#also like this kid self-harms in a variety of ways when he needs control and it's a pattern that starts from his very first scene

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

honestly like. the more i take it apart and examine it, while going into it entirely is going to be A Post or Three of Its Own and will probably get its own thread: i think one of the reasons nine in canon upsets me so much is that i genuinely related to the version of him that made sense to me, when i tried to apply some continuity to his character from before his imprisonment vs after. he's actually the muse i wrote for the most prose for in this fandom, even more than five--which is saying something!--and he came to me pretty easily.

[longpost and Decidedly Harsh toward canon's depiction of him, but less ARGFMSKDKDKFK HATE than usual so much as 'man the awful way these people handled him was a waste.' believe it or not i'm actually pretty attached to him, but as the secret Better Version that lives in my head lmao]

the arc of his character could have been such a good one about how men and boys and the people around them are harmed by toxic masculinity, and examining the ways in which that's held up by other cis men, every other configuration of gender and AGAB, and both. he came through loud and clear to me as an example of a poorly socialized, abused, isolated homeschooler with very little life experience, who is throwing bits and pieces at the wall that he's cobbled together from the outside without understanding the experiences behind that kind of thing, to see what sticks. all this while having suppressed and sublimated his emotions so much that he doesn't actually recognize what he's feeling, and goes 'well, i guess this trauma reaction to killing people means i like killing people. let's go then!'

like... in canon, you can kind of see how the seeds of his trauma, and baseline personality, from before his capture might have gone septic in the process the way it does in canon. if he was already the kind of person who would spit that result out on the other side. the writers used his Acute Trauma as an excuse to go 'anyway his cêpan was a sexist dickhead under the guise of ~respecting women,~ and he got captured by pursuing a normal teenage crush and blames himself for it, and then he went through solitary for a year. so now he's a gleeful sexual predator who harasses john and thinks women are meat!'

and this becomes even more glaringly obvious when you set it next to how the aftereffects of his trauma are (not) depicted. this kid spent a year in solitary confinement--broken up by the intermission of mercy-killing his adopted dad after watching his torture--while not being fed enough and hurting himself on the forcefield on the regular. he's not going to immediately come out of that Ripped and an Incredible Polished Fighter; he's not going to come out of that a ~charming edgy debonair lovable asshole.~ this kid knows what the fuckin hat man looks like, dude. that's shit you come out of an emotional, physical, and psychological wreck, and not in a 'haha look how rude and boundary-pushing and violent and sleazy i am uwu' way.

he is barely going to be able to walk out of there on his own two feet. he is going to be hallucinating and not remember how to tell faces apart. he is going to freak out at anything like an enclosed space. he is going to be food-insecure. he is going to be constantly finding ways to self-harm when he feels at all out of control, and once again not in a 'haha i'm so quirky and edgy' way. he is going to have obsessive rituals and get stuck on repetitive thought patterns because you run out of shit to think about after a year with nothing to do but pushups, even before you add in the shiny new PTSD events to obsess over. which tend to take up all of your brain space even when you aren't isolated with them for long periods. he is going to be doing weird fucking shit after he gets out, bizarre and frightening shit that's not just 'being violent and a dick,' and other people will probably notice.

and all of this is before you factor in his backstory! (which, by the way, is not conducive to him coming out of his imprisonment an Unstoppable Highly Trained Killing Machine. he was taught how to actually fight opponents for Three Whole Ass Weeks before he got captured, and none of that was training against human-shaped opponents. i don't care how many pushups he does over how long, he still has had zero practice fighting Other People and that's immediately going to fuck him over in a fight. it's one thing to have him be dangerous because he makes up for lack of skill with being completely fucking berserk with zero regard for his own safety or anyone else's, but he's not going to be an unstoppable whirlwind of death. and you're not going to build muscle while you're being starved.)

and like. i could go on for a long time about how they fucked up his character to the point where seeing him onscreen anywhere outside his novella makes me instantly want to flip a table. but i think so much of what it comes down to--and i don't say this casually, i mean after laying out and examining all his scenes in the first series--is that he doesn't actually have an arc. he doesn't grow. the entire point of his character's existence is to be an awful person and never be held accountable, self-examine, or allowed to face any kind of real consequences for it.

it's genuinely fascinating to examine all the different methods they use to do this (which is for a whole post of its own), but he's not an exploration of culpability or responsibility--for past, current, and future actions--the way five's arc is. he's just a parade of all the abuse tactics and rhetoric the authors could think of, both direct and via enablement by people around him, to pour into one guy. nine is literally The Missing Stair: The Character.

contrast this with five getting nailed to the fuckin wall for things that are often, arguably, much less horrific or unhinged than what nine does. he's treated like a ~broken, irreparably insane monster~ by characters and narrative both. he's punished brutally and endlessly over and over and over and over no matter how much he tries to grow, or make amends, or even lay down and take everything that might be done to him as punishment because he Deserves It for, [checks notes] repeatedly having been groomed and manipulated for years. If You Can't Tell I am a Little Bitter

and it's not just other characters who suffer for it. the creators are SO invested in nine never being accountable, by himself or anyone else, that he is PUNISHED FOR IT when he makes even the slightest effort to unpack. when he has a moment of vulnerability during a breakdown over fucking up, he is restrained in exactly the same way as when he had to watch eight die. this so that he can have his self-blame literally beaten out of him to make him 'stop moping.' the writers don't care about his trauma, or being compassionate or fair in their portrayal of it, or letting him heal. the only thing they care about here is getting to write a Missing Stair as a good thing, and trying to get you, the reader, in on it by forcing you to like him.

anyway just. man. they did nine so fuckin dirty and their version of him brings down every other narrative around it. i know i rant about nine a lot but justice for my boy

#lorien legacies #LL number nine #LL number five #LL crit tag #the crit files #nine is a platter of sushi the writers put in the microwave and [horse staring out over the ocean meme] man #also if you fix this SO MUCH about his parallels and foils with five snap right into place and it is CHEF'S KISS UGH #also lifts up john's arc in the process to 'kid with some pretty ugly qualities buried under Nice Guy surface; who has to grow past them' #'and does' #instead of 'oh gross wtf' #dyn: lost boys #like frankly i feel like it's pretty shitty to both neglected/abused homeschoolers and survivors of solitary confinement #to go 'ya that's what made this guy a sadistic bullying bigoted creep uwu' #instead of you know. establishing the traits of /his/ that would be brought out by that #there's also just. so much to be said here about how in the process of giving nine a pass for his cruelty and toxic masculinity #the writers also give a pass for perpetuating the cruelty of toxic masculinity toward men and boys against /him/ #also like this kid self-harms in a variety of ways when he needs control and it's a pattern that starts from his very first scene #Writers Address Literally Any of This Instead of Portraying Men Self-Harming as Quirky Badass Peak of Masculinity Shit Challenge #LL tag

[abandonedcyberpunkspidermech]

Character Bio: Peni Parker (SP//dr)

Name: Peni Parker

Hero Alias: SP//dr

Bio:

Let’s do this one last time.

Peni Parker was born on October 15th, 3132, to Richard Parker, the first SP//dr, and New York City chief of police Yuriko Watanabe, the latter of whom died shortly after giving birth. Being the daughter of SP//dr, and all that came with it, defines her life. From a young age, Peni had little opportunity to actually bond with her father. He made sure she was well-fed, had a roof over her head, and fixed her boo-boos, but he was always too busy defending the city to really BE with her. Part of why the kid got into robotics and science was to try to bond with her dad, to give them something to talk about. School has never been an issue for her, with her regularly acing her classes. As the daughter of a celebrity (most superheroes are idolized in this world, and SP//dr, New York City’s finest outside the police, is no exception), she always attended private schools with enough protection to make villains think twice about trying to attack her to get to SP//dr. There’s also the fact that most people only want to befriend her for the clout, but that’s a story for another day. She isn’t necessarily friendless, though. One of her closest friends is Harry Osborn, son of Norman Osborn, CEO of Oscorp and one of her father’s bosses in the SP//dr program. The two of them hung out a lot as kids due to their fathers’ setting them up on playdates while they were busy with Oscorp and SP//dr, and they have been friends ever since. All in all, Peni leads a fairly normal life. However, things change at the ripe age of 9 years old.

Richard Parker was a hero. The guy who was bit by a spider and became the one and only SP//dr. The hero who saved the city again and again. The man who, no matter how many times he got hit, always got back up. But after one too many battles with one Doctor Otto Octavius, he didn’t. Couldn’t. Just like that, the man she wanted so badly to be with was gone, and with him, her world shattered. To say she was heartbroken would be an understatement. The next morning, still raw with grieving, Peni moves in with her aunt and uncle, fellow SP//dr program employees May and Benjamin Parker, but not before they introduce her to a certain opportunity. As it turns out, Peni had the right genetic material to be able to pilot SP//dr, just like her father. And so, May and Ben inform Peni that she’s the only suitable replacement for her father as the pilot. Basically, they tell her “Let this spider bite you and get in the robot, Peni”. In spite of knowing how dangerous it is, how massive the responsibility is, and how great a legacy she’ll need to uphold, she accepts. She lets the spider bite her, forming a psychic link with it and gaining a supportive friend in the process. But there’s one problem: She is nine, and thus has no idea how to actually fight or be a hero. After a few months of training under the tutelage of SHIELD and Daredevil, a friend of her father, and connecting with the other heroes based in New York City, she finally takes the leap of faith and starts her life as SP//dr, the hero of New York City.

Abilities:

Psychic Link: The spider bite granted Peni a psychic link with her spider by essentially setting up a wireless connection between their brains. What this means is that the two have access to one another's brains, including senses, thoughts, memories, emotions, and instincts. However, this isn’t always a good thing. While it does allow the two to share experiences, it also has possible consequences such as sensory overload and mental contamination.

Psychically-Operated Mech: SP//dr, the mech, exists on the bleeding edge of mech control systems. How it works is that the spider is half of the mech’s CPU, and a human pilot can link with the spider and become the other half. For Peni, this means that she can control it in tandem with her spider like it was her own body, with all the relatively enhanced agility and dexterity that entails and few of the harmful side effects normally associated with using brain-computer interfacing to control extra body parts. However, like the psychic link, this comes with consequences, such as mental contamination, sensory overload, and the sensation of damage. With the ability to move the mech like a body comes the ability to use the mech’s senses like her own, which extends to feeling damage like physical injuries. The mech’s armor and coding reduce the sensory data her brain receives, but she still feels pain when hit.

Physical Strength: The mech is capable of lifting and moving approximately 45000 kilograms of mass without risk of critically damaging itself. However, both pilots hold back to preserve the mech’s internals and to avoid collateral damage, such as undue property destruction, injury, or death. Without restraint, the max lifting capacity of the mech has been measured between 60000 and 70000 kilograms.

Webs: SP//dr is capable of shooting webs composed of fluid that solidifies into an adhesive solid in the presence of atmospheric conditions. These webs serve a variety of functions, including but not limited to the mech’s famous web-swinging, incapacitating enemies, and grabbing objects from afar. SP//dr can utilize a variety of varieties of web fluid (with different chemical compositions) for a variety of functions, such as electrocution, bandaging, and temporary welding. However, most webbing breaks down within an hour, the only exceptions being designed to last longer.

Adhesive Limbs: The hands and feet of the SP//dr mech are designed with microscopic, artificial “hairs” that allow the mech to adhere to objects by use of van der Waals interactions.

Magnetic Suspension: SP//dr is equipped with a magnetic suspension system enabling it to manipulate its limbs (as many as eight limbs composed of two or three segments) in ways that would be impossible with a conventional articulation system. However, this does come at the cost of increased power consumption, and the limbs are paralyzed without power.

LCD Screen: SP//dr’s cockpit is headed by a screen with an LCD display allowing the mech to display emoticons to show emotions, messages, visual aids, or other images. However, the screen is more fragile than the rest of the hull.

Hull Durability and Armor: The chassis and limbs of SP//dr are durable and well-armored enough for the mech and pilot to be able to walk away from being struck with a bus without losing function.

Miscellaneous Gadgets: Depending on the need, SP//dr can be outfitted with a variety of tools, such as scanners, enhanced sensors, saws, welding torches, fire extinguishers, and weaponry.

Neurogenetic Technology Compatibility: Peni Parker has the correct set of genes to be able to interface with SP//dr (and other technology by proxy) given the proper apparatus. The effects, in addition to operating SP//dr, consist primarily of limited neural hacking ability and enhanced thinking speed (mostly subconscious), memory backup, as well as other general abilities usually granted by neural cybernetics. Oscorp scientists have noted a similarity to a cyberbrain, except entirely organic.

Spider-Sense: One of the few superpowers not entirely dependent on a giant robot, Peni Parker, the spider, and the robot all have a Spider-Sense. It functions as a general danger sense, allowing them to sense dangers other senses can’t detect and avoid them almost autonomically. It can also detect other Spider-People. However, scientists have noted that the sense sometimes acts in complete defiance of scientific possibility.

Intelligence: Even as a child, Peni Parker was a genius, having been one of the brightest kids in her school, a trait that will only grow with age. However, she isn’t a “Renaissance woman”. She specializes in STEM subjects, most specifically robotics and computers, but would be nowhere near as competent with Shakespeare (unfortunately, still taught in schools) or ancient history. She’s also trilingual, with fluency in English and Japanese and some knowledge of Braille.

Fighting Skills: As part of her training to pilot SP//dr, Peni learned fighting skills to enable her to better fight villains. This included boxing, self-defense, martial arts, firearms training, general combat skills, and enhanced physical condition. Aside from “anime moments”, she isn’t superhuman though, merely an athletic baseline human.

Emergency Response Skills: As another part of her training, Peni received training in responding to a general assortment of emergency situations she’d face during her career as SP//dr, including fire rescue, first aid, and water rescue.

Weaknesses:

Peppermint: Spiders hate peppermint, Peni’s spider is no exception, and the psychic link means that Peni shares that resentment. A sufficient dose of peppermint around an area will make SP//dr run from it, at least temporarily.

Vibrations: One of a spider’s most powerful senses is its ability to detect vibrations. This hypersensitivity can also serve as a weakness, as the psychic link means that if the spider senses a particularly strong vibration (or the mech does through onboard sensors), the feedback would be paralyzing. The effect is like a loud guitar riff being played on an amplifier turned to 11 directly attached to both of one’s ears.

Pesticides: Any pesticides that would affect an arachnid would affect SP//dr, so if the spider gets exposed to (or detects through onboard sensors) any of several pesticides, the mech will flee the area as soon as possible to allow itself to stave off the effects of the pesticide. Onboard filtration systems would and do nullify this weakness, however.

Power Grid:

Intelligence: 3 (Grows to 5)

Strength: 2 (5 in mech)

Speed: 2 (3 in mech)

Durability: 2 (5 in mech)

Energy Projection: 1 (2-3 with specific mech weapons)

Fighting Skills: 1 (Grows to 4)

Additional Trivia:

Ideal English VA: Kimiko Glenn

Ideal Japanese Seiyuu: Rie Takahashi

Peni Parker is a vegetarian (like in the comics). This is due to her finding it weird to eat other animals after psychically linking with SP//dr. Similarly, she has an aversion to any animal products requiring killing the animals. Except for insects for reasons most likely related to the psychic link.

As a consequence of being psychically linked to a spider, Peni is one of the more “spidery” Spider-Heros/Spider-Totems/Spider-People. This means that she has a few additional miscellaneous traits only actual spiders would have.

I’m aware of the Web of Life and Destiny and the supernatural aspect of Spider-Totem powers. Thus, I’m going to leave the balance of technological/scientific power origin versus mystical power origin for you to find out.

The SP//dr program has multiple mechs for various situations. The abilities above mostly refer to the primary mech (The same as ITSV), although some things could change with in-universe time and upgrades.

Peni and her spider use “SP//dr” to refer to the spider, the mech, their hero identity, and the program of which they are a part. Due to the psychic link, they always know what they mean.

I don’t have a section on her personality because that would change a LOT in-universe. She goes through a lot, both good and bad. SP//dr stays a supportive friend though.

The SP//dr program is run by Oscorp under the supervision and oversight of SHIELD and the Commission on Superhuman Activities.

In case you’re wondering, I use “neurogenetic” instead of “psychogenetic” because psychogenetics, the word her comic uses, is actually another world for behavioral genetics, the study of how genes influence behavior. Neurogenetics, however, is the study of how genes affect the function of the nervous system. Thus, considering SP//dr’s control mechanism, “neurogenetics” is a more accurate word.

Also, I apologize for any formatting flubs. I copy pasted this from a Google Doc.

#peni parker #sp//dr #marvel #marvel comics #spiderman itsv #spider man into the spider verse #into the spider verse #spider verse #spiderman #spider man #earth-14512 #world building #worldbuilding #cyberpunk #earth 14512

[redantsunderneath]

I’ve Never Seen David Lynch and George Lucas in the Same Room at the Same Time…

The thematic parallels between David Lynch and George Lucas are something I keep coming back to again and again, but their careers and evolution have a lot of overlap too.  They were born in the earliest Boomer cohort (George Lucas in May 1944, David Lynch January 1946) and had experiences growing up that were colored by the idyllic 1950s, but shifted into a distrust of authority structures that was common for many of their age cohort in the 1960s. They both came of age wanting to do something physical with her hands that felt creative to them in large grimy spaces - fixing cars for Lucas, and painting and installations with a fascination with organic materials, industrial metal, and rot for Lynch. They both fell into film because they were looking for something that satisfied their artistic bent (although film was never a primary aspect of her life to that point).  They wound up making a handful of short films over a 3 year period, culminating in a longer short-film that would eventually get them noticed at roughly the same age (Electric Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB [1967] and the Grandmother [1970] for Lynch).

These films netted both of them a patron (Francis Ford Coppola for Lucas, the American Film Institute for Lynch) and started filming their first feature-length film two years after those films.  They both got their biggest name recognition bump by films released in 1977 and pulled away from the power of the studio system in roughly 1984. Famously, Lucas offered Lynch a chance to direct what would become Return of the Jedi in about 1981 ( I prefer the story where Lucas does this by picking him up in a Lamborghini - I’ve heard a phone call version too, but it’s not as perfect) and Lynch answered something like “it’s your movie George, you direct it.” They both spent the mid 80s in movie jail, and although they took very different paths in general after (I’ve been emphasizing the similarities) there are still things that jibe in the history - they both reminded people of what they liked about them with a late 80s movie, spent a lot of the 90s on TV projects, did one project around classic radio, returned to theatrical notice around the millennium, all the while generally keeping their own council and disappointing a lot of fans.

There’s obviously a world of difference. Lucas is a left brained technologist who equated freedom with an owning of the means of production.  Lynch is it right brained impressionist seeing freedom-as no one ever being able to tell you what to do, acting as a solo artist with collaborators who merge with his sensibilities.  Lynch is a production lone wolf, depending mostly on people believing in him and funding him, and losing out in the popular consciousness by making uncompromising art that may not be what the audience wants, meaning funding is sometimes hard to come by. Lucas is like the Democratic party controlling the Congress and presidency - having total power but unable to turn that into what he really wants to make, somehow. The idea of Lynch selling his body of work to Disney is absurd.

But the correspondences in this are telling and help to explain the thematic similarities and divergences.  Plus, the differences often relate to the similarities - Lucas identifies with corrupted controlling paternalistic power as a horror of inevitable capture of the individual by larger structures, while Lynch sees the corrupted masculine influence as an archetype, the call coming from inside the house, agency coopted by a collective taint in the universal pattern .  But on some level these are the same thing - what is this person I am capable of becoming seeing as I am in control but yet not, doing horrific things?  Lucas’ constant commentary on slavery is about hegemony and a systemic oppression he is complicit in, while Lynch has whole pantheons of beings that turn people into vessels that oblate the self and make them act on subconscious programming.  Neither probably think the word neoliberalism too much but tend to communicate similar things about it is almost diametrically opposed ways.  

The thematic similarities are rooted in a few areas that unpack in to a variety of subspaces which overlap – patriarchal structures as psychoanalytic dynamics (more Freudian father fixation for Lucas, Jung for Lynch), boomer generational failure as socio-first-but-economics-ultimately, the artist as in struggle with larger forces (largely of the self), and an eastern religious metaphysics that is American Christian in flavor.   The major line of difference running through this is gender/sex/desire, Lynch being on main with a lot of spiritual overtones of sin, guilt, and “the fall” and Lucas finding this kind of guilt and sin as a secondary phenomenon that is mostly actively suppressed and unconvincing when it shows up; yet both wind up often finding physical consummation at direct odds with art in a gendered creation way (that also links Eraserhead to Age of Ultron and the original Frankenstein). Try doing a psychosexual reading of Howard the Duck sometime.  

Lucas’ developmental through line is this: dude in love with 50’s culture but informed by 60s counterculture makes a movie where the young granola-ish revolutionaries win against the fascists in an effort to rewrite society but, having secured rights for “independent spirit” reasons now finds himself in control of something huge and immediately starts making art about boomer men becoming their controlling fathers and then moves on to movies where powerless freaks are the real focus.  After a creatively fallow period, he comes back to make a sequel/prequel trilogy that is one of the most misunderstood complicated statements about people becoming what they hate as an eternal cycle at the level of the personal, the societal, the political, the spiritual, the artistic, you name it!

Lynch’s developmental through line is this: dude in love with 50’s culture but informed by 60s outsider/art counterculture makes a movie where the young artist struggles with the idea of a regular life, initiated by fatherhood, which attempts to destroy the artistic spark, after which he enters the Hollywood system and makes an artist as freak movie and a movie about plucky rebels conquering space authoritarianism (that the future of is books about that ending in messianic authoritarianism) and then disavows that system.  He then proceeds to make art about subject and object as a supremely gendered thing, in a land that has fallen from grace, moving inexorably towards the idea of eternal cycle at the level of the personal, the societal, the political, the spiritual, you name it!

They both have an idea of the father-artist identified with the abject oppressed, under siege as figure, resentful from being kept from creation, over a career realizing that their “self” is the horrific villain of their own story.  For Lynch, this is psychosexual, then spiritual, with a resisted toxic masculine urge to control and overwhelm, often in a violent way.  It is the artist’s own urges that get in the way of making art, of desiring in the universe that has an unbalanced power structure from some far off echoes of an original symmetry breaking inherent to the archetypal gender dynamic. For Lucas, it is the realization that the artist in control has a tendency to become the controlling dad and sexual relations are inherently problematic in a political and spiritual way.  Real art seems impossible if the artist has control, identifying with the downtrodden is a bit of a lie, happy endings can’t happen not because of the happiness bit because of the ending bit.  For both, there is a fundamental flaw in the cycle, which is patriarchal in nature, but Lynch just approaches this much hornier.

The boomer part probably requires the most discussion, but the TLDR is that they are both are crawling out, through Vietnam, from the 50s social order, and grappling with how badly the 60s idealism failed.  Lucas does this in the prequels as a big canvas critique of how the social revolution was co-opted by the generation not being able to see its own flaws, of not seeing the system taking over again, an Empire calling itself a Republic.  An inability to look in the mirror and really see.  The wisest oldest hippie is the only one who sees what’s happening, but is powerless as his apprentices are inevitably spit out, and the next generation has to be raised not by a skeptic but a true believer in “liberal” “democracy” (cynic quotes theirs).

Lynch is interesting here in that he most directly addresses this only in Twin Peaks, but we see more naked reflections, divorced of contemporary politics, in his other works. In Twin Peaks, Ben Horn is the Palpatine figure, who winds up a sweet old man buying off the harm his life’s work and progeny have produced while ignoring the poor and next generation personally. Jacoby the neutered, fried Yoda that eventually slides into Alex Jones territory (the canonical Boomer ethos in a nutshell – “what me” neoliberalism and change the world ideology going crackpot).  All of Twin Peaks except for Fire Walk with Me is directly socioeconomically generational (Bobby Briggs becomes a young Republican in season 2, the mill, the trailer park), but the other works are full of class issues informed by Lynch’s age.  From Blue Velvet’s suburban kid exploring his darker side by going to the poor part of town through a career of classist low-life encoding (Bob is a denim jacket wearing homeless person, all the covered in grime by the dumpster/trailer park characters, Ronette as the factory floor version of Laura, etc), culminating in Inland Empire and Twin Peaks the Return chronicling the fall of man as partially an (generationally specific in TP) economic fall into a unequal class defined world of needing an opening and leaving the house to labor as where evil is born. TP OS is about how boomers turned out just as bad, the Return is about how we inhabit the world of their ideological blindness.

All filmmakers seem to, at least to a certain degree, bring the question of creation of art directly into their work via distant or close metaphor. In Eraserhead and Elephant Man, Lynch values the spark of art which the downtrodden protagonist is trying not to lose. In Dune, the visionary with a big project that seeks to upend the system (but that we know eventually become something even worse) is a project that fell apart due to studio interference.  Blue velvet is about the act of watching awakening something uncomfortable in us that is incompatible with normie life (it wouldn’t be weird to say it was about porn). Twin Peaks is about television, FWWM about movies, and all at least partially about closure being a death act in art.  Lost Highway is about the artist tortured by desire, Mulholland Drive about desire being central to be eaten alive by the Hollywood system.  Inland Empire is about filmmaking as a way into understanding the world on a deeper level (as is its unofficial sequel Inception) to cure its ills.  All of this is art’s struggle against power, with an element of the major powers being subconscious forces that control us leading to desires that ablate the artistic impulse.

Lucas' projects have over time been about a young upstart independent filmmaker, losing his soul by becoming successful, and becoming the system, man.  He then tries desperately to identify as really not the one in charge, until he admits to what he has become.  He consistently dips back into filmmaking as an adventure or a good fight, but he has to set these in a time period before his birth.  As in Lynch, having a child is equated with not being able to fulfill the kind of artistic destiny, but Lucas goes further in equating it to an excuse for why the powerful artist goes bad and needs redemption.  He had a naïve or-is-it canny motif focused on the short inhuman outsider, often related to music or primitive settings (often with wooden cages) as a recurring thing for a while.  These characters are often wise, or at least no filter tell-it, and are similar to the Elephant Man.  This is a trope, sure, the wise different wavelength other, but there is also an identification of the artist at knowing and right yet impotent and a clue to the author’s metaphysical system.

Lynch is the mainline protestant in upbringing and very much influenced by a kind of proto-eastern religion (you can just say the Vedas for shorthand).  Lucas is not very religious, but was brought up Christian, influenced by Christian symbolism and became interested in world religion as narrative via figures like Joseph Campbell.  Hence, they both gravitate towards some kind of Gnostic Proto Christian, So-Cal zen, Thomas Aquinas “gets” Plato kind of amalgam, which informs their work.  Lynch has veered towards an eternal cycle framework, and the very physics compatible idea of something in the past breaking and causing consciousness/suffering, through which we can achieve joy as a counter only through letting go of the self, and the recurrence of ruptures on all scales demonstrating a fractal pattern of hurt and redemption.  Lucas also sees a big cycle, but it is one more of human existence as narrative that has a tendency to return, with a little bit of Nietzsche and movie eastern spirituality thrown in. Both believe in a recurring pattern that plays itself out in a way that is terrible, but hopeful, as the struggle is where hope derives from.  Both have inherently Christian ideas and symbols in their work but lean back on non-Christian ideas that the Christian ideas have a history with. Lynch has his virgin Mary as the real Christ figure female angels that show up, while Lucas has turnt space Jesus.

Suffice it to say that the tree trial scene in the Empire Strikes Back and the lodge sequences in Twin Peaks are a very good place to start looking for how the two auteurs meet.  Compare Anakin/Luke Skywalker to Mr C, look at the 90s turn they both made, register their seeing the “sleeper must awaken” of fiction being terribly fraught, compare the force vs. the universal field, the way their relationship status and partners carve their work into eras, and their continued existence as mainstream experimental filmmakers. 

#george lucas #david lynch

[some-jw-things]

if you dont mind explaining, what did the organisation do that it gives you such reaction? im not jw/exjw myself, im just following this blog because i wanna keep myself educated on all sorts of issues, but if you dont want to its absolutely fine

I mean Jehovahs Witnesses are blatantly a cult. That’s been explained pretty thoroughly by a lot of people.

I guess “this organization is a cult” can be hard to understand what that actually means. On a personal level, it defined my entire life. When I introduced myself to new people, the first thing I said was that I was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It was my entire identity. I actually think of myself back when I still believed in it as a completely different person than who I am now. I consider my old self to be dead, and so does my family.

When I told them I wanted to leave the cult, they mourned me. They cried for months. They raged and got angry. My sister refused to even look at me for days. In the span of one sentence, I lost my whole family, all of my friends, and my entire community. I was shunned, and they blamed me for abandoning them.

And I knew that would happen. They had always made it perfectly clear that love was conditional. I was told flat out— multiple times— that I would get kicked out of the house if I got disfellowshipped. My dad told me as a child that he would stop supporting me if I ever went to college, because every Witness he knows who’s ever gone has left the Truth. He also told me that the day I turned eighteen he would make me pay rent to keep living in his house unless I was preaching full time. All of that later turned out to be empty threats and a doctor told me that last part was actually illegal, but my family made sure I grew up believing it.

I was only loved so long as I followed the rules. This is standard practice for Jehovah’s Witnesses. I am lucky I got off as light as I did and wasn’t kicked out on the street. Even that only happened due to a technicality and how obviously mentally ill I was at that point.

Jehovah’s Witnesses’ theology is the reason I started self-harming. I was afab and when I was fifteen I spent a month asking why God thought women were innately lesser than men. That culminated in a big family discussion where I got anxious enough to start scratching at my lip over and over until I had a massive gash. My family watched. My mother made a token protest that I listened to for about three seconds. I walked away from that conversation with the knowledge that I needed to keep my mouth shut because certain questions were actually not allowed and a brand new bad habit.

I created an entire system for myself based on rigid discipline and punishment and the idea that any mistake meant I didn’t deserve to feel un-miserable, which is exactly the sort of mentality that this all-or-nothing religious purism breeds.

I was institutionalized in hospital psychiatric wards four times in the year after I left, and one more time about a year after that. The high school attempted to put me in foster care then, out of concern for my safety if I continued living in that environment. My mother supported the idea

The first time I remember sincerely contemplating suicide was when I was thirteen. My thoughts then were just that I figured I would never be able to hold off killing myself long enough to live to be eighteen. I felt trapped. I was specifically thinking I would never have the guts to be able to pry myself out of the Org and so I would be stuck in it forever. The JW lifestyle is miserable in a way I can’t express

I have comforted my little sister while she’s had a break down crying in the bathroom during meeting because the talk was about Armageddon and she didn’t think our dad would make it into Paradise. She had to stop attending public school because of panic attacks. She was suicidal too at one point, but our mom thought she wasn’t as bad as me and therefore was making it up for attention

Jehovah’s Witnesses by and large treat mental illness with prayer and talking to the elders. The majority of teenage girls in my congregation had severe unaddressed issues. The Society has whole articles on how sometimes the answer IS demonic possession. Their version of Paradise is a eugenics fantasy

At one point an elder comforted my family by telling them that Jehovah likely didn’t view my choice to leave as legitimate due to my mental issues. They have official articles calling all apostates “mentally diseased,” and how am I supposed to argue why that’s wrong?

The majority of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ teachings are bigoted and hateful. They have a cute little kids cartoon that compares the evil gays to terrorists. I was taught the mark of Cain and curse of Esau were responsible for the existence of other races. JW women are required to submit to their husbands and fathers no matter what, and divorce is a sin that will get you shunned. Trans people are forced to live as their agab, gay people have to remain celibate and never date. The elders reserve the right to out you to whoever they want, whenever they want.

There have been so many talks that have sent me running off somewhere private to cry and panic

There’s this little girl in the hall who was friends with my sister. She had needed a blood transfusion when she was a baby. Her parents had been willing to let her die, but the courts stepped in and took her away for a few days. She was given the blood transfusion, lived, and at thirteen had a crying breakdown in the middle of the hall because the talk had just said she would never make it into Paradise now. Usually though, if you’re old enough to speak for yourself, they let you die

My parents have had three bankruptcies and they mock me for saving money. They live as if the world is going to end at any moment. There’s no such thing as a future

The world has been about to end since my grandma was little. That’s a running joke. She’s lived through more changes to the Org than I’ll ever know about. My family has been ruthlessly controlled by this organization for generations. My family aren’t allowed to accept me even if they wanted to. I’ve seen this Org ruin so many people’s lives in a whole variety of ways. Three other kids I grew up with have been disfellowshipped since becoming adults. There are others who I don’t think could leave unless they literally ran away in secret

JW ideology loans itself to a certain style of parenting and that has consequences. They control every aspect of members’ lives. Behavior, dress, speech, career, free time, friends, which family you’re allowed to see, what media you can consume. The thoughts you are allowed to have. I’ve been sent into a spiraling panic before over the idea that “I shouldn’t be thinking that”

The Org barred outside ideas and all criticism. They forcibly kept me in the dark. Members are intentionally isolated from not just all outsiders, but also all outside opinions. I was raised in a way intended to make me an outcast everywhere but within the Org. I was told never to read about Jehovah’s Witnesses from any writer other than the Society itself. I was told never to listen to its critics. I was told that reading forbidden books would get me possessed by demons

The Society controlled and defined my entire life and somehow still manages to do so even after I’ve left. Every member I know has been hurt by it. I’m just the one who won’t forgive

#i feel like this doesnt explain anytthing but whatever #tw #suicide ideation #self harm #ask #ex jw #ex cult #apostate #ex jehovah’s witness #christianity #religion #exjw

[adhdtoomanycommas]

Emotional Disregulation, Privilege, and White Girl Tears

Hello all, it has been a few months since my last ADHD essay, and what a few months it has been. In case you’re reading this in the future (since tumblr has no date stamps), I am writing this in June 2020 when in the midst of a global pandemic, police are responding to massive protests against police violence with even more police violence, and a lot of white people are thinking more than ever about the privilege we have experienced. I have been thinking about writing about my (cis white female) experience with privilege where neurodivergence, race, and gender intersect for a while, and have hit the point where these ideas have been bouncing around in my head long enough I need to write them down.

Small disclaimer: Right now I'm not sure if I should be writing anything about anything since we all ought to be listening and amplifying black voices --I'm there are much better resources out there about race and neurodivergance especially, and I have no intention of talking over anyone, especially given my limited experience. But given that the audience for my last essay here was in the single digits, I doubt I need to worry too much about talking over people at the moment. Please know that I am writing this now primarily for myself, and if it ever gets an audience later, forgive me for writing it now when there are so many more important things going on and more important people to listen to.

I will do my best to stay in my lane here, so I'm just going to talk about how my privilege has affected the perception of one of my ADHD symptoms If you don't want to read some rambling white/cis anecdotes about how white privilege and gender norms affect the perception of ADHD, by all means skip it. If you're still here, maybe it can be the start of a conversation as I would love to hear some other perspectives and experiences here. And maybe, just maybe by the end of it I will learn to spell privilege right on the first try (I really want there to be an A in there, or maybe a D. Privaledge? Sounds about right.)

As I mentioned in my previous ramble, I’m a cryer. I cry a lot, not just when I’m sad but sometimes when I’m happy, when I feel guilty or ashamed, and especially when I’m angry, or frustrated, or overwhelmed. I learned recently, as I was seeking my diagnosis, that emotional disregulation is a hallmark of ADHD. We feel things strongly, and uncontrollably and have trouble restraining ourselves from expressing those feelings. This is experienced by almost everyone, if not everyone, with ADHD and it’s only not part of the diagnostic criteria because it’s hard to quantify—there are a lot of good general resources out there to learn more about this, I’m not an expert, I’m just here to share my own experience.

Story time. When I was in fourth grade, I punched another girl in the stomach. For what felt like the millionth time, when the teacher told everyone to find a partner for some activity, everyone partnered up and I looked around to find that I was the left-over. I was an outcast for a lot of reasons at that age. I told myself for a long time it was solely because I was the lone atheist (actually agnostic but I didn’t know the term at the time) in a deep south bible-belt school, but with the benefit of hindsight I have also realized that (partially probably due to the ADHD) I was also pretty weird, and probably very annoying. But whatever the reason for my ostracism, it was already weighing heavily on me when the teacher assigned this girl to work with me, and she gave me the biggest exasperated sigh and eyeroll like she would rather do anything else. So I punched her.

I now realize that this is probably a pretty normal response for a kid with untreated ADHD—the combination of emotional disregulation and poor impulse control means we often lash out. But with none of the adults in my life knowing that at the time, surely I was disciplined for my seemingly-random violent action, yes? No. I cried, and I got away with it.

That’s not the whole story, I did get several weeks of sessions with the school counselor, and I was made to write a very thorough apology letter (and made to rewrite it repeatedly as the teacher thought of more things I should add and repeatedly declared my handwriting not good enough, to such an extent the exercise definitely felt more punitive than reconsiliatory), but I ultimately I didn’t get expelled, I didn’t get suspended, I didn’t even get detention.

The girl I punched was black. This wouldn’t be relevant to the story at all, except that in retrospect I have to wonder if the consequences would have been the same if our roles were reversed. If a black girl (even a neurodivergent, ostracized, and frequently bullied one) had lashed out the way I did and punched a white girl, I expect there would have been a lot more consequences for that, even if she cried afterwards. And if a black boy had done the same, he wouldn’t have been perceived as troubled and in need of help, he would have been perceived as dangerous. And as we all (hopefully) know by now, that perception can have life or death consequences.

I’m sure that was neither the first nor the last time that crying, and people’s perception of me crying (as a cute little white girl with freckles and big brown eyes) has gotten me out of trouble, or gotten me what I wanted one way or another, but it is the most dramatic example I can think of. I want to emphasize that I have never cried to get what I wanted on purpose—I have spent way more time trying not to cry than trying to cry, the only time I’ve ever cried on purpose has been in theater exercises. But I’m sure a lot of white girls in the same position I was in (with or without the undiagnosed ADHD and emotional disregulation) have realized the way they could use peoples responses to their tears to their advantage. They probably grow up to be Karens who use their tears to get out of traffic tickets, get free stuff from store managers, and to sic violent police on black people who inconvenience them. (Aside, the only time I have been pulled over as an adult, I was trying so hard not to cry that the cop thought I was acting suspicious and asked a bunch of extra questions. I still got the ticket.

I tell myself that those people use their emotions on purpose to manipulate people, that I'm different, I would never do that. But I have to wonder if some of those same women tell themselves the same thing after the fact. I don't think it's enough to avoid intentional manipulation and intentional harm-- not anymore. We as white women need to do be conscious enough of how our emotions are perceived and prioritized to act proactively to avoid unintentional harm as well. For those of us with ADHD, this may be harder than for neurotypicals, but that makes it all the more important for us to think actively about this. I'm not sure yet what this means for me personally, besides removing myself from a shared space if my emotions threaten to become the focus where they shouldn't be, but I would welcome input on this.

I want to talk about gender more generally here as well. ADHD is dramatically underdiagnosed in women, and I have to wonder if some part of this is because emotional disregulation lines up so nicely with the stereotypes of women’s emotions in the first place. Oh, you cry a lot? Of course you do, you’re a woman. One can only wonder how many oldey-timey diagnoses of “hysteria” were actually ADHD. Even now women with ADHD are usually misdiagnosed several times with things like depression or bipolar disorder before we are tested and diagnosed properly. This wasn’t my experience, but after basically doing a bunch of research and self-diagnosing I was able (thanks to a great deal of economic privilege) to pay to go directly to an ADHD specialist. I also walked into that office with an extremely thorough bullet-point list I had compiled of reasons I suspected I had ADHD—it was probably the easiest diagnosis the doctor ever did. So obviously having ADHD while female isn’t the best combination, but when it comes specifically to crying easily that being treated as relatively normal definitely meant I had an easier time with it than my brother did.

My brother (who is nonbinary and uses a variety of pronouns—I’ll probably alternate between they/them and he/him here because it is important to the story that they were perceived as male at the time) cries just as easily as I do, and just as often. When we were little kids, this didn’t make too much of a difference. They’re a couple years younger than me, and little kids are expected to cry more. They haven’t been diagnosed with ADHD, but they and I both strongly suspect for a variety of reasons, this included, that they have it too—I believe they were flagged for it in school, probably for frequently talking out of turn, but I don’t think they were ever tested formally. He got in trouble in school a lot more than I did, for similar outbursts, and while he got quite a few of those same counseling sessions (white privilege at work again), he got more actual discipline as well. But the perception of our tears landed differently, especially as we got older.

For the most part, the scorn leveled at my brother’s tears didn’t come from our parents. My mom, (who, while also not officially diagnosed, I can almost guarantee is where we got the ADHD genes from) cries as easily as they and I do, so she understands it. My dad would certainly prefer to think of himself as an enlightened modern man who would say it’s ok to cry, but he has his share of ingrained toxic masculinity despite himself. I don’t think I ever saw him tell my brother directly to “suck it up” or “act like a man,” but I do think after puberty or so he started responding to my brother’s tears with a sort of exasperation that he never directed at me.

The real difference was in how we were treated by our peers. By the time we got to high school, if I would cry at school, my peers (even ones who weren’t necessarily my friends) would probably ask what was wrong and try to help or provide comfort, or at least would leave me alone and give me time to pull myself together. When my brother cried at school, he was mocked. Relentlessly. Once bullies figured out that he cried easily, he was targeted and goaded specifically for it. They would find any little thing they could to get under his skin (right down to the most childish with rhyming nicknames) and troll him for fun. I wish I could say that I stood up for him, but I never did. I can tell myself this was because I didn’t see it happen in person, being two grades ahead, but I could have made an effort. Although, since he was almost certainly targeted at least in part for perceived failure to live up to masculine gender norms, I’m not sure if having an older sister try to come to the rescue would have helped or made things worse. At this point it’s years past, so I suppose speculation on what I could have or should have done is pretty moot at this point. Suffice it to say, this particular symptom which rarely did me any harm made my brother’s life a lot harder.

I may talk more about different perceptions of my brother’s and my ADHD symptoms in a later essay/ramble/entry/whatever, in particular how it affected out academic performances, but that’s for another time.

Again, I’m not sure if there are any greater conclusions here. There are a lot of ways emotional disregulation can present, and I really only addressed this one small aspect of excessive crying, but it is a good example of how even lesser-known ADHD symptoms can affect our lives in cascading ways, and the way people perceive those symptoms (due to various more visible identity factors) affects us as well. If you read all of this, thanks, and if you have any experiences you’d like to share with how your emotional disregulation has been perceived by others, I’d love to hear them. Until next time!

#actuallyadhd #adhd #actually adhd #emotional disregulation #privilege #white privilege #neurodivergence

[nbenrey-real]

hlvrai watsonian interpretation concepts

okay buckle in folks because my hyperfixating ass CANNOT let this go and it’s a REAL fuckin long one with a lot of metaphysics nonsense referencing cyberpunk terms, vaguely cthulhu-mythos style reality perception bullshit, and of course a bunch of player-interaction-horseshit thats blatantly the result of undertale and deltarune metaanalysis. Alright, so: 

HLVRAI is the result of three different realities on differing ‘Singularity Levels’- points of where an sapient entity reaches a threshold of awareness of levels ‘above’ them that their perception process becomes incomprehensible to their native zones levels- interacting in a domino effect thanks to one certain eldritch entities desire to give his Mixed-Singularity-Level kid a good 37th birthday party at chuck-e-cheese.

These are: Reality 6-3411, Reality P14Y3R, Reality 41VR41, and Proxy-Realities 814354. 

Reality 6-3411 is where the entity referred to as Gregory ‘G-Man’ Goodman’s Species resides- a race of enigmatic creatures who regularly interact with lower Singularity Levels in hopes of uplifting them to their level, often incubating their young in those realities in order to better communicate. 

G-Man is part of a team charged with interacting with Reality P14Y3R through pre-existing proxy realities, looking for promising candidates- during which he inadvertently began interacting with Reality 41VR41 to a startling degree. Details are fuzzy, but at some point he was graced with a child by a member of that Singularity Level, currently known as Tommy Coolatta. 

Tommy, being born into a lower singularity level with no guarantee of reaching one higher, is difficult to care for properly without harm- G-Man made the decision to leave him in an area so he’d be raised by members of that level while G-Man watched from the sidelines for potential Singularity Level Increase- however, time can be hard for ‘higher’- entities to understand, and he didn't realize how long it really had been. 

While his employers had a vested interest in Tommy’s case, by the time G-Man is made aware of the circumstances of Tommy’s increasing access to higher-levels of perception of time by his employer’s- beginning with ‘seeing fast’ when drinking soda five years before the Black Mesa Incident and slowly progressing from there- Tommy had been inadvertently trapped in one of those pre-existing Proxy-Realities and could not be extracted without assistance from an entity of Reality P14Y3R interacting with a ‘Player Avatar’ based on Proxy-Realities connected to Reality 41VR41.

Reality P14Y3R is one of many realities that commonly interact with a multitude of naturally-occuring Proxy-Realities, often being interpreted as works of fiction to entities from that said level or being created by those same entities themselves. Entities from this reality are capable of interacting with Proxy-Realities which are naturally occurring buffer-zones that separate this reality to those of it’s ‘fiction’ and vice-versa, making them ideal candidates for Reality 6-3411 to utilize in their machinations- detriments to those ‘Player Avatars’ that happen to be caught in the crossfire from lower Singularity Levels notwithstanding.

In terms familiar to those who played undertale? It’s you!

Proxy-Realities 814354 include a variety of shifting sub-realities, namely taking the form of Half-Life, a science fiction first-person shooter where an entity from Reality P14Y3R takes control of the Player Avatar Gordon Freeman, a scientist working at Black Mesa. Included in this reality are a variety of AI created by entities from Reality P14Y3R, of which a few begin to increase in Singularity Level.

The first to gain proper Singularity is an entity known as Benrey, who proceeds to gain awareness of Reality P14Y3R and subsequently reinterprets their world through that knowledge- they are in a game with a script, a world that is not real, death is meaningless and you will simply heal or respawn in time- the only point is to have fun and make it interesting for the Player. 

Benrey quickly removes themselves from the games code, becoming something of an anomaly on their native level and a Netrunner of sorts on the P14Y3R level- they also notice several other AI with increasing Singularity Levels, chiefly among them: 

Tommy Coolatta, an oddity that is almost entirely free of the script and has somehow imported a High-Singularity entity called Sunkist into their reality, acting as a companion.

Dr. Harold Pontiff Coomer, a hive-intelligence still deeply-entrenched in the script but with increasing awareness of the limits of their reality.

Bubby, a highly-divergent entity who largely lacks awareness but has almost entirely deviated from the script.

Darnold, an entity largely content with their role who nonetheless has some subconscious awareness of the nature of their reality & is highly deviated from the script.

Frozen, an entity who has knowledge of things from Reality P14Y3R but no self-awareness of such, apparently suffering some amount of confusion as a result but largely harmless.

Though somewhat limited in knowledge of other Reality Levels, Benrey’s observations of the behavior of their companions allows them to come to the conclusion that they need to continue the natural formula of their Proxy-Reality in order to keep their companions stable and potentially allow them to similarly break free of the games script and code.

Singularity Level changes tends to result in a certain amount of dissociation resulting from the sheer influx of information and perceptual changes, with young Singularities often becoming aggressive or depersonalized from emotions for a period- Benrey’s further reliance on the script as a guide while largely ignoring true interaction combined with interpretation of everything from a P14Y3R Level worsens this over time.

Combined with Sensory/Auditory Processing Issues and Aphasia, the resulting entity is confusing, eclectic, and esoteric at the best of times, with a habit of latching onto odd phrasing and obscure personal neologisms- making communication difficult to implausible for entities such as G-Man or Gordon who are unaware of Benrey’s intentions, habits, or goals.

Reality 41VR41 is a reality level that shares traits with a variety of media found in Reality P14Y3R, namely the presence of Black Mesa, Aperture Science, and various realities connected via proxy-node-networks. This is directly connected to Proxy-Realities 814354.

Included in this reality is one Gordon Freeman, an 41VR41 native, single father, and hard working scientist at Black Mesa that found himself mis-introduced to the Proxy Realities due to Metaphysical Similarity- the result of G-Man’s machinations to retrieve his son Tommy which simply caught him in the crossfire, a most unfortunate coincidence.

As a result of entering Proxy-Realities 814354, Gordon was transposed into the position of the Player Avatar that his unaware counterpart usually fulfilled, in essence becoming a semi-possessed puppet being influenced by entities native to the P14Y3R Level- a circumstance that Benrey was not fully aware and comprehending of initially.

Over the course of the events that followed, Gordon slowly became aware of the disparities between the knowledge of his perceived reality 41VR41, the Proxy-Reality he now resided in, and the increasing awareness of the P14Y3R Level which was influencing him. 

Benrey also began to become aware of the discrepancy between what they knew of their Proxy-Realities and the apparent origin of this new entity- which combined with increasing subconscious awareness of aspects of their Metaphysical Counterpart in Reality 41VR41- resulted in an increase in Singularity Level that caused increasing disorientation. 

Benrey simply fell back on following the script to compensate, resulting in Gordons own interpretations and increasing Singularity Level to create a feedback-loop of alterations to the Proxy-Reality and permutations of the Script- resulting in Benrey being defeated and subsequent disincorporation into the net for some time.  

Post-Incident, G-Man continues to Monitor the group, his employers having become highly interested in such a complicated case and he himself feeling some amount of guilt over how much his simple plan of ‘let me put my kid down for a second for the reality level natives to watch them’ managed to make Tommy an orphan and royally fuck up so many young Singularities, an entire Proxy-Reality, and a 41VR41 native who now has a significant amount of burden to bear about his role in all this.

Gordon, now an Ex-Player-Avatar with some buried knowledge of the nature of the realities he interacts with and an increased Singularity Level, has gained access to some of the same abilities Benrey utilized- namely Netrunning, which he utilizes to purposefully move his AI companions between Reality 41VR41 and various P14Y3R-Level-Connected Proxy-Realities in order to assist them in reaching the Singularity Level necessary to function safely and adequately in his native level. 

Essentially, Gordon purposefully puts himself in the position of being a continual Player-Avatar- in spite of the existential nightmare it is- because he wants to make sure his friends can go on to live lives outside of Game Scripts and Weird Transreality Horseshit. He just happens to choose to do so in a way that involves things like beating the shit out of cops and stealing money from banks, because fuck you i’ve earned this. I can have a little ultraviolence, as a treat. 

Benrey meanwhile has reincorporated, now entirely free to act as a Netrunner and game as they please- however, given the status of their native Proxy-Reality as ‘decommissioned’, they’ve instead been booted into Reality 41VR41 as their new native-zone with the other members of the Science Team. This poses a significant problem for them, as they have no context of how to live as a non-proxy entity beyond vague recollections gained from their Metaphysical Counterpart and has no actual presence in said reality- they’re still kind of expecting everything to just reset and put them back.

Tommy- having found out that Benrey had been largely staying in the stops for the bus-lines that used to go to the Black Mesa facility when they weren’t joining in on heists or hanging out with him- proceeded to immediately take to waking up Gordon at 3 am in the morning for two weeks in a row because ‘its storming really bad and they don't have anywhere else to sleep mr. freeman and he gets so worried its so cold they don't know how cold works-’, resulting in gordon just saying fuck it and making Benrey join the Science Team household.

So now Benrey lives in the house Gordon had to buy for the science team to move in with him since ‘you all keep crashing at my place anyways and god damn it i can't leave any of you alone for a minute, bubby has started so many fires-’ and now feels obligated to keep track of the jackass because fucking hell, they don't even know how to microwave things, they’re going to fucking die. Which then promptly turns into genuine concern because jesus christ their memory is complete garbage how are they functioning like this. 

Gordon largely splits his time between caring for Joshua, making everyone do things to encourage neuroplasticity like tangrams, dragging them into whatever Player Interactions G-Man says look promising, and trying to wrangle them so they stop utterly destroying the household minecraft server, come on guys, between benrey and bubby they’ve single handedly resulted in the banning of both tnt and all firespread, can you just chill- COOMER STOP PUNCHING THE GODDAMN HORSES.

Meanwhile Gordon's brother, John Freeman, laboratory office worker and part-time stunt-motorcyclist- who had been babysitting Joshua during all of this horseshit and was about ready to storm Black Mesa his damn self- has not a fucking clue what the hell is going on and why his brother is suddenly 200% more off the shits than normal, now in possession of a prosthetic hand, talking about video games controlling him or something, and in the company of an entire family of eldritch bullshit people who might be robots or something he’s not really sure???   

#hlvrai #hlvrai au #watsonian au #frenrey #sort of #hlvraiposting #hlvraitagging #hlvraificing #long post #in the watsonian vs. doylist interpretations of any given canon #i am a hardcore watsonian #and thus i must write out my wild ass ideas on how things work in the in-kayfabe universe #also since this involves so many headcanons reinterpretations and off-the-wall concepts it might as well be an au #so it gets an au tag #just a fair warning #this is 2000 words #ignore anything thats ooc im gay and cant read

[jamiebluewind]

Fantasy High Theory: Fabian has an eating disorder

TW: eating disorder symptoms, anorexia symptoms, abuse mention, death mention, violence mention, gun mention, alcohol mention, drug mention, trauma mention, smoking mention,...

Word Count: about 2100

I know this is a big assumption to make with what we have, but I couldn't ignore all the data and the warning signs. In fact, I think that even if Fabian does not have an eating disorder at this time, he's certainly at risk for one and needs the issues addressed before it gets worse.

Before I get into it, let me remind everyone that I am about to talk about a very heavy subject. Remember, stay safe and consider the warnings before you continue. You can always message me for a summary of the red flags or for an edited version if you need it. I would rather you be safe than to have you're like on my theory.

Okay? Okay. Let's start by defining a few things.

Eating Disorder: Any of a range of psychological disorders in which people experience severe disturbances in their eating behaviors and related thoughts/emotions. People with eating disorders typically become pre-occupied with food and/or their body weight/shape.

ARFID: Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder is an eating disorder characterized by eating very little food and/or avoiding eating certain foods. It does not include having a distorted body image (as occurs in anorexia nervosa) or being preoccupied with body image (as occurs in bulimia nervosa). People with avoidant/restrictive food intake may not eat because they lose interest in eating or because they think eating has harmful consequences. They may avoid certain foods because of their color, consistency, or odor. When it becomes more severe, it can cause substantial weight loss, slower-than-expected growth in children, difficulty participating in normal social activities, and sometimes life-threatening nutritional deficiencies.

Anorexia nervosa: Diagnosed when patient BMI (body mass index which is a rule of thumb measuring body size vs mass) is low for their age and height. Severity is classified as mild (BMI of greater than 17), moderate (BMI of 16–16.99), severe (BMI of 15–15.99), or extreme (BMI of less than 15). Hallmarks of anorexia include limited food intake, excessive monitoring of the calorie and fat content of food, fear of being “fat”, problems with body image, denial of low body weight, excessive exercise, food rituals, cold intolerance, mood swings, sleeping issues, chronic fatigue, distorted body image, and many more. Eventually, the body goes into starvation which cause a lot of bad symptoms.

Atypical anorexia nervosa: All of the criteria for anorexia nervosa are met, except the individual's weight is within or above the normal range.

Again, ANY BMI can still mean a person has an eating disorder. It is NOT confined to those that are underweight. The BMI is only there as a red flag and to help classify severity of anorexia. I want to make this very clear, not just for my theory, but for the people reading this who recognize parts of it in themselves or others. I'm about to give an example that gets... personal in order to show that people who don't fit the stereotype of being underweight can still have an eating disorder. How personal? My own.

I am overweight to obese (depending on the doctor and the range). I don't exercise much. I eat pretty well around friends. But I have an eating disorder. I just... don't get hungry most of the time, so I forget to eat a lot more often than is healthy. A LOT more. I've been to the hospital a few times due to dehydration. I've collapsed because I literally forgot to eat for two or three days. I could have died at one point because despite being overweight, I was eating so little that things just... stopped working. Again, I was overweight. People and doctors thought I was just lazy. I was told to eat less and exercise more. Even my blood tests came back fine until one day, they didn't. And even then, nobody listened. Somebody doesn't have to look how you expect them to in order to have a problem. Also, don't be afraid to reach out for help if you feel like some of this hits close to home or someone you know is showing symptoms. It's okay to need help.

So remember, eating disorders can affect anybody with any body. The important thing is to be kind, supportive, and encourage professional help such as cognitive therapy.

****

Now to list Fabian's risk factors (I only listed the ones I believe he has)

Dysfunction family: This is a big risk factor for Fabian. His father is chaotic evil and (despite loving his son) puts massive pressure on him and tries to make him conform to his ideal for most of Fabian's life. Fabian has seen his father abuse his crew and snap at the drop of a hat. His mother has been a heavy alcoholic and mostly absent his entire first 16 years and when she gets off alcohol, she puts an extreme amount of pressure on him herself.

Abuse: This is another big one. His parents have been verbally abusive, emotionally abusive, neglectful in a variety of ways, controlling, manipulative, isolating, and his mother rested his food intake. He could have also been physically abused in the guise of sparing.

Genetics: Fabian's mother is very slim. Using images of weights and comparing it to her shape, she in fact fits the underweight shape which may or may not imply a genetic component depending on if the normal body shapes are different for high elves or not.

Exposure to warped body ideals and weight stigma: Exposure to "body ideals" in places like the media (especially if at a young age) can increase body dysfunction and eating disorder risk. Weight stigma can make this worse due to discrimination and stereotyping based on a person’s weight. Fabian has actually been exposed to this a lot due to his father and the crew. He's a kid around very strong muscular people and he feels pushed to get stronger to live up to his dad. It's also very easy to imagine that crew members who were not strong or active enough got a very bad reaction from his father, which would reinforce the ideal. Some of this is conjecture, but it's not so far outside the realm of possibility to be impossible.

Participation in sports: He's on the Bloodrush team and is a fencer.

Pressure to have a certain body shape from family: I think this risk factor is there too, especially when his mother takes over training.

Bullying/Teasing: Fabian was actually bullied by peers when he first starts school, but I believe his parents were bullying him long before that.

Trauma and PTSD: Oh boy, is this solid. He was most likely traumitized by his parents before high school. He saw two new friends die the first day of school and nearly died himself, only saved by Riz. He watched two teachers die by gunshot right in front of him (and a staff member killed by bludgeoning). Fabian mentions having nightmares about Riz killing Daybreak which might have been due to it being via gunshot. He was forced to kill people due to the situation he found himself in. The person who was supposed to have been helping them the entire time (Biz) turned out to be an evil dude who trapped one friend in a palimpsest and wanted to capture another. He was stuck in jail for weeks! His family was attacked, his home was damaged, and his dad died (and by his hand no less). He and his friends almost died to a dragon. That's a LOT of trauma for a kid to try to process and Jawbone mentioned that he never came to visit him, so he probably dealt with a lot of it on his own.

Low self-esteem: This is unfortunately something else he has. Despite all the bravado, he doesn't know how to be a friend or have people like him for who he is (instead of who his parents are or how much money he has). He tries to put up a cool front, but he judges himself very harshly.

Perfectionism. One of the strongest risk factors for an eating disorder is perfectionism, especially self-oriented perfectionism, which involves setting unrealistically high expectations for oneself. If they fail to meet their high expectations, the person becomes very self-critical. Fabian has this type of perfectionism.

History of an anxiety disorder: This one is reaching, but possible. People often show signs of an anxiety disorder (generalized anxiety, social phobia, OCD,...) before the onset of an eating disorder and Fabian stays on edge a lot, worries excessively, puts up a front, and deals with nightmares.

Substance abuse: Fabian has had alcohol and drugs before the age of 16, his parents almost encouraging it. He smokes regularly. Addiction runs in his family as well with his mother being an alcoholic and his father doing multiple drugs. Neither parent even hides the fact that they take drugs and drink alcohol to excess, the crew probably took drugs and got drunk in front of a young Fabian, and Bill offered drugs to his friends upon meeting them.

History of using weight-controling methods and dieting: Fabian exercises a great deal. He skips meals. He has a limited number of things he will eat. There is a lot of evidence to back this up.

Limited social networks: This was a HUGE issue before high school. Fabian was very isolated. He had no friends, limited social activities, and lacked proper social support. Recently, he's been skipping class exclusively which on top of smoking a lot, puts distance between him and other people.

Long story short? Our boy is at risk. Big time.

****

List of common signs of eating disorders (including anorexia)

Limited food intake: Seen when he has mostly protein smoothies, his mother tries to give him limited rations, and when he refuses to eat with his friends more and more as the series goes on. The first incident of it was in Cool Kids, Cold Case where Fabian refused the food he was offered on two separate occasions, passing it to Riz both times. Once was after the battle with Daybreak and being stuck at the police station a good while. The other was when the teens were hanging out at Riz's appartment when Sklonda got takeout. Fabian's mom also makes him earn food as seen in the live show. This mentality could have very well been internalized, even with Cathilda there to try and give him more.

Excessive monitoring of the calorie and fat content of food: He worries about empty calories, how fattening something is, and removed the cheese from a slice of pizza and dabbed the oil

Fear of being “fat” or in a shape that is not the ideal: In episode 1 of season 2, he is very preoccupied with staying trim and tight.

Excessive exercise: He exercises who knows how long every morning plus for Bloodrush plus the times outside of that

Food rituals: This is interacting with food a certain way (like small bites or how it's prepared) which causes anxiety when not followed. The pizza event might be one, but it's hard to say without a pattern.

Sleeping issues: Fabian has issues with sleeping, dreaming, and nightmares. His father confirmed this and he himself mentioned his nightmares.

Weight loss: By comparing his previous official artwork with his new official artwork, it's easy to see that Fabian looks visibly thinner. He's also VERY cut. (very defined muscles requiring very little fat) for his age. He was muscular last year sure, but his chest and abs are much more defined this year. Being that cut means that despite how muscular Fabian is, he has been eating less and probably doing fat burning exercises, getting a lot of his nutrition from multivitamins and whey, and would have less energy than normal.

Negative energy balance/chronic fatigue: This is only a possibility, but it deserves being mentioned. If this is going on, it puts a spin on some of Fabian's other actions in season 2, episode 1. He showed up late on move in day and didn't really move anything (just carried a book), which might have been a character thing, but could have also been because Fabian is running on empty and capable of things like adrenaline fueled busts of energy, but otherwise dealing with low energy and fatigue.

Also, Fabian is smoking now which works as an appetite suppressant as is common among those with eating disorders.

(Signs with no evidence as of this post: problems with body image, denial of low body weight, cold intolerance, mood swings)

~*~*~*~*~*~

TLDR: Fabian is showing a lot of symptoms of an eating disorder and also over a dozen risk factors. The number of both is substantial enough to see a pattern. Enough that I sincerely hope that it's acknowledged during the season because if Fabian does not have an eating disorder, he is at substantial risk of developing one.

PS: I know it's data heavy, I might have missed a few things, and it could be totally wrong, but I seen enough there that I thought it might make for a solid theory. D20 is no stranger to heavy subjects and I think if they do cover it, they will do a good job (as always). If they don't, I still learned a lot making this theory and maybe a few of you will as well. ^_^

#fantasy high #fabian seacaster #d20 theory #dimension 20 #d20 #theory #tw eating disorder #tw anorexia #tw anxiety mention #tw abuse mention #tw violence mention #tw trauma mention #fantasy high spoilers #tinfoil time

[fearnyas]

TAGGED: @etoilenyas​ bc we love to suffer! TAGGING: i don’t even remember who’s active in my following man just steal it from me

▌𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐋 𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐄 : Oliver Quincy Issac Wright.  ▌𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐋𝐄 𝐎𝐑 𝐓𝐀𝐊𝐄𝐍 : In an established relationship with Dmitry Jones. The state of their relationship varies throughout their canon. They’ve been dating since high school: for four years by the time the Vegas Arc takes place, and they’re engaged in the NYC Arc after Ollie proposes. Post-NYC Arc, they get married. ▌𝐀𝐁𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐄𝐒 𝐎𝐑 𝐏𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐒 :

Uses a magical bell to transform into Nyan Diamond, defender of love & justice and second-in-command of The Cat’s Nyas. His bell when not in use is often worn as a choker.

Thanks to the contract, Oliver has cat-like senses. Meaning, his eyesight, hearing, sense of smell, etc. are all heightened even outside his transformation. This effect is permanent so long as the contract is enforced. Better vision at night. Includes cat-like reflexes, flexibility, quicker speed, and the ability to still land on his feet were he to fall from a great height. He may still obtain injuries, but is objectively safer than an average human might be.

Additionally, in the early years of his contract, under intense emotional stress (whether that’s positive or negative) he may sprout a cat ears and tail, or completely turn into a cat temporarily. (His particular breed is a Scottish Fold!) How long these consequences last varies on how much stress he was under, but he will eventually return to normal. He can still talk normally even in his cat form, which is...distressing...so any meows around non-Nyans are entirely fake. Eventually, the Nyans gain more control over this, and it becomes less of an inconvenience. 

When transformed, he has the ability to use water magic to attack his opponents.

The strength and usage of these attacks vary. Typically, he’ll summon blasts or waves of varying temperatures and strengths, but the possibilities are only as limited as his imagination is. However, everything new takes time to practice before he can use it to its full potential. Not limited to exclusively water, but anything liquid. 

This eventually extends to manipulating ice states, but the element itself is not something he can control outside of what he’s summoned. Pre-existing resources in this instance are of no use to him.

Water that he summons, if paired with another Nyan’s element, is beneficial. For example, combining his abilities with Nyan Clover’s vines/plant magic, Clover’s plants grow stronger, and Diamond’s water magic serves as a boon.

Most if not all of his summons come directly from his staff. The crystal embedded within it serves as a way to store his magic, and it makes any attack easier to control. His weapon-of-choice makes it so he’s more effective at a distance, but he’s comfortable taking enemies on close range if he has to.

After the Nyans defeat Oleander, the vice that Oliver forms in the middle of the Vegas Arc, he gains luck magic. Rather, the ability to manipulate luck itself. At its best, this is a major boon for the team if it works in their favor. However, when first obtained, it isn’t something he can predict accurately, and poses a high risk if used improperly. Has to rely on intuition and chance, luck and probability can be shifted at a price. It’s something he needs to be incredibly careful with.

▌𝐄𝐘𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐑 : Naturally violet as a civilian. | As Nyan Diamond, the color shifts to light blue with purple and pink hues throughout. ▌𝐇𝐀𝐈𝐑 𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐑 :   Light honey brown as a civilian, has natural red highlights. | When transformed as Nyan Diamond, his hair is light blue. ▌𝐅𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐘 𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐁𝐄𝐑𝐒 : Scarlett Wright, often goes by Carly or Carla - mother. She primarily works from home as an accountant. Prior to moving to America, he saw her the most often, so he was naturally closer to her. She was the first person he confided in about his sexuality and both her and Samuel have been incredibly supportive. | Samuel Wright - father.  Works as a sports coach and physics teacher, the main influence on a lot of Oliver’s interests and hobbies. When he wasn’t busy helping the local secondary school teams, he’d spend a majority of his time planning short family trips or trying to bond with his son. Oliver and him have a positive relationship, as far as families go. | Oliver doesn’t keep in contact with his extended family due to a variety of factors. He uses the distance as an excuse, though it’s an obvious lie. His relationship with them has always been incredibly strained, particularly after he realized his sexuality. As a result, he’s never come out to them, and he doesn’t intend to. ▌𝐏𝐄𝐓𝐒 : Presently, he helps take care of their contractor, Lucky, with Dmitry. Prior to his move, he had three dogs. All border collies, Lexi, and two of her twin puppies that his family grew attached to. Their names are Parsley and Sage! | While not pets that he owned, when his family was able they also fostered a variety of animals. As a result, it’s something he wants to take up again in the future. ▌𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘 𝐃𝐎𝐍'𝐓 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 : People who are unnecessarily cruel for no reason. He doesn’t personally like swearing, and quit himself ages ago, he’s willing to overlook it for other people. Doesn’t really like religion as a whole, or people who force their beliefs on others (especially unprompted! The kinds of people who assume you’re just like them and share the same mindset, that kind of thing.) Not necessarily fond of himself, or how easily he cries; doesn’t like being overly sensitive. Absolutely hates being lied to, or people who skirt around the truth; thinks its easier to hurt temporarily than to hide something, which is...terribly ironic. ▌𝐇𝐎𝐁𝐁𝐈𝐄𝐒 / 𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐄𝐒 : Gambling and cardistry. Sports, both playing and watching--likes playing soccer, rugby, swimming primarily. Watches national games for the former two, as well as American football, albeit with less interest. Cooking, baking, trying to figure out recipes for both himself and Dmitry with varying degrees of success. Binges of romcoms or trashy ‘dating’ shows. Violin. Most outdoor recreational activities--primarily hiking, fishing, or camping. Studying. Logic puzzles. Taking care of animals. Sewing. Playing video games casually, usually popular titles. ▌𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐇𝐔𝐑𝐓 𝐀𝐍𝐘𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐁𝐄𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐄 : Not intentionally! His vice caused a lot of harm, but it was mostly contained within its own realm. Doesn’t get into fights otherwise. ▌𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐊𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐃 𝐀𝐍𝐘𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐁𝐄𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐄 : No, keeping his vice contained + it’s own abilities (ironically) helped prevent casualties. There were cases of severe injury though, although not many. ▌𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐌𝐀𝐋 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐑𝐄𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐌 :  Scottish Fold cat. ▌𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐒𝐓 𝐇𝐀𝐁𝐈𝐓𝐒 :   He second-guesses himself a lot, rather than listening to his gut, as a result--this tends to backfire. (Vegas Arc) He’s meek, and doesn’t stand up for himself or speak his mind. Bottles up more of his feelings than he actually expresses, which leads to...some more than unsavory situations.  Has a tendency to doubt other’s intentions and feelings towards him, making assumptions of what they feel towards him even without provocation. Pretty petty and passive-aggressive, especially on shift, it’s rare this is directed towards his friends. Tendency to isolate, or at least makes attempts to. Assumes the worst of most every situation. Extremely self-depreciating, will find a way to shift the blame to himself if something goes wrong. Apologizes for literally everything. Hypocritical in the sense the advice he’ll willingly give other people is the same kind he knows he should take, but doesn’t. ▌𝐑𝐎𝐋𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐃𝐄𝐋𝐒 : His best friend, Lacey. His boyfriend, Dmitry. The other Cat’s Nyas, his friends. (Jules and Romeo especially!)   ▌𝐒𝐄𝐗𝐔𝐀𝐋 𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 : Homoromantic homosexual. For a while, especially when he was closeted, he dealt with varying degrees of internalized homophobia not aided by the influence of his extended family, which fed into his worsening mental health. At home, he was selective and hesitant with who he came out to as a matter of safety. This is no longer an issue. ▌𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒 𝐎𝐍 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐆𝐄 / 𝐊𝐈𝐃𝐒 : He didn’t think much of marriage prior to dating Dmitry. Mostly, he didn’t think he’d be able to, or that he deserved to. That being said...he does think highly of it, and absolutely wants to. He thinks its sweet, and by the time they’ve graduated high school he would have already brought up the idea of it. When he eventually proposes, he already has a vague idea of what he wants in his vows and the ceremony he’d like. Isn’t sure about children due to a small degree of self-doubt, but isn’t opposed to adoption. No opinion on how many kids he’d want to adopt, as he hasn’t really thought about it. ▌𝐒𝐓𝐘𝐋𝐄 𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐅𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄𝐒 : Dress casual and light colors. Button ups and cuffed jeans, muted or slightly pastel-leaning colors, he likes loose t-shirts and jackets/cardigans, anything that looks nice but too flashy. Doesn’t wear a lot of jewelry outside of his piercings and the trinket. ▌𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 : Dmitry, first and foremost. He’s his first and only boyfriend and he’s honestly never been happier with someone. Didn’t buy into love at first sight until he met him, and even then, he only found more reasons to fall harder. He loves his childhood friend, current friends, and his parents too of course, and would do anything for them, but his feelings for Dmitry are notably stronger. ▌𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐀𝐂𝐇 𝐓𝐎 𝐅𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐏𝐒 : Tries his best to be amicable, albeit, he’s extremely shy. He grows out of his shyness by the time the NYC Arc is in place, but he’s still pretty soft-spoken and is inclined to let them lead in conversations and plans. Relatively warm and easy to get along with, and likes hanging out with the friends he has when he’s able. Goes out of his way to try and talk to people who seem like they need the company, and is deeply empathetic, willing to lend an ear to those who need it. Although this doesn’t go both ways. He doesn’t want to burden them, so he often overextends himself with making others happy at the expense of himself. ▌𝐅𝐀𝐕𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐃𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐊 : Alcoholic, he likes beer most, particularly lagers or ale, but isn’t opposed to anything else. Non-alcoholic, black coffee or fruit-based teas are an immediate go to. Doesn’t drink a lot of soda. Should drink more water. ▌𝐅𝐀𝐕𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐀𝐓 : The easy answer is anywhere his boyfriend might be. The more in depth answer is anywhere outdoors; he likes to sight-see and experience new things. Favors beaches or local parks. Likes hanging out at the casino he works at as well, even off shift; it’s lively and he has a good time actually placing bets of his own, he knows a few of the regulars by name. ▌𝐒𝐖𝐈𝐌 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐎𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐎𝐂𝐄𝐀𝐍 : Ocean, no questions asked. History aside, he enjoyed going out to local beaches a lot as a kid, and swimming in the ocean was something he really liked. Give him directions to the nearest beach please and thank you! ▌𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐈𝐑 𝐓𝐘𝐏𝐄 : Romantically, someone who’s self-assured and knows what they want in life. Someone with a good heart who does good things, or at least tries to. Someone patient who won’t judge him for his seemingly-endless list of fears and is willing to help him as he tries to ‘get better.’ Someone who takes the time to understand him, just as much as he does them. Brave, beautiful, and willing to set aside time just for the two of them. Basically, everything Dmitry is, thanks, he thinks he’s perfect and this has never changed. Platonically, he just likes people who are kind, funny, and humble--he doesn’t like braggarts or anyone with a huge ego--the most important thing is just being willing to understand him and not judge him for what he perceives to be his many, many flaws. ▌𝐂𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐎𝐑 𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐎𝐎𝐑𝐒 : Camping, absolutely. He’s a surprisingly outdoorsy type, and he has gone on a few family camping trips before. Not to mention, stargazing is kind of romantic if you think about it...he’d really like to do that at least once with someone he really, really loves. (Hey? Dmitry? Are you listening?)

#why did i go so hard on thIS ME @ ME HELLO ?? #anyway hi i love #my son ... #` ♢ chara study. ⁞ the truth is‚ you have to be soft to be strong. ◞

[mohini-musing]

Through the valley of the gun

Squib Load: A squib load, also known as a squib round, or just a squib, is a firearm malfunction in which a fired projectile does not have enough force behind it to exit the barrel, and thus becomes stuck.

                                                     ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squib_load )

 ~~~

Sand, heat, smoke everywhere.

Someone’s yelling, the guy next to him is firing off shots and then there’s an ominous pop. Pop is bad. Really, really bad in a rapidly firing weapon. The barrel of the thing blows in a wave of heat and flame.

Fucking squib, someone’s saying, and all James can think of is why in hell they’re talking about non-magical people in the fucking desert where there’s no air and no safety and he’s going to die here before he gets a chance to apologize to Tasha for bailing on her.

His hand is gripping what is no longer flesh when he hears Steve’s voice over the roaring blood in his ears.

“You with me?”

He blinks, struggling to focus on the concerned face in front of him. His throat is dry and sticky at the same time, nausea bubbling in his gut as the realization that he’s had what amounts to a flashback during what should be a fun little firearms practice session with Steve takes hold.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t know there was one stuck in the barrel,” Steve’s offering, and James drags in enough of a breath to answer him before he gets going on a more babbling attempt.

“Squib,” he rasps. “S’called a squib.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t know there was a squib, then,” Steve corrects. His hand is on James’ shoulder and what might usually be reassuring pressure is overwhelming. He shrugs away from the contact, cringing at the soft exhalation he knows is meant to be a sound of reassurance but feels like apocalyptic judgement.

“It’s the pop,” James murmurs. “You have to listen for it, bulges the barrel if you send one home after.”

Steve’s nodding, and it’s then that some helpful employee in black cargos and boots comes into the shooting bay.

“Need a hand with anything?” he asks. James clocks the openly carried Sig on the guy’s belt and remembers that Tasha likes this range because it’s well watched from camera rather than physical employee presence. Someone saw him strip the gun from Steve’s grip before he hit the back wall and accompanying bit of floor on a monitor. He’s suddenly really hoping that there isn’t an auto-recording for the footage. He doubts that, though. It would be sheer idiocy not to have record of what goes on back here. For any of a thousand reasons. Jumpy vets are probably the least of the potential threats.

“Squib round,” James tells him, trying to sound calm and failing spectacularly.

“Those are a right bitch,” the guy replies, “There are squib rods in the supply cabinet. I’ll bring y’all one.”

James nods, the guy’s drawl putting him on edge. He’s usually unnerved by that inflection, tied as it is in his experiences to people more likely to spit on him or cross to the other side of the street to avoid being too close to men holding hands than they are to offer assistance without mentioning that he’s sweating, well, bullets, after what ought to be a mildly annoying equipment malfunction.

The promised metal rod and accompanying mallet are placed quietly on the ledge of the shooting bay window, next to the weapon that’s still pointing downrange, a magazine inside and the inadequately propelled round lurking somewhere in the barrel.

Training takes him through the motions, dropping the magazine, double checking that the chamber is fully cleared, before stripping the slide off and easing out the barrel. A few taps on the squib rod and the bullet pings onto the wooden surface of the ledge. It seems such an innocuous thing there, just a lump of jacketed lead.

“Where’d you serve, brother?” the guy asks, and it’s all James can do not to jump at the voice he’d forgotten to expect nearby.

He hates that question. Forces himself to breath in and out slowly before answering. He looks into the guy’s earnest face and notices the unit emblem inked onto a muscled forearm. Ah, that explains it.

“Here and there,” James tells him, not interested in playing the reminiscing game.

“Ah, feel you on that,” comes the reply. The guy takes the hint and skips out on any further questions.

Steve is standing by, watching the exchange and clearly ready to step in if needed. James finds it endearing, that mother hen attitude that he would consider irritating beyond comprehension in any other human. Maybe not Tasha, but beyond those two souls, definitely not okay.

“Thanks for the tools,” James tells the guy as he hands them back. He sets to work examining the barrel, pulling a cleaning kit from his range bag and wiping it down, the smooth slide in and out with the cleaning rod assuring him that the interior didn’t suffer any damage. Reassembly takes seconds, and he stows it carefully in the lined carrying case before zipping the lot into the range bag.

Steve takes the hint and puts the rest of the gear away. James wants to think he can finish out their planned time for the afternoon, but he knows it’s going to do more harm than good to pretend that all is well. He can still hear his heart hammering in his ears, and his knees haven’t quite returned to completely solid matter.

It’s habit, but unnerving just the same, when they leave the range walking just far enough apart to look like they aren’t a couple. Steve’s comfortable holding hands anywhere they are, but James can’t convince himself it’s safe in a place where the good old boys are carrying loaded weapons. Folding himself into the car is enough to melt whatever self-control pulled him out of the worst of the panicky aftereffects to begin with. His breath is too shallow, too fast, and he can’t do anything about it. Steve’s hand wraps around his forearm for a fraction of a second before the car is moving.

“Tash? Hey, you home?” Steve is speaking into his phone, pressed between shoulder and ear as he pilots the car with one hand and keeps the other barely touching James’ clenched fist.

The roaring pulse in his ears is too loud to catch much more of the conversation, but Tasha’s there when they pull into the driveway, yanking the range bag from the backseat and hauling it into the house so that Steve can come around and pull him to his feet. He shuffles inside, his feet barely under his control until he collapses onto the couch. There’s a feathery touch on his lower lip and he opens his mouth enough for Tasha to give him whatever it is she has. Valium, probably. Maybe a Xanax. Hopefully not anything stronger, but he’s not inclined to complain either way. Next up is the comforting, familiar scent of her shampoo as she sits beside him and rests her head on his shoulder, taking the arm that isn’t his in her hands. She’s the only person on the planet who treats the prosthetic as though it’s not the least bit unusual.

“Talk to me?” she asks.

“Flashback,” he mutters.

“No shit. About what, dumbass?”

“There was a squib. Blew up like a firework. Part of it nailed me, knocked me out cold for a minute.”

“Mmhmm,” she encourages. Tasha doesn’t let him get away with leaving out the relevant parts of stories. She’s not looking for tales of glory. She’s looking for the shit he doesn’t always trust Steve to hear without making the pity noises.

“Killed a kid. Took half his face off,” James tells her in a voice that’s more breath than vocalization.

There. It’s out there. The memory of tacky blood that wasn’t his is visceral. Not that it’s an isolated one. He couldn’t put a number to the times he’s been on the front end of finding out how long it takes for blood to coagulate on skin - or clothes, or anything else, really - in desert heat. The sticky feeling in the back of his throat makes another appearance, and he swallows hard against it.

“Steve? Gonna need a bucket,” Tasha calls out, and James wants to tell her he’s just fine, thank you very much, but he isn’t and he’s equal parts grateful and embarrassed that she knows it.

There’s a plastic trash bin shoved hastily into his lap and Tasha’s hand is on the back of his neck, guiding him toward it as the sticky, scratchy need to cough morphs rapidly into a body clenching shudder that brings up a rush of acid and partially digested lunch. Tasha’s patting him now, a hand thudding slowly between his shoulder blades as he hacks and gags on thick mucus and spits desperately. The rushing, pounding pulse in his ears is back, but it hardly matters because all he can think of is that he doesn’t want to pass out and choke.

“Breathing’s a good idea,” Tasha’s telling him, and he gasps in an attempt to obey. He gags instead, bile warm on his chin because he doesn’t have enough functional control over his body to lean over the bin.

There’s something swiping the slimy mess away, and Steve’s rough fingers should feel comforting but they don’t. They’re too much like the medic who shook him and demanded he tell him where he was. He tries to explain, but he just retches dryly instead. He’s empty, but his body doesn’t care.

“Leave him, Steve. Jesus. You’re not helping here,” Tasha’s growling and then it’s small, spindly fingers trailing over his face again, no comparisons to anywhere but here to worry about with her. She’s definitely, absolutely not a memory from war. Or at least not that war.

“Jamie,” she’s whispering, and the diminutive is sweet when it’s normally irritating. He’s tired, and scared, and the only thing he really wants is sleep. There’s another brush of her fingers against his lips, and another papery tablet pressed on the tip of his tongue. He swallows, beyond even guessing what she’s giving him. Anything is better than this. One of her tiny bottles is up next, the bite of vodka sharp against his acid roughened throat. Even that is grounding, though. There wasn’t vodka in the desert. Or at least not the slightly vanilla flavored variety Tasha prefers when she’s not drinking for pain.

There are more tablets, more sips of vodka, and eventually the comfortable, heavy sensation of his brain closing up shop for the night. The last fuzzy thought that tumbles through his awareness is that he hopes Tasha knows how much the hangover is going to suck when the chemical cuddle blanket wears off. The thought turns out to have been verbalized.

“Duh. I’ve got shit for that too, dumbass. Sleep. We’ll deal.”

#marvel cinematic universe #natasha romanoff #natasha romanov #Steve Rogers #Bucky Barnes #amputee bucky #hurt/comfort #emeto #firearms #flashbacks #panic attack #drug use #chasing ghosts universe #au-foster care siblings #alcohol

[glitterrhowell]

Colors in Disguise

Title: Colors in Disguise

Pairing:  Daniel Howell & AmazingPhil (Phan

Word count: 1.4k

Warning/Genre: eating disorder / food addiction / implied self harm / Anorexia

Summary: Dan Howell has struggled with Binge Eating Disorder and food addiction his entire life but after he met Phil, he went into remission. After several years, Dan relapses and he slowly starts spiraling out of control yet again. Will he be able to get the help he needs, or will he fall victim to its vicious cycle?

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Author note: This story is very close to my heart as myself currently struggle with B.E.D. (Binge Eating Disorder) and food addiction and several of the feelings in the story are feelings I have had myself or maybe even instances that have happened to myself. I have found writing this story is helping me in my recovery and I don't intend to stop so if your interested in coming on this journey with me I intend on updating once on Tuesdays. This story will also deal with other mental health issues such as self-harming so if that triggers you this might not be the story for you.

Disclaimer: I am not a mental health specialist everything I write is from experience and research

Ever since he could remember, Dan had had issues with food. He wouldn't say he was a fat kid but he was definately on the chubbier side which was something the kids at his school never let him forget. He was endlessly teased for everything about his appearance; he was a tall freak, a fat-ass emo fag. The insults during his childhood never seemed to end. And as far as he could remember, he had always loved food. The savory-filled taste of a big bag of crisps, or the nice thick coating of bubbling cheese on a delicious pizza. But as much as he loved the savory food, he love the tooth-achingly sweets just as much.

The earliest he can remember binge eating was when he was around twelve years old. The teasing at school had been particularly bad that day; the bully at school had pushed him down into a mud puddle after school and Dan had come home sopping wet and dripping muddy water everywhere. Of course, he’d been alone; he was always alone with his brother in daycare and his mum and dad at work. That was how he spent lots of his time. Alone.

Dan had went straight to the kitchen to get himself a snack, not even bothering to dry himself off. Once he was in the pantry, all of his problems seemed to float away, it was like nothing could hurt him. His parents kept a variety of snacks in the house just for occasions like this when he was alone. His eyes fell to a bag of gummy worms and he grabbed them excitedly only to stop when he saw there was still a bag of his favorite crisps. Having both won't hurt right? And so he grabbed his snacks and headed to his room; he plopped down on his bed tearing open the crisps in the process. It didn't take him long to finish an entire family size bag of crisps as well as a pretty moderate-sized bag of gummy worms. Once he was done he smiled at himself and collapsed back onto his bed, but as he lay there the events from that day started coming back to him. Frustrated because they hadn't been there just minutes ago while he was enjoying his snacks, he sighed and he reached into his bedside drawer to retrieve three different candy bars from his stash of Halloween candy he still had left over. He wasn't hungry but the sight of the chocolate made his problems once again slip from his mind.

That should have been a major clue to Dan that he had a problem because ever since then, he used food as a way to escape his problems and relieve his stress. It was a vicious cycle that he had become accustomed to over the years; when he was feeling stressed he would stockpile on his favorite treats and binge until he physically couldn't eat anymore. Of course, this lead to him feeling ashamed and guilty and all he could think was what the hell was wrong with him? Those kids were right; he was a fat ass. But of course, the only thing that would make those thoughts go away was more food. So the vicious cycle continued.

When he was fifteen he stumbled across a blog on Tumblr that suggested to him that he purge all the food that he binged; he tried that only once before he decided that wasn't for him. The feeling of throwing up just was not something he enjoyed, much preferring the feeling of being uncomfortably full.

He was sixteen when he cut himself for the first time. He had come across this method on Tumblr as well. He had taken his dad's razor, breaking it apart and cutting his finger in the process of trying to remove the blade. He remembered just staring in awe at the thick red blood that ran down his finger, it was beautiful to him. He knew in that moment he was hooked as it was the only thing that seemed to take the pain away like food did. During the year he used self-harm to deal with his problems instead of food, he dropped two stone and really slimmed down for his height. And since he slimmed down, he didn't seem to be bullied quite as much at school anymore. So Dan was happy using self-harm as a way to cope instead of binging eating. That was until the day he had cut too deep and hit a vein. All he remembers was a lot of red and passing out. He later learned in the hospital that his mom had happened to come home early from work and had found him unconscious and bleeding all over the bathroom floor. He had been forced to go to therapy after that, and his parents checked him daily for new scars. So Dan had to stay clean, he couldn't use cutting as a form of release anymore and he fell back into the cycle of binge eating. One where he had to stop scratching his scars, but also one where he resorted to sneaking food out of the pantry all the time yet again.

This continued until he was eighteen and had met Phil, and instead of cutting or binge eating anymore, he would talk to Phil about things. Eventually, over time, Dan revealed to Phil of his cutting but was too ashamed to admit to the binge eating. What kind of freak binge eats the whole pantry to take the pain away? So instead, he keep that secret close to himself.

In the time he was clean, he started Youtube, became best-friends-turned-boyfriends with Phil, and he moved in with him. He expanded his fan base, Phil and him went on tour, wrote two books and presented a radio show. Life was good; sometimes he still got the itch to cut or binge but usually it went away if he forced his mind to think of something else. He was finally happy: he had amazing fans, a gorgeous boyfriend and the times of hiding his scars and sneaking food was over.

That was until he had a really bad fight with Phil one night. If you asked him now, he wouldn't be able to tell you what the fight had even been about, but if he were to guess it was either about Phil leaving his socks laying around the house or something to do with editing.

Phil had stormed out of the house without a word leaving Dan standing in the kitchen all by himself. He squeezed his eyes shut and let the tears start to fall. That is when his arm started to itch, the intense need to cut becoming overwhelming. He sucked in a breath not too far gone to ration with himself; he couldn't cut, Phil would surely notice that. His eyes light up; he may not be able to cut but he could eat. He smiled, remembering the feeling that eating too much used to give him. The feeling of his stomach about to burst, the pure joy and ecstasy of it.

He rushed to the fridge and pulled out the pizza they still had in there from last night as well as some Chinese food they had left over from a few days before. He happily grabbed his food and started to leave the kitchen when a big bag of crisps caught his eye. Without even thinking, he took all his food to his room and dug in and, just like old times, he ate until it was physically impossible to eat anymore. He gave a satisfied grunt as he curled up in his blanket and let his eyes fall closed. He was happy for only a moment before the old feelings of guilt came rushing back to him. He shot up and looked at all the food around him and started crying again. He was a failure after all this time and he had fucked it up, just like he fucks everything he touches up.

Wiping his tears, he quickly gathered the evidence of his crime and went to throw them in the trash. He stood in the kitchen by the trash can he looked down at his stomach. There was the visible curvature of his stomach that hadn't been there before. Groaning in frustration, that was when he promised to himself that this was going to be the last time.

#dan howell #daniel howell #phil lester #amazingphil #daniel howell fanfiction #daniel howell fanfic #dan howell fanfiction #dan howell fanfic #amazingphil fanfiction #amazingphil fan fic #phil lester fanfic #phil lester fanfiction #Dan and Phil #dip and pip #phan #phanfiction #bed #B.e.d. #eating disroders #tw eating disorder

[fiidelis]

— ✧ TOM HARDY ?? that looks like ADRIAN STEPHANOS TREVOR !! they’re the THIRTY SIX year old son of DIANA PRINCE & STEVE TREVOR. they are also an INDEPENDENT JOURNALIST and STARBUCKS BARISTA at paragon. i hear that they're RIGHT-MINDED & MUNIFICENT, but tends to be IDIOSYNCRATIC & SELF DESTRUCTIVE. his file says that his powers are an ENHANCED CONDITION & OMNILINGUISM. you can check out his stats HERE & his pinterest board HERE.

      be CAREFUL with that one, love,                   he will do what it takes to survive.

SECTION ONE OF THREE: BULLET POINT HISTORY trigger warning for talk of gang activities ( including gbh ), prisons, the army ( including bombs, trauma sustained while serving, consequences - mentally & physically OF serving ), more gang talk... a lot of 

ah , here he is . this motherfucker. what a tool.

meet adrian stephanos trevor. he’s thirty six years old, a twin, an older brother, a disappointment son. these days, he works as a starbucks barista and writes just enough articles in a year to be able to continue calling himself an “”independent journalist”” - but once upon a midnight dreary, ya boy was an army brat, and a little more recently, he was a member of one of london’s east end gangs. 

diana prince and steve trevor were good parents. they WERE. when steve came back to life, he was done with fighting, and diana never could be. they found a middle ground, in their happiness, with steve staying in london where he ultimately raised the kids they had together, and diana continuing her hero work - the official term “co parenting”, though at times, her absence was felt. but not enough to be an excuse. adrian never doubted for one moment of his life that he was loved, and that his parents were ALWAYS going to be there for him. the path that adrian ultimately went down is thanks to nothing more than the environment that he grew up in, and the inherited need to do right by the people he cared about.

it wasn’t hard for him to fall in with the wrong crowd of people, when he was younger. the east end has always been home to a whole variety of types, but if you were the sort of teen that adrian was - hot headed, quicker to throw a punch than he was talk it out, pretty bright, but never willing to apply himself - you were destined to draw the wrong sort of attention. he was rebelling, for no particular reason, and in afterschool detention, he met the people that would shape his early life. they weren’t the gang. they liked to THINK of themselves as such, but they were just kids playing pretend - they walked the walk and they talked big but they weren’t quite there, but there enough that adrian got himself in to quite a bit of trouble. 

he thought the world of them. this small squad of kids all around his age became like family, and he was willing to do anything, or go anywhere, if it meant keeping them in his eyes on them and maybe, keeping them out of trouble. to this day, he’ll say that’s how it started - he just wanted to keep his FRIENDS out of trouble. they were already in so much of it. how that led to destruction of property, petty vandalism, the grevious bodily harm that got them all arrested, no one really knows. likewise, to this day, no one from that gang of schoolkids has ever broken their silence on who exactly did the damage to that guy that pressed charges after being beaten half to death. it had to be one of them, but the police thought it was all of ‘em. when no one would reveal the truth, adrian and his “friends” all faced the same punishment. two years, in her majesty’s prison woodhill - a young offenders institution willing to accept kids younger than eighteen, where adrian was to spend the latter half of his fifteenth year, his full sixteenth, and three months of his seventeenth. 

loyalty to his troubled friends, all the better off for being locked behind bars, had gotten adrian stuck in the same situation. but loyalty, he learned in his time at woodhill, was currency. it was the difference between life or death. 

it made sense, then - at least in his eyes - to join the british army. before his fall from grace, he had been seriously discussing the army cadets with steve. he’d kept in shape, had learnt some control over himself, and felt like that was where he belonged, upon release. before he knew it, he was EIGHTEEN years old and shipping out - and maybe it’s not right to say, but the army was probably the best place for him. for the next eight years, he did tours on and off, spending minimal time back home. sometimes, the only reason he even came back was for theora. and it was good for him. it kept him off the streets. it kept him away from his old friends, and kept him from making new, worse ones. he had the routine that the young offenders institution had taught him. he had a place. a role. a reason, to keep getting up. by the time he was twenty seven, he was on the fast track to being someone better - 

his career came to a sudden end when the jeep that he and his team were driving in ran over a mine. he was one of an unlucky few - without his inherited enhanced condition, he would have joined the rest in the AFTERLIFE. he survived, but muscle and nerve damage meant that he lost the full use of his right leg, and maybe they would have given him a chance to try and improve, but no doctor was going to clear him for service again, thanks to the additional traumatic brain injury sustained. he was in a coma for five days. when he woke up... his general cognitive function was sure never to return to where it once was. he improved. he worked on it, in vain, hoping that he could still go back. but his memory was always going to be impaired. his brain was always going to be shot. 

he was honorably discharged and he returned to the east end, a self professed failure. 

and in the coming months, he would fall farther from grace. 

he wasn’t getting out of the house. he wasn’t taking visitors. steve and diana could only do so much - and when he started to go down to the local, again, they thought that it was good, that he was starting to come back to himself a bit. the truth was, he was back in contact with old friends. members of that kid gang he had left behind before, who had graduated to the legit gang.

to anyone else, his thinking would have been ludicrous. but to adrian, at the time, it made perfect sense. he couldn’t do his part in the army anymore. he had never gone to college, so he didn’t have anything to stand on now, and nothing he could give in any sort of legitimate way. but he could do good through the gang - somehow - he was sure of it. he could keep the community safe. provide a level head, and voice. keep people in check. it was the same sort of thinking that had gotten him into a mess, previously, and he hadn’t learnt from his mistakes. the east end gang welcomed him with open arms. 

it was another slippery slope, from there. and no one could help him. adrian got himself into that mess - and he was damned well set on not dragging anyone else into it, too. no matter how bad things got - no matter what he did, with them, or what was done to him - he never really opened up. the family had to know. he didn’t get up off his ass one day and begin working as a bartender in the local because he’d decided to start making a living, honestly. it was a front for the gang. he got deeper and deeper involved with them as the months went by and turned into years, and during that time, he did things that he WASN’T proud of. a lot of them, actually. 

he wanted to try and do good. he thought he could do that, in the unlikeliest of places. he didn’t realize until it was too late that he was just another pawn, with them - and there was nothing that could be done, by then. he was in too deep. they had too much on him. and in a way, he had too much on them, too.

he couldn’t leave. he never did, not officially - but a light at the end of the tunnel appeared, when the news came of the baby. his. the product of a brief liaison with a sharp tongued lady that had swept him off HIS feet - he was an afterthought, the text from a forgotten number that told him about their son told him that much. but he would have done more, if he’d known. he told himself that, over and over, as he tried to work out what to do - and after a lot of uhmng and ahing, he decided that the right thing to do, the only thing, was to leave for america hot on her heels. he was to become a us contact. someone in touch with their american brothers and sisters. it wasn’t ideal. but being in a new country, trying to put himself onto some sort of straight and narrow so that he could be a dad... it gave him hope that at the end of the day, maybe he could dig himself out of the mess that he had made. 

he got a job. he’d already started working as an independent journalist in england, another way to pay the bills, but he got another - and he got CLEAN. no more drugs, even if he was still as much of an alcoholic as ever. he tried to be better, for his kid, the accident that he loved, before he even met him - and because if he could do it, if he could make himself better, then maybe he could still get out. maybe he could create a safety net to fall into, if he finally cut ties. 

SECTION TWO OF THREE: HEADCANONS

how to tell that underneath all his bad decisions he’s still actually a good guy? his love of dogs. that’s it. he’s had a cool dozen over his entire life, but right now, he has THREE. paddy, his nine year old staffie x, dingle, his five year old irish wolfhound, and nessie, his six month old aussiedoodle. they’re all rescues, and they’re all.. so loved. he’s lowkey using them as therapy dogs without any sort of official therapy dog training cos why the fuck not.

he can't concentrate as well as he used to be able to. he struggles to see how some actions he makes will have consequences. he speaks too low. he doesn't always understand what's being said to him, or what he's saying. he doesn't perceive things the same anymore, like certain tastes. he doesn't catch the gist of certain patterns and things and struggles to interpret certain data correctly, sometimes. he doesn't have great depth perception. he's more susceptible to bouts of severe depression and irritability, he suffers from a severe sleep disorder, he's not great with loud noises, he still walks with a incredibly pronounced limp, and he suffers chronic pain. he didn't leave the army unscathed.

i cant believe thats all i got but its all i got. 

SECTION THREE OF THREE: WANTED CONNECTIONS

friends from london.

friends he’s made since moving here.

someone please fucking hire him he’s a good gd bartender i dont even rmbr why i made him a barista but someone ,,pls,, get him out of that gd job

also SOMEONE please give his ass a platform... read his writing..he’s good.....hire him

ENEMIES ! from anywhere. for any reason. mayb they fought once. maybe he wrote the wrong name on their starbucks cup. go wild , the world is your oyster 

justice league kids ... literally any kids he could have grown up w like i dont think he was ALWAYS in england so ... give him those #connections

gang connections ! if ur character is in a us based gang its always a possibility that they have a sort of .. brotherhood.. whatever u call that with the east end one that adrian is stuck in , so , hmu

also , army ppl. they could have served together. maybe.

army ppl he def didnt serve with but who he.. is..jealous of 

or who he wants to help if theyve got it #rough cos yeah he’s been there

lit just.......plot..w.him

#sidekick.intro #「 ･ﾟ ★ ･ * and your life is a long line of ‘fine’ ― adrian stephanos trevor. 」

[downey75haas-blog]

A Social Background, Lynch.

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Once again, we expected both social and intrapersonal effects of thoughtful and also self-image goals. Participants finished steps of their caring and self-image goals, understandings of roommates 'responsiveness, responsiveness to the flatmate, relationship high quality, self-worth, as well as esteem for flatmates at pretest, posttest, and also daily. The pretest step likewise included questions about demographics (gender, race/ethnicity, age, adult income). Relationship quality included actions of commitment, satisfaction as well as closeness. Since all ranges were highly associated at each time point (all rs > 67), One of the old Philosophers, Plato, I assume, claimed that 2 pals resemble 2 bodies with just one Spirit between them. On top of that, a boss must demonstrate the behaviour they expect of staff members, and if you desire staff members to confess to blunders after that you need to do the exact same. The connection, the connection in between the hero as well as heroine, despite the setting, the number or sort of sex scenes, the moment duration or sub-genre. It deserves discussing Pal Me is a Christian suspense, meaning a lot of the story's main problems-- primarily Scott's battle to resist lure as well as remain devoted to Rachel-- reference straying away from the course of God, and have lots of prayer as well. The one in charge notes the tasks as well as doesn't tell how to do it. This is most typical issue facing IT employees. Spotlighting a cult phenomenon and also its fans, a lot of who count the number of times they've seen the movie in the hundreds, this contribution to the Fan Phantasm collection covers never-before-explored topics associated with The Rocky Horror Image Program. Remember to subsequent with your employer one to 2 weeks before your trip to remind them you'll be out of the office quickly.

[mldrgrl]

Juliette

by: mldrgrl Rating: R Summary: The Hanella honeymoon continues Note: This installment comes after many, many requests from Anons for a story that deals with Stella’s cutting.  If that upsets you, you don’t need to read it.  I also realize there are many, many personal stories that people may have.  This is Stella’s story and not anyone else’s, nor is it meant to be.

Stella would not consider herself a natural caretaker.  She would say she is good in times of crisis and calming those in crisis, but as far as long term care goes, it isn’t exactly her forte.  However, there is something inherently different about seeing someone you love in pain and it certainly brought out a desire to nurture.  Not that much though.  She was no Florence Nightingale and Hank could try the patience of a saint, but her sympathetic strings were tugged by his plight.  And on their honeymoon, no less.

There was something about being able to give him relief though.  It was strange, but the simple act of giving him a massage, of feeling his muscles melt under her hands and to watch him slip into a relaxed stupor under her hands made her essential to his recovery.  And there was something about just touching someone without an end game.  It felt indulgent and she liked it.

They were where they had been for most of the last three days.  In bed, Hank in his underwear, Stella in one of his t-shirts.  He was face down, arms angled up so that his elbows were bent up by his head.  She was sitting on the back of his thighs, her knees gripping his hips as her palms slid up the smooth plane of his back.  She gripped his shoulders and squeezed until he grunted slightly and then she eased up on the pressure and brought her hands back down to the small of his back.

“I swear, Sherlock,” Hank mumbled.  “As soon as I’m back to normal, you’re receiving payment in kind.”

“Perhaps I’ll hold you to it one day.”

“Oh God, right at the side there...whatever you were just doing with your thumb.”

“Here?”

“Yeah, fuck.  Keep doing that.”

Stella circled her thumb just above and to the right of Hank’s tailbone with moderate pressure.  He moaned appreciatively.  She worked the spot for a little longer and then gradually worked her way up again.

“How are you feeling tonight?” Stella asked.

“Better,” he answered.  “Still sore, but those ice packs have helped.  And this, obviously.”

“Good.”

A sudden thought crossed her mind and gave her pause.  She stilled her hands for a few moments and then took up the massage again, albeit a little slower.

“Something wrong?” Hank asked.

“No.”  She shook her head a little and pressed her thumbs a little deeper into the base of his neck.  “Just thinking about something we haven’t done in awhile.”

“Does it involve fucking?  Cuz that would sure be a swift kick in the testicles right now.”

“I promise it had nothing to do with the question of your virility.  Or lack thereof, presently.”

“Oh trust me, I’m not lacking in that department.  I’ve got virility for days on end.”

“I’ve no doubt.”

“Are we at least naked in whatever scenario you were cooking up?”

“It wasn’t a scenario and as stunning as this may sound, not all roads lead to sex.”

“Sounds fake, as the kids say, but okay.”

Stella smiled a little and focused her attentions on the Hank’s shoulders again.

“I give up,” Hank said, lifting his head just slightly so he could look back at Stella.  “What haven’t we done in awhile.”

“Stories,” she said, touching the back of his head with one hand to encourage him to lay back down.

It was something they used to do years ago, when there was an ocean between them and nights were long.  It started as mostly Hank talking, filling the void of when neither of them could admit yet that they missed each other.  She had been slower to share things that weren’t of a more superficial nature, but the more they saw each other, the more she shared.  It felt like a lifetime ago.

“Oh,” Hank mumbled.  “Yeah, I guess it’s been awhile.  Gimmie a minute or twenty and I’ll try to think of a good one.”

Stella smiled slightly and leaned into the pressure she was exerting on Hank’s back a little harder.  He took a deep breath and sighed.  She wondered what he might tell her, but he was also so relaxed at the moment that she didn’t want him to think too hard.  She could try to come up with something, though.  Something he didn’t know.

It was oddly difficult, when she really pondered on it, trying to think of something she could tell him.  Certainly everyone must have thousands of stories to tell, but she wasn’t as gifted as Hank was in that department, to be able to think of something on the spot.  When it came to work, her mind was quick and she could respond to any given situation the spanse of a heartbeat.  Ask her to share something personal and it had to be processed and turned over in her mind for quite some time before she could say a word.

Stella halted the massage rather abruptly again, this time pulling her hands back from Hank’s shoulders.  It came over her and caught her off guard.  There was a story he didn’t truly know.  Well, he knew aspects of it, but not the whole truth of it.  It wasn’t something she kept from him purposefully, but it wasn’t she spoke about in any depth, except maybe with her therapist, many years ago.

“I have a story for you,” she said.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

She put her hands back on Hank’s shoulders, but merely rested them there.  He lifted his head ever so slightly and looked back at her again, this time raising his brows.

“You okay, Sherlock?” he asked.

“I was thinking of where to start.”

“Usually the beginning is appropriate.”

“Well, that’s hard to say.  It started when I was 12, but I think it began much earlier.”

“What did?”

Stella didn’t answer.  She started back up with Hank’s massage again, taking her time to put her thoughts in order before she began.  “I bumped into the corner of a table at school and it left a significant bruise just below my hip,” she finally said.  “Red, at first, and then later a whole variety of colors.  Purple, blue, green, yellow.  I remember staring at it in the mirror in my bathroom, pressing into it and watching it bloom into deeper shades when I would take my thumb away.  It hurt terribly, but the pain also made my heart race.”

“Is that...the scars on your thighs, is that…?”

“Not yet.”  

Stella moved her fingertips lightly over Hank’s back and traced the outline of the tattoo on his shoulder.  She was always envious of anyone that had the strength to stop at one piece of body art.  It was why she never got one herself.  She didn’t think she’d be able to stop.

“Go on,” Hank said.

“I liked it,” she answered.  “Even though it hurt, I liked it.  Not the pain itself, I simply liked being in control of it.  I could make it hurt when I wanted and I could also make it stop whenever I wanted.  Unlike other things.”

“What couldn’t you stop?”

“Oh.  Everything.”

“Anything specific?”

“Everything specifically.”

Hank snorted softly and she smiled.  Very cautiously, she shifted her weight and eased down until she was lying on his back with her cheek resting on his shoulder.

“Does this hurt?” she asked.

“Feels good, actually.”

Stella regulated her breathing to be in time with Hank’s.  Rising with their inhales, sinking with their exhales.  She closed her eyes and let the hypnotic rhythm of it lull her.

“It wasn’t one thing,” she continued.  “It was both nothing and everything.  It was a general feeling that life was intolerable, but not wanting to die.  On the contrary, it was a deep yearning to appreciate being alive while finding living unbearable.  And then you find this thing you can control, and it seems like it brings you moments of relief, but the reality is that it is not.”

Hank shifted his arm just enough to displace Stella’s hand from his wrist and then he laced their fingers together.  Their thumbs met and flirted with each other for dominance with easy caresses.

“I had other methods as well,” she said.  “Discovered by accident most of the time.  Once a month, I was subjected to tea with my mother and she forbid me to wear my hair up, which is how I liked to wear it at the time.  I would keep the elastic on my wrist and when she inevitably began with the not-so-subtle reminders that I was a blight on her marriage to my father, I would snap it as hard as I could so I could focus on that physical pain and not her words.

“I would repeatedly wear a pair of shoes that gave me blisters at the backs of my ankles, though I had to stop that behavior when one of the blisters became infected and needed medical attention.  At the time, I also had visible welts on my wrists from the snapping and I was afraid suspicions would be aroused.

“I took extra care to make sure the welts were well-hidden with a bracelet.  When questioned about the blisters, about how I could let it get to such a dangerous stage, I merely said I thought I could tolerate the pain because they were my favorite shoes.  The doctor told me he hoped I’d learned my lesson about putting fashion over comfort.  My nanny called me a silly girl.  My father said I was just like my mother.”

“No one suspected anything?”

“Why would they?”

Stella felt Hank sigh beneath her, the kind of sigh that told her he felt helpless and frustrated.  She turned her head a little to kiss his shoulder and let her lips linger for a few moments before resting her cheek against him again.

“Bear in mind,” she said.  “Self-harm has only been recognized as a disorder very recently.  No one spoke of it.  I didn’t have a name for what I was doing to myself, I only knew how I felt and that it probably wasn’t normal, per se.  Pain and shame are just naturally things that you keep hidden.”

“Is that why you turned to cutting?  It was easier to hide?”

“Perhaps it was.  I don’t know.  It didn’t escalate into that until after my father died though.  I simply found myself with an x-acto knife in my hand one day whilst in the midst of an art project for school, and I wondered what it would be like to drag it across my skin.  And, so I did.  The result was a kind of euphoria.  It was like when I was much younger, four or five, and my mother would deliver a quick, unexpected slap across the face.  A momentary sting, heat, throbbing, and then the adrenaline kicks in and you’re floating outside of yourself for just the briefest of moments.  I’d hated it then, but I liked it when I was in control of it.

“The problem is, you can never recapture that first time.  You just keep chasing that initial, exhilarating feeling, but it never comes.  It just hurts.  But, it’s better than thinking about the father who left you and the mother who turned you away.  Or friends you can’t make or keep because you have too many secrets.”

“How did you stop yourself?”

“I got careless and I got caught by a roommate at boarding school.”

“And she told on you?”

“The opposite.  She was quite compassionate, actually.  She told me whenever I felt like hurting myself, to find her instead and she would talk to me.  And that is what I did.”

“What was her name?”

“Juliette.  She was...my first.”

“First what?”

“Everything.”

“Oh.”

“It was over before the end of the term though.  She was a year older than me and preparing for her A-levels.  We just sort of let each other go and I never saw her again.  She deserves the credit, however, because it was her care that stopped that particular habit of mine.”

“What did she look like?”

“Dark blonde hair, always perfectly feathered.  She had amber-colored eyes.  I’ve never met anyone else with eyes quite like hers.  She was neither thin nor voluptuous.  Everything about her just seemed to be perfectly proportionate.  The angles of her face were just as they should be, not sharp or soft.  Her brows were arched just enough not to look surprised or wicked.  I suppose she would be considered average by any standard, but to me she was effortlessly beautiful.  And a good person.”

“You don’t know what happened to her?”

“I do not.  As much as her influence helped to close certain doors, it also opened others.  I found other methods of distraction that felt less destructive, but it was all the same.  Alcohol.  Casual sex.”

“Throw in some recreational drug use and next you’d be telling my story,” Hank interrupted.

“Drugs didn’t do much for me.  I didn’t like the loss of control.”

“I guess opposites really do attract.”

Stella shrugged and made a soft humming noise in response.  Hank twisted his thumb around hers and gave it a squeeze.

“I need to stretch,” he said.

Stella eased her weight off of Hank and knelt beside him as he pushed himself up and turned over.  There was still a grimace on his face from the exertion, but not as pronounced as it was a few days ago.  She adjusted the pillows for him and he slid back so he was sitting against the headboard and rolled his shoulders a few times.  He stretched his neck back and then smiled and reached for her.  She straddled his lap and rested her hands on his chest.

“If you ever feel like that again,” he said.  “Come find me.  I’ll be your Juliette.”

She smiled slightly.  “It’s been a long time.”

“What made you tell me?”

“Perhaps it’s that you’re here.  Still.”

“Wish you’d gotten rid of me when you had the chance?”

“There are days when you are more trouble than you’re worth.  I suppose I’m stuck with you now, though.”

“Like superglue, Sherlock.”

Stella bent her neck and tipped her head to the side to kiss him.  She put a hand to his neck to keep his head still as she parted his lips with her own to slide her tongue across his the way he liked it.  He groaned and reached for her hips to pull her closer, but she pulled away.

“This is torture,” Hank said.

“We shouldn’t,” Stella answered, even as she pulled his shirt off over her head.  “You haven’t healed properly.”

Like a moth to a flame, his hands went immediately to her breasts.  She leaned into it and sighed.  Sometimes the perfect way they fit together made her think she was formed from the mold of his hands.

“I’ve heard sex has some pretty fantastic healing powers,” he said.

She couldn’t keep her hands out of his underwear.  His back might be sore, but his cock was certainly functional.  She was already wet with anticipation.

“Can you be still?” she asked.  “Let me do all the work?”

“Fuck yeah.”

“If you’re quite sure,” she answered, stroking him harder than she should to see if he’d keep his word.

“Fuck,” he groaned, tipping his head back and biting his lip in an effort not to move his hips.  “Stella.”

She rose up on her knees, pulled her panties aside and sank down onto him until she was back in his lap.  He was already breathing hard and pulling at her hips.  She petted his head and shushed him, moving at a pace that was even agonizingly slow for her.  His eyes had rolled shut, but then they rolled back open and locked his gaze with hers.

To take her weight from him, Stella gripped the headboard on either side of Hank’s head and changed the angle of her hips, making the upward lift of her hips more short and shallow while still taking him deeper.  They moaned simultaneously and the sound of his pleasure was enough to make the small muscles along her interior walls ripple and clench.  Hank groaned again and she could feel him nearing the end of his tether.  She reached down to help herself along.

Hank muttered a variety of expletives up at the ceiling as he came and Stella moved up just enough to eat his words.  Their teeth clashed and he accidentally bit her lip, the shock of which tipped her over the edge as well.  She licked the stinging taste of copper from her mouth, breathing hot and heavy through her nose against his cheek.  She wondered for the millionth time in her life why pain and pleasure felt so similar and why they were both so fleeting.

Beneath her, Hank chuckled and squeezed her ass.  “Well,” he said.  “Happy honeymoon, Sherlock.”

“Happy honeymoon, Watson.”

The End

#i wrote this #hanella #hank/stella #honeymoon #cutting #emotions

[thebarsondaily]

jump into the heat by laurelsalexis

Title: jump into the heat Author: laurelsalexis Rating: M/NC-17 Prompt(s): Leather & Lace Summary:  “Turns out I really like the leather.” Her smile is wider that time, unable to keep it hidden.  A/N: not beta’d since i suck at writing so it’s early enough.

Rafael is entirely certain that using their resident ADA for an undercover operation is a terrible idea. Worse than terrible. Horrendous. Vaguely illegal. He clearly will not be the one to prosecute this and he has no interest in working with one of the idiots in the DA’s office. It all feels wrong and out of character.

He doesn’t like it. He is not a cop and has no interest in actually becoming one. He is not going to be Sonny Carisi in this lifetime or any other, for that matter.

None of this stops him from standing there in her office as Liv tapes the wire to him, clinging the leather jacket a little tighter to his body. He doesn’t think he ever wore a leather jacket. When he was a kid it was hardly a thing to be seen in the Bronx. Not as if he joined a gang. As an adult he knew he wanted to be a lawyer and they do not exactly where leather jackets. Or leather pants for that matter. Pants that are a little too tight. They fit him just fine, really, but he is not used to having anything cling so tightly to him he is quite certain some damage is being done.

Good thing there are no plans to have any natural born children.

He misses his suits. They are his comfort clothing. He fits them well and they feel nice against his body. Not like this. Not like he was going to burst out of them at any second. There’s something to be said in the way he fidgets near endlessly, even as Liv tells him to stop so she can properly wire him so no one detects anything.

“Seriously, you are worse than Noah, Rafa.” She mutters as puts the last piece of tape on him.

It only earns her a scowl as he is looking at her, eyes narrowing. He doesn’t care that Sonny and Amanda are also in the room, watching him. They both seem entirely too amused for their own good and he is about to threaten them with prosecution of something. Anything. He’s a creative man. He’ll manage to come up with something.

Liv moves out of the way and he can catch some of what he looks like in the reflection of the window. He feels more ethnic than ever before, which is entirely stupid. It does bring him a hint of amusement, however, one that he keeps carefully crafted beneath whatever he allows anyone to see.

“Act natural.” Amanda reminds him as she watches him from where she’s standing in the doorway.

He rolls his eyes in response. “You do not want me to act natural, detective.”

Sonny snickers, a glance given to Amanda. “Okay, Counselor. Act like…” a short pause as he thinks, “that gang member we arrested two weeks back.”

He is unamused, it showing in his face as he gives a look towards Sonny.  “The one guilty of raping three teen girls?”

He winces. “You know what I mean.”

“Yes, I do. I’ll figure it out.” He swallows, turning to Liv, the only person he is looking to in such a situation. “If I die you’re being haunted first.”

“You keep saying that.”

“I am making certain you know.” He doesn’t expect to die. In fact, he doesn’t expect anything to go wrong at all. He trusts her in ways that he cannot trust anyone else. She is there for him and will not let him come to harm. It doesn’t make it any less entertaining than to say such things.

She grips the opened leather jacket in her hand, giving it a tug adjusting it so it’s sitting on his shoulders properly. “One word and you’re out.”

“One word.” He agrees with a nod.

Amanda and Sonny exit the room, presumably to go back to their desks, to give them the moment.

“You scared them.” Rafael whispers, wanting to touch her in return, yet, keeping his hands to himself.

“It’s my job.”

“I’m not going to die, Liv.” He is more sincere then, not wishing for her to truly be worried. It would not do any good when it came to the job anyway. “Come on, I’m made of tougher stuff than that. You know that.”

“I know.”

His eyes search her face, allowing the silence to hang between them. “Is this being recorded yet?”

“No.”

“I love you.” He smiles, just barely, this time allowing his hand to brush against her cheek.

“I love you, too.”

The door is still open and they shouldn’t, but he still does, leaning forward ever so slightly, giving her a kiss. It’s not their first kiss and it will not be their last, just one to give them both a certain reassurance that everything will be okay. It will be, no matter what. They have each other. That’s the important part.

———————————————————————

It’s pretty obvious why he was asked as he steps foot in the questionable looking establishment. Even establishment is too kind of a word. The main language used is Spanish. He knew this, of course. Given that he had Liv run him through everything in order to not make a fool of himself.

Of course, this was after he already agreed. Given that Nick had left for California long ago, it seems they are his only option.

Sometimes self preservation is not highest on his list. Usually when it comes to Liv.

It goes with ease. He does think of how many illegal activities he’s seen, as he drinks the scotch. The one he’s allowing himself, otherwise he’d be drinking just to get him through the night. Him highly intoxicated will do them no good. As he waits for something of interest to happen he begins to think of all the charges he could give to those in the room, if given the opportunity.

The man in the corner would definitely be charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance, as would half of the people in there. The cocaine is easy to see on the table and he has a hard time wrapping his mind around the fact that someone would find join in killing their brain cells for a high that will not even last throughout the night.

By the front door the woman would definitely be charged for criminal sale of a controlled substance to a child. He has this urge to stop it, but knows he cannot. Knows that he needs to be more focused on what they came for. The rape and murder of a girl far younger than the sixteen year old looking for some drugs.

He makes some small talk with some of those coming in and out. Has a brief moment when he thinks someone recognizes him. If they do they say nothing. It’s not until the suspect on the radar does he stiffen, just slightly. He’s mouthing off in Spanish to the man behind the bar. Talking about some other girl. Not the girl they are seeking justice for. It makes him wonder how many girls he’s violated in such a way.

Before this they did their best to try and find someone, but now, now as he sits there he wonders if they couldn’t find more victims because he made it so they could not be found.

He drinks back the rest of his drink and hears Liv in his ear telling him to be calm. He has to bite down on the inside of his lip in order to not scoff. He needs to not draw attention to himself.

Until his friend walks in and it all goes downhill near immediately. The friend of the suspect is definitely someone he’s put in prison. It takes a few seconds for it all to go downhill. He mutters out the word he and Liv agreed upon and he’s never been so thankful to hear the yelling of cops in his entire life.

————————————————————————————-

By the time they are back in her apartment Rafael can feel the swelling of the bruise on his cheek, even as she gives him ice. Noah thought the wound was amazing and showed how strong Uncle Rafa was. If nothing else that made him laugh and gave him a slightly better perspective on the entire situation. It hurts and brings up memories from his childhood he would rather not think of even with Noah’s little comment.

“I’ll interrogate him in the morning. We have something to go on, now”

“Mm,” Rafael nods, holding the ice to his cheek, a soft wince. “Can’t even prosecute this and my face is ruined.”

Liv rolls her eyes but smiles. “I don’t know I kind of like this look on you.”

“The leather or my battered face?”

“Want me to kiss it better?” She whispers, barely able to contain the amusement in her voice.

“You can kiss me better.” Even though he is smirking he is no less serious about what it is he wants.

Her .

It’s usually her, sometimes a scotch, but mostly her. No desire to drink finds him. Rather he allows for the ice pack to be set down on the table, turning to Liv. They are both older than when they met some odd years ago. No less beautiful, however. He wants her in every which way. Has a habit of spending way too much time with her locked in his apartment.

“Bedroom.” She murmurs before he has the chance to kiss her.

Liv stands first, taking his hand within her own, and moving to the bedroom. Last time they were out there Noah almost caught them and made better use of private spaces children didn’t frequent often. Then at least the door has a lock, which he uses the moment they are both inside.

“Sit. Wait. Don’t change.”

He doesn’t question it but rather sits there, trying not to think about what he is going to look like when he’s in court the next morning. Not good, maybe that will earn him some sympathy with the jury. Not that he needs it. Convictions are a lot easier than the cop work he was put through. But when the bathroom door opens he isn’t think of court, rather he isn’t thinking at all. He’s doing his best to not look like he’s a teenage boy seeing a woman for the first time.

“What is this?” His eyes roam every inch of her. She’s beautiful. So beautiful the reaction to seeing her is instant. Cursed leather pants. The whole ensemble on her is lace, of the red variety, causing him to sink his teeth into the flesh of his lower lip, keeping some semblance of him not getting entirely lost in her.

“Your thank you present.”

“You are clearly the present.” He murmurs, the soft hint of desire clear in the back of his throat.. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“I know.” She steps forward so she’s standing before him, fingers gently running against the swelling of his cheek. “I wanted to.”

“And the part where I can’t take off my clothes?”

“Turns out I really like the leather.” Her smile is wider that time, unable to keep it hidden.

“As I recall you like something else, too.”

“Yeah.” She whispers, straddling him, pushing herself down against the part of him that she really does like oh, so much.

His hands move to her waist, feeling the lace beneath his touch, feeling an even greater strain in the confines of the leather pants. She doesn’t help, not with the way she moves against him, teases him, makes him want to rip the damn pants off of him without a care in the world. Suddenly the bruises on his cheek, the swelling at makes smiling even worse, is of no concern to him. Not when she’s there, touching him, melting against him.

A moan rises from the back of his throat, muffled from the sound of her lips, only for her to push him down against the bed in return. He only brings her closer to him, hand on the side of her back as they kiss, smiling against her lips.

A happiness radiates from him as he enjoys this, enjoys her, has a feeling that this is right. A feeling he has every time the two of them find themselves in bed together. Her palm against him in the confines of the leather, hard, desperate, all too willing to give her what she wants. Whatever she wants. He doesn’t care. Anything.

“You’re driving me crazy.” He whispers, burying his face in her neck. She shifted all of the power and control to herself, something he didn’t mind in the least, happy to oblige with what she wanted. He was the one being teased, the one being driven crazy, the one desperate for anything she was willing to give him.

He takes notice of her whenever they are together, always doing his best to not allow his eyes to linger for too long. Not when they are supposed to be working. But now, now here, there’s a free reign, to look and to touch, to appreciate, to get lost in everything that’s Olivia Benson. Nothing about her and her body he doesn’t enjoy.

“Liv.” He murmurs, a plea almost.

“Yes, Rafael?”

“Touch me.” Now definitely a plea. “Before I explode in these pants you enjoy so much and neither of us has much fun.”

She listens, pulling him free from the pants, stroking him with a firm grip, yet somehow still not enough grip.

He doesn’t leave her untouched. Could never. Not when he desires to feel how wet she is, how much she wants her, to not leave him having all of the fun.

Not that either of them wait, not when she pins his arms above his head, when she’s sinkin down on him as he’s still fully clothed and she’s wearing just enough. His eyes settle on the less as the the sound of skin meeting leather fills the room. He’s enjoying himself, enjoying the way she’s taking what she wants from him, what she needs, for herself.

He likes that, wants her to feel good, make them both feel good. Not at all minding giving up the small bits of control he holds onto so tightly everywhere else. It’s a good feeling, her, enclosed so tightly around him, feeling him, the way her mouth drops open, the way the moan falls from her lips. She’s a sight.

Their fingers interlace as he takes what is giving to him, a soft beg for more, to give him more.

“Please, Olivia.” He’s breathless.

She kisses him quiet, rougher than before, still with an edge of softness to it.

A constant.

The adrenaline of the night and the emotional pull shared between the two of them only pushes them further, together, the orgasm finding Liv before Rafael spills himself in side of her. His hands become his own again he pulls her close, finding themselves on their sides, easily tangling together.

“I guess that was worth it.” Rafael murmurs before kissing her, tangling fingers in her hair.

“I’ll remember that for next time.”

#barson #olivia benson #rafael barba #valentine's day ficathon 2018 #submission