

Breekon and Hope stepped into the small space with their usual nonchalance dragging a scared young man between them, who had a lot of resemblance to Tim.

"Delivery for Jonathan Sims. Nikola says hi."

Tim was the first one up. "No... No no nononononono that can't be. He's dead. Jon. Jon tell me is that really him?!"

Jon looked at the scared man, who had his gaze locked on Tim, recognition slowly dawning on his face. He Looked and he Knew.

"Yes. No one was killed the night Danny disappeared. His group encountered Nikola and her troupe during a rehearsal, got confused and then lost. And was lost ever since. Nikola told me of this. She promised to find him for me, for you."

That was all Tim needed to rush forward, catching his brother in his arms and hugging him close. "Danny!"

Danny clung back just as tightly, awareness barely back. Still obviously shaken and confused.

Jon smiled at the two delivery men. "Thank you. Will he... will he be alright."

Hope shrugged. "Dunno. Nikola said to make him remember bit by bit. Been not Danny for a long time. Might need to get used to it again."

"We'll take it slow." Tim promised, silent tears streaming down his face.

"Good luck. Hey Archivist, do we get inspiration, too?"

Jon laughed, incredulous. The others in the room watched the exchange with varying degress of exasperation and outrage.

"You know what? Yes. Yes you have. And I'll give you all advantage on your rolls next session. Only that one session, though! Same for Nikola. How is she, by the way?"

Breekon made a so-so sign. "Restless. We've waited over six months to find out what happens after that cliffhanger you gave us."

"Right." He still couldn't believe it. "Tonight 8 o'clock, my flat?"

Twin grins, the most excited he had ever seen them. "See you then, Archivist."

Tim was still gently hushing his brother, rocking back and forth on his feet to try and calm him down a little. And he still had tears streaming down his face, looking like an absolute wreck. But he still managed to join the unimpressed stares that were thrown his way by everyone but Martin, who at this point had just started to roll with the punches.

"You really befriended the clown club and made them rescue literally all of us?" Basira asked in a deadpan voice.

"I kind of feel cheap now." Daisy muttered. "As though those clowns let us win."

"Look, what can I say? Pen and Paper games are fun. I can't blame them. And Nikola did want to start a band."

"Oh my god." Melanie groaned, her head thunking onto the table. "I can't believe it."

"A band?" Basira asked, suddenly much more alert. They really had gotten quite desensitized to the whole monster thing, hadn't they? "What, you can sing?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. But really. Shouldn't we... I mean shouldn't we focus on Danny? There's a cot-"

"I know." Tim interrupted. "We all know there's a cot. I'll take him home, you keep talking about your weird band plans. Monster boss? We talk later, but... thank you."

Silence reigned long enough to follow Tim out of the Institute before Martin piped up, cheeks reddening before he had even opened his mouth. "Could we... Could we have a taste?"

"A taste? Of what? My voice?"

"Hold up, if Sims is going to sing I'll have to record it." Melanie tapped on her phone and held it into the room as one would do a microphone. "Alright go."

Jon sighed, what he didn't do to keep up the group morale.

"Aww shit." Was Basiras conclusion when he was done. "What kind of music were you thinking of playing?"

"Steampunk."

"Count me in."

~~~

Today had been weird, Jon thought, mind reeling from the whiplash of... kindness? That had happened after the delivery of one Danny Stoker. Granted the last month, no

year

had been weird. But this had topped it all. At least it had been a nice weird.

Jon had nearly forgotten about his appointment with a certain group of Strangers when he got back to his flat, overworked, hungry and still processing. So he should be forgiven for the scream he let out when he saw three large figures huddling on his too small couch.

"You haven't been taking care of your skin at all!"

There was no time to duck away from the cold, hard hands that fluttered all over his body. Nikola squished his cheeks like a proper grandmother, clearly unhappy about their elasticity.

"I was in a coma for six months."

"And awake for a few weeks now." A cheerful male voice said from behind him, bringing the smell of pizza with it.

"We were there he didn't take care of himself at all!" Helen added, putting down several cans of soda and what looked to be instant coffee.

"You're horrible!" Nikola wailed, manhandling him until he was squished between Breekon and Hope. "All my beautiful work! Ruined!"

"Uh... sorry?"

"You can make it up to us with weekly sessions." Michael suggested with a grin.

"Both on Saturday and Sunday!" Helen added.

"I actually planned for Sunday to be band day." Jon lied. "Basira wants to join, by the way."

They were all settled around the small coffee table now, food and drink on the floor so they had enough place to roll their dice.

"Wonderful! What did you think we'd name it?"

Jon tilted his head given the illusion of thinking it over even though he had known what to name his band since highschool.

"The Mechanisms."

#tma #jonathan sims #nikola orsinov #breekon and hope #michael the distortion #helen the distortion #kidnapping #fun times #humor #fluff #fanfiction #my writing #everyone lives cause i said so #even danny #enemies to friends

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onpointedfeetandbrokendreams · 5 years

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Happy Holidays @zenzenzence !! I was your Secret Santa for @voltronsecretsanta2k18 ! I hope you’ll like this <3

Rating: G

Summary: After the War is over, everyone has moved on with their life, found a job helping the Universe maintain its newfound peace. Pidge works as a scientist on Earth with her family and loves her job more than anything, but there is just one little thing missing.

Tags: Friends to Lovers, Post-canon, Canon Divergence, Spoiler Free, No Warnings Apply.

The cafeteria was almost empty. It was late at night but Pidge had lost the notion of time experimenting with some new crystals the Alteans had brought during their last visit to Earth. She sighed, moving the spoon aimlessly in the now cold bowl of soup. Things were simpler now that the War was over, they weren’t threatened by some new Galra at any given moment, they weren’t constantly fighting or running, but they were also lonelier. Everyone was doing their best to make sure peace was maintained everywhere. Allura, Romelle and Coran traveled around the Galaxies offering their help when needed, sometimes joined by Krolia and her Blades. Hunk had moved to Balmera, to work as an ambassador and be with his girlfriend Shay. He visited quite often but it was not the same. As for Keith, Lance and Shiro, they were living the dream of their life, working as pilots for the now intergalactic Galaxy Garrison. Which left her on Earth with her family. She was a scientist, and she loved her job more than anything, but sometimes, just sometimes, she thought back to when it was just the seven of them in the Castle of Lions, running away from Zarkon, discovering new alien civilizations and technologies. It was scary, true, but there were also the laughs, the friendships, the bond that only sharing such an intense experience can create.

“See? We are safely back! Told you that bringing an alien with us was the best way to be sure not to be abducted,” a loud boisterous voice interrupted her musings.

“Ugh, you made this joke at least two hundred times in the past months. Shiro, please, end my misery and kill me, or take him away from me. I don’t want to see him for at least one year now!” Another voice replied.

Shiro. The name made a spark of something light and warm crackle in her chest. She turned and saw the three pilots walking slowly along the corridor, still in their armors, with tired expressions, ruffled hair and their helmets in their hands.

“Keithy boy, you wound me. I thought we were pals! Buddies?” The first voice replied.

Lance.

They were back.

She didn’t realize she was running towards the door, until she collapsed face first into the glass it was made of with a thump.

“Pidge? Oh my god, is that you?” Lance said peeking from the other side. “You are taller!”

“Seriously, Lance? You haven’t seen her in ages and the thing you go with is ‘you are taller’?” Keith teased and moved to open the door to help her. When she confirmed she was okay, her attention returned to the three of them.

“Hey!” She said awkwardly, trying to tame the embarrassment of her entrance. “How are you guys? How was the mission?”

“We are fine, thank you Pidge, it’s good to see you!” Shiro replied, opening his arms for a hug. She happily went and let the contact linger before turning to offer the same greeting to the others. She had just been thinking about how much she had missed them.

“Now I’d better go and separate these two before they give me another headache with their bickering,” Shiro continued. “Seriously, how could I think it was a good idea to choose them for the same team.”

Pidge chuckled. “Don’t even try that, Shiro, I know you love them.”

“Yeah, I really do…” Shiro said, squeezing both Keith and Lance with his arms as they squeaked. “But after eight long months alone with them, I need a vacation. Or ten. Keith, let’s go, come on. Say hi.”

“And don’t forget our date tomorrow, Keithy,” Lance called with a wink as the two began to walk away, waving at them.

Keith groaned but nodded and gave him a thumbs up before turning away.

“You two are exactly the same,” Pidge commented, shaking her head.

Lance smiled fondly. “You don’t change a winning team. And he is a very good friend, I know he doesn’t mean it when he says that he wants to kill me... Probably.” He shrugged. “By the way, what are you doing here? My sense of time might be a bit fuzzy right now but isn’t it a bit late to be at work?

“I got caught up finishing an experiment, I was just eating something at the cafeteria before I go home.” Then, more hushed, she added. “But I’m glad I got to see you.”

She blushed, looking away and hoping he didn’t hear.

“CAFETERIA! What a magic word!” He raised his hands, eyes so wide and shining he looked right out of a comic book. “Oh yes, please, Earth food!”

With a relieved breath, Pidge laughed at his antics. “Don’t you want to have a shower? Or go home?”

“Yes but, REAL FOOD,” Lance replied.

“Ok, fine, come, you can use my card.”

“You are a real angel, Pidge.”

“Yes, yes, whatever.”

They went back to Pidge’s table and Lance jumped from one foot to the other, looking at the admittedly not so small selection the place offered, the Garrison had an amazing cafeteria when compared to other workplaces. Pidge couldn’t help but smile to herself despite knowing she would regret giving him free access to her meal card as she threw away the forgotten soup and waited for him to order.

He came back carrying three full trays of food. Pasta, sandwiches, salad, fries and at least three different cakes. Pidge gave him a pointed look, raising an eyebrow to which he retorted, almost looking offended, “Eight months, Pidge. Don’t you remember how awful the food goo was?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

He rubbed his hands and began to stuff his mouth with the content of the first tray, asking between mouthfuls if Pidge wanted to taste anything.

At first, she refused, too amused by the content expression he was wearing while savoring each dish, then she remembered she was technically paying for all of that and joined in.

“So, anything interesting happened while I was away?” Lance asked, laying back on his chair and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, signaling he wasn’t asking about work or politics.

Pidge huffed. “Not really… I mean, Hunk will probably ask Shay to marry him before the end of the year but it was kind of expected… Other than that, I don’t really know much about the others. The last time Allura visited, it was only to ask us to run some tests on these crystals they found.”

She looked away, trying not to flinch at the mention of Allura’s name. It was probably the one he was most interested in hearing but it never stopped stinging a bit.

“Oh, yeah, we met them at a Marmoran base a couple of quintants ago, Coran was so excited about those.” He leaned on his hand over the table to meet her eyes. “What about you?”

“Me? Well, there’s not much to say, I’m a workaholic, I don’t really have time to go out.”

“And you tell me that I haven’t changed a bit,” Lance shook his head with a small smile on his lips. “Well then, to pay you back for this dinner, I will take you out before I leave for my next mission. You need to take breaks sometimes, it’s important for your skin. And your health in general, of course.”

“Hm… Okay?” She replied, not completely sure this was a good idea. But she knew how stubborn Lance was and there was no way she could avoid something he had set his mind to.

“Good!” He commented, louder than was necessary in the little space between them, he was probably starting to feel the exhaustion for the mission. “I am busy tomorrow but we can go the day after? I know just the perfect place!”

“Oh, right. Your date with Keith… Is there something I don’t know? Did you finally stop running after Allura like a smitten puppy?” She said with a smirk.

“What?? I haven’t been hitting on Allura since… Come on, that was just plain rude. But for your information, no there’s nothing you don’t know, my ‘date’” - he accentuated the word making air quotes with his fingers - “is just a little tradition we have, meet for dinner the day after the mission to talk about what went wrong and what we can improve. It’s for team building, and because our view on things is basically the opposite, so we can compensate one another, like pieces of an engine.”

“Wow that’s… Incredibly mature of you,” Pidge commented before she could think about what she was implying with her surprised tone. “Sorry, I… Didn’t mean it like that.”

Lance just shrugged. “No, it’s okay. I get it. But we have all come a long way since we were four lost kids and a Shiro thrown out into Space, right?”

“Yeah, we have.”

She was lost in her thoughts for a quiet moment, the wave of nostalgia hitting her for the second time that night, until she spotted something over Lance’s last tray that brought her back to the present, especially because she was completely sure it wasn’t in the cafeteria’s selection.

“Are those peanut butter cookies??”

Lance’s eyes widened as he scratched the back of his neck. “Hm… Yeah… They were in the menu and…”

“No, they were not! I would know, I come here every day.”

“You’re right. You are always too smart to me,” he said with an odd tone Pidge couldn’t quite decipher. “I found them at a Space Mall, you can have them, if you want.”

“Thank you!” She grabbed the packet and took one of the biscuits, smiling gratefully. “They are so good!”

“I’m glad you like them,” he smiled. “I’d better go now, thank you for keeping me company and for, you know,” he motioned for the now empty trays.

“Anytime. That’s what friends are for, stealing food from them while remembering the good old times,” she laughed, munching on another cookie.

“Yeah… Good night, Pidgey.”

***

Pidge, most definitely, didn’t spend the entire day trying to decide what to wear for her evening with Lance. They were just friends and her appearance didn’t matter, especially considering he had known her since she was pretending to be a Garrison student, dressed as a boy with messed and awfully-cut hair and Matt’s glasses. There was no way he would make a fuss about it now. Still, she didn’t remember another time in which the two of them had gone out alone together on purpose. That was the only reason why she was a little on edge, it would have been the same with Keith, or Romelle.

It was also true that, especially after the Meme Kingdom incident - meaning, that one time just after the end of the War when Matt and Lance accidentally discovered their mutual passion for vines and everything related and fell platonically in love with one another - they had gotten incredibly closer, more than she was with the others, except for Matt and Hunk, of course. So she had absolutely no reason to be nervous.

Taking a deep breath, she looked at her reflection in the mirror for the hundredth time. Her hair was still short but the cut was a lot more defined than it used to and her glasses were now the correct size. She was wearing light jeans and a nice green shirt with leaves embroidered around the neck. It was warm outside, so she only carried a light white jacket over her shoulders for good measure. Nothing too fancy but not too sloppy either.

When the bell rang, she petted her dog, checking everything was in order one last time before going out.

“Hey!” Lance greeted with a warm smile.

“Hi.”

“So, I wanted to borrow my mother’s car? Because it would have been more comfortable and all but… She said she didn’t trust me with it. I am one of Earth’s best pilots, my job is quite literally to drive things, yet she didn’t trust me with her car.” He complained, sounding like he still didn’t believe it. “Anyway, since I couldn’t take the car, I had to come up with something last minute and” - he moved to the side, revealing the hoverbike parked behind him - “I borrowed this. My friend assured me it’s perfectly safe.”

“By ‘your friend’ you mean Keith? Because I’m not sure I would trust him when it comes to safety.”

Lance ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I’m sorry, we can walk and go somewhere else, it’s just… I really wanted to show you this place and I didn’t know where to find another car in such a short time.” He looked so unsure, Pidge almost regretted complaining.

“It’s okay, I trust you to be careful and not kill me. We both know Matt would never forgive you if you do,” she smirked, making him chuckle.

“True, he would probably skin me alive or something. But thank you for your trust. Let’s go?”

Pidge nodded, following him to the bike and sitting with her hands securely to his side. “Ready whenever you are.”

Lance threaded his way among the traffic, driving smoothly and with ease and soon they reached their destination. When he stopped, Pidge jumped down with a big grin plastered on her face from the adrenaline of the speed, which only grew bigger when she took notice of the place they were in front of.

“What is this?” She asked in awe.

Lance put their helmets back in the small trunk of the bike and returned her smile. “It’s new. It opened just before I left for the mission so I couldn’t tell you before but I was sure you would like it.”

“Yes, I love it! Let’s go, I want to see the rest. Let me buy you a drink.”

“Okay, sure,” Lance chuckled as she sprinted towards the door. There was a sign above it, reading The Steampunk Coffee, lit in a green light and surrounded by pieces of engines, wheels and cogs that swirled when she opened.

“This is so amazing,” she could feel her cheeks warm and her eyes sparkled with excitement.

“Wait until you see the tables!” Lance yelled.

And he was right. They sat at a corner and ordered two very colorful drinks with names like Geoffrey Bernard, or Joshua Gideon, or whatever, she could barely read, rapt as she was. The table was a large glass plate with all different kinds of tools glued to the bottom, from writing utensils, to watches, to lamps, to a mechanical keyboard.

“I’m glad you like it,” Lance smiled, and in the dim light of the shop, it looked so soft Pidge’s heart skipped a beat. She had known she had feelings for him for a very long time already, from when they still where the Paladins of Voltron running around the Universe, and she had come to accept it and mastered the art of hide and ignore to almost perfection.

Key-word being almost.

She sipped idly at her drink trying to search her brain for anything to start a conversation with and coming up empty-handed.

“So, what are you working on, right now? Except for the crystal?” The voice reached her like it was coming from under-water but the words felt like a lifeline. Work, that was something she could talk about for ages. Safe, easy, harmless.

So she did. Delved into all the details of her new project and asked him about the mission, how it was going with the team, which new planets they had visited. A known territory. Something they had shared for many years and they were both still passionate about. From there, the conversation flew to the most disparate topics without a hitch. Smooth, comfortable, interesting. She didn’t notice how fast the time was passing until the bartender signaled they were about to close.

When she said goodbye and closed the door to her home, Pidge slumped down on the floor, her traitorous brain working a mile a minute with different scenarios, all equally unattainable. It made her unable to focus, or find the will to walk to her bedroom and try to sleep. That night, everything had been perfect but nothing had changed, they were still friends, Lance still didn’t return her feelings and come the following day, she would have to fall back on her usual routine of hide, ignore, accept.

***

Logically, Pidge knew she was acting childishly. Avoid talking to Lance wasn’t a solution she could use in the long term. Not only because it was weird for their friends but because she didn’t want to lose him. She just needed more time, to forget how warm and happy she had felt after their ‘date’, stop her heart from fluttering in her chest just at the thought of him.

Maybe their new mission was the perfect opportunity. He would be away for weeks, or months, and she would get to see Hunk, the only person who knew about the whole… thing. So that when they would come back, she could act normally around him again.

She walked to the hangar without really thinking, letting her feet carry her along the familiar path. She had said goodbye to her father and brother there all those years ago and, after the War, she had said goodbye to so many people, so many times from that same place. She thought about what Keith said, about going with them. It was true the Garrison treated the five of them differently, considering the part they had played in saving the Universe, so they would probably agree, but she had a job to do. She wouldn’t let missing her friends or anything else get in the way of that. The experiments they were running on Earth were just as important as any space mission and even if they were gradually teaching other people to deal with Altean technology and crystals, everyone still relied on her father and her when it came to important decisions or risky operations.

So she wished good luck, promised to give Hunk a hug for them all and asked to call when they could. Then, she left them to finish their packing and went back to the cafeteria. It almost felt like a deja-vu. She sat at the table she had shared with Lance the previous week, her finger grazing the smooth surface and a small smile playing on her lips.

It was going to be okay.

“Don’t you think there is something missing?”

Pidge froze, recognizing the voice.

“What are you doing here?” She asked and slowly raised her head in time to see Lance scratch the back of his neck with his hand, looking sheepish.

“I kinda wanted to see Hunk? And between Keith and Matt and… You know, I didn’t get to spend much time with my family? Plus, I’ve never asked for a vacation since the end of the War and… Shiro said this mission is easy so they won’t probably need me.”

Pidge raised a suspicious eyebrow. “You hate it when you feel like Shiro and Keith treat you as the third wheel in the team, what are you hiding?”

“I… Ugh, fine. I hated leaving things hanging between us like that. I know we are just friends and everything, but I thought… Did I do something wrong? Didn’t you enjoy yourself at the Steampunk Coffee? Because I don’t even know how I got the courage to ask you out that day? It was the atmosphere, you were buying me food and we were laughing so I just… Didn’t think much and did it? But then at Matt’s you wouldn’t even look at me and I just” - he shut his mouth abruptly and shook his head - “Sorry, this is probably stupid. I must have read the situation completely wrong. I’ll go home now. I’m really sorry, it must have been wishful thinking, I’m so stupid.”

He turned, starting to walk away before Pidge could even blink. She was struggling quite a lot to process everything he had just said but there wasn’t time for that now.

“Please, stop!” She called and before she could second-guess herself, she took his hand in her own. “You didn’t do anything wrong, it was perfect. I was the one who didn’t want to be delusional.” She looked intently at her shoes to avoid eye-contact.

“Delusional? Why would you be-”, he stopped, probably as realization hit him. Pidge dared a side glance to see his expression and the way he was beaming was blinding.

“Yeah,” she confirmed, just to be sure.

His grip on her hand tightened. “Really? You like me too? What, how, when… Why?”

He looked so insecure but hopeful, she couldn’t help her mind from conjuring the word adorable. She laughed, taking a step closer. “Since forever, I think. How can I not?”

“We are such disasters. I thought you liked Keith! He told me it wasn’t true but...”

“And I thought you liked Allura!” She retorted, before the meaning of his words really registered. “Wait, Keith? Why Keith?”

“You go on for hours talking about your cryptids and you even planned to go on a trip together once!”

“Yes, because we are very good friends and you all don’t like talking about that stuff so we leave you out of it. Unlike you and Matt,” she added the last part a bit sarcastically, offering a playful smirk.

Lance chuckled. “Yeah, you are right.” He tapped his finger lightly over the back of her hand, his smile becoming tentative and shy. “So... Would you like to go on a proper date with me?”

She took another step, pressing her head to his chest. “How is that even a question,” she said into his shirt and when he laughed in response, the sound reverberated through his chest, sounding so free, unhindered, it made her feel impulsive for the second time that day, and probably even in her life. She looked up at him with all the affection she had never let her eyes show, years of longing, hoping, hiding.

“Yes, me too,” he whispered, before brushing his lips first over her forehead then her nose.

And there’s that saying that things come in threes, right? So it was no wonder that Pidge’s brain decided to shut down once again that day, letting her make another impulsive decision as she shifted her weight to the tips of her toes. Lance’s eyes widened considerably when he realized what she was about to do but he made no move to stop it. If anything, he pressed closer.

The taste, the warmth of his skin and his scent enveloped her and, in that moment, she knew that even if she had had to wait for ten, or even twenty years more, it would have still been worth it.

#plance #vld #voltron secret santa #vld pidge #vld lance #voltron post canon #spoiler free #happy holidays #nigg writes

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jaydier-blog1 · 5 years

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A Guide to Writing PTSD & Psychosis

Something I’ve noticed over my (too many) years on Tumblr is that sometimes, first-hand accounts of mental illness can be hard to come by. It’s totally understandable, and it took me a long time to get to this point, but it can put writers in a bit of a bind who aren’t satisfied with only the DSM-5 and Wikipedia to accurately portray their muse(s)’s MI. That being said, hi, my name is Holo, and I’ve been living with PTSD and comorbid psychosis for almost a decade at this point, and I’d like to share some of my experiences.

This is by no means a complete or exhaustive guide. The thing about brains is that apparently they’re complicated, and that means that everyone develops MI differently. While there are broad strokes that are generally consistent across diagnoses (and said broad strokes are typically what make up the ‘criteria’ of any MI), not everyone will have every single symptom, and not everyone will display the symptoms they do have the same way. I really do recommend using these sorts of guides as guides to writing MI, rather than actual rules.

I’mma start with some basic definitions. PTSD is post-traumatic stress disorder, which is a disorder that develops after witnessing or experiencing a traumatic event. Not everyone who goes through trauma will develop PTSD, and I believe the actual statistic is somewhere between 20-30% (double-check my factcheck before you quote me on that, please). Comorbid mental illnesses (or comorbidities) are MIs that occur with or alongside the ‘primary’ illness, usually because of said ‘primary’ MI. For example, my psychosis is comorbid with my PTSD; it is because of my PTSD that I have psychosis.

Psychosis itself is more of a broad term than a specific diagnosis, and it will generally assume one (or more) of three forms: 1) delusions, 2) hallucinations, and 3) disordered thoughts. I personally struggle mostly with delusions and hallucinations, and I don’t particularly experience disordered thoughts, so that’s what I’ll mostly focus on.

Before I move on, though, I want to share something that an old psychologist of mine told me and that I’ve never really forgotten: it’s possible, and even common, to experience and exhibit occasional symptoms of MI without ever actually having that particular mental illness. A random delusion or general panic attack does not mean your character has psychosis or PTSD. Again, brains are complicated, and what defines a MI diagnosis is the consistent, pervasive presence of multiple symptoms that interfere with the patient’s day-to-day life. You can have obsessive-compulsive tendencies without having OCD. You can be anxious without having anxiety. You can be depressed without having depression.

Another thing is that a lot of MI have symptoms that overlap (which is why comorbid MIs are, again, pretty common). My PTSD comorbidities include depression, anxiety, claustrophobia, and psychosis. In fact, when I first started displaying my PTSD symptoms, I was diagnosed with depression because that was the comorbidity that showed up most prominently at the time, and it took several more years before my doctors and I realized that my depression was a symptom and not the full illness.

Alright! Let’s see if I can break down things into more manageable chunks to talk about.

PTSD

PTSD symptoms are wide, varied, and incredibly subjective from person to person. In my experience, this variance starts with what exactly was the trauma that the PTSD is originating from. Someone who was in a war, for example, will have different triggers and experience different symptoms than someone who was abused (and even then, someone who was verbally abused will once again have a vastly different PTSD experience than someone who was physically abused). Figuring out what your character’s trauma was that caused them to develop PTSD is your vital starting point.

In my experience, PTSD tends to develop slowly. One of the things doctors look for when diagnosing PTSD is that patients are still suffering after six months have passed from the initial trauma. After my initial trauma, I thought I was fine. I was asymptomatic, until months later when symptoms started to creep up on me (and as I mentioned earlier, at first it appeared primarily as depression, and I didn’t even connect it to my trauma at the time).

I experience hypervigilence with my PTSD. I am always aware of where I am, looking for possible exits and escape routes. I get nervous and anxious if I feel trapped in a room or area. (I tried going to a corn maze once. It was a bad time.) I also have an exaggerated startle response. If someone sneaks up on me, accidentally or otherwise, I’m going to react much more dramatically than other people. It’ll frighten me a lot more than it would someone whose startle response isn’t so pronounced. At worst, I’ve had experiences where someone sneaking up on me and startling me as a joke sent me into a full panicked meltdown. (I’d been having a rough time before that, but it was the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak.)

To which I’ll segue rather smoothly into things building up! I find it really difficult to ‘destress’ and relax if I have a lot of small triggers and uncomfortable situations pile up on me within a short period of time or without respite, to the point where something rather minor can set off an entire chain reaction and end up with what looks like an extreme overreaction.

Panic attacks can look different from person to person, or even day to day. Sometimes, panic attacks show up for me as in inability to focus, irritation and snapping angrily at every little thing while my hands shake to the point where it’s difficult for me to hold things. Other times, it’ll look like a screaming, crying mess, huddled up in a ball in a corner on the floor. How people express panic attacks varies greatly, and no one way is an ‘incorrect’ portrayal of your character’s panic attacks.

Flashback episodes are an easy, prominent way to showcase PTSD in media, and so it’s something that a lot of people are familiar with, but in a very narrow way. While it’s possible for someone experiencing a flashback to completely lose touch with their current reality and experience an exact repeat of their traumatic incident, that’s rarely the case. More often than not, my flashback episodes feel more like an overlay, where both reality and my flashback are happening at the same time. Innocuous things will suddenly seem much more ominous and dangerous, I’ll mistake the people around me for those who were present during my traumatic incident, and I tend to experience hallucinations (which I will go into more detail about later on). Someone in a flashback episode could even experience age regression, usually back to the age they were during the initial trauma. Flashback episodes and how someone experiences them are extremely personal, and I strongly suggest doing more research on the topic to find more varied accounts, and piece together how your character would respond to these events, if they even experience flashback episodes at all.

I’d like to take this next moment here to mention triggers. Triggers are highly subjective, depending on the person and their trauma, and they can often be obscure and strange. A particular scent or a familiar name could easily be enough to make someone extremely uncomfortable. Sometimes, triggers are only marginally connected to the initial trauma, or not seemingly connected at all. Conversely, something that might seem like an obvious trigger might not be a trigger at all! Brains are fucking weird like that. Also, a very common experience with PTSD (or any MI with triggers) is that day-to-day life is disrupted in favour of specifically avoiding known triggers. Crowded places will trigger my aforementioned claustrophobia, and so I will often avoid social outings, to the detriment of my friendships and familial relationships. (Which is a good example of triggers having nothing to do with trauma, actually. I was alone when my initial trauma happened. Why the hell am I afraid of crowds. @brain explain this) And not only this, but some days a trigger might not affect me at all! Triggers are so, so subjective. They’re a minefield of possibilities and dangers that can shift on what sometimes feels like a daily basis. It can be a real headache to deal with. Taking the time to get into the mind of your character and deciding what triggers them and what doesn’t it another important part of defining how you write their struggle with PTSD.

Psychosis

Since it’s what I have the least experience with, I’ll talk about disordering thinking first. Disordered thinking is pretty much exactly what it says on the tin, and people experiencing disordered thoughts can appear distressed, confused, and have issues articulating their emotions, even to the point of not being able to form full sentences or fully acknowledge questions being asked of them. I strongly suggest doing more research on this topic outside of this post if you think it might apply to your character.

Delusions are, again, fairly self explanatory. Delusions are probably my most prominent version of psychosis that I struggle with on a daily basis. Personally, the most frustrating part of delusions is that I’m well aware that they aren’t real, but I can’t shut them off anyway. In general, my most common delusions is that Person X is out to get me/is trying to sabotage me. Logically, I know that this is ridiculous, but I still have the anxiety and panic that that situation would induce. While I’m sure there are psychotic people out there who cannot distinguish their delusions from reality, and that is absolutely a valid way to portray it, I have personally never met someone like that. It seems to be a lot more common that delusional psychotics are aware that their delusions are not real, and yet we are still forced to change our patterns of behaviour to accommodate for that delusion as if it were real regardless.

Hallucinations are broad and come in way too many forms. Media likes to portray hallucinations as full-bodied apparitions that are indistinguishable from real life, and while that can be correct, I find that I rarely experience those. Most of my hallucinations are tactile hallucinations. These are hallucinations where I feel as though I’m being touched by someone or something, usually in a negative way (these hallucinations can even trigger or be triggered by a flashback episode). There are also auditory hallucinations, visual hallucinations, and even olfactory and gustatory hallucinations, although I’ve never had experiences with the latter two. Often, I find I can fairly quickly differentiate hallucinations from reality, just by doing a quick check around me. If someone is not touching me, the feeling of a hand on my arm is a hallucination. Visual hallucinations (of other people) tend to not interact with the rest of the world the same way a real person would. Auditory hallucinations do not have an obvious source, and those around me won’t react to the noise. And, of course, the usual disclaimer of everyone who experiences hallucinations experience them differently applies here too, this is just my personal experience with hallucinations.

In conclusion

PTSD and psychosis are both broad MIs with a lot of complexity that vary from person to person. I fully encourage you to continue your research into these MIs and discover what is right for your character(s). I’d like to reiterate that this post is non-exhaustive and has focused on my personal experiences with my day-to-day life as someone who has these MIs. This post is absolutely available for you to reblog if you’d like, and my ask box is right here if you have any questions or discussions you’d like to direct to someone willing to be a first-person source on these topics.

I hope I’ve helped! Now go forth and write! :D

#pstd writing guide #ooc;; the universe is a hologram #psychosis writing guide #writing guide

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