#why have I never considered this??? so much potential. so much whump

[staycalmandhugaclone]

Ode to Artists Pt 1

Part (1) of Ode to Artists, the next arc of Doc's Misadventures! If you're new, start at the beginning with Touch Starved!

Am I well past when I was supposed to finish my Bingo sheet? Yup. Am I still counting this one toward the "Bed" prompt? Also yup. I meant for this to just be a one-parter, but I just can't write those... so it'll be 2 or 3 parts of mostly (emphasis on mostly) fluff before we get into the next whump-tastic arcs I have planned. (Also, after my appointment today, the midwives say I could literally go anytime from tomorrow to 5 weeks from now, soooo if I vanish for a bit... well, you'll know why)

Warnings: This arc will mostly be fluffy stuff, but there will be references to past torture here and there. This one has some flashbacks, profanity, and loads of emotions like guilt, fear, anger, and general angst, as well some brief mention of wanting to die (not SI - with relation to ending torture), and I supposed some dependency

WC: 3,405

Rough Mando'a translation:

hut’uunla chakaaryc - coward and a rotten, low-life, (considered worst possible insult)

When we’re children and we first learn that the sky is endless, when we’re told of the countless lives beyond that stunning blue and the thousands of planets that we’ll never visit; when we’re first taught that the impossibly distant stars who’s lights danced in the darkness of night had died and been reborn long before we’d ever glimpsed them, and we discover just how small we are amidst an existence that would live on unchanged in spite of our hopes and dreams and fears, unmoved by our short lives and inevitable deaths; when we’re children and these harsh truths rob us of that innocent sense of invulnerability and infinite potential innate in the brilliance of youth, there is a wound that is dealt in the wake of that revelation regardless if the words are spoken with unapologetic honesty or gentle wonder, and those wounds may scar or they may fester, but they never fully fade.

I remembered when I learned how big the galaxy was. I didn’t feel that loss then. At the time, I’d felt inspired, enamored by the vast stretches of possibilities I’d never before considered and lightened beneath the new sense of freedom granted by those possibilities, but I felt those scars now.

Used bandages lay forgotten in small piles atop the medbay counter as my eyes stared blindly at the still pink bands encircling my wrists, fingertips just whispering over the newly knit skin. The freshly formed nerves shuddered beneath that delicate touch, unaccustomed, yet, to even gentle sensation. I hadn’t seen the damage wrought by how violently I’d thrashed against those restraints, not until after Comet had done his best to clean and sow them back together, and bacta gel had regrown most of what surely still dirtied a floor already coated with too much blood, but I could imagine it. For the scars to still shine so starkly against the unmarried flesh beside it, I didn’t doubt how near I’d come to severing tendon and exposing bone, and the simple fact that I could remember no sense of pain beyond the panic of drowning held its own morbid wonder.

It was as I stared unseeing at those scars, thoughts coming and going absent a moment’s true consideration, that I felt small. I’d never known fear could cut so deeply, that the body was capable of such terror, and yet I’d suffered beneath it for so long as the worlds around me continued in blissful ignorance. Children played as I screamed. New lovers relished the touch of another as I died. Stars were born as I begged for everything to end, and yet I now stood in the same room of the Marauder that I’d lived in for well over a year. The air still held the stale taste of too many rotations through the recyclers. The engines hummed with that same subtle rumble fading into the ambiance of the occasional beep of an alarm, and beyond the door, if I bothered to listen, I was sure I’d hear Wrecker’s boisterous voice or catch a sharp retort from Crosshair.

Even in that haze of wandering memories, my heart still leapt at the thought of him. He’d refused to let me so much as change my own bandages during the week we’d remained on the Negotiator. What arguments I’d tried to offer failed beneath the gentleness of his touch, the way his eyes hardened and his lithe body curled over mine. It didn’t feel possessive. It felt safe, and that was far too precious to refuse. Between those moments, however, I’d rarely seen him.

Only after noting his absence for several days did I learn that he kept vanishing to the training rooms, seeking anyone foolish enough or brave enough to spar and ensuring what minor injuries he sustained had been tended long before returning to my side. I wanted to talk to him about it but found myself unable to force the question past my lips, too worried that I already knew the answer to risk asking, because what could I say if he was fighting as a means of distracting himself from everything I wasn’t yet willing to speak of? If he felt driven to escape a helplessness I knew too well, a helplessness he only felt because of me? It had been something of a relief to get word of our latest assignment if only to break that routine.

With my wounds now all but healed and the lot of us en route to Alderaan, some semblance of normalcy was finally beginning to return. Friendly bickering again flowed between the brothers, free of that tension that had made my heart twist since Devaron, and no one shot away to hide the instant the medbay door opened or purposefully avoided eye contact if we were in the same room. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better. That return to normalcy, however, brought with it a quiet I wished I could appreciate, but the thoughts it granted freedom to were ones that robbed me of breath and left me staggering amidst memories I couldn’t force back.

“Doc?” My attention snapped away from those lingering scars, chest hitching in a small gasp at the suddenness with which that daze fled me. Echo stood barely a handful of steps away, brows draw lightly together above eyes full of the beginnings of worry. I hadn’t noticed the hiss of the door opening or closing, hadn’t heard whatever initial greeting he’d offered as he entered. Had he asked me something? How long had he been speaking before falling silent at the realization that I wasn’t even aware of his presence?

“Sorry, Echo; guess I got a bit lost in thought.” I said softly with a gentle smile that did little to chase the concern from his gaze. “What did you say?” He hesitated a moment, jaw tensing, and I couldn’t help but fear I’d missed something vital in whatever words he’d spoken while my mind had floated absent intent.

“Just… wondered if you’d eaten yet? Figured I’d grab you something since I was headed there anyway.” My heart sank at the offer, certain that had nothing to do with why he’d really come here, but the tentative truce between us was still too delicate to strain beneath blunt questions. I turned my attention back to the counter, using the excuse of gathering the discarded cloth to hide the threat of disappointment from my gaze.

“Probably a good idea.” I sighed despite how unappealing one of those flavorless bars sounded. “I’m finished here, anyway, so I’ll come with you.” A stranger wouldn’t have noticed the tension steal through him, the delay preceding that forced smile. A close friend wouldn’t have hesitated to address them. I noticed and said nothing, caught in the lingering uncertainty of where we stood, terrified that I might push him away again with one poorly chosen word.

“Have you reviewed the mission brief, yet?” He asked, vying for some attempt at nonchalance as we started from the medbay. I nodded, still a bit confused by it. We were making a delivery to the governing body. Given the relatively safe location of the planet, using a squad with the immaculate record Hunter and his brothers boasted made little sense. Echo let out a small chuckle at my expression, and my heart leapt at the sound.

“I think Cody sent us on this one as a bit of a break.” I didn’t fight the look of surprise that drew my attention back to him, though the darkness that followed left me turning away just as quickly. He was babying us because of me… sending us as a glorified delivery service. I wasn’t sure if I was grateful for the reprieve or enraged at how badly I needed just that: a respite from the unending horrors of this nightmare of a war.

“I don’t think he meant it as an insult.” At that, a quick huff escaped me, cheeks warming from how effortlessly he read me.

“I think he meant it as an olive branch more than anything.” I retorted, pleased to glimpse the smirk those words brought to his lips.

“Or an excuse to get Crosshair off his ship as soon as possible.” He mused, voice lowering as he leaned subtly closer to me, and I found myself biting back a string of laughter at his conspiratory tone.

I wasn’t surprised to find Wrecker in the small kitchette as we entered, a few empty wrappers already littering the table with a third already half eaten. His eyes lit up when he saw us.

“Did he tell you?!” The vibrant excitement in his voice was almost enough to make me hesitate, eyes flicking back to Echo for a moment.

“I’m going to guess not yet?” I replied, brow hitching expectantly. The arc didn’t bother even trying to explain before his brother jumped to his feet.

“They got this celebration tomorrow on Alderaan! Tech says they only do it every five years!” He purged the news in a loud, eager rush of glee that I was helpless against, lips instantly drawing up into a broad grin.

“Tomorrow? Are going to make it?” A quiet whisper of fear coiled in my chest, images of too many strange faces milling about overly pretentious floors as music danced through the air, but I refused to grant it purchase in the wake of Wrecker’s delight.

“Yup! Hunter even said we’d have the whole night to see it while the ship gets fueled up!”

“It’s outside,” Echo added softly, and I couldn’t quite meet his gaze despite how my body automatically shifted toward him, too aware of what prompted him to offer the gentle reassurance. “Up in the mountains.” Alderaan’s snowy peaks were renowned for their timeless beauty, and the knowledge that we wouldn’t be confined to some inescapable prison veiled in the guise of splendor and finery proved the perfect balm to the quickening of my heartbeat.

“We’ll have to bundle you up with a couple extra layers.” I didn’t doubt that he heard the gratitude warming my words as I finally found the strength to look at him, and the kindness in those eyes shown untainted by the distance that still haunted us.

“Pretty sure I’ll be thawing out the whole trip back regardless how many sets of blacks I put on.” He grumbled, but there was no heat to the complaint. I offered a sympathetic smile and bumped my shoulder lightly against his chest before treading further into the small room to retrieve some rations for us.

“Did Tech mention what all we might expect at this event?” I knew Wrecker would have seen through the subtleties of how Echo eased that fear from me; knew he’d likely understood the instant my gaze first turned away from him, just as I knew he understood the true reason behind my question, and I loved him for how readily he answered my unspoken plea for a distraction as he raptly described what he remembered of Tech’s earlier explanation: of the group of artists that had lived and died centuries prior, but who’s works of Alderaan’s beauty became so renowned throughout the galaxy as to alter the very fate of the planet, inspiring countless others to seek out those natural landscapes to witness that beauty for themselves. He spoke of the promise of endless venders offering unique food and drink and all manner of goods, and he drew no attention to why I sat so quietly beside him, why I failed to respond with my usual glee to his animated retelling, but he was not silent in the face of my stillness, powerful body shifting ever so subtly about mine, hand gentle in every brief touch that somehow never lasted too long, and I couldn’t bring myself to feel anything but relief at his unspoken offer for a comfort that was so soft as to barely be noticeably beyond the unwavering sense of safety it granted me.

It was late. Offensively late. The medbay lay illuminated in the faint glow of a monitor I hadn’t been able to bring myself to turn off, knowing what darkness awaited me the instant I flicked that switch, what terrors lingered in the shadows vying for any excuse to strike. Crosshair had said nothing about it as he shifted atop my bed, groggily holding the blanket open with feigned impatience, but I couldn’t dismiss that flare of shame at yielding to that fear. The instant I settled into him, however, the warmth that enveloped me as he fit himself perfectly around my too tense form and let out that deep, quiet sigh of contentment robbed me of all thought beyond the feeling of his chest dancing with unhurried breaths against my back, the strength of his arms holding me with a covetous need, and I’d found myself drifting into a far kinder sleep that I had any right to hope for.

I loathed the unknown disturbance drawing me from that gentle slumber, jaw tensing beneath an attempt at denial that I might simply ignore whatever it was and slip back into that blessed nothingness. Crosshair lay perfectly limp against me, face tucked into my hair with that precious stillness of sleep. Resigned to a late-night visit to the privy, I reluctantly tried to slip away from him, laughter threatening to bubble past pursed lips at the tiny groan that escaped him as his arms tightened petulantly around me, but he showed no signs of waking as I finally managed to detangle myself from his embrace.

Footsteps as near to silent as I could manage, I tread carefully down the hall, tiptoeing past the bunkroom, though only Wrecker and Echo lay within, both far too lost to their own blissful sleep to note my movements. It wasn’t until I’d nearly reached the privy door that something on the very edge of perception left my blood running cold. I couldn’t say what it was, not yet, but my body seemed drawn toward it, wide eyes locked on the fore of the ship as my legs carried me forward despite the sudden urge to flee.

Even after some recognition began to note the sound of broken gasps amidst free-flowing water, I couldn’t bring myself to stop. There was a haunted sense of familiarity in the way I watched myself move through the ship; in the automated motions I didn’t have the presence of mind to even try to stop.

“…severe forms of torture.” There was a weight to that normally clinical voice; a dread that even he couldn’t fully suppress.

“Tech.” Hunter’s hushed voice barely registered as he turned sharply to face me, but I couldn’t focus on him. I hadn’t even noticed myself climb down the ladder into the cockpit.

“Who ordered the hit?!” I don’t remember when that man’s voice had filled with such anger.

“It’s rare for anyone to endure longer than a couple minutes… what she went through”

“Tech!” Hunter barked, finally ripping his brother’s attention from the audio clip. I didn’t see the look in his eyes as he followed Hunter’s gaze toward me.

“Just tell me who planted the kriffing bomb!”

“I don’t know!” It didn’t sound like my voice. It was enraged and terrified and ruined by hours of screaming. Hunter’s hand flared toward Tech, but he sat frozen – caught – as I approached on strides faltering beneath the tremble just beginning to steal through me.

“That’s krayt spit, and you kriffing know it! Who ordered the hit?!” Part of me wanted to be impressed at how clear the recording was, mind eager to detach from the rush of liquid that followed my every response, the way my lungs panicked and burned with the afterimage of that agony.

“Just kill me, you hut’uunla chakaaryc!” I’d heard Warthog say that once… even Wolffe had been taken aback, and only Sinker would tell me what it meant when I’d asked. That man surely had no idea what I’d called him, but the violent slap that tore from the speakers followed by the seemingly endless flood of water and desperate coughs left no uncertainty that he’d fathomed a guess.

“…Doc.” My hand was reaching out, senses dulled to all but the echoes of my nightmares screaming with such haunting clarity from the speakers, deaf to Hunter’s quiet call.

“Who was behind the attack?!”

“I don’t know!!” That voice was sobbing and screaming and so utterly broken.

My fingertips barely brushed the console before the recording stopped, but I could still hear it… the gush of water… I could feel it’s chill tear the warmth from my flesh; felt it flooding my mouth and nose… and I felt that undeniable, visceral fear of death creeping through me.

Hunter shifted hesitantly toward me, but I merely shook my head. The movement was so slight, I barely felt it, but it instantly left him frozen, shoulders sinking beneath emotions I was still far too raw to try to name.

Without a word, I stepped away from them, away from whatever apologies or questions or murmured reassurances might be festering atop their tongues, my eyes still staring blindly at the endless buttons and switches decorating the console, and when I turned away, when I began to leave in the same silence in which I’d arrived, neither could bring themselves to try calling out again.

Any other night, I would have cringed at the thought of waking him. I would have strained myself to slip back into his embrace as carefully as possible, breath held in my chest until I was sure my intrusion hadn’t robbed him of that empty sleep, but I could spare little thought toward such things. He was warm. And he was safe. And I didn’t bother to even slide beneath the blanket before pressing myself against him.

Crosshair’s torso swelled with a sharp inhale, brows drawing together with some mixture of annoyance and confusion, but then he went still. I couldn’t bring myself to look at him, body curling into his as though I might hide from the memories still raging through my mind. He studied me for mere seconds before shifting in careful, unhurried movements, one arm slipping beneath me to wrap around my shoulders while he brought his other hand up to just whisper against my cheek, the unspoken question clear in that tender gesture.

Again, I felt my head give the slightest shake, unable to offer anything more. His thumb trailed the ridge of my cheekbone, touch featherlight, before letting his hand brush gently through my hair to rest against the back of my neck, holding me with just enough force for me to feel his strength, and a shuttered exhale escaped me that left us both clinging just that much harder to each other.

He didn’t speak throughout the night, but the occasional dance of his fingers or touch of his lips in something too gentle to be called a kiss reassured me that he was still awake, still holding me until that tension began to slip away. I don’t know how long we laid there, letting the minutes and hours pass in that perfect quiet, but when I finally heard the steady thrum of his heartbeat over those horrid screams, I wanted to sob. I wanted to shout beneath the disdain I felt toward myself and the apologies I didn’t have the strength to voice. I wanted to tell him that he could leave; that I wouldn’t blame him for needing to separate himself from the mess I’d become, but I couldn’t stop my grasp from tightening around his shirt at the very thought, and when he responded without hesitation, when his arms nearly crushed me against him, I abandoned even the memory of fear that he’d want me to grant him that escape.

In the morning, I’d thank him. In the morning, I’d try to offer some manner of an explanation that he was long past due, but for what few hours still remained in that façade of night that meant nothing in the emptiness of space, I let myself give in to the simple need for his presence and the quiet it granted me. I let myself be weak that I might find solace in his strength, and I let myself love him with every atom of my being for the selflessness of his comfort.

Next Chapter

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#CFB2023 #the bad batch #tbb crosshair #clonexreaderbingo #clone x reader #first person reader #tbb #star wars #star wars fanfiction #tbb hunter #tbb tech #tbb echo #tbb wrecker #light guilt #the clone wars #fanfiction #star wars tcw #tbb oc #my writings #star wars fanfic #febuwhump #slow burn #blame #self-blame #reader whump #Hunter #Sergent Hunter #the bad batch echo #comfort #my writing

[adrenaline-whump]

I mentioned a couple of times that Undertow was much harder to write than I expected, but I’m glad I did it. I learned a lot about the characters, and about plot, and writing in general. This is going to get wordy, so I’ll put it under a cut.

Lack of Suspense: One of the classic ways to keep your reader interested in the story is to keep them in suspense, of course. But for Undertow, I knew my readers would’ve already read Wind Shear. We know Cade doesn’t hand Tara over to Russ; and we know Donnie is fine, more or less, when Cade sees him at the Reaves’ car dealership. I wasn’t sure how to keep my readers’ interest when they already knew how things would turn out in the end.

Solution: It actually wasn’t as much of a problem as I feared, or at least I don’t think it ended up being one. While writing Undertow, I came across a post that noted Titanic was a hugely successful movie despite the fact that everyone knew the boat would sink. The interest comes from character conflicts and things like that. People know what will happen, but not how.

No Character Growth: Most good stories involve a character learning something, overcoming a misconception about the world. Donnie didn’t have time to do a whole lot of growth. He had a simple goal: get free. Within the time constraints, I couldn’t come up with believable character growth for him.

Solution: To my surprise, C.J. Reaves stepped up to take on that character arc. Prior to writing Undertow, he was just a name to me. But as I wrote, I gradually worked out that he was...well, not a victim, per se, but he’s not entirely a bad guy. Like Owen, his life circumstances influenced him into going along with a criminal scheme. Unlike Owen, C.J. regrets it. He just never felt like he had the right or the power to say “No more.” The story events change his thinking.

Potential Plot Hole: In Wind Shear, Donnie hadn’t managed to use his hidden handcuff key before he got to the dealership. I’d been vaguely thinking “Oh, he never had the opportunity to use it. People were always watching him.” But while writing Undertow, I had to confront exactly how many hours pass. The Reaves had Donnie for a good ten hours or so. It stretched credibility, imo, to claim there hadn’t been one single moment in all that time where Donnie couldn’t have used his key.

Solution: Take it away from him. And then, of course, figure out how to give it back. I considered a few different solutions, then had an idea and re-read Wind Shear. Indeed...Owen used Cade’s key, and at no point did Cade say anything about getting it back. Aha!

(Then I had to figure out why Owen didn’t mention it for so long. I decided he didn’t think of giving Donnie the key until he realized Donnie could actually do something with it. And then I had to write that realization clearly enough for the reader to get it, despite not having access to Owen’s thoughts. Solving one problem often leads to others!)

Timing problems: Timing, argh. What time does Russ call Liz’s phone and talk to Cade? I asked myself. When did Cade get to Liz’s house, and how does that line up with when Donnie gets to Blakeley? Oh crap, how am I going to fill these hours?

Solution: This is why authors with multiple POVs make elaborate stacked timelines to figure out where character X is and what they’re doing while thing Y is happening to character Z. I didn’t have a spreadsheet or anything, but there was a lot of note-taking and referencing back to the earlier story. And once I knew I wanted to have Ace questioning Donnie, I had to figure out when that happened. Before or after the phone call to Cade? I hadn’t realized the timing of trying to fit one story in parallel to another would be so tough.

Whump Block: The hardest part to write was chapter 8, the scene in the breakdown shed, where Ace tries to get Donnie to talk. Donnie had to come out of that more or less OK, to align with Wind Shear, so I struggled to come up with what exactly Ace would do that would still be interesting to read!

Solution: I finally decided that what Ace does isn’t physically agonizing, but unfortunately he hits on one of Donnie’s triggers. I’d already written some of Donnie’s backstory for myself, so I incorporated his history with his mom. She’s not a bad person, but she’s kind of a train wreck.

POV: I’ve gotten comfortable writing Cade in first person. He won’t always let me detail all the whump, but he usually implies enough that it’s fairly clear. Undertow being in close third was a real stretch for me. Pronouns, man. Which “he” is talking? Aaaargh.

Solution: Buckle down and do it. That was the only way. There are parts that I just had to leave imperfect and move on, but I’m glad I did it. Good practice.

~~~

Overall, if I was doing this again, I probably wouldn’t post chapter by chapter. I’m the type of writer who writes scenes out of order, and sometimes what I write in a later scene would have more impact if foreshadowed in an earlier scene. If that earlier one is already posted, that’s a problem! Still, that was another valuable lesson.

#undertow #writing thoughts #meta

[bylertruther]

hot take: people's hc's and hopes for s5 are the most angsty things i've ever read and i cannot imagine enough comfort in the world to balance out some of the angsty shit people are putting out there. we've already gotten 4 seasons of byler angst, haven't people had enough?? my fragile constitution cannot handle the dramatics. why do people write out mike and will saying the most heartbreaking shit to each other?? i just want them to forehead touch and kiss to a beautiful musical score. i want them to bake a loaf of bread together and eat it at sunset and then hold hands at nightfall. that's it, that's s5.

YOU AND ME BOTH, BROTHER 🤝

we've sat through four seasons of them getting their shit rocked, i'd like to believe that in season five they'll stick to their promise and finally be a team again for good this time. mike already admitted that he thought he was worrying too much about el to the point that he'd lost will--i don't want that to be the case again. obviously the First Lie is going to come up and has the potential to ruffle some feathers, but like .. i have had Enough lol<3 canon already has enough misery and frustration, i come on here to talk about them indulging in some gay shit. and considering the duffers aren't planning on making s5 as long as s4 was, i ESPECIALLY do not want their story to be mostly angst up until the second to last episode.

some people like the whump factor and to make angsty characters and ships even more angsty, but i am not one of them bc i have no undeniable 100% secured guarantee that there Will be a happy ending. once by|er is endgame and they have their smalltown boy era THEN i will give in to my angst demon tendencies but for now bro the duffers got that shit on lock!!! if i wanted an angst fest i would just rewatch the show like 😭😭😭😭 LMAOOOOO

but everyone is allowed to have their own headcanons and theories and write what they want obvi tbh this isn't hate towards anyone. i jus kno u will Never catch me reblogging tht shit, but i WILL be screaming crying wailing over the cute n tender headcanons tht people post bc those bring me joy<3 mike n will are already in superhell ok i want to pluck them from their story n drop them into a world where they CAN bake bread together, where mike can wipe the flour from will's cheek but ends up making even more of a mess, where will can decorate their foccacia and make it look so beautiful that mike feels bad eating it later, where mike and will can steal glances at each other under the stars when they think the other isn't looking, where will can sneak little comics he doodled into mike's locker and textbooks for him to find later, where will draws on mike's hand and forearm bc mike is thinking abt a tattoo but too pussy to go through with it, where he can then try his best to return the favor and it's fucking awful LMAO but will loves it sm bc it's mike and he'll never say no to mike putting his hands on him, and where they can slowdance in will's room (bc they Never hang out in mike's room and as such don't want to draw suspicion), and where they can flirt by comparing hand sizes as is tradition like will putting their hands together and being like "wow haha ur hand is so big! :)" and mike is just so so so red screaming dying inside pressing the tips of his fingers down a lil bit bc he wants to lace their fingers together but he doesnt know if will is jus being will or if they're having a category 5 lgbt moment right now so he just chokes out a "yeah haha 😳 crazy..." and gulps like a dweeb, and and and-----

#'haven't people had enough??' me when all of my mutuals are foaming at the mouth talking abt mike dying in will's arms LMAODBSGDJDBDGDHDJ #could NOT be me bc im too sensitive but y'all stay safe tho 🙏 #imma be over here with this anon trembling gripping the sink desperately thinking abt them baking bread n shit #asks

[madcatdaderpydrawer-blog]

I feel like there's a severe lack of hurt/comfort, angst, whump, ~trauma~ for Sun and Moon in the fandom so when I found your blog I was literally ecstatic- Like yes hello fellow person who also likes beating up their faves X)

You also touch a lot on the physical pain aspect that most people probably wouldn't- Like I realize they are robots, but that scream Sun let out in game sounded very pained, and I figure pain for a robot like them would be much the same as pain for humans- signals being sent to the 'brain' to let them know something is wrong.

I'd considered Sun and Moon being neglected or mistreated by staff too, but I didn't pick up entirely on the hc that Moon could very well also be straight up abused until here- Which is surprising considering I always go for the angstiest headcanons for my faves and boy is that one angsty.

I think so too honestly. It's a shame because there is so much angst potential to explore with these dorks. I feel like everyone beats up their favorite characters, and if they say they don't then they're lying.

I'll be honest, I don't really know what a whump is lmao. I just like making angst, but I'm glad it fits into that category nonetheless!

Oh definitely, I 100% believe that they can feel pain. The way he screamed was way too human, and fazbear entertainment seems just fucked up enough to give their daycare attendants the ability to feel pain. I mean, Freddy expresses pain when he gets shot in the face with a laser.

I feel like a lot of people portray Moon as having trust issues but never expand on WHY. I wanted to add the why for his defensive closed off nature. And the angst loving goblin in my brain decided "what if pain?" And so I put it out into the void, and the void was very pleased.

#fnaf security breach #daycare attendant #fnaf sun #sunrise #sundrop #fnaf moon #moondrop

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Intrinsic: Jameson in Therapy

Prompt from Anon:  If you're still taking prompts... "Have you tried NOT doing that?"

CW: Noncon survivor discussing future consensual spice, Jameson’s masochism, frank references to noncon and pet whump, brief internal victim-blaming, world-building detail about WRU

Dr. Berger tucks a bit of graying hair behind one ear, smiling slightly at Jameson from her place in the soft armchair she uses during appointments. “Well,” She says, thoughtful, “have you tried not doing that?”

He looks up at her from where he sits curled up on the long sofa, knees to his chest, picking absently at loose threads across the knee of his baggy blue jeans. As always, she is careful not to let her eyes move to the places where hair is slowly growing back in over bald spots where the straps of a leather muzzle had rubbed, careful not to look at the scars he wears on every inch of exposed skin - she’d made the mistake of being caught looking, however briefly, and had discovered that the newest of her clients was deeply insecure about the visible evidence of his captivity.

She’d apologized, but it had taken time to develop enough trust to come back from her initial mistake. She would not jeopardize that now, after they’ve made so much progress and she’s begun to see a shift in how he talks about and relates to his new life, his world.

He even told her the name he chose for himself, and that he’s been telling the others in the house, one by one. Accepting that it won’t be taken from him like his original name was - that it belongs to him, and is his to share or not. 

She would never, ever admit it, but... Jameson is one of her favorite clients to work with. He’s working so hard, every week that they meet he trusts more and more that the path he’s on is one that will move him forward. 

“What?” 

His voice is slightly rough - someone who has screamed enough to have permanent vocal chord damage, she thinks. She makes a note to speak to Jake Stanton about having a physician check on the potential for nodes or other issues that might pop up later. She’s not a medical doctor, but… well. She’s had a lot of clients with vocal chord damage in the sixteen years she’s been working in the pet lib movement, and you start to pick up on the little signs and symptoms they don’t necessarily declare out loud.

“My question is really just me being a little facetious, I won’t lie, but I do want to talk through the spirit of the question. When you mention feeling guilty that you are having a physical response to your housemate, that you are attracted to them and have been struggling with... well. I’d like to really dig in to where that guilt comes from. Now, I am aware that adjustment houses tend to discourage relationships between household members during their time in residence to cut down on the chance for conflict, but that’s not where your guilt lies, is it?”

He goes back to picking at the hole slowly wearing through his jeans. Dr. Berger waits, giving him the silence and time he needs to think his way through the question and the possible answers. After a long time, he says softly, “No. It’s not. I don’t give a fuck if Stanton wants me to hold somebody’s stupid hand or not.”

She has to force her smile not to widen, wondering if Jameson is aware of just how like Jakob Stanton he really is. No wonder they don’t always get along. “Okay. So can you talk to me about just what you sense of guilt, this worry you feel, is rooted in?” 

She watches with some small surprise as the angry, defiant recovering Box Boy who has spoken frankly and openly to her about being maimed, injured, treated as an object, referred to as an animal... blushes.

“I want-... It’s not the, um, the response. That I hate.” He won’t look at her now, and he’s one who loves to stare her down whenever he thinks she’ll be shocked or disgusted by what he has to tell her. But this… this, he’s ashamed or embarrassed to say. “They’re fucking gorgeous, that’s... anybody would like them. It’s… it’s what I want from them that... scares me.”

“You are accustomed to a certain level of unwanted physical attention, it’s not at all uncommon in Romantic rescues to continue to feel sexual attraction and desire after freedom-”

“No. It’s. It’s not that I-... I know that’s normal. It’s… I want…” He shifts, uneasily. “I want… I want Allyn to hurt me.”

The last sentence is whispered. It’s not sharing a thought, it’s confessing what he feels is some kind of sin he is committing or intending to commit. Dr. Berger sometimes feels like a priest in a confessional booth, although she’s never been one to suggest atonement - no, fear of oneself is where the core of most of her clients’ pain lies, in her experience. Instead, she works on reconstructing the impulse or fear from its foundations, breaking apart the horror of its weight and reconfiguring it so it’s easier to understand. 

To take control of, to direct.

She helps them to own themselves, not to fear the prospect but to see in it freedom they have always deserved. 

Fear is the absolute last thing any of her clients should ever have to feel again. They have been taught to devalue and debase themselves, to fear what their bodies can be made to do. If she does nothing else, Dr. Berger hopes she is able to help them be just a little less afraid of the bodies they live in.

“You want your housemate to hurt you?” She asks, gently. “Do you mean in the sense of a serious injury, or…”

“No. Um. No, I fucking… I think about them, um. Hurting-... like… like they used to do. Biting me, or... or scratching... I th-think sometimes about Allyn h-holding a... never mind. Just. Hurting me. I’m-... made to be hurt.”

“You are made only to be yourself,” Dr. Berger reminds him, her voice low and without any hint of judgement. “We’ve talked about your captors before and how you were held. You believe that you were made into a masochist as part of your training, and so you’re frightened that your mind is thinking about your housemate in ways similar to how you were once forced to think about your captors.”

His nose wrinkles - he’s more dismissive than most of the language she uses, and early on delighted in insisting on using words like owner, handler, master. Things he thought might shock her. But Dr. Berger has heard nearly everything she thinks there might be to hear, by now. She only smiles slightly at his expression, jotting quickly down on her notepad a few notations. 

Finally, he offers hesitantly, “I-I guess. Allyn is… good. They’re soft, and nice, and they’d never-... but I want them to. And it’s-... it would make-... them be like Robert, or… wouldn’t it? It’d be… treating them like… I don’t ever want to be what I was again, so why the fuck can’t I stop thinking about it?” 

He is so rarely vulnerable. Dr. Berger doesn’t take for granted the gift he gives her by letting her see past the wall of anger and derision he has built to keep himself safe. In many ways, he reminds her of when she saw Jake Stanton after his own brush with WRU’s handlers and their methods. Bristling, defensive, and with wounds that cannot be bandaged. They instead need to be exposed to the light.

“Intrusive thoughts that contain elements of your captivity are absolutely normal. You are still in the early stages of making progress, and progress is never linear, Jameson. There is no starting line, no ribbon at the end of the race. There is only moving forward, bit by bit, even if sometimes we move back.”

“You mean I move back,” He says, sullen now. “You don’t do shit. You’re already fine.”

“Mmmn, that’s not… quite accurate. I actually see someone myself, you know.” Dr. Berger smiles at his obvious, visible surprise. “My mentor once told me he never trusted a provider of therapy who did not themselves seek it out. I have my own progress to work towards, just as you have yours.”

“Problems are probably real fucking different, though.”

“Well, that’s true.” She allows herself a warm laugh - and is rewarded when he doesn’t bristle or assume mockery like he used to, but relaxes and even gives her a very small smile in return. “But I would advise you not to compare yourself to others. Your situation, while not unique in some ways, is still unique to you. You’ve been through a kind of horror that no one else has - even if others have experienced some similarities, the traumatic events they experienced will never be entirely like yours.”

He nods.

“But-” She holds up one finger “That doesn’t mean we can’t use what we know as a framework, a foundation you can build your own way on. Think of an ancient Roman road paved into a highway in modern Italy, for instance. The foundation was there, a path laid by people who came through before. But you can take what you need and use it to find your own way. I know that you’re scared of your thoughts, I know that you are frightened of wanting to find gratification or satisfaction in pain because you think it means a return to how you were treated before, or that you are inherently changed in damaging ways by your captivity, but…”

When she trails off, he leans slightly forward “But?”

She chooses her words carefully. “Jameson, would you be willing to consider something that may make you a little uncomfortable?”

He looks at her, depths of feelings in his brown eyes, and slowly nods. “Why not? I’m already fucking uncomfortable. All the time.”

His thin shoulders under the oversized band shirt he wears make angles under the fabric as he shrugs, although in the time she’s been seeing them those sharp edges have already begun to round out, the lines of his jaw and cheekbones are softening.

She’s seen it over and over again, the physical changes reflecting the rebuilding of an entire life. It never ceases to amaze her, how hard each and every one of them works. 

“Okay. This may be hard to hear at first but I think it will help you.”

Eventually he nods. “Yeah,” He half-rasps. “Yeah, okay. Just say it. Everything… everything else you’ve said has helped. Go ahead.”

“Okay. So, what I would like you to consider… perhaps what you see as an enforced flaw, a crack that was put into you, a danger you present to your housemate due to your conditioning and mistreatment… it might be in fact an intrinsic part of your sexual expression, and simply an aspect of your attraction to them, and the wish you stated to me to perhaps escalate your current relationship.”

He swallows. The color drains from his face, except for two spots of bright red high along his cheekbones. “What?” His lips barely move. 

“Jameson…” Her tone dips, reassuring and soothing. “I know what you were told. I know you were likely given a series of half-truths and whole lies designed to engender dependence and teach you to loathe yourself and therefore disconnect from your body. But… that body? It’s very real, and it’s entirely yours. I think that we need to look into the possibility that you already had certain tendencies that were exploited and twisted. Those tendencies are not inherently unhealthy or damaging if you learn to pursue them in a safe environment.”

He blinks, once, twice, his eyes glittering. 

She’s made a misstep and she knows it immediately, clear as the tears Jameson never allows to fall. She didn’t time it quite right. They should have spent more time working up to it…

“Are you saying I’m just-... like this?”

“Not the way you are suggesting,” Dr. Berger says softly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t express myself clearly enough. Please let me elaborate a little.”

“I fucking hope you d-didn’t mean that I’m-... that I’m just fucked up,” He says, looking away from her, down at the floor. She pretends she doesn’t see one hand go up to curve around the side of his neck, recreating some of the weight of the collar they are so often taught to rely on for a sense of safety.

“I absolutely did not mean that. One thing WRU excels at - one of the reasons they have been so successful - is that they utilize very effective techniques that encourage a sense of complicity and responsibility in the people they abuse and violate. I’m going to hazard a guess that you were told that you chose what happened to you.”

“I signed up for this,” Jameson whispers automatically, rote and robotic, without hesitation. At least, Dr. Berger thinks, she’s been doing this job long enough that hearing that no longer gets to her like it used to. “I wanted to be some rich asshole’s-”

“Yes. That. One way I think they are able to convince so many individuals so thoroughly isn’t only because of the standard methods of sleep and nutritional deprivation, the repetition, memorizing, the mistreatment… no, I think one thing WRU does is find in each of its victims a core truth they can exploit and cause you to fear in yourself, making you more vulnerable to the idea that this company is somehow saving or helping you by ‘making use’ of it. They find your weak point and use it to shatter you, but what WRU never realizes is that the very weakness they exploit is also often the same piece of you we can recover, that we can reclaim. In your case… Jameson, have you ever heard of consensual masochism?”

He’s hooked, she thinks, on this line of logic. On the lifeline she’s thrown him, something to grab onto. A way to begin to believe, in some small way, that he isn’t ruined. They all think they’ve been ruined, by the time she meets them.

None of them is.

“No, I-I haven’t. Does this mean… there are people like me who aren’t, you know, fucktoys-”

“Recovering Romantics,” She corrects, gently. “And yes. Masochism is a not-uncommon mode of expression that many people engage in consensually in the context of healthy sexual expression.”

He swallows, hard. She watches his throat move. Sees the look in his eyes, the minute changes in his expression. The hand pushing against the side of his neck slowly drops. She can see the gears turning within him, a shifting point of view maybe. She can see what he doesn’t want to speak out loud.

There’s another silence. This one is more comfortable, and as always she gives him all the time he needs. 

“How-” His voice cracks, and he clears his throat, blinking rapidly again. His knees slowly uncurl and his feet, clad in old hand-me-down sneakers, find their way to flat on the floor. Without his ever-present scowl, he looks years younger. Terrified.

Hopeful.

“How can I-... how do I-...” He takes a deep breath. “If it’s just… part of me… how do I make it safe?”

-

@astrobly @burtlederp @finder-of-rings @whump-tr0pes @raigash @moose-teeth @orchidscript @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @eatyourdamnpears @boxboysandotherwhump @vickytokio @whumpfigure @outofangband @downriver914 @justabitofwhump @thehopelessopus @butwhatifyouwrite @yet-another-heathen @nonsensical-whump

#whump #recovery whump #referenced pet whump #recovering whumpee #wru #bbu #box boy #box boy universe #masochism tw #condtioning #deconditioning #jameson bb #dr. berger #trauma recovery #noncon survivor navigating consensual spice #referenced consensual spice #referenced noncon #internalized victim-blaming #whumpees in therapy

[mimzy-writing-online]

Dear Mimzy, I can't begin to tell you how happy I was to find your advice on how to write a blind or visually impaired person respectfully. Thank you so much for doing that. It was very helpful. I'm currently writing a book and I'm about to start the editing phase. I'm writing you to ask if you would consider being a beta reader of mine? I'll pay you, of course. You can write me on Instagram: mettepeleikis if you're interested. Once again thank you for your helpful blog. - Mette

PART 1/2: Mette again. Even if you're not interested in beta reading my book, I do have some questions that I haven't found the answers to on your blog. I hope you can help me by giving me your opinion on these two things. 1. The love interest of my MC loses his sight from a head trauma accident (I did read you advice against that but it's unfortunately not something I can change now) but do you consider that "victimizing your blind character" like when you mentioned rape?

PART 2/2: Gosh, I'm sorry for spamming you. Here's my second question. I never wanted to cure my blind character, but I did have in mind that a surgery could partially restore a bit of it. Just enough for him to see a bit of color. Do you think that is as bad as curing them when partially restoring his sight? Thank you so much, Mimzy. Best, Mette

Mimzy answered: I’m so happy I could help your writing process! Hearing that I help makes every day much better, especially since this is part of what I’ll be focusing on in school.

I am considering taking a few beta-reading contracts in the winter between school semesters. I am going to put a note down with your Instagram contact.

As for your first question, I recently made a post going in-depth about writing whump and using blindness for plot purposes. It has far more depth and nuance to the subject than my initial post did in 2019, largely because that was (still is) a topic I struggle to talk about.

(The following paragraph is useful advice to all writers, not just Mette)

The concern about head trauma being the cause of blindness stems more from how rare it is compared to natural causes of blindness. Glaucoma, Macular Degeneration, Cataracts, and Diabetic Retinopathy are the most common causes of vision loss. The head trauma route is also a big sign that the writer took the lazy way out of researching the cause of the character’s blindness, which suggests to the reader that the character is more of a prop than a character. The best thing you can do to avoid this sentiment, avoid inaccuracy and insensitivity, is to deeply research the specific details of the injury and how that will affect your character’s vision.

I found an article for you with a wide variety of specific injury types that can follow a traumatic brain injury. It will be a good starting point in your individual research.

What Mette is describing doesn’t sound like victimizing, at least not as I would personally define it. Victimizing would be using the character’s trauma and blindness to teach the main character some kind of lesson, very much like the trend of violently killing off female characters to push the male protagonist’s storyline.

The message a plotline like that sends to a blind reader is that how our blindness affects our loved ones is more important than how it affects us, that we’re a burden to our loved ones, and that our feelings about vision loss don’t matter because we’re a plot device for our family’s story.

Or using the character’s blindness as a way to “set up” a plan to hurt the character. An example would be the character getting kidnapped and not realizing they were being stalked because of their blindness. A good exercise to test if you’re falling into this trap would be to ask yourself “if this character was a drunk teenage girl, would this look like victim blaming?” If the answer is yes, then you need to rethink that plotline.

The message this plotline sends is that being disabled makes you an easy victim to assault, that it’s only a matter of time before it happens, that it happens because you’re disabled and that it’s somehow your fault.

It’s also a reminder of a terrifying but very real statistic of how common it is for a disabled person to be a victim of a crime. I found a webpage discussing it if you’d like to further educate yourself.

So there’s a big difference between an author exploring the trauma around sudden vision loss, and an author turning that trauma into shallow dramatics for entertainment purposes. One has the chance to make you feel seen, and the other makes you feel objectified.

Ask yourself how your story compares to what I’ve described and if/how you can do better.

To answer your last question, I’m not 100% sure. Realistically, if offered a chance to surgically improve your vision when you were in the early stages of learning to adapt, you might very well jump at the chance. Some might, but there are plenty of reasons why you might decline the surgery. It’s very likely you might develop a phobia against medical care (iatrophobia) following a traumatic medical experience, and perhaps avoid doctors and medical procedures at all costs, even if it means potentially allowing conditions to get dangerously worse before seeking help. If your story is based in America, chances are that a procedure like that will be too costly, even with insurance. Double-check medical care costs in the country the story takes place in if you’re not sure. Hearing that the surgery might risk you losing more sight with very little promise of returning your vision, especially long term, would be a big motivation to decline. Resentment against how doctors and loved ones focused on wanting to “fix you” instead of helping you adjust might be a reason to decline. (It certainly was for me, especially when the proposed solution wouldn’t completely improve my vision. This was prediagnosis) Being far enough into your recovery due to a great support system and therapy might also be a reason to decline the surgery, stating that you’re happy with life as is.

Personally, I would hate to lose my color vision. Vibrant colors make me absurdly happy. However, if I did lose my color vision and a specific surgery was proposed to possibly restore it, it’s highly unlikely I would accept for almost all of the reasons stated above.

It’s a subject that will require more than one sensitivity reader, and possibly asking people within the blind community how they feel about that. A variety of responses will help you explore the nuances of the plotline.

I always recommend @blindbeta as a sensitivity reader because I love their work discussing different blind characters in media and their advice posts.

Thank you for the positive feedback, it made my night :)

(after post notes: dear god I hope this is coherent. This was written between the hours of 1 and 2 am. Yeah, this blog is called the Late Night Writing Advice Blog for a reason. Also (@ everyone, I shared some personal feelings tonight, please treat that with respect)

#blind character #disabled character #character crafting #medical #surgery mention tw

[kim-ruzek]

Something's gone terribly wrong

Summary: Adam's gone missing, and looking at his phone records makes intelligence discover something very interesting. An alternative way for Kim and Adam's relationship could've been found out.

Or; Kim and Adam learn the true meaning of family.

Warnings: alludes to (canon-typical) violence, alludes to sex/talks about sex, Bob Ruzek's A+ parenting, blood mentions, Adam whump.

Word Count: 17.2k words

Read on AO3

Notes: SO. This all started because I got drunk and made drunken notes on fic ideas, and then when I was sober, Cíara convinced me that I Needed to write it. Originally, this was only meant to be a silly, short little thing but it's become so much more. This is basically a love letter to Adam and Kim, and how much they're respected and loved by intelligence.

I hope y'all like it!!! I'm so, so proud of this so I really hope you get some enjoyment out of it! I've only put the first 4k words on here, the rest you'll have to read on AO3. I've linked it here and at the bottom of this post!!!

Alvin Olinsky had known Hank Voight for all of their respective careers, most of their peers knowing that they often come as a package deal. Even IAB, if the fact that when Voight got out of prison with his shiny new promotion he was put in charge of intelligence, a unit that Al had been involved in for two years previous after leaving the gang unit, is anything to go by.

And yet, like so many of their co-workers, Al’s uncanny ability to blend into the walls and make everyone forget about his presence still affects Voight. It shouldn’t, not when they’ve known each other for years, but at least it explains why Al is known as one of the best undercover operatives, if his nature can even trick one of his oldest friends.

“Once Al gets here--,” Voight’s dolling out the day’s instructions, which is no doubt just to keep on working on their long term drug investigation.

“I’m here,” Al interrupts, rolling his chair out to show. Voight looks at him and the two nod at each other, and then Voight goes to continue.

“But,” Al interrupts again. “My partner isn’t.”

Al indicates at the empty chair opposite to him, as if to show evidence. He had noticed that Adam hadn’t arrived yet. It’s unusual, the young, enthusiastic puppy-like man often making his presence known as soon as he gets through the doors. It’s both an insufferable and endearing quality, and makes it painfully obvious when Adam isn’t here.

Before Voight had came out his office, when the unit was just doing their early morning paperwork, Al had double checked the schedule, to make sure that it isn’t Adam’s day off. It isn’t, and so Al shot off a text to the man. Adam doesn’t have the best time management, although he’s never late, but he can drag his feet a bit. Especially since he got with his new girl he thinks Al doesn’t know about—like Al doesn’t notice the boy’s constant texting, his ever-present good mood and, of course, the clear markings of a lover’s meeting when he’s getting changed.

But Adam had neither replied to his message, nor came barrelling into the bullpen with some quick excuse about traffic, as if he thinks Al can’t see the slight stain of lip-gloss on his lips.

Voight frowns at the empty seat, clearly off put by it as well.

“Has he given a reason?” After Al shakes his head in reply, Voight looks to the others in the unit, specifically at Kevin. If someone is going to know, it would be him.

But Kevin didn’t know, and Adam didn’t respond to his texts either.

It’s been a few hours now, and Adam hasn’t stumbled in with any reason or excuse. They started off only a little concerned, with Jay, Erin and Antonio dismissing that there’s any worry, to the unit being in alert mode, deeply concerned. In their jobs, you don’t just go missing, with no word.

They had checked his desk for his UC phone, to see if he had an impromptu meeting or information, but it still sat in his desk draw. They had then pinged his phone, to see his location, but it was either off or destroyed.

They had done everything. They had checked everything, gone to his apartment to see if he’s home, gone to the last location his phone noted and... nothing. Al was getting increasingly worried by the second, as was the unit.

There is a tenseness in the bullpen, a palatable worry between them all. They’re all thinking the same thing, even if no one’s saying it. That they’ve been investigating some dangerous people, that Adam may be an overgrown child sometimes but he’d always call, that the longer it takes to work this out, the more chance of something bad happening.

“We’re looking at this all wrong.” Erin suddenly says. Everyone turns to face her. “We should approach this like we do a criminal. Get his phone records, try to make a timeline of his movements, talk to whoever he’s been in contact with.”

There’s an instant agreement in the room, and they immediately get on that. It feels wrong getting the records of one of their own, to even consider to look at who Adam’s been calling, texting. But it’s necessary, necessary to invade his privacy if they’re to work out where he’s gone.

Unfortunately, the calls don’t reveal much. Apart from the standard calls and messages to the unit, a couple to his dad, most of his calls and texts were to one Kayla, the girl who from context of the texts is the girl he’s seeing.

“This is useless, it tells us nothing,” Al grumbles, not even bothering to keep the frustration out of his voice. Adam is missing, potentially hurt, in danger, and they’re wasting time looking at Adam’s lovey-dovey sickening messages to this girl. It does nothing but make him even more frustrated (and maybe a little hurt that this girl and Adam seem serious, and yet Adam hasn’t mentioned her to him and maybe they’re not as tight as Al thought and if they don’t find him quick, he’ll never get to ask).

“Except that Ruzek’s got a girl he’s been keeping from us.” Jay jokes, and Al fixes him a glare. This is not the time for jokes, even if Al knows Jay is just as worried. The rest of the team seem to appreciate Jay’s attempt at easing the tenseness in the room, Al notes, as he looks around at everyone—even Voight, because the fact that the team still feels like cracking a joke to ease tension means they have hope and in situations like this, hope is good.

All except Kevin, that is. The officer is too engrossed in looking at the messages to hear. He’s frowning, some confusion or questioning look upon his face. Al wonders what’s got his focus, if there’s something about the messages that he’s noticed that every one else has missed. Kevin and Adam are good friends, Al supposes if anyone is going to notice something off, it’s him.

But Kevin doesn’t say anything, merely shaking his head and looking away from the messages and back at the team, awaiting someone to suggest their next move. They’re not waiting long, as almost right after, Antonio speaks.

“Let’s call this Kayla. If something is up with the boyfriend, the girlfriend usually knows.” Antonio suggests. It’s a good idea, and Al kicks himself, thinking that he really should’ve thought of it first. Maybe because the thought of talking to this girl hurts something inside him, because she’s someone Adam didn’t want Al to meet. But he needs to stop thinking like that, stop getting caught up in respect and care, because that’s wasting potentially precious moments of Adam’s life.

“Good idea. We’ll put it on loudspeaker, but Atwater, you talk to this girl. We don’t want to alarm her too much,” Voight commands.

The few seconds it takes to ring feels like the longest seconds of Al’s life. This could be a lead, something that tells them where in the world Adam is, confirming that he hasn’t just dropped off the face of the earth. Al’s feeling some hope, some optimism that maybe they’ll know where Adam is before lunch but then the phone goes to voicemail.

“Please leave a message, I’ll call you back when I can!”

Al feels defeated, as does everyone else by the looks of his unit’s face. It’s just the girl’s voicemail, they can try again, it’s not the end of the world. But it feels like it. Voight’s rubbing his forehead, seeming as frustrated as Al is. It’s silent in the bullpen—but only for a second because then someone, Kevin, is talking.

“There’s our lead, that’s Burgess.”

Kim can’t count how many times she’s seen Platt and immediately wanted to hide, to run, to let the floor swallow her whole. Her Sargent rides you hard, and it’s worth it, but by gods is she terrifying. And if you’ve crossed her, hell would be a safer place. But as Roman and her enter the 21st and Kim sees the formidable desk Sargent, all she feels is relief—because finally, finally, she can get some reprieve from Roman bitching about intelligence.

It has been non-stop since they got the call over the radio to come back to the district, that they’re needed by intelligence. Roman has very clearly made his feelings known about being at the call to the unit, many, many times. Kim’s not sure what’s his problem, if it’s because he has an inferiority complex or superiority complex, or that he has no aim to get into an elite unit such as that but can’t help but resent those who do. But what she is sure of is that if she has to hear his repetitive grumbling thoughts about it again, she might just shoot him. It’s beginning to get to the point that Kim dreads Intelligence deciding to use them, no matter how fun, because it means she’ll have to endure the rant.

Although having to suffer through it might just be worth it if it means her name is being mentioned up there, and to get to see Adam before their evening plans. To get to exchange a subtle look at him, telling him silently just how much she misses him, wants to be with him. To get to have him give her a look, a look of comfort that her being there means she’s had to endure the rant.

Of course, that’s not a reason she’s in any hurry to tell Voight as a reason she likes when he uses them. After all, the reason she’s not up there is because of his archaic rule about in-house dating.

“We’re needed?” Kim gets to Platt’s desk in record time. She thinks she sees a slight smile appear on the desk Sargent’s face at Kim practically rushing to the desk, leaving Roman behind so he had to catch up quickly, but it’s gone before it’s there, and Kim dismisses it, thinking she must be imagining it.

“Yeah. Well you are, but you can take up your partner. You might need it, moral support or whatever.” Platt tells her. Kim opens her mouth, about to protest against the assumption that she’s weak and needs support—especially from an ass like Roman—but Platt silences her before she can, her expression softening ever so slightly as she does so.

“Zip it, Burgess, it’s not a comment on you as a cop. They need you because...Ruzek didn’t sign into work today and they think you might be able to shine some light on the situation.” Platt says, but Kim barely hears the words. How did Adam not sign in, when this morning they were very much headed into work together? He was talking about his paperwork, for god’s sake!

“What more can she tell them that one of them doesn’t know?” Roman chimes in then, complaining. Kim near punches him, having even less patience for him now her mind is reeling with concern for Adam. Platt fixes him a look before looking back at Kim. She leans forward slightly, looking at Kim with concern.

“I believe they looked at his texts. And came to the conclusion that you will know.” Platt softly tells her, before fixing her a very pointed look. It takes Kim a second to realise what she’s on about, but once she does, realising that oh god Voight knows they’re dating, Kim turns a shade of red. Then frowns, because Platt doesn’t seem at all phased. And then she’s blushing even darker because oh god has Platt known all this time?

“Now, go.” Kim has barely any time to process this before Platt is shooing them away, reminding them that upstairs needs them.

Kim walks up the stairs in a daze, barely hearing Roman’s complaining and questions, and the door buzzing as Platt buzzes them in. So much has been put on her, she’s unsure what she should be more shocked at. That Adam’s missing, possibly in danger, or that apparently they haven’t been as careful as she thought, or that Voight knows, everyone knows. And that they know that they’ve been texting under false names.

There’s always a feeling of awkwardness Kim gets when she walks up the stairs and arrives at the bullpen. The unit is elite, and so close and tight, their cases usually having a need to know status, and coming up to that, interrupting that, it can feel very much like you’ve stumbled into a forbidden place, somewhere you don’t belong. And it’s only amplified by Kim really, really wanting to belong.

But nothing has ever felt as awkward as this.

Everyone turns to look at her as soon as she gets up the stairs. The slight mumblings between them falling silent and it feels like one of those dreams where you’re naked, feeling as if everyone can see right through her. Because they all know now, they all know that Adam are her are seeing each other, that they’re being secretive about it, and they’ve read their messages and Kim doesn’t know how much but she knows one of their last messages was their thinly veiled sexting and oh god, what if they’ve read her messages about what she wanted to do to Adam last night—the thing she did do.

Voight’s expression is unreadable, as usual, but Kim doesn’t need to be able to read it to know what he’s thinking. Probably right now there’s just concern for his MIA officer, but after they locate Adam, it’s going to be thoughts about how now Kim will never make it into intelligence. That he might be feeling disappointed in her, because instead of proving she’s serious, she’s just gone and dated Adam on the down low. Never mind that his rule shouldn’t exist or have any impact on his decisions about his officers, but it’s his right to make whatever rule and now Kim’s proven she’s not intelligence material according to those rules.

Halstead is giving her an almost pitying look, with some interest, like he’s wondering how and why it started. Lindsay’s also giving her a sympathetic look, likewise Antonio and not for the first time, Kim feels glad for their presences, it making her feel more at ease.

Kim doesn’t even want to dissect the look that Olinsky’s giving her. And Kevin, oh Kevin. Kim knows exactly what Kevin is thinking just with one glance at his expression. They were partners and they’re best friends; Kim can read him like an open book.

There’s the same worry for Adam as the rest, and he’s also looking at her differently with this new piece of information. But not like the others, because Kevin isn’t just another member of intelligence, he’s he best friend, Adam’s best friend, and they kept this from him. There’s curiosity, questions, a look that tells Kim with no uncertainty that after this is done, after Adam is found, they’re going to have a talk.

“Platt briefed you?” Voight asks. He’s a man of little words, but Kim can’t help but feel like he’s choosing as little words as possible because he, too, is feeling awkward. After all, how do you tell your teammate’s girlfriend her boyfriend is missing, when she’s your colleague and you didn’t know they were together.

Kim manages to nod in answer, wishing so desperately that Adam was here, so she could catch his eye, so she could have him give her a slight, reassuring nod that would immediately put her ease and fill her with confidence. If course, if Adam was here, then this wouldn’t be happening.

“Did Ruzek say anything to you? Tell you where he’d be going?” Voight then asks, and Kim has to take a deep breathe to calm herself before answering. Because the answer isn’t an optimistic one, because the answer makes her worried, because Adam should be here.

“All he was talking about was work. He was going here, we were headed to work together.” Kim tells him, trying to not let her mind spiral with what could’ve happened. From beside her, Roman looks at her, as if piecing together exactly why Kim might know more.

“So you saw him this morning?” Al interjects and Kim blushes as she realises the implications of her words. There’s nothing wrong about it, but Kim isn’t prepared to have to talk about the domesticities of Adam and her lives yet. Kim has barely nodded before Al is speaking again.

“You said you were headed in to work together? So he was here, at the district.” At Al’s question, Kim cringes slightly, that she has to explain their routine.

“I don’t know. We take our own cars most of the time. But... Uh, sometimes we park before getting here to, uh, just say goodbye one more time, and he usually gets here first, but he wasn’t there today. So I just assumed that you got a case so he couldn’t hang around.” If the floor could just open up, that would be great, Kim thinks as she speaks. Never did she think that she’d be having to tell them about Adam and her’s sneaky secret kisses.

Kim thinks Al is about to ask her something else, but Voight steps forward, interrupting him before he can.

“Come on, let’s take this to the interrogation room, for privacy. This is a conversation to be done sat down.” Voight tells her, indicating for her to go down the hall. It’s a nice gesture, and Kim appreciates it, but there’s a part of her that feels like because he’s treating her with care that definitely means this is the final nail in the coffin, that this means she’ll never make intelligence.

Although if that’s the price to pay for Adam to be okay, Kim thinks that’d make it easier to swallow. Adam is the man she loves, a word they told each other a couple months ago, and she couldn’t bare it if he’s not okay.

“If you can, take us through the morning. It’ll be helpful, to establish Ruzek’s mind-set.” Voight asks once they’re sat in the interrogation room. Kim would rather do literally anything else, but she understands that she needs to.

“It was pretty normal. We woke up, got ready for work, had breakfast. We talked about our plans over breakfast—that’s when he was talking about doing his paperwork—and then we were leaving. Nothing was off or wrong, it was just normal.” She wishes something was wrong, so that she could be more help. So they could find him.

“There must be something. Look deeper, go through the morning stage by stage. Break it down. What was his mood like? Was he distracted?” Al asks—or demanded might be a better description. Kim can see the worry, plain and unconcealed on his face. Adam is like a son to him, and she knows how much Adam looks up to him like a father as well, and Kim thinks that he might just be the only other person who gets the spine-chilling fear of Adam being AWOL. The others are worried, of course, but the thought of even a hair of Adam’s being messed in some way is a stomach churning thought.

“His mood was fine. Normal. He wasn’t distracted or anything. If he was, I would’ve asked but he was fine. We were making evening plans and everything!” Kim feels almost as if the room is closing in on her, feeling useless. What kind of girlfriend is she?

“I’m sorry I’m no help,” Kim apologizes, feeling bad. And feeling worse when Voight gives her one of his rare sympathetic and soft looks.

“There’s got to be something. Break down the morning into the times. What time did you get up, leave. Burgess, think.” Al persists. Kim would feel annoyed that he’s doubting her, but she can hear how worried he is, see it. Al has taken off his beanie, looking so drawn and concerned.

“Our alarm went off at six. At around seven, maybe quarter to, we were getting ready. Breakfast was at like, half past. And we were leaving before eight. He was fine throughout the morning, happy. His normal self?” Kim explains. To say Adam was happy would be an understatement, he was full of energy, barely unable to keep his hands off her all morning. Not that she’s going to say that to them.

“How could it go from that to him not turning up to work?” Al vents, and Voight rests a hand on his shoulder. Al turns back to look at her.

“It took you nearly an hour to get out of bed. Why?” He asks, and Kim blushes instinctively, as she remembers the passionate love-making Adam and her had this morning. Subconsciously, her hand goes to rest on her collarbone where, under the fabric of her uniform, is the deep mark Adam left on her.

“We were, uh, having a lazy morning.” Kim answers, wishing ever so much that Adam would just turn up so that this conversation could end. She doesn’t blame Al for not realising why two young lovers might take so long to get out of bed, he’s stressed, but she wishes she didn’t have to expand on it. She watches his face, waiting for the awkward realisation of why occurring to him, but it doesn’t come.

“Lazy? That boy has never been immobile a day in his life. Was he okay? You said he was fine, but why was he being lazy. Was he tired, distracted, upset? Could he have been lethargic, maybe he was drugged?” Al demands and Kim thinks that she must be the colour of a tomato because oh god she’s going to have to spell this out.

“He wasn’t drugged, I’m sure of that.” She says, emphasising her words, hoping to get through Al’s stress. Please, please don’t let her have to tell Adam’s surrogate father that they were having sex.

“How do you know? Burgess, if there’s any chance—” Apparently, this is happening.

“Al, I know because we were having sex, and trust me, he could not do what he did if he was drugged.” Kim’s voice is firm, as she spells it out explicitly, and she’s amazed that it is, that she sounds so strong and sure instead of like a nervous teenager being caught in the act, like she was so certain age would be.

“Oh.” She watches him process her words, everything she was getting at finally dawning onto him. If she’s not mistaken, Al looks as if he’s turning slightly red himself, and he shifts awkwardly. Kim can’t help but feel slight satisfaction in making him feel as awkward as she does—even if, preferably, none of them would’ve had to endure this.

“I think.. I’m going.” Al uncharacteristically stumbles over his words, not wasting any time getting out of the room. Kim wonders if he’ll be ever able to look at her ever again.

“Thank you, I know that wasn’t easy. But now we know something must’ve happened on Ruzek’s way to work.” Voight stands up himself, signalling that this conversation is over. Kim feels relief, briefly, as it’s then quickly overtaken by her worry for Adam.

And before she knows it, she’s blurting out words. “I want to help you. Find him. Please, he’s... I need to help.”

She has no right asking this. But she couldn’t stop herself, knowing that she can’t just go back to patrol and act as if everything is okay. Because it’s not okay, because Adam’s not okay, which means her world isn’t okay. Voight looks thoughtfully at her.

“Okay.” He says simply, and Kim blinks, shocked.

“Really?” She can barely believe it.

“I was going to offer. You should be involved—and I think you might add a needed and different perspective. You know how he thinks.” Voight says, before he exits the room, leaving her kind reeling. What does that mean exactly, and does this mean...does this mean she’s still got a chance?

Kim leaves the room shortly after Voight. The rest of the unit was walking out the observation room and Kim realises that they all followed them, and listened on to the conversation. It makes sense, because what if Kim had said something of use, but she cringes at the thought of them all hearing what she said.

She catches Roman’s eye first, seeing how his expression is stony, that he clearly has some strong opinions on this, like he does with everything. He looks almost disappointed in her, like he respects her less, and it infuriates her because how dare he judge her, when he didn’t want a woman partner? But she’s too worried to focus on her petty anger, so she looks away from him, not having the energy or mental capacity to give him any time of day right now.

As Kim shifts her eyes away from Roman, she locks onto Kevin. There’s a feeling of comfort for a second. Kevin is one of the only people in the world that she trusts with her whole heart, and he makes her feel safe and she feels so unsure right now. But then her mind catches up, and age realises that he’s exiting the observation room which means he was listening in which means that oh god he heard her talk about having sex with Adam.

And from the look of the way he seems very uncomfortable, he most definitely did hear that. Their eye contact only lasts for a second until they’re both very quickly looking away, unable to look at each other straight. Kevin is like her brother, and she his sister, and no one wants to hear about their siblings’ sex life—especially with their best friend.

continue on ao3

#burzek #kim burgess #adam ruzek #chicago pd #kim burgess x adam ruzek #chicago pd fanfiction #Burzek fanfic #ree writes #ree's.writing

[whumpqin]

👄 for my darling Elisha, plz put chocolate in his mouth that... That looks like ROCKS

ohoho you got it, sweets for the baby boy coming right up!

(from this prompt, send me one!)

CW: pet whump, nonhuman whumpee, conditioned whumpee, creepy/intimate whumper, dehumanization, starvation, food mention, dubcon touch, emetophobia warning (if I missed smth lemme know)

There is a box on the kitchen table with rocks in it, and he doesn't know why.

From Elisha's position, next to the countertop and stove where he cooks daily meals, there's no particular… reason to the box of rocks. It's pretty pink and was wrapped with a fancy red ribbon. There was a note that Aridai had taken with them into their bedroom for their "collection", much to Jeremiah's chagrin, that probably explained the reasoning for why the rocks were packaged like that. Each rock had its own cradle of thin looking paper that separated them from the rest. They were all shapes, sizes, and pretty shining colors, and Elisha's head swam with the dazzling sight.

The natural instinct would be to pick them up and investigate them, but Elisha knew better than to touch his Masters' things. He carefully glanced over to Jeremiah, whose eyes were glued to that new TV they'd gotten. Elisha's chest filled with emotions that were still an unrelenting sea, recalling soft voices and gentle touches - a siren's call from his Sir that forced him to finally look away. He refocused on those silly rocks.

It didn't take long before he took a curious step, futilly peeking around the corner to see if Aridai was done changing their clothes. The chain around his ankle rattled as he moved. Elisha braced himself against the table so his still-weak legs wouldn't give out on him while he drew nearer to the box. His head tilted while his one black eye blinked down at them. He bent down his head slightly - overcompensating how far he was due to his poor depth perception - and sniffed them, similar to a dubious animal with a potential trap. From here they were… funny smelling. Rich, mixed with a confusing floral scent that reminded him of the cleaners they sometimes used. Elisha wrinkled his nose at it. Maybe they were washed or something..?

Footsteps closer to him snapped his attention away. Elisha scrambled back, further rattling the chain around his ankle and making a few other banging noises while he tried to put distance between himself and the rocks.

"Oh, curious about those, are we?" his Master's voice sounded, as Aridai rounded from the corner. Their brown eyes were narrowed at him, and Elisha cowered from the weight their gaze brought upon his shoulders. "Did you touch one of them, pet?"

Elisha swallowed thickly, and shook his head. He would never, for fear of disappointing his Masters and the potential agony he'd be in for his disobedience. But even with his answer, Aridai's eyes scanned over the rocks to see if one of them had been put out of place. Elisha angled his gaze away, waiting for them to want his attention again.

Finally, they seemed to relent on their inspection. "Alright, then. I believe you. Come here and kneel, Caleb. Both knees," they ordered gently.

Elisha slipped over to them, kneeling at their feet. He looked up at them, hands folded in his lap. His tail curled up and hung in a curious motion.

Aridai finally gave him a smile. "My sister sent something over. For all of us, really, but she did mention to at least give you some as well." They reached over and plucked one of the rocks from the box and held it in front of Elisha's eye. "What do you think? Pretty neat, right?" There was a distinct pause, as Aridai looked at them expectantly, as if waiting for an answer. It took a moment for Elisha to realize they were waiting for an answer.

"Uh, um… They're… very pr-pretty, Master," Elisha replied. 

"Mhm. Pretty interesting work. Here, hold your mouth open, pet." As Elisha did what he was supposed to, Aridai placed the rock in his mouth. The shock was thankfully enough to keep him still so he didn't move without permission. Aridai held his lower jaw. "Now close your mouth, but don't move that around with your tongue, understand?"

Elisha hummed his understanding, and closed his mouth. The rock was kept firmly in the center of his mouth. Saliva welled in his mouth around it, the strange sweet taste of it more confusing than it should be. Elisha's eyebrows knitted together in concern as he looked up to his Master. Aridai, however, watched with glittering eyes as Elisha quietly whined through his nose.

"From that dumb look of confusion, I get that you don't know what it is, huh?" Aridai tsked, brushing some of Elisha's brown hair to the side, around his horn. "You poor, brainless thing. Must've bled all the sense out of you, huh?" They gave him a pat on his head. "Don't worry, it's not like you need to think, little diamond. Keep still. Hey Jeremiah! Come in here!"

"What?" Jeremiah grumbled from the couch, as he stood and walked into the kitchen. His gaze flicked to Elisha as he raised an eyebrow, then looked to Aridai. They plucked another rock and offered one to Jeremiah with a smile, who looked at them dubiously. "What the hell is this?"

"Anna sent them to us. With a letter! She must be so riddled with guilt, it's hilarious."

"Why would she be riddled with guilt?" There was a pause as Aridai looked at Jeremiah like he was stupid. "What, because she saw him? That's fucking rich, considering."

"I never said Anna was smart," they said with a snort.

Elisha saw Jeremiah brush Aridai's offered gift to the side in favor of picking one himself. Aridai was quick, lashing out to deliver a harsh slap to Jeremiah's searching hand before he could pick anything up.

"Ow! What the fuck, Aridai?" Jeremiah shouted. Elisha hunched his shoulders, curling away from the angry tone he'd learned to avoid.

"I'm literally handing you one, dumbass! This one not good enough for you?" Aridai's tone was equal in pitch as they shouted back.

Elisha tried not to listen intently to their argument. It'd get heated and it would ebb into a calm again, like it always does. Though he still flinched at the sharp punctuations, there was something else that held his attention for now.

The rock in his mouth was melting.

The sweet, rich but slightly bitter taste was pooling in his mouth. He still hadn't been given permission to move, but he knew that the rock was not as heavy upon his tongue like it was. The taste and its richness was familiar, and made his hungry stomach roll with the need to fill itself. The word chocolate finally danced into his mind, and with it the rock's odd packaging and its shape had all clicked comfortably into place. Moreover, it made sense as to why Aridai had put one in his mouth in the first place. Now, he just wanted to swallow the food in his mouth, instinct very nearly taking over his learned behavior.

While his Masters were arguing, Elisha reached out and tugged on Aridai's pant leg. They paused mid-sentence, turning their perturbed expression to him. He pointed to his mouth and quietly whined.

"What? Oh!" Aridai snorted and patted him on the head. "I totally forgot. You can go ahead and swallow that."

Elisha did as he was told, swirling his tongue to ensure all of the chocolate was properly eaten and not left behind. He worked his jaw, slightly aching from holding his mouth so still for so long, before speaking the one thing he could say out of turn.

"Thank y-you, Master," he murmured quietly.

The gesture earned him another pat on the head, which he leaned into. Aridai's anger seemingly had vanished, much to Elisha's relief. "That's a good boy. Here, have one more. You can eat this one properly." They picked up another chocolate rock - smaller than the one before - and let Elisha snap it up from their fingers and pocket it in his cheeks to savor it.

"You're going to make him sick if you keep giving him sweets," Jeremiah warned.

"Well, that's not really my problem, is it?" Aridai said smugly. Their hand remained on his head, rubbing in such a way that Elisha's eyelids fell down halfway in contentment.

Elisha knew Jeremiah was right. An empty stomach with sweets never combined well for him, but… maybe he could pretend like it wouldn't do that, for now. Just for a bit, just to enjoy the chocolate his Master had so graciously given to him.

#ask answered #whump #whump writing #my writing #pet whump #nonhuman whumpee #conditioned whumpee #creepy whumper #intimate whumper #dehumanization #starvation tw #food mention #emetophobia warning #dubcon touch #Aridai #Elisha/Caleb #Jeremiah #Elisha's story #introducing: more plot elements I want to include! #Annalynn mention #I remembered how mobile readmores worked and I feel like a god

[fandomoverdrive]

Okay I just need to go on a rant about Whirl because I love him he might just be the most tragic character in the entirety of MTMTE and considering the candidates that’s a pretty hard position to cinch. Some of this is gonna have mentions re: self harm, suicidal tendencies/ideation, overall bad coping mechanisms etc so if that’s not your cuppa please scroll on. 

This gets long so here’s the obligatory read more. 

Let’s write “tragic” in flickering neon letters with the fact that Whirl’s first appearance in MTMTE, dropping the titular “how to say goodbye and mean it,” is a personal soliloquy delivered as he’s in the midst of constructing his own funeral pyre. Whirl is lost, directionless, trapped and unwilling to be such in a postwar environment. But how did we get here? 

Whirl is without a doubt a driven character. In the prewar functionist society, he had no qualms switching careers, risks be damned. Whether he’s always had a knack for disobeying authority or was simply driven by passion or both isn’t elaborated on, but he’s got a hell of a hardheaded streak that’s impossible to ignore. When destroying his business wasn’t enough to deter him from further rebellion, the Senate was happy to turn him into an empuratee and destroy not only the opportunity but the capability of continuing to rebel by pursuing his passion. This is what I’d personally consider the big ‘whump’ moment, less so the use and abuse as a pawn that followed but the point of trauma at which we begin to see Whirl’s psyche begin to twist.

From this point forward we see Whirl in and out of prison, let loose when he can be useful to someone else’s ploy and otherwise incarcerated for a buffet of offenses. No longer able to be constructive and having little if any control of his life, Whirl becomes aggressively destructive. In response to having everything he aspired toward ripped away from him, permanently, he builds a mental defense of bitterness and anger and paves over his black hole of self worth with a veneer of outright assholery. It’s here that he bares his metaphorical fangs and pushes - with gusto - anyone who might even suggest they’re trying to appeal to reason or get close to him as an individual. 

It’s hard to imagine, given even subtly different circumstances, that Whirl would not side with the decepticons for the war. While he’s single-handedly responsible for radicalizing Megatron towards violence, the ‘con intent at the start of revolution - that movement in society should be possible and a caste system based on alt mode is unethical - aligns quite nicely with what he’d already aspired to do with his life. His conscription to the side of the autobots is just another instance in which his autonomy is cast aside. 

Whirl is a tool. Whirl had a passion for watchmaking, but now he can’t, so his new passion is violence. Whirl is a gun and someone else has always told him where to point and all he’s ever been given for his cooperation is the blame of pulling the trigger. Whirl is an asshole, Whirl is unpredictable, Whirl isn’t a mech anybody would ever think twice about saving - the answer would always be no. Whirl wants to die. Whirl only wants to die on his own terms and he’ll be damned if he’s going to keel over under the orders of someone he doesn’t respect, for a cause he doesn’t believe in. 

A few years of this sort of treatment would be enough to drive anyone insane, let alone the millennia of warfare he suffered through. Worse yet is the one time he found a group, a team that was known for the unorthodox and taking on the big messy challenges, the Wreckers kicked him out. Whirl was too much for the mechs that were too much and there’s no way in hell that doesn’t still sting. 

That’s how we get here:

Whirl defends himself through isolation from others. He can’t be hurt by others if he never lets them close enough to be hurt by. In a hypersocial society, he has no close long-term friends, he is one of the few with no roommate aboard the Lost Light. He made himself as unpalatable as possible. He’s crass, he’s volatile, he makes it clear with every word and action that Whirl is first, you don’t mean anything, I’d leave you for dead in an instant..... But that’s not true, is it? 

Whirl is shown being completely, dramatically, self-destructively caring throughout the series. Between risking his life for the scraplet colony disguised as a protoform, participating in an untested spark jumpstart to save a life, coming up with a plan to rejuvenate Tailgate’s spark, and performing a spark transplant surgery on Megatron - without whom the world would never have been even a fraction as cruel to Whirl as it had been - Whirl is far from the most selfish character in the series. It’s in his nature, however, to deny such, to the point where he more than likely believes his own narrative that he’s irredeemable, self-absorbed, invincible, degenerate, and neither capable nor deserving of close interpersonal relationships. 

It’s also how we get here:

Whirl is one of the characters that we more frequently see in a state of disrepair. He fights passionately and recklessly, with no regard whatsoever to whether or not he makes it out of a scrum with all his limbs intact. Injuries like these, and those that he experiences elsewhere in the series, would put other mechs out of commission through pain alone, but as long as Whirl is conscious he doesn’t stop until the fight is over. 

As depressing as it is to think that Whirl is simply at this point accustomed to extraordinary pain, it’s even moreso to think about the more likely concept that he wants to be hurt. Whirl doesn’t have control of a lot that happens to him, but do you know what he does have control of? Who he chooses to shit-talk. More often than not we see Whirl being blatantly disrespectful of his superiors, and some of the more dangerous mechs aboard the LL. While obviously his intent when insulting Ultra Magnus isn’t to start a fight, harping on Drift (and subsequently getting cold clocked) or Cyclonus is a little more self-destructive in nature. 

While Whirl has been in therapy, we see during the encounter with Fort Max that he’d shared very little of what he actually considered traumatic with Rung. With no material to work with, Rung wouldn’t have been able to give Whirl instructions or advice as far as a healthy coping mechanism, and so I’m firmly of the belief that Whirl goes out of his way to get himself hurt as a way to have a vague sense of control. 

On his actions and guilt:

Whirl is immensely guilty. When he’s overcharged, he admits that everything feels like his fault - and unfortunately a lot is. Whirl believes he’s the bad guy, and he’s willing to take the fall for actions that others might find immoral. There’s a lot Whirl has done that he’ll likely never forgive himself for, even if he garnered the ability to start forgiving himself for the small things, but the character he’s created for himself has been part of him for so long that it’s near impossible to tell where to draw the line between caricature and his genuine self. 

At this point in time, Whirl is not capable of improving himself without external assistance. 

He has accepted (however wrongfully) that he is not cared about, trusted, wanted, or respected. 

His assumptions become self-fulfilling prophecy as he - consciously or not - works to perpetuate his image. Whirl is a dick, he’s unfazed by anything anyone says about him, if someone is insulting him they’re probably right, why bother arguing unless it’s with the intent to get in a fight? He doesn’t pay attention to others, he doesn’t pay attention to himself, nothing that anybody could say could possibly make a difference. 

Right? Right?

Wrong. Part of what makes Whirl so heart-wrenchingly tragic is that it is so incredibly clear that nobody has ever told him he mattered. Rodimus throws out what could be interpreted as a snide remark, “even the crazy bastard makes a difference,” and that aside sticks with him. Millions of years of warfare, of being a tool to use, an expendable soldier, a rabid dog to throw at their enemies, and not once did someone turn around and say he was anything good. He’s been thanked for saving lives, for contributions, for individual acts, but his reaction to Rodimus really cements in my mind that nobody has ever said that he, that Whirl, was important. 

Whirl is a broken character. He’s subsumed by his own self-hatred that he perpetuates and justifies with a mask of cruel indifference and aggressively abrasive snark. He’s alone, by what he thinks is his own choice but is really a horribly misguided attempt to keep himself safe. He’s got no potential for growth unless someone wants to force their way through his defenses in order to help him find the line between who he is and who he pretends to be in order to keep from being hurt. Whirl is terrified of abandonment, and guarantees that nobody will ever be able to leave him by never letting them come close to begin with. He’s not a good person, he’s violent and callous and has little regard for the consequences of his actions, but he is that way because of the life he was forced to lead. He falls into consistent patterns because he craves control, even if those patterns are self destructive. It’s proof of the little growth he was allowed during the course of MTMTE/LL that after their quest was over, he didn’t attempt suicide again but instead got into the revolving door of incarceration for petty offenses. 

All in all, Whirl is one of the saddest characters in any media I’ve consumed and please someone get this despicable bastard helicopter a new therapist and a stiff drink 

#maccadam #whirl #mtmte whirl #character analysis #transformers

[whumpmatsus]

Do they have to be whump related? Also Ichimatsu getting a shot pls

wasn't sure if you wanted a draw or a fic, so I did both!

and yeah, any draw or fic requests you send here should probably be whump-related since this is a whump-focused blog

though if you wanna send any draw or fic/scenario/reaction/etc. requests that AREN'T whump, you can send them to my general Osomatsu-san blog at @kisskissmatsu!

enjoooooy <3

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Usually Ichimatsu is the sextuplet who’s fine being left all by himself.

Being in the hospital without his family, though, is a much different story.

It started innocently enough ― with a persistent cough that was almost certainly the herald of a cold or sore throat on the horizon. As much as he hates being sick, he sort of resigned himself to it. He’s the one among his brothers who’s forever catching what happens to be going around, despite the fact that he doesn’t spend a lot of time around other people. That’s why he started wearing a face mask when he does leave the house.

It was about a week or so of sneezing, coughing, and sniffling his way through various attempts to rest. His throat felt worse than it usually did with a cold, and even more alarming was that his chest felt like it was on fire, especially when he started coughing. Even though he started having trouble breathing, he thought maybe this was just something that would linger for a bit, something that needed more sleep to recover from.

When things didn’t taper off after that, since a week was typically all it took for him to start feeling better, the others started commenting on it.

When Ichimatsu started to spend more time in the bathroom with a sink full of hot water in the hopes that the steam would help him breathe easier, and it didn’t seem to be having any effect, they all got worried.

When Karamatsu blurted out, “I secretly took Ichimatsu’s temperature with a forehead thermometer while he was sleeping and it read 39.4!”, Mom and Dad immediately carted their fourth son off to the hospital.

It figures Shittymatsu would get him into this mess, but Ichimatsu supposes that the sneaky gesture was only out of care, otherwise Karamatsu wouldn’t have spoken up about a number that concerned him.

That doesn’t mean he has to like it. After a distressing, panic-inducing few hours of waiting and a date with the X-ray machine, the doctor diagnosed him with bacterial pneumonia. That particular diagnosis ensured that he had to be admitted into the hospital under quarantine, because as the doctor explained, bacterial pneumonia is extremely contagious and potentially life-threatening, particularly to someone with a fragile immune system like Ichimatsu. They can’t send him home to infect his brothers or the rest of the community, and even though he isn’t technically immuno-compromised, his tendency to get sick easily means that it’s better for him to be here in the hospital in case things suddenly take a bad turn.

Being in here is like he’s trapped in hell and can’t get out. Because he’s in quarantine, he never sees anybody. Which would be fine normally. Feeling so poorly is a significant reason for wanting his family nearby, though… and he can’t have them.

The most they can do is visit outside his room and talk to him through the speaker system. That’s even worse, seeing them all and not being able to have any real contact with him. Right now more than anything, what he wants is a hug from his mom. God, he wants a hug from his brothers.

It’s hard to even get any rest like he’s supposed to be doing. Most of his time is spent sitting up, trying to get a sufficient breath in while he listens to various TV channels. The idol news reminds him of Choromatsu, sports statistics remind him of Jyushimatsu, game shows remind him of Osomatsu, American dramas remind him of Karamatsu, and fashion shows remind him of Totty.

Those are just distractions, because it’s still hard to breathe. He’s struggling for most of his breaths, but too deep a breath will trigger a coughing fit. Which, in turn, makes it more difficult to breathe.

It’s barely been a day since he was admitted and already he wants out of here.

His brothers visit sometime after lunch, and they spend a few hours. Eventually the nurse gently chases them out, telling them that Ichimatsu needs to try to get some rest. Shortly after that she comes into the room, rolling her little cart with the tray on it.

“How do you feel today, Ichimatsu?” she hums, pulling on a pair of gloves. “Any better than when we admitted you?”

He shakes his head and tries to answer when another series of coughs interrupts him. Although it’s hard to cover his mouth when his whole body is aching, he does his best. After all, he doesn’t want to get anyone else sick. He’s already in quarantine, so all the doctors and nurses are taking their own precautions; still, he shouldn’t just give up and spread his germs carelessly. “N-not really.”

She nods and picks up a wrapped packet from the tray. “Well, to be honest, that’s understandable. It hasn’t been very long.” The packet is ripped open, and the distinct smell of alcohol fills the air as she carefully pushes his sleeve up. “The lack of improvement does concern us, though. So I just have to give you an injection of some medicine, okay?”

Shit. He thought that might be what was going on here. He knows he’s too exhausted to fight it, and yet, his brain evidently isn’t too exhausted to not be fucking anxious about it. “I… I have to get a shot?”

The cold wipe is rubbed against the top part of his arm. “Yeahhh… I’m sorry. This is penicillin, and it’s one of our standard treatments for pneumonia. The doctor thinks you’ll have better luck sitting still for one shot than for a whole pill-and-water deal, since you’re coughing a lot. I kind of have to agree, since you might accidentally inhale some water if you cough while trying to take the pills.”

Immediately he starts to panic. Most of the time the idea of a shot doesn’t bother him more than it might the average person ― he gets the yearly flu vaccine without any problems. Right now, however… the idea of a shot while he’s already feeling so terrible, the initial pinch and the ache that might happen afterwards and being alone, it just feels scary.

The nurse must hear the way his breathing starts to quicken, or maybe the way his hands start shaking. She gives his shoulder a little pat. “Ah, I know on your chart it says you suffer from some anxiety. Are you a bit anxious right now?”

“Y… yeah…”

“Okay. That’s totally fine, you know? Different people get anxious about different things. Would it help if I distracted you, or if I gave you a countdown so you know when it’s coming? Sometimes that helps so it’s not a surprise… or, sometimes people prefer it to be a surprise. Which one do you think would be best for you?”

… Oh. He wasn’t expecting something like that. It almost feels like he has a little control over this, despite the fact that he has to get the injection either way. “C… can you… count down?”

“Sure, of course. No problem.” Then she reaches over with one hand, grabbing the syringe with the other. “Would you like to hold my hand?”

That’s kind of… babyish, isn’t it? “I-I’m not a kid… I don’t wanna…”

She chuckles. “Well, you know, earlier today I held the hand of an elderly lady who was getting a shot. It’s not just a kid thing. But if you don’t want to, that’s fine too.”

He takes a moment to consider that, then silently slips his hand into hers.

“Alright, just squeeze if you feel like you need to. I’m all set, are you?”

“I… I think so…”

“Okay, I’m gonna give you the countdown then. Here we go. Three ― two ― one.”

As soon as she says the last number, he feels the needle pierce his skin. It’s uncomfortable, a sharp kind of pinprick pain. There’s a slight feeling of tightness and soreness as the medicine is emptied into his muscle, and a brief jolt when the nurse pulls the needle out.

All in all, even though it isn’t a pleasant experience, it’s not as bad as it could have been. It’s certainly better than choking on a pill and a glass of water if he had to try to swallow the medication.

And, at least, it’s over now.

“There. You did great, Ichimatsu. Probably my best patient of the day!” With that, she sets the syringe back down on the tray and gingerly smooths a bandage with a cotton ball over the injection site. “That should keep you clean just in case any blood trickles out from the shot, and someone will come take it off later if the adhesive starts to make your skin itch.”

He nods and coughs into his arm again, giving a soft groan. He’s just so tired, from the fever, from the coughing, from not being home. “Is it gonna m… khh… make me tired?”

“Haha, it shouldn’t, no. You might feel a little nauseous, or you might have to go to the bathroom more, or you might get a small itchy rash… just press the call button if any of that happens or if you feel strange otherwise, okay?” Her cart is all packed up already, and she’s heading out of the room. “If you get tired, it’s probably because you’re sick and need rest. So, try to sleep as much as you can.”

“’Kay.” He just feels like this illness has drained everything out of him, and there’s a little throbbing where he got the injection. But, the more he sleeps, hopefully the sooner he can recover and go home.

On her way out, the nurse dims the lights. Practically as soon as she does, Ichimatsu’s eyes start to drift closed. God, he’s so tired.

He lies down, though the bed is still a little elevated since sleeping flat will just make him cough more. Sleep tugs at him, and he has to move a little bit so he’s not putting any pressure on the area where he got the shot.

Soon. Soon he can go home.

Just as soon as he gets better.

#needles tw #Osomatsu san #whump #Ichimatsu #illness #pneumonia #coughing #hospitalization #injection #he's sO FREAKING LONELY MY POOR BABY #as a side note I've had some great nurses and some not great nurses during my time in hospital stays #and EVERY NURSE SHOULD BE LIKE THIS ONE I WROTE she's great this is how they should ALL treat patients <3 #GET WELL AND GO HOME ICHIBABE

[tsarisfanfiction]

Help Me (Keep My Head Above Water)

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Teen Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Family Characters: Scott, Gordon, Virgil

The water is no place for a man who thrives in the skies.  Luckily, he has a  brother who’s the opposite.

So, this fic comes with huge thanks to @gumnut-logic for both giving me permission to play with her amazing Marks&Wings AU and also patiently correcting me when I got some of the facts and lore a little wrong (and answering all my occasionally silly questions about things as they cropped up).  My muse has been somewhat fickle this week, but playing around elsewhere seems to have woken it up again.  For those of you unfamiliar with the AU, to grossly oversimplify, it’s a wingfic AU, with the exception of Gordon, who is an aquatic shapeshifter instead.

Being me, I immediately honed in on the (whump) potential with Scott, and of course there’s some Scott&Gordon here because I could.  And I had to have Gordon shifting into my favourite marine creature (which I discovered @godsliltippy had already written during my re-read of the whole series earlier to double-check some facts, but the more the merrier, right?)

Scott knew he was in trouble the moment he hit the water.

Maybe it should have twigged two seconds earlier, when his right wing exploded in pain and his pleasure flight had become a panicked fall, but in those two seconds all his concentration had gone into trying to stabilise himself, somehow trying to stop the fall and when that failed, folding his wings to let them go.

Then he hit the water, wings that had decidedly not folded when he told them to slapping the surface hard enough to jar and sending a fresh wave of agony through him, and reality kicked in.

Wings and water didn’t mix. Not unless they were seabird wings, and Scott’s were absolutely not.  His feathers weren’t waterproof; quite the contrary, they absorbed the water like a sponge until there was seven and a half metres of waterlogged wing dragging him down.

Keeping his head above water became a priority and a challenge.

He needed to let them go, absorb them back into the Mark where they couldn’t keep dragging him under, a dead weight tugging at his shoulder blades and forcing him to use every ounce of strength to fight against it.

He couldn’t.

Maybe it was the water, weighting them down so much they couldn’t fold up against his back.  Maybe it was the injury, red swirls in the water telling him it was bad.  Maybe it was neither of those and he just didn’t have the strength.

The reason didn’t matter. What mattered was that he couldn’t, that each frantic surge up to keep his head above water exhausted him more and more, that the sudden appearance of speed boats roaring into view towards him didn’t mean help was on the way.

He’d been shot down. That much was obvious, even if he hadn’t had the time to mentally catalogue exactly what had happened and why. No-one else was around; the stretch of ocean he’d been over – was now in - was devoid of human life.  Supposed to be devoid of human life.

But it had been a manmade thing that had blown through his wing, and now there were more manmade things headed his way.  It didn’t take a genius to put the clues together.

Flying away was out of the question – if he could, he wouldn’t have ended up in the water in the first place – and swimming wasn’t going to help him either.  Keeping his head above water was enough of a challenge; with his waterlogged wings, not to mention the injury, there was no way he’d be able to get any lateral direction at all.  And even if he could, there was no way he could out-swim a speed boat or several.

They spluttered to a halt just in front of him, fanned out in a semicircle.  Too far away to touch, but close enough to see the look of triumph on the face of the man in the one directly in front of him.  It wasn’t reassuring; any remote chance that they’d come to help him out was dashed into pieces.

Sound carried over water. Even over his own gasps for breath and the slosh of the waves his desperate attempts to survive were producing, he could hear the laughter.  Satisfaction.

The next moment, their voices went from cruel and jovial to terrified, pitch rising and culminating in a frantic “grab him now!”

Wide eyes weren’t looking at him.  They were looking past him, faces white and drained of blood, and Scott had no idea what they could see, but if it wasn’t good for men in speedboats, it wasn’t going to be any good to a drowning man with wings pulling him down.

Still, on his next surge out of the water – barely a surge, a weak splutter fuelled by determination and more than a little bit of panic – he turned his head.

A tall, pitch black fin was bearing down on them.  Him.  It towered far above him, easily taller than Alan at a glance, and Scott’s first instinct was fear.  There was blood in the water after all.  His.

It rolled up, a pitch black back to go with the fin, before diving down.  A flash of white confirmed its identity.

Orca.

Orca weren’t known to attack humans, were intelligent enough to recognise them even when they didn’t look right, but the speed it had been approaching with, and the dive-

The men on the boats were shouting and screaming, equally panicked even though they weren’t the ones in the water with it.  Some were fumbling weapons.  At least one gun ended up overboard as it was dropped by shaking hands.

Scott couldn’t see it. Keeping an eye out for the apex predator that had decided to investigate what was going on and keeping his head above water were one task too many – two tasks, really, but Scott wasn’t giving up on living just yet – and after it had dived, he’d lost track of it.

Then something collided with him from beneath, taking what breath he had away as the deep depths his wings had been dragging him down into was replaced suddenly with smooth, thick skin, and that pitch black dorsal fin erupted from the water scant inches from his face.

It kept going, kept rising until his chest was out of the water.  The majority of his wings.  His waist, his knees, and it registered that the orca had scooped him up onto its back.

He didn’t know if that was normal orca behaviour.  He didn’t know much about orca.  His gut told him that didn’t matter.

Scott reached out, arms trembling and weak after his fight with the waves, and wrapped his arms around as much of the dorsal fin in front of him as he could.  The creature was huge, but not so huge his wingtips weren’t still draped into the water, threatening to drag him back off the moment the orca moved again.

The men were still shouting, engines sputtering back into life, but Scott ignored them – even the panicked gunshots that went laughably wide considering the size of the orca, if only because they went so wide.  He didn’t know he was safe, on the back of an apex predator that on the surface had no reason to help a drowning human with wings, but as his fingers closed around the far edge of the fin and then – and only then – did the huge creature move again, he felt that maybe, just maybe, he was.

There was a chance that the orca was exactly that.  A sea creature that had come to investigate and decided in its wisdom to intervene.

But there was also a chance it wasn’t.

Scott didn’t know if orca was in Gordon’s resume, if his aquatic brother had ever got close enough to one to add it to his ever-growing collection of possible transformations. He didn’t have that link with him that Virgil and John did, the second and third Tracys always able to pick their brother out from a myriad of seemingly-identical marine wildlife. Some days, Scott hated that. Hated that Gordon could hide so completely from him.  Hated the fear that came from the knowledge that one day something might happen and he wouldn’t know until Virgil screamed, or John threw himself into a silent frenzy. Hated that he’d be entirely helpless.

Even now, he hated it a little, because he’d never been scared of Gordon no matter the form he took, but he’d been scared of the approaching orca.  He didn’t have the link to confirm the identity of the creature that was saving him.

But he had his gut, and his gut told him that somehow, it had to be Gordon.  Never mind that Gordon hadn’t been in the area as far as he knew.  Never mind the fact that Gordon was supposed to be at home, and if he was here, it meant he’d been out swimming without telling him.

His gut told him he was safe, and he trusted his gut enough to relax as the orca’s clicks and whistles washed over him.  The orca didn’t speak any human languages, but to Scott the fury was clear.

The speed boats circled them.  With his head resting on the smooth, damp skin of what had to be his brother, Scott could only watch as they loudly debated if it was worth trying to snag him.

A tail – fluke, Scott dimly recalled – slapped the water when one got too close.  Scott was doused with water, his fingers tightening their grip as much as they could as the wave threatened to wash him and his useless wings back into the ocean, but the boat – carrying something that looked a lot less friendly than the simple handguns used by the men on the others - was capsized.

If he’d needed any confirmation he was being defended, that was it.

The orca that was almost certainly Gordon swam around in a circle, the movement nudging Scott further onto his back from where he’d slipped, more agitated clicks and whistles making it very clear that further advances would not be tolerated.

His wings – his waterlogged, injured wings – were just in the way.  Scott grit his teeth and tried to pull them in, away from the water and folded so he could let them go.  The left wing obeyed, albeit with effort against the weight of the added water.  The right screamed and despite himself he let out a choked-off cry which he hurriedly muffled by biting his arm.

Apparently that wasn’t moving.  Whatever they’d shot him with must have hit the muscles that controlled the spreading and folding of the wing.

One wing furled and one wing at full span had him sliding, pulled down by the spread weight on his right, and he snapped his left out again instinctively.  Another tight circle from the orca beneath him and he was shifted back to where he’d been.

So that meant no folding his wings.

Scott sighed, trying and failing to ignore the agony throbbing from his wing.  Around them, it seemed like the speed boats had decided it wasn’t worth battling an orca to get their prize.  The capsized men were being dragged onto boats, before the engines roared and they disappeared in the blink of an eye.

The aggressive clicks and whistles stopped for a moment.  When they started again, there was something different about them, and Scott got the distinct impression he was being addressed.  He might have been imagining it, but they sounded concerned.

“I’m okay,” he reassured the creature.  He wasn’t, not with a hole in his wing that was probably still leaking blood and exhausted from his battle to keep his head above water, but even if probably-Gordon knew that, he didn’t need him to say it.  “Thanks.”

Gordon or not, the orca had saved him.  Scott didn’t know what the men had been after, but anyone who tried to catch his attention by shooting him out of the air probably didn’t have friendship on the agenda.

He got another series of clicks and whistles in response, before the huge creature slowly began to swim. Scott could tell it was nowhere near the speeds an orca would normally travel at, but even that tugged at the wingtips still in the water, discomfort traveling up the appendages and resulting in additional loud complaints from the right.  But he didn’t complain; he, too, had no plans to hang around where he’d been shot down. The orca clearly had a destination in mind, and it was one Scott very much hoped was home.

It wasn’t long before a familiar engine whined into earshot.  Content to remain slumped where he was, numbing fingers weakly clutching the dorsal fin and head resting on the black skin, Scott only blinked as Thunderbird Two loomed in the distance.

Ahead of it was a black streak, diving straight for them.

“Scott!”

Virgil’s apparent nonchalance at landing directly on the orca’s back was the final, unnecessary, confirmation that it was Gordon.

Giant black wings, the biggest in the family by some half a metre or so, stayed fully extended for balance as Virgil crouched by him, one hand on the dorsal fin for extra stability while the other landed on his shoulder.

“What happened?” his brother demanded.  Scott could see worried deep brown eyes focusing on his right wing, and wondered if it looked as bad as it felt.

“Shot down,” he admitted, knowing there was no point lying when his bleeding wing was in full view.

Fear flashed through the worry in his brother’s eyes, and Scott knew he was thinking about what might have happened if Gordon hadn’t intervened. He plastered a reassuring grin on his face.

“I’m okay,” he promised.

“No, you’re not,” Virgil snapped back, wings bristling.  The hand on his shoulder moved and Scott muffled a cry as gentle gloved hands explored the area around the wound.  “This is nasty, Scott.”

He knew that, but he was okay.  He was okay because Gordon had been there, because Virgil was there, because he could hear Thunderbird Two coming to a hover overhead, with either Alan at the helm or under the remote control of Thunderbird Five’s inhabitants.

“I’m okay,” he repeated, wishing not for the first time that he had the same link with his brothers the middle three had, so he could push the emotions behind the words into Virgil’s head until he understood what he meant.

But then, the two of them had never needed that to understand each other.

Virgil’s eyes softened just a bit.

“Let’s get you home,” he said.  Orca-Gordon let out what sounded almost like an indignant set of clicks and whistles.  “I know you are, Gordon, but Thunderbird Two is faster and his wings are still in the water.”

Scott assumed Gordon had been protesting that home was already where he’d been taking him.

More clicks and whistles, but the orca slowed to a halt.  Virgil fiddled with his wrist comm, and the giant Thunderbird lowered, her belly opening and a harness descending.

Scott was no use at all, still too exhausted from his dunking to do anything except lay on Gordon’s back as Virgil fussed around him with straps until he was secured for hauling up.  It wasn’t the most glamourous of transportation, and being in the air without being able to rely on his wings for flight if something happened was more than a little unsettling, but it did the job.  With Virgil also hooked into the harness and travelling up alongside him – although his wings were only folded and not let go in what was a quiet assurance for Scott’s nerves at being mid-air with his own out of action, which his younger brother almost certainly did for that exact reason – he soon found himself safely inside the green ‘bird.

What he wasn’t prepared for, as Virgil lifted him to his feet and gently hauled an arm across his shoulders while his own snaked around Scott’s waist for support – obviously taking as much care as possible not to disturb his wings – was Gordon’s entrance.

Scott had assumed another harness would be sent down, if Gordon even chose to get on board instead of racing them home.  In his exhaustion, he had clearly forgotten his aquatic brother’s penchant for dramatics.

Watching an orca breach was breath-taking.  That much sea creature did not seem like it should be able to clear the water much, if at all, but in true Gordon style, the black and white face almost reached the still-open hatch before fading back into the tanned skin and blond hair of his human form.  Scott’s heart leapt up as he realised Gordon wasn’t high enough to grab the edge of the hatch, but before he could react, a tanned hand grabbed onto a trailing harness strap and his second-youngest brother climbed the rest of the way into the module bay.

Beside him, Virgil was all but quivering in vibrant disapproval.

“Gordon-” his brother growled.

“I knew what I was going,” Gordon interrupted, waving a hand as though to dismiss Virgil’s ire at the reckless stunt.  Whatever else was exchanged on the matter seemed to be non-verbal, as amber eyes flickered in Virgil’s direction in what could have been an eyeroll even as the blond picked his way over to Scott’s side.

Virgil was supporting him from his left, away from the injured wing, and Gordon didn’t get too close to his right out of obvious concern, but Scott still found himself the object of scrutiny.

“You look awful,” Gordon told him bluntly, stepping backwards as Virgil clearly decided to save the lecture for later and refocused on leading Scott and his still-spread wings over to the medical bay.

Scott had told them both that he was fine, and it was perfectly clear to him that saying it again would not affect his brothers’ opinions.  So he switched tactics.  “Thanks,” he said dryly, leaning heavily on the levity – and also Virgil’s shoulder as his slightly unsteady self was guided over to a stretcher. It worked enough to get a small grin from the blond.

Normally, the stretcher would be secured up against the module wall. With his wings still more outstretched than not, despite the water weighing them down – painfully, now that gravity was in the equation rather than buoyancy – there was no way that Scott would be able to lay on anything remotely close to a wall.  Brains, however, was a genius with multiple fail safes, and while they tended to try and avoid lifting on rescues unless there was no alternative, he had included a reconfiguration of the stretcher that could be laid on with wings outstretched.  Just in case.

It was secured to the roof of the module, lowered mezzanine style when required, with sides that folded out to support the outstretched wings. Additional telescopic legs extended from the underside to lock into ports on the module floor, firmly locking it in place against any movement the Thunderbird might make in flight.

With the rest of the equipment that could potentially be in the module, it was sometimes a tight fit, but it fit and that was what mattered.

Scott didn’t bother resisting as Virgil coaxed him onto it, trying his best not to entirely face-plant as he returned to horizontal and the relief of gravity no longer tugging at the edges of his wings.  Cushioning his head with his forearms, he shifted his left wing until it draped itself over the extension, still waterlogged.  A glance over at it showed pinions in disarray from his unwelcome dunking, the sensation of which hadn’t particularly registered over the pain of the other, but now that he’d seen it began to niggle incessantly in the back of his mind.

The right was less inclined to obey, muscles screaming in protest at the mere idea that they should move, and it was with great reluctance that he left it as it had flopped.

There had been enough crying out in pain in earshot of little brothers today.

Unfortunately, his brothers seemed to disagree as Virgil appeared somewhere near his head, murmuring apologies as his hands cradled the shoulder of the wing and manipulated it into position.  Lighter touches further down, out of sight, told him Gordon was helping the rest of the wing follow the movement.

Scott bit down on an arm to muffle any vocalisations at the pain.

“Sorry, Scott,” Virgil repeated, sympathetic pain in his own voice. “I’m going to need to stop the bleeding before you lose too much blood.”  Treatment meant more pain, but Scott knew it was an unfortunate necessity.

He turned his head away as Virgil drew out the anaesthetic, trying to ignore the sting of the needle at the base of his wing.  It wouldn’t completely dull the pain, their wings were all too sensitive for that, but it would take the edge off, at least.

“Hey.”  Gordon appeared in his line of vision, hair mussed where he’d obviously attacked it carelessly with a towel.  A hand rested on one of his arms, his second youngest brother always tactile, and more so after one of them had been in trouble.  Scott was half-surprised there wasn’t an octopus wrapping around him. Something in Gordon’s eyes told him it had been considered.

“Hey,” he replied, doing his best to ignore the sensations as Virgil got to work on his injured wing, sending shoots of supressed pain through his flight muscles as they reacted to whatever he was doing.  Scott had learnt from experience that sometimes it wasn’t worth watching.

Considering he’d been in the water, Gordon’s hand was surprisingly dry against his own still-wet skin.  It wasn’t like him to dry off so quickly; often it took a brother or three or a grandmother to persuade him otherwise.

His brother had something in mind, and Scott might not be linked with him, but he was pretty certain it involved him.

“Do you want a hand?”  Gordon glanced meaningfully at his wing – left, uninjured, wing – and as if on cue the irritation of pinions out of alignment flared up again.  Scott could handle it himself later, if Virgil didn’t get there first after finishing with the injury – which would no doubt include soothing the ruffled feathers on that wing as well – but later meant later and Gordon was offering to do it now.

Like all of them, there were very few people Scott trusted near his wings, and despite not having wings of his own, Gordon featured on that shortlist.

Gordon didn’t often touch their wings, not since gaining his own Mark and losing any and all jealousy he’d ever had about being the one left out even though he’d never cared to fly, but like Grandma – and Dad – had wriggled his way into learning to care for them regardless.  Scott had fond memories of watching Virgil talk Gordon through it on his own black feathers the first few times, offering himself up as practice. Their mental link had probably helped Gordon comprehend what it was like, and sometimes Scott wondered if it was similar for him and his own Mark, or if it was entirely different.

“I’d appreciate one,” he admitted, no reason nor desire to decline when it needed doing at some point anyway.  Gordon grinned and dropped a towel on his head.

Typical annoying little brother, but Scott took the hint and, careful not to jostle his right arm or wing, where Virgil was working, ran it over his hair to get the worst of the water away.

When he finished, Gordon was out of sight.  His location was betrayed a moment later, when Scott discarded the towel and nimble fingers immediately made themselves known at the junction of the wing and shoulder.  As always, a light tremble ran through the wing at the initial contact, which Gordon waited out before starting.

The methodical approach his brother settled into was soothing, and Scott didn’t have to work too hard to convince himself to focus on that rather than the far less soothing sensations coming from his right wing, where Virgil appeared to have progressed to wrapping the wound.

Considering both the size of his wings – they might be marginally smaller than Virgil’s, but they were still huge – and the waterlogging he couldn’t just shake away, Gordon’s treatment took time.  A towel was introduced, only the lightest of touches to avoid damaging any feathers, but enough to absorb at least some of the water, and Gordon’s fingers coaxed out enough of the rest that Scott could feel the weight easing away. It wasn’t perfect; he’d still need to shake the wing at some point, or at least hold it open while upright so the rest would seep away.  But it was enough to be a relief.

The secondary relief of his feathers realigning to true and the itch fading away was also very welcome indeed.

By the time Gordon was done with the back of his left wing, Scott could feel Virgil doing the same thing to his injured wing.  It wasn’t as enjoyable, entirely due to the injury and all sensations therefore determined to report as varying levels of pain, but it was a good pain – comparable to the satisfaction of peeling scabs – that faded as those feathers, too, found themselves realigned by the care of a brother.

“The front will have to wait a while,” Gordon said, reappearing in his eyeline.  There was another towel in his hands, which he was clearly using to get rid of the water that had transferred from Scott’s wings to his fingers.  “Feeling better?”

If Gordon had asked, Scott was more than willing to lift his wing from the stretcher so he could get at the currently face-down feathers, but the look in his brother’s eyes said that even if he did that, he wouldn’t be touching them.  Considering the bone-deep exhaustion that had done nothing but grow as he’d felt safer and safer with his brothers, it was true that Scott might – might – not be able to hold it up long enough.

“Yeah,” he acknowledged.  ���Remind me not to go swimming with them lifted in the future.”

There was an aborted noise from Virgil, who still didn’t have the whole story and was no doubt going to be demanding it later – alongside the rest of the family – but Virgil wasn’t the one who’d faced down and prepared to attack multiple boats to keep him safe, so Scott ignored it.

Gordon knew what he was doing; he could see it in the quirk of his lips and the resigned amusement in his eyes.  There was more than one brother who would be having nightmares tonight, after all.

“If you even think about it, I’ll drag you straight back out faster than you can say Thunderbird One,” his brother replied after a moment. It was light-hearted, matching Scott’s attempt at levity to keep both their heads above water about what had happened, and what could have happened, but it was also a promise.

Gordon might not have the same link with him that he did with his other older brothers, but somehow he’d be there.  Like he was this time, and eyeing the swimming shorts that were the only attire his water-loving brother wore, Scott decided that just this once, he’d let him off going swimming so far from the island.

He didn’t think he was going to be receiving any such leniency for his own distance from home, but after today, Scott was content to stay a little closer.  Despite the reassurance of Gordon’s promise, he had no desire to repeat the experience.

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds are go fanfiction #tsari writes fanfiction #scott tracy #gordon tracy #virgil tracy #thunderwhump #help me (keep my head above water) #wingfic #au #marks&wings #gumnut-logic

[emachinescat]

I've decided to watch MacGyver from the beginning (again), and I'm live tweeting the experience with every tweet tagged with #savemacgyver. I thought it would be fun to share my collected thoughts from the episodes on here as well.

My Thoughts on S1E1, "The Rising"

Good old Lake Como.

"How do I look?" Always amazing, Mac, though here you are so bebby. Gosh, tiny Lucas is tiny.

Ugggh, Nikki. My least favorite story arc in the show. Even with her redemption arc, even her face makes me mad.

I am soooo glad this awkward flirting is only in this episode. Mac and Nikki have never vibed with me.

JACK DALTON

"Who loves ya, baby?" We all do, Jack.

I always wished they would have played more into the original Mac's reason for not carrying a weapon - not just so he doesn't get caught but because he doesn't like them. That was actually one reason I used to be so upset at the reboot when it first came out. I still feel like Mac's character was off for this first episode - a little too cocky, not super developed. But still lovable, and with so much potential!

It's so cool to see how much Lucas has grown into this character over the years, really making it his own while still holding on to its essence.

Lol "serious bad-assery" - Nikki thinks she's so cool. (Spoiler: she's not.)

Lololol Nikki is the Walmart brand of Riley.

Mac in glasses. Adorbs.

Man, I'm already so ready for Matty. Patti is the off brand version of her.

I always love watching Mac rifle through stuff to find his improvisation supplies!

First MacSplaining session! Electromagnets!

"Is this George Clooney's house?" I miss Jack so freaking much.

Mac kind of looks like a penguin with that waiter outfit on and I'm living for it.

The second Mac hack is so Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew.

"Why don't you ever flirt with me like that?" Um, Jack, do you want your partner's girlfriend flirting with you, daddy fixation or not?

There are two kinds of oops, accordng to Jack Dalton: Oops - I just stubbed my toe / Ooooooops - Zombie apocalypse initiated.

Mac's hair is so shaggy.

"START THE DAMN BOAT!" Classic.

"Hold this and get out of my way." Dang, Mac.

The bad guy is the dude from Galavant hahaha. I know this guy has been in so many things, but he will always be Gareth to me. (That's his name, right? Gareth?)

W H U M P

I actually love the consistency of Mac always having that scar even seasons into the series (except for the last time, in the river). Overall great attention to detail!

That is a LOT of blood in the water.

Lol I'm pretty sure Grandpa Harry didn't say that in so many words, Mac.

Poor traumatized bebby. What am I saying? I live for this stuff.

Awww, lil Bozer. So smol. So pure. And now I want waffles.

"Eat your waffles." Three words I will never say no to.

"Give me Wang." -Bozer, 2016

Am I the only one who finds these intimate scenes between Mac and Nikki hella awkward?

QUARANTINE, sounds familiar.

Lol "cyberteam." Once Riley Davis comes along, they will be obsolete.

Jack just wants a hug.

I always hated the clinical white room in the pilot. Can't wait for the War Room.

I love the interactions between Jack and Riley.

Mac and Riley EYE CONTACT.

"You two are on timeout from now on." 😂😂😂

THE MOMENT WHERE HE GRABS HER HANDS

Lol, thanks for telling me that's a paperclip. I was so confused.

"Riley has so much hair!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️

I love how Riley takes charge. Her confidence is 🔥🔥🔥

"You know what, never mind, I'd be pissed at you too." 🤣

Jack's so proud of his daughter. 💕

"Is that real?" Bless Jack's heart. He's such an old man.

Patti is a square. Pretty, competent, but boring. I miss Matty.

"My man never jokes about tin foil."

Ooooo Nikki is alive. Poor Mac. His whole world keeps getting turned on its head.

Jack can be scary when he wants to be.

Poor, poor, Mac. When he faces Nikki, he looks like a kicked golden retriever. (Also, NEVER kick a dog.)

I'm just eating up all this angst.

Mr. Wizard lololol

Mac hanging from a plane is soooo iconic.

"Don't get cocky. You're the only other one here." Haha, the SASS on this girl.

"Go ahead, you aready had me killed once." Also, oof. Undercover or not, Nikki is cold. I can't stand her.

Excuse me, Patricia, but I would consider running over your neighbor's dog (or any dog) a damn catastrophe, too.

"Sometimes a purge is necessary to fix what's broken." Codex, anyone?

Love this whole chase/fight sequence so much. The music, action, everything... perfect.

The sweat on Mac's forehead when dangling out of the 🚁 - such a great detail!

"YOU GO KABOOM, I GO KABOOM"

Kind of weird to me that Mac seems to be using so much guesswork with this bomb, especially when we know that he's one of the best specialists out there.

That fight scene in the back of the vehicle is one of my all time favorites. The whump is excellent.

Okay, but when does MacGyver ever do anything the way Jack has in mind?

DIY or die. Still so lame, lol. The parachute is awesome, though.

Oof. That landing looks painful and the whumper in me loves it. Even more, I can't get over how worried Jack is as he rushes to Mac's side. ❤️❤️❤️

That break in his voice when he asks if Mac's okay is just... AYSKTUFYIFUYliIIGUOG

Mac burning Nikki's pics like that old Taylor Swift song.

Bozer calling Jack his bestie is so weird and funny to me.

I am so ready for Bozer to get over Riley. They are so much better as friends.

Lol "Those fries won't cook themselves." The crack of a whip, man.

Jack calling Riley a little rascal and then gently asking Mac if he's doing all right there, pal ... taking care of his kids, and I am DYING.

The Three Amigos... come on, Jack. You can do better than that.

Is it bad that I'm actually a little surprised that Jack knows what a Phoenix is? Just seems like something he wouldn't care to learn, especially since he's a sci fi junkie but I never really hear him talk about fantasy.

Oooooooo Nikki's on the loose. Gotta end with suspense, to hook those viewers and make them want more. Well, I want more of this show, but not because of her.

Well, awesome re-watch of episode 1. Definitely not my favorite by a long shot, but so iconic and with some amazing moments! It just makes me that much more excited to get to see the show and the characters grow!

If anyone wants to join me in my re-watching and tweeting adventure, please do! It's my way to take about an hour a day in my busy, busy life to commit to the #savemacgyver movement. (And to enjoy my favorite show yet again!) If you do tweet as you watch, make sure to tag EVERY tweet with ONLY #savemacgyver so we can keep that hashtag trending! :)

Thanks for letting me share my (numerous) thoughts on this episode. This was really fun, and I hope it's something you all enjoy, too. I'll probably go ahead and post episode 2 tonight since I just watched it. I'd love to know what you all think of the episode in the comments! ❤️

#macgyver #jack dalton #riley davis #wilt bozer #macgyver rewatch #my thoughts #episode review #tweet compilation #with minor edits for an easier tumblr experience #savemacgyver #please join me in my rewatch and tweeting on twitter #using the hashtag savemacgyver #we can save our show #pilot episode #emcatreviews #s1e1 #the rising #spoilers

[creacherkeeper]

How is the cowboi doing? :) I’d love to hear about some of their recent adventures.

OH WELL IT'S ME + ALSO MY DICE HATE(/love) ME SO YOU KNOW THEYRE GETTING WHUMPED CONSTANTLY LMAO

there have certainly been some Events Unfolding so those are under the cut, casey since youre in our campaign now NO PEEKING

fair warning this is .... long ..... you have asked me to talk about my dnd character and you simply CANNOT stop the floodwaters now. enter at your own risk

okay so basically the first arc of the campaign kind of kicked off with them getting a vision from their goddess (the grain goddess/goddess of agriculture) saying that she was trapped in a fey gate and that they needed to come rescue her

so erley immediately Rallied The Posse and set off to do that. they NUMEROUS times tried to pray to her, commune with her, basically just get ANY sort of communication or guidance from her, but the dice like to tell their story so i literally never got above an 11 (paladin with only +2 to religion my beloved) and they never heard from her, which was making them. pretty nervous. when it seemed like everyone else was able to talk to their gods just fine

well we eventually figured out that there was a huge gathering of fey in the woods (me: this might be too big for us to fight. what if its like 30 fey? / my dm, glancing at his notes where he has 2000 fey written down: (: ) and basically the fey like. had captured and were trying to kill what was left of the pantheon so they could bring back gaia as the One True God

we found all this out because it turned out several members of the party had been lying about how much they knew of the fey and had personal connections to the fey they'd kept hidden. and erley, who is ALSO HIDING A LOT from the party like. immediately went on the offense and was just generally very unhappy about this

there had been this fey merchant who kept popping up wherever we were trying to sell us magic weapons that seemed tied to us specifically. erley was always VERY suspicious of her and did everything in their power to stop the others from buying her weapons (which we literally had to buy with -5 to a skill point, not money, v sus) to mixed results. but basically when we got to the fey gathering (we called it gaiapalooza) erley rolled a 1 on their survival check to get through the magic field and like. got teleported to her. and they really wanted information from her so they basically were like LEORA I DONT KNOW WHO TO TRUST I THINK MY PARTY HAS BEEN LYING TO ME, CAN YOU TELL ME ANYTHING ABOUT THEM CAN YOU SEE US WHEN YOURE NOT THERE? and basically pretended to need a therapy session in order to milk her for information lmao. she also seemed like. REALLY interested in erley and i was also very nervous about that

and i was RIGHT to be suspicious of her because we found out she WAS ACTUALLY THE BIG BAD and we had to fight her in the arc finale. and several of our party members had rl stuff and were not there, and in game our druid was away casting an 8 hour long spell to try and stop the palooza ceremony, so our party was SUPER nerfed and also as soon as erley realized it WAS actually leora who was behind all of it and she WAS trying to hurt them with those weapons (the weapons were tethers to the gods to be able to kill them basically), they got .... a little angry

and my party found out after irl a year of playing these characters that erley's first level is barbarian :))

so erley raged and did frankly a staggering amount of damage in this fight, and also only stayed up because of rage because they took a LOT of hits. but also. they dont rage FOR A REASON so it sort of took them over and when leora dropped, one of the other pcs ran over to stabilize her as she was making death saves and erley :) maybe :) drove a spear through her heart and killed her :)

and her body immediately just like. overgrew with plants and vines and flowers and basically wrapped the spear in a bed of plants and it was very cinematic and cool

(we have since found out that leora was like. actually an aspect of gaia so. that is. interesting)

of course then erley popped out of rage and was like FUCK this is why i dont do this, i went too far, it always goes too far, THIS is why im ashamed of this, and just got very emo boi about it. so they used their last spell slot to cast restoration on the space they had fought in and reached out to their goddess, having just saved her and the rest of the pantheon like she had asked them to

and i rolled a nat 1!!!

(the dm was like "you have committed this violent act, you feel so low and so bad and in need of guidance, and reach out to your goddess. and the absolute lack of a response just makes you feel empty inside" and i was like :) oh :) okay cool :) you love to see that with your paladins huh)

at this point the druid came back in and, instead of erley like. examining any of their own shit immediately lashed out at her and was like "why did you lie to me about the fey, why did you lie about why you were here, why ARE you here because i realize now it wasnt to help me"

and at that point ONE OF THE FEY QUEENS WALKED IN and the druid was like "... mother ..." and we were all :O

so it turns out the fey queen is her birth mom but had like? kidnapped one of the children of her firbolg tribe and was holding her hostage and the druid was on a quest to find her and bring her back

so erley :) felt :) even more bad about that :) and very shamedly pledged their help to her, and basically was like "as long as youre on this noble quest i will follow you if you'll have me"

so we're on our second arc now, which is traveling across the country to go meet the fey queen and get this kid back. as we were traveling my dm had me roll religion and a luck check and i got a 21 ON RELIGION FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER and a 6 luck. and he was like "you dont usually dream, but you have a nightmare. you know this nightmare was given to you, it was divinely inspired, but you dont know who sent it" and it was just erley killing leora over and over and over again. so they were like. well fuck

(my dm also messaged me privately and we talked and he was like. yeah you can get rid of your oath of devotion and change it to oath of the ancients, i am not telling you or erley why the subclass has changed and you also might get nerfed later. also level up barbarian for the next fight)

so erley was. feeling PRETTY DANG BAD and very guilty and stressed and all that. they did also realize their barbarian side was getting stronger which, considering their backstory is all tragic barbarian shit they were NOT happy about. i was fully prepared to have them be more ostracized from the party and go into full angst mode, but then the druid actually like. pulled them aside and explained why she had hidden information from them, and had a very sweet conversation with them and held their hand and it was VERY touching (she also had the baller line "you think your goddess can hear you and she's not answering. but maybe you're talking in a whisper and she needs to hear you scream")

we had another fight (we're level 7 and my dm told us after it was a cr 32 fight like. dude??? what the fuck?????) and once again erley didnt go down only because of rage

THEY ALSO UNINTENTIONALLY CAST MISTY STEP (which is an ancients spell they didnt have before) and were like WELL NO TIME TO UNPACK WHAT THAT WAS RIGHT NOW, HAVE TO NOT DIE

after the battle was over i asked to roll a check to figure out why i had access to that spell and got :) yeah you guessed it :) another nat 1 :) so erley has literally no idea how they cast that or what it could mean. we just had a new pc introduced who is a sorcerer so erley is definitely going to talk to her and see if she knows anything. because they are FULLY IN THE DARK about their subclass change or what that means in game

we're also (because of the fucking cr 32 fight) going to be leveling up again soon, and babey you KNOW im leveling barbarian. after rage kept me up and then rolling another nat 1 religion check, and also me the player not knowing whats up with their goddess/magic, i simply cant level paladin rn. so im BETWEEN A FEW SUBCLASS OPTIONS and ive been thinking them over but i think it really depends how the next few games go

my FULL ANGST option was to make them level into zealot barbarian like their awful dad, but i thought that made the least sense in universe rn

secondary angst option is to level into berserker, which i think fits pretty closely with how i've been roleplaying the rage so far. trading off an extra attack for a level of exhaustion fits pretty closely. also whump central

the NICE option is to have them be a totem warrior barbarian, and have both their paladin steed and their totem be a bull :) (they are a cowboi after all) i think thats the closest i can marry their two classes and potentially have some healthy growth for them, let them see that the rage doesnt HAVE to be a bad thing, that being a barbarian isnt something they HAVE to be ashamed of. reskinning the bear totem would give them resistance to all damage but psychic while raging, and im planning on taking the tough feat, so theyd pretty much be ... an unstoppable tank. plus i can still divine smite while in rage so theyd be VERY powerful

and now youre all caught up on my very special boi :))))) bet you didnt expect quite that much of an infodump but. listen. listen im simply obsessed with dnd i cannot help it. any chance to talk about my characters i WILL TAKE IN A HEARTBEAT (thank u for prompting my ramble lmao)

#ERLEY RYZER THE COWBOI MY BELOVED <333 #god this is literally SO long im sorry lmaooo #i have several friends not even in our party who are like 'will you PLEASE be nice to erley stop whumping them' #and im like #no <3

[professional-benaddict]

Tony is a cop and he’s doing a drug raid, tony watches as druggies get arrested but when he sees one cop go to far with arresting a little! Peter by manhandling him and hitting him he takes matters into his own hands and takes the 19 year old boy in with medic Stephen.

tHank you for the brilliant prompt omg I know I said I wouldn't do prompts before my exam is over with but I just couldn't stop myself sksk I wrote this all in one sitting 

part two here

Cop Tony, paramedic Stephen, 18+ Little Peter, Littles are known verse, police raids, SWAT teams, drug dealing, guns and violence, illegal drug use, referenced forced drug use, bad trip, whump, angst, comfort, 1.7k

It’s so odd, the feelings he has right before a raid. There’s electricity in the air, and yet it is peaceful and quiet. It is three in the morning, after all. Tony can hear his blood rush in his ear with each beat of his heart. It resembles how noises sound underwater, muffled and distant. And yet, he is as calm as ever, and breathes quietly as he looks at the office window. That’s their main target. They know that a week before, a large quantity of cocaine was smuggled in and brought to this exact location. A mule had told them, and so that was all the evidence they needed to start planning a raid. 

Every step has been calculated carefully beforehand. No one takes a step without it being planned. The bullet proof vest pinches Tony in his left armpit, but he can’t reach out to adjust it. He tries to roll his shoulder, and it worsens the pinch before it eases off. His eyes never dart away from the dark office window. 

Further down the street, a vehicle approaches. The headlights are turned off, and they are rolling in as quietly as possible, so that the element of surprise is not ruined. If it is, it could mean serious trouble. Suddenly, the danger of it all hits Tony, which it sometimes does when they are all anxiously anticipating the clear to go. His chest feels a bit tighter again, and it’s not due to the bullet proof vest, although it felt a bit small when Tony put it on. Glancing over to see who had arrived, Tony squints his eyes to try and make out who exits the vehicle. All the nerves ease off when Tony recognises Stephen. The two of them have become roommates quite recently. It’s cheaper to share, Tony had insisted. He is definitely not lonely, but he hopes Stephen is. 

Stephen is a paramedic, and an excellent one. Considering their work and how it often clashes when responding to calls, Tony has become familiar with the paramedic long before even meeting him in person. But, on one call Tony had finally decided to introduce himself properly. Stephen had apologised for how sweaty his hand was, and blamed the latex gloves for it and Tony was charmed. Somehow, Tony had brought up that he was looking for someone to share an apartment with, only because it is cheaper, and to his surprise, Stephen had said the same. They have been living together for a month, and already Tony feels more at ease knowing Stephen is present, if things were to go terribly wrong. 

“Stark, eyes on the target!” Fury whispers harshly into Tony’s earpiece, and officer shifts his gaze back to the office window. He does not bother apologising to his superior team leader, since that would just make more noise. 

Then, the action starts. It is like a play. Everyone has their role, and Nick Fury directs the show beautifully. Doors are kicked in, windows are shattered and the different teams enter the building perfectly on cue. The armed SWAT team members go first, and secure the building like terrifying angels. There are no gunshots fired, luckily, but there is plenty of shouting and yelling. Mostly, it is the SWAT team ordering the ones occupying the building to get down and keep their hands behind their heads. 

Then, it’s Tony turns and the rest of the police officers to make the actual arrests when the SWAT team has secured the place. Wouldn’t it be nice if Stephen saw him bringing out a handcuffed drug dealer? Tony half smirks at the idea and snaps the cuffs onto three different drug deals. The scene is surprisingly calm, despite the fact that one of the dealers seems to be crying. Judging by the smell, he also shit himself in pure fear. 

Raised voices and whimpering cries makes Tony turn his attention to the hallway. The cries get louder, and the officer feels his gut twist at the vulnerable tone. Could that be a child? Or a Little? There was no information about there potentially being Littles or children involved in the briefing. 

“Take them outside.” Tony says to the SWAT team member by his side, gesturing to the handcuffed dealers, then makes a few quick strides to get to the hallway. There, he sees another SWAT team member manhandling a Little up against the wall. The boy is clearly a Little with his smaller body combined with a post puberty shape. Even if he is not a child, that is no way to treat a Little. 

“Hey, back off! He’s a Little, can’t you tell?” Tony calls out and shoves the SWAT guy back and away from the boy. With the SWAT guy no longer holding him up against the wall, the boy collapses to the floor with a choked off sob. 

“He was resisting and disobeying orders.” The SWAT guy explains, his eyes hard as he looks at Tony. In the all black and well-protected SWAT gear, the only thing you can see is his blue eyes and pale eyebrows. If Tony wasn’t feeling the contempt between the police force and SWAT team before, he definitely feels it now. 

“He’s a Little.” Tony emphasises. “Of course he is disobeying when you’re towering over him like that.” The police officer points out and the SWAT guy scoffs behind his black mask. 

“And that’s why you could never be one of us.” He accuses, and then walks away. 

Tony wants to be offended, and wants to memorise the SWAT guy as best as he can to later call him out in front of Nick Fury, but another loud sob by his feet distracts him. Crouching down to the Little, Tony gently turns him on his back. Immediately, Tony is drawn to the boy’s honey brown eyes. They look soft, and innocent, and remind him of the sweetness of brown sugar, or caramelised sugar. But, then his attention is drawn to just how wide the boy’s pupils are, and how the vessels in the whites of his eyes are bulging and looking angry red. Cocaine eyes. 

Tapping his earpiece, Tony speaks quickly to Fury. 

“Get Strange in here.” 

“We didn’t hear a gunshot-“

“No, there’s a Little here. He’s taken or been given crack.” 

After Tony says that, it sparks a lot more action and the paramedics are lead inside with some of the SWAT team, considering the drug dealers have not all been escorted out yet. Next to him, Stephen has his work partner, Christine, and they both drop their first aid bags on the floor before crouching down to the floor by the still crying Little. It seems like he is having a bad trip. 

“Hey.” Stephen greets to Tony. The officer smiles back shortly before stepping back to let the paramedics work. “Hi, there, sweetheart. My name is Stephen, and this is my friend Christine. What’s your name?” 

“P-Peter…” 

“Peter? That’s such a pretty name.” Stephen compliments and slips on a pair of powder blue gloves that Christine passes over to him. “Now, Peter, can you tell me what you’ve taken?”

“I… dunno… don’t feel good…” 

“I know, bud, and we’ll help you. But, we need to know what you took, so we can give you the right medicine.” 

“They… said it was- was snow. Was… white and- powdery. Don’t like it when they sti-stick it in…” The boy stutters out bravely. 

“Cocaine.” Stephen says quietly to Christine, who nods and starts readying an IV to insert into the back of the boy’s hand. Then, he turns to Peter again with a smile. “You’re so brave for telling us, thank you. Now, can you tell me how you feel? Are you hurting, sweetie?” 

Stephen’s sweet and caring tone is not enough to better the burning rage Tony feels inside when he thinks of what the boy said. Did they force him to use cocaine? To keep him with them? Just how addicted is he? What role does he have in this sick household? 

All this and more questions rush through Tony’s mind at a hundred miles an hour, or even faster. It takes two repetitions from Fury for Tony to actually hear him, and move onto his next task. He knows the Little while be in safe hands with Stephen and Christine. 

Half an hour later, the show is just about over. Or at least the exciting part of it. The investigation itself will start later in the morning, but for now everyone is pleased with the outcome of the raid. The drug dealers have all been arrested and driven to kept in custody and the SWAT team is packing up as well. Stood out in the yard of the building, Tony sees Stephen and Christine transporting the Little out of the main door on a gurney. He is not just laying on the gurney, but actually strapped in with straps going over his torso. Peter also has an oxygen mask on his face, and seems to be unconscious. Tony jogs over. 

“What took so long?” 

“He had a seizure, but it was less that two minutes. I think he got a really bad high.” Stephen says where he is pushing the top of the gurney towards the ambulance. 

“Can I come with?” Tony asks, before he thinks better of it. 

“Stark, you’re supposed to be here, right?” Stephen asks, but his tone isn’t rude. Just pointing out what Tony seems oblivious to at the moment. 

“Yeah, right…” The officer sighs, but still keeps walking alongside Stephen. When they reach the ambulance, he helps the two paramedics with loading in their unconscious patient. Once the gurney is secure, Stephen climbs into the back. Christine heads to the drivers seat, and starts the engine. They do not have that much time, so Tony doesn’t hold them back. “I’ll see you at the apartment, I guess.” 

Stephen gives him a smile and nod before closing the double doors. A few seconds later, Christine starts the sirens and they drive away into the night, illuminating the streets in red as they go. Once the ambulance is out of sight, Tony heads to Fury with a request. 

“Sir? I’d like to take the Little’s statement.” 

#my prompts #my fics #little!peter #starker #ironspider #starkerstrange #ironstrange #strangespider #spiderstrange #tony stark x peter parker #tony stark x stephen strange #peter parker x stephen strange #peter parker #tony stark #stephen strange #ask

[violexides]

I totally get what you mean about the DreamSMP tags not making a clear distinction between character and creator. Like, all of the character and ship tags have "Video Blogging RPF" in parentheses which means they're talking about the actual content creators, even though I'm sure some of them just mean the characters. But, the tags for the characters are basically nonexistent, which could be very dangerous. I mean, look no further than the garbage fire that was Eddsworld. That distinction NEEDS to be made for everyone involved, especially since some of the content creators are minors.

I swear if I ever get around to writing DreamSMP fics I'm gonna make my own tags for it and write an essay in the notes about the important of distinction in tags. I don't want an Eddsworld 2

yes!!! 

i think that at this point, dreamSMP should... be its own tag? because trying to traverse through fics with dreamSMP characters is fairly difficult because, due to the tagging which i’ll get to in a second, you can’t exactly eyeball which one is about the real people and which one is about the characters too well? there’s virtue in the fact that sometimes there are tags that will clue you into it being about the roleplay, but, a lot of it is sort of just. muddled. and there’s no way to exactly avoid that because there’s not going to be a tag in video blogging RPF that warns you that it’s... video blogging RPF, so. 

and with the tags as you mentioned, it’s kind of highly distressing because, since it’s in the RPF section, the streamers’ names consist of as much... detail... as possible. meaning that sometimes, their full fucking name is listed. this includes tubbo, a minor. this does not include another minor, ranboo, who just has it listed as ranboo, which makes me wonder why they can’t ALL just be their streamer names. like. putting a whole ass name of a fucking 17 year old as a tag is a lot.

add the fact that you sort of have to main tag because, since it’s fucking video blogging RPF, there’s very little way that if you don’t include popular tags, anyone will find it. the only way i can find dreamSMP fics amidst, like, all of that chaos, is by looking up the character tags. so it’s an issue.

it just. mm. it upsets me because fanfiction about the dreamSMP is so obviously not about the content creators because minecraft doesn’t have that verisimilitude that would cause confusion, fucking all of the characters are goddamn hybrids that carry these totems that mean they never die, like, it’s not exactly realistic and there isn’t a strong tie to the content creators when you write about fucking wars going on. but then throw that into video blogging RPF and other fanfictions that whump the literal people that you keep accidentally reading because the characters and the streamers share the common factor of using their name so all the synopses look vague, and you just. have an issue.

i don’t take a lot of fault in ao3′s tagging generally speaking-- ao3 has fucking GODTIER tagging and only a few times have i looked at something and gone “why is this phrased that way”-- but considering how many people have to tag dreamsmp as “Video Blogging RPF” “Minecraft (Video Game)” and “dreamsmp - Fandom”, i just wish we could have a collective tag for it. it would spare a lot of people from having to put those heavy disclaimers you mentioned, and it would make it a thousand times easier to traverse whatever the literal fuck it is at the moment. and then, they can just have another set of tags, or alter the current one, where it’s just “Ranboo” “Philza” “Technoblade” instead of fucking. “Phil [Last Name] | Philza (Video Blogging RPF)” or whatever the fuck it is right now.

i wrote a lot and idk if i covered everything but i woke up, saw this, and immediately got to typing, so.

edit: already forgot to mention something. especially since in dreamsmp there are like canotically married/divorced/adopted characters and shit, having THAT distinction even more is important. like, two minors have gotten canotically platonically married in the dreamSMP so you kind of have, like. gestures. a bit of a potential issue when it’s thrown into video blogging rpf. 

second edit: also, AUs for dreamSMP get kind of dicey, but that’s less of a whole tagging thing and more just food for thought.

third edit: just opened up another fic and holy shit are we going to unpack the fact that fucking BBH doesn’t even HAVE it as just his name-- it’s his full fucking name, there’s a separate tag that says that he’s BBH, so you have to tag his full name fucking twice to include him??? his full name??? like???

final thing i promise: okay actually i want to take back some things i said-- there is a way to tag the main relationships (for platonic and romantic) without including their full names though i think it defaults to that. this probably qualifies as a long post now so i am going to tag it as such.

#ask #sun talks dreamsmp #this is one of many reasons that i am procrastinating posting a dreamsmp fic #and there's so many moral conundrums with dreamsmp because like #it ISN'T about the real people but you still have to consider that and like #from an outsiders first glance it probably looks like people are #writing a shit ton of fanfic where two seventeen year olds get married or smth #and it's like. holds head in hands. goddammit Why. #long post

[set-phasers-to-whump]

new partners, new friends

whumpee: nick burkhardt

fandom: grimm

heyo! this fic is for @misscrazyfangirl321 who said: “Hmmmmm No Pressure, but I'd love to see a pre-series Grimm whump fic with Sean, Hank, and Nick. Two of them taking care of the other one, or one taking care of two. Either way. 👀” sorry it took me a minute but here it is!! it was super fun to write and i hope you like it!

Hank Griffin likes his new partner. Nick Burkhardt is a little naive, sure, but he’s also quick. Quick on his feet, quick with a joke, a quick thinker - though, as Hank has learned over the past week and a half, half of the time being a quick thinker means that Nick thinks about things for all of two seconds before rushing headlong into them. He has the potential to be a great detective, though, Hank thinks. He just needs to settle into the role. 

And settle in with his partner. Hank’s pretty sure they’re not going to have any problems on that front, but to make sure they fit well together, Captain Renard is coming along with them as they speak to a few possible witnesses of Portland’s latest murder. 

The first two houses they visit present no problems. The couple at the first house had been at a play when the murder had happened, and the little old lady at the second house had been at her grandson’s for dinner. Both stories are easily corroborated, and Hank and Renard watch with approval as Nick takes detailed notes of everything that is said.

They arrive at the third house, and Hank gives Nick a little nudge forward. “You do the talking this time,” he says, and Nick grins at him as he presses the doorbell.

“Mina Jenkins?”

The woman who’d answered the door nods, looking a bit surprised. 

“I’m Detective Burkhardt, and this is my partner, Detective Griffin, and our captain, Captain Renard. We’d like to talk to you about the murder of your neighbor, Herb Wallace, two nights ago.”

“Oh! I heard about that, it’s just dreadful what happened to him!” their possible witness says, gesturing for them to come inside. “And in his home, no less! I do hope I’m not in trouble for anything?” 

“No, ma’am,” Nick reassures her, as she leads them into the living room. “We’d just like to know if you saw or heard anything that might be useful in our investigation.”

“Oh, well, I’m afraid I may not be able to help you very much. I was inside all night, reading. I don’t think I saw or heard much of anything.”

Nick looks to Hank with a questioning kind of look on his face. 

Hank steps in. “Anything at all is helpful. Even if it’s just a car you didn’t recognize, or a weird sound, or something you saw earlier in the day that seemed a little out of the ordinary.”

“Now that you mention it, there was a car. I saw it just out of that window, there.” She points to a large window facing the street, and Nick gets up from his seat on the couch to peer outside. 

“Do you remember anything about the car?” Hank asks. 

“It was red, kind of flashy. Nobody around here drives that kind of car.”

“That’s really good,” Hank says. “Do you remember where on the street you saw it?”

“Hank,” Nick interrupts, from by the window. “I think I see the car. It’s coming this way,” he adds, pointing a finger to something outside that Hank can’t see. 

He stands up to go take a look, but their witness stands first, hurrying over to Nick. He turns to face her, opens his mouth to ask a question that never comes. 

It happens faster than anything Hank’s ever seen before. In fact, the only indication that something has happened at all is a quiet sort of squelching sound and a sharp but equally soft intake of air from Nick. Both Renard and Hank move closer to him hesitantly, neither one sure if anything has actually happened. Renard puts his hand to his weapon anyway, and Hank follows suit, but neither has time to draw.

Two things happen at once. Nick sinks to the floor with a surprised little huff, like he’s been punched in the stomach, except that he’s bleeding and there’s a small knife stuck into him. Meanwhile, their witness-turned-attacker absolutely bolts down the hallway, faster than Hank has ever seen anyone run before. The Captain almost growls and takes off after her. Hank nearly follows him, in case the chase ends up outside, but then he hears a crash and a scuffle and something that is definitely a growl this time, and he figures Renard probably doesn’t need his help.

Certainly not as much as Nick does, anyway. His hands are lying limply by his sides, and he’s blinking around like he’s confused about what’s happened.

“Hey, you need to keep pressure on that,” Hank directs him, trying to walk the fine line between firm and comforting. He looks around for something to press against the wound, and his eyes light on a basket of clean laundry sitting next to the couch. He grabs a towel and holds it against Nick’s stomach, careful not to jostle the knife. He takes Nick’s right hand and presses it into the towel. 

“Hold it and press,” he instructs, his own hands going to his radio to let dispatch know they need to send an ambulance. 

“Copy, Detective Griffin. Ambulance is six minutes out.”

“Six minutes?” Nick asks, raising his eyes to look at Hank. 

“You’ll be alright,” Hank replies, placing one of his hands over Nick’s own hand, which is just barely holding the towel in place. “I thought I told you to keep pressure on this.”

Nick nods, though it’s clear he hasn’t processed a word of that sentence. “She stabbed me,” he says, and his eyes drop from Hank’s face to the bloody towel being now firmly pressed into his wound by the two of their hands. “She stabbed me.”

He looks back up at Hank with a mix of fear and confusion on his face that makes him look all of twenty years old. “She stabbed me, and, and it doesn’t even hurt. Why doesn’t it hurt?”

Hank puts his unoccupied hand on Nick’s shoulder and wishes that he had something comforting to say. “Because -”

“It doesn’t hurt because you’re in shock,” Renard says, muscling Nick’s attacker back down the hallway. She’s cuffed, and by the looks of her and Renard, it had been no easy matter. In fact, she’s still fighting against him, twisting around, trying to pull free of his grip, almost snarling in rage. Her eyes land on Nick, and she grins at him, and Hank thinks for a split second that she doesn’t even look human. 

Hank turns to look at Nick. His eyes are wide and he’s pressing himself back into the wall like he’s trying to get away from her and he looks so damn scared and so damn young that some kind of weird protective instinct rises in Hank. He’s at once grateful and pissed that he’s not the one who has this lady in cuffs. 

But evidently that same kind of instinct has arisen in Renard as well, because he takes one look at his newest detective’s face and then he’s muttering something low and dangerous-sounding to the cuffed assailant, looking as angry as Hank’s ever seen him. He pushes her roughly forwards to the front door, and Hank hears her hiss something about not being scared by some kind of beast before the door slams.

“Is he gonna -” Nick starts to ask, relaxing slightly now that his attacker is gone. His unasked question is answered by the sound of a car engine starting. Hank is a little surprised that the Captain would leave, given the fact that one of his detectives is injured, but he’d seen the look on the lady’s face. She’d only mildly injured Nick (inasmuch as any stab wound can be considered mild), but Hank had gotten the feeling that she’d just as soon have killed him. He can’t blame Renard for wanting to get her somewhere secure, and somewhere Nick isn’t. 

Hank checks the time. “Ambulance should be here in two minutes. How’re you holding up?”

Nick shrugs. “I dunno,” he says. “I mean, I’m not...I know this isn’t lethal, and I’ll be fine -” He stops there for just a fraction of a second and looks at Hank like he wants to be assured of that statement. Hank nods slightly, and Nick continues. 

“And I’ll be fine, but it’s just…”

“You’re scared.”

Nick looks away, like he thinks it’s some big shame to be scared. 

“There’s nothing wrong with being scared, man,” Hank says. “First time a suspect shot at me, I barely slept for a week. It’s normal. Part of the job.”

Nick nods, a little hesitantly, and at that moment, the paramedics arrive. They fuss over Nick for only a minute, which Hank takes as a good sign, and then they bustle him into an ambulance and tell Hank he’s welcome to meet them at the hospital. 

Hank looks at his partner, who seems significantly paler in the lighting of the ambulance than he had inside. He also looks scared, again, and Hank imagines he would be too, if he’d just been stabbed and was now facing the daunting prospect of riding in an ambulance with two complete strangers. 

He asks the paramedics if he can please come along. They raise skeptical eyebrows at him and he just knows they’re about to tell him something about how they can only allow family to ride in the ambulance. Before they can actually say anything to him, though, Nick’s talking to them, and Hank really hopes he hasn’t misread the situation, hopes Nick isn’t about to say there’s no need for Hank to come along. 

He doesn’t say that. Instead, he asks if his partner can come with them, seeing as how he’s really new to this job and unfamiliar with the hospital they’re going to and -

“Okay, Mr. Burkhardt, he can come. Mr. Griffin,” says one of the paramedics, gesturing for Hank to get into the ambulance. 

He gets in quickly, before anyone can change their mind, and then the paramedic shuts the doors, and they’re off. The paramedics do their thing with pulse monitors and gauze and Hank looks at Nick and wonders if he’d really been this pale back in the house. 

“Should I call anyone?” he thinks to ask, after a moment of uncomfortable silence. He doesn’t know Nick that well yet, doesn’t know whether he’s got family in town, a significant other, close friends...someone to take care of him, to worry about him. He imagines - hopes - that there is somebody like that for his partner.

But Nick shakes his head. “No,” he says, so there’s no mistaking his answer. “No one, really.” He doesn’t seem to be particularly bothered by this, and Hank hates it. Nick is way too young to not have somebody to be there for him. 

“Well, you’ve got someone now. That’s what partners are for,” Hank says. Nick smiles at that, despite everything, and Hank finds himself smiling too. He’s made up his mind, now. They’re going to be more than just partners.

They’re going to be friends.

i hope you liked this! i’ve never written something pre-show before so i am a little unsure on the characterization but i hope it was ok! thanks so much for reading!!!

#grimm #nick burkhardt #my writing #i say things #stabbed #fear #cared for #shut up i have Never Ever stabbed nick before i promise this is a totally original premise!