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marinsawakening · 4 years

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Look Out for Your Own

Fandom: No. 6

Wordcount: 2470

Summary: Inukashi is autistic and starts to suspect Shion is as well, and starts helping him out in a mentor-like fashion.

Notes: Written for Autism Acceptance Month.

///

“What’s autism?”

Inukashi turned to look at Shion, incredulous. “What, they didn’t teach you that in your fancy classrooms?”

“Apparently not,” he replied. He’d stopped washing Fluffball, one of the few dogs who actually liked baths, and she looked at him with pleading eyes. Shion didn’t seem to notice, too busy looking at em with that stupid head-cock he did when he was curious.

“Huh.” Eir fingers drummed on eir legs, a smirk playing on eir lips. “Guess sometimes even us slum rats know more than No. 6’s precious genius children.”

“I suspect you guys probably know a lot more than we do,” Shion said dryly. “No. 6 controls the information we citizens receive with an iron fist; the more ignorant we are, the easier we are to control.”

Inukashi nodded. “Knowledge is power, and all that.” If there was anything ey understood, it was that. “Maybe I shouldn’t explain it to you after all.”

“What?” He sounded so shocked at that, as if he hadn’t set himself up for it, but damnit, Shion’s puppy eyes were at least as effective as Fluffball’s. Inukashi clacked eir tongue.

“Fine, whatever. Autism is a thing that makes your brain work differently from other people, and it makes it more difficult for you to communicate with others, among other things.” Ey shrugged. “Basically, I have trouble reading people’s body language, or understanding what they mean. Dogs are way easier to read.”

“So it’s a mental disorder?”

“Yup,” ey said, popping the ‘p’.

Now Fluffball was full-on nudging Shion, but he somehow still managed to remain oblivious, hands clapped together and rocking slightly back and forth. “That explains why I didn’t learn about it, then; No. 6 wants us to believe all disorders and disabilities have been erased from the city, although that would obviously be completely impossible, but regardless, they avoid talking about them whenever possible. I imagine those with a history or neurology specialization might’ve learned about it, although I have no doubt the information would be extremely biased -”

“Aaand I don’t care,” Inukashi cut him off. “Get on with the washing, nerd. Fluffball is about to start crying.”

Shion startled, immediately returning to rubbing soap, to a happy tail wag of Fluffball. “Fluffy I’m so sorry! I tend to get caught up in these things...”

He sure did. If it was about biology, Shion could ramble on for hours uninterrupted, a glint in his eyes and swinging on his toes, like -

Oh. Kinda like ey did, back when ey were younger and less aware of the fact that such blatant displays of emotions could get you scammed or, if you were particularly unlucky, killed.

Huh.

Something to keep an eye on. Knowledge was power, after all.

///

The next time Shion brought it up was on cleaning day. Once a month, Inukashi did a deep clean of the main hall and the more expensive hotel rooms; of course, it wasn’t that people here cared much about cleanliness, but ey liked to make sure none of eir guests left with more infections than they came with, at least. And so, deep cleaning.

Inukashi had offered Shion a job helping em, because honestly, ey could use the help. The dogs were enthusiastic, but there was only so much they could do without opposable thumbs.

They were scrubbing the stairs when Shion asked: “Does the smell of cleaning supplies bother you?”

Inukashi blinked. “What’s it to you?”

Shion looked up at em, and oh no, those eyes were sparkling, he was about to go on a tangent. “I’ve been reading up on autism since you last mentioned it, and it’s quite fascinating, really! Most of the literature I’ve been able to find pertains to the more technical side of the disorder, talking about how exactly it affects the brain, but I’ve been able to get a hold of some personal accounts as well, and one of them mentioned having trouble with the smell of cleaning supplies. And I mean, I get that, I already have a lot of trouble with that and I’m not even autistic, so I was wondering what that was like for you.”

Good god, that boy really was a nerd, huh.

Well, regardless. This was a good opportunity to snoop.

Inukashi dropped eir rag back into the water. “I don’t have much of an issue with it, though honestly, that might just be because the soap here sucks balls.” After a short pause, ey offered. “But I do have a lot of issues with sounds. Everything here’s so goddamn loud all the time, it kills me.”

Shion’s leg began to bounce as he seemed to forget all about the cleaning he was supposed to do, and his fingers drummed against his leg. Hadn’t they done that last time, as well? “I suppose it’s really busy here, yeah, though honestly I like it better than the weird quiet in No. 6. And yeah, the soap here sucks. It doesn’t have much smell here, which is nice, because in No. 6...” he shuddered. “Well, sanitation used to be part of my job, and the smell got so strong that I needed to run outside more than once a day, just to escape from it. West Block’s much easier to deal with. Sure, it objectively smells worse, but it’s also less...” he paused. “Sharp? Less sharp is the only way I can describe it. It hurts less.”

Shion, the genius who said “I’m not autistic” and “the smell of bleach hurts so much I need to physically run away from it” in the same sentence. What an idiot.

“Well, if you have trouble with it again, try to focus on other sensations. Like, focus on how your shirt feels against your body. Or get a bunch of dogs to distract you and attack people who are making you feel bad. That works too.”

Wait. Why had ey said that? Shion hadn’t even asked for advice, and ey’d just given it to him, free of charge. What the hell.

Shion snorted. “I’ll try and see if I can train Nezumi’s rats to attack people, thanks.”

And before ey could stop emself, ey imagined one of the Cleaners getting taken out by a small rat, and ey laughed.

///

Shion was autistic. Like, really obviously autistic. Inukashi had no idea how the kid hadn’t picked up on it himself.

There were a thousand little clues strewn across him, from his drumming fingers and bouncing legs to the way he infodumped about anything at the slightest provocation, his savant-like intelligence and his simultaneous obliviousness to people, his staunch idealism and his gullible nature. Shion was autistic from top to toe and it didn’t even take a month of observation to figure it out.

Worse, though, was that Inukashi couldn’t seem to help emself from mentoring him.

Ey shared some of eir more subtle stims with him in the hopes that he would stop being such an open book (he didn’t, obviously, he was a hopeless case), ey tried to teach him some of eir cheats for interacting with people (Shion was very surprised to learn that ey never looked anyone in the eye, instead staring at their nose, but it turned out that he didn’t have much issue with that, so that was a bust), ey even tried to explain a bit more about autism of eir own volition (Shion hang to eir every word and then applied absolutely none of the information to himself). Ey didn’t know why ey bothered. There was just something about that kid that made em want to protect him.

Not that ey’d ever admit it, not even - alright, yeah, ey’d admit it under pain of death, but ey’d do just about anything under pain of death. Either way, ey finally felt like ey understood how Shion had managed to get under noted asshole Nezumi’s skin. Shion was just like that.

The turning point came on a sunny afternoon. It wasn’t anything special, they hadn’t even planned to meet; they’d simply run into each other at the market, and decided to walk home with each other.

Something was up with Shion.

He was shaking out his hands at his side and hadn’t stopped even after Inukashi had pointed it out (it attracted attention, and attention was never a good thing). His eyes flitted side to side, like a hunted rabbit, and if Inukashi didn’t know better, ey’d think he was being followed by someone. However, there was no reason for anyone to want revenge on Shion, so it must be something else. If there was no actual danger, why did he look so scared?

“Hey Shion, what’s wrong?”

Shion barely looked down, and when he opened his mouth, only a vague grunting nose came out. He tried again. “...Much...not,” was all he could say, and he clawed at his face, seemingly frustrated about something.

Oh. He was having a meltdown.

A few whistles and Inukashi’s dogs were on the move, carving out a path among the people to get em and Shion out of the crowd as fast as possible. Shion didn’t even seem to notice that something was off, but followed em, probably too dazed to do anything else. Within minutes, they were far away from the market, between abandoned houses where fewer people lived. It was quieter here, a little darker, a little cooler, and it was where Inukashi went whenever ey couldn’t keep it together anymore. Hopefully it’d help Shion too.

Not a moment too soon. Shion started clawing at his face with a ferver ey’d never seen before, and Inukashi quickly threw eir mantle over his head to prevent him from hurting himself. “Sit,” ey ordered. “Put your head between your knees.” Simple words, swift orders to provide structure. Things that had always helped em, although eir dogs didn’t talk; they just did. But dog hair was different from human skin, and Inukashi had never liked to be touched by humans when ey were like this, so ey didn’t touch Shion, and hoped he would just follow verbal orders.

He did, dropping against a wall and pressing his head between his knees, fisting Inukashi’s mantle so tight his knuckles paled, holding onto it like it was his only lifeline. He didn’t scream. That was kind of odd; Inukashi screamed a lot when ey were like this. Just a difference between them, ey supposed.

They sat there for a while, Shion rocking in a frantic, but eerily quiet manner, and Inukashi leaning to the wall next to him, keeping an eye out for any assholes who might take advantage of Shion’s weakened state.

Ey didn’t know how long it took Shion to calm down, but he did, eventually, sliding off eir mantle.

“...You,” he started, then shook his head, biting his hand in frustration.

“If you can’t talk, don’t,” Inukashi said. “And don’t hurt yourself. Bite on your sleeve if you need to.”

Shion switched to his sleeve, biting on it hard, and after a few seconds, nodded.

“I’m taking you home for now, we can talk about this tomorrow. Take a nap or something.”

Shion nodded again, too tired to protest.

It took them longer than it should to get to Nezumi and Shion’s little shelter, Shion sometimes stopping in the middle of the path just to stare in the distance. But, finally, they did make it, and thankfully, Nezumi was still home.

“What -” he started, but Inukashi pushed past him.

“Lie on the damn bed, idiot, and go take a nap,” ey ordered Shion, and he did so without questioning, falling asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

“You want to tell me what’s going on?” Nezumi asked, arms crossed.

“Your boyfriend had a meltdown,” Inukashi said shortly. “If you dare bully him about it I’ll sic my dogs on you, got that?”

“Dully noted,” Nezumi said dryly, still leaning against the wall as if he couldn’t care less about anything in the world, but his eyes betrayed him as they flickered over to Shion.

“You can make him something warm when he wakes up,” Inukashi answered his unasked question. “And keep a notebook nearby. He seemed to have trouble talking.”

“Whatever,” he replied, making a truly pathetic effort to disguise his worry. “Get out of my house, dog.”

“With pleasure, asshole.”

Shion would be fine. Nezumi was an absolute softy when it came to that boy, and by now, Inukashi could hardly even blame him without being a big fat hypocrite.

///

“So,” Shion started. It had been three days since his meltdown, and Inukashi had decided to let him come to em instead of badgering him emself. It had taken longer than expected for him to confront em. But now, here he was, looking like himself again. “I have a feeling I might be autistic.”

Inukashi looked at him, and promptly burst out into laughter.

“It’s not funny!” Shion protested. “I’m not joking!”

“It’s not -” Inukashi gasped. “Obviously you’re not joking. It’s just that it was blatantly obvious, and it’s hilarious it took you this long to figure it out.”

Shion blinked. “It was obvious?”

“Oh yeah, believe me, you might as well have ‘autism’ written across your forehead. And even that would’ve probably been more subtle.”

Shion squinted. “If you knew, why didn’t you tell me?”

Inukashi shrugged. “Didn’t feel like it. I’m kind of an asshole, remember?”

Shion looked at em for a solid ten seconds, before a grin slowly spread across his face.

“You know,” he said nonchalantly, “I just realized you’ve been helping me quite a bit. Giving me tips, helping me deal with that meltdown, stuff like that.”

“I have not!” Inukashi protested, but Shion ignored em.

“So what I think,” Shion continued, “is that you didn’t know how to tell me, so you just let me figure it out myself. While also helping me in the meantime.”

“You’re reading into things that aren’t there,” Inukashi muttered, tapping eir feet rapidly. Shion laughed.

“Sure,” he giggled. “You’re a heartless information broker who cares only for emself, got it.”

“And don’t you forget it,” ey confirmed. Then paused for a second. “Also, the gal who sells meat, the one with the red hair, knows sign language. Just in case that’s something you’d wanna know.”

Shion nodded. “Of course, this has nothing to do with the fact that I have trouble communicating verbally at times.”

“Absolutely not,” Inukashi confirmed. “It’s just something I thought was interesting.”

“Well, thank you anyway,” Shion said, smile softened from a smirk to something friendlier, something you rarely saw here in the West Block.

That boy would be the death of em, one day. Still, it was kind of nice to have another autistic here.

Maybe Shion was onto something with that whole ‘helping people’ thing.

#no. 6 #shion #inukashi #shion no. 6 #inukashi no. 6 #actuallyautistic #autistic headcanon #my posts #my writing #auti stuff #writing wise

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canumoveurseatup-no · 5 years

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Ready

Summary: you’re going through some personal battles and don’t want to talk about it. Tony realizes something is wrong when it’s too late.

Pairing: Tony x Black!Daughter!Reader

Warnings: this is a personal emotional purge so beware because this is what I am feeling and fighting and so this is a TRIGGER WARNING⚠️ as it will contain mentions of depression, anxiety and self harm so PLEASE BEWARE!! I’ll just say this is 18+

A/N: Just honestly tired of putting on a brave face but I know I’ll make it and that’s what matters because I’m gonna keep fighting. Know you’re not alone, especially to my fellow black peers because in our community mental illness is seen as a myth and I’m sick of not being able to talk about it.

~italics means flashbacks/thoughts~

Being an Avenger took a toll on your mental health, be the daughter of an Avenger took a toll on your mental health. Hell, just living took a toll on your mental health. It was a constant battle everyday and you felt like you couldn’t speak up about it. No one ever said it to your face, but it was kind of a known stigma that black people “don’t” suffer from mental illness because you were always seen as strong and independent but this isn’t something you can toughen out. It’s a constant everyday battle and you have no idea how to ask for help. How do you tell someone you need professional help because you feel yourself spiraling again.

One thing that sucks about being self destructive and being self-aware is that you literally watch yourself unravel but you won’t stop it. Can’t... stop it. You were tired of being sick and tired. You internalized a lot only for it to crash down on you when you least expect it. You had to be strong though. You had to be strong for your dad. He was going through a lot and you didn’t want to add to it. You always fought beside him and for him despite what was going on inside your head. You felt so much on a daily basis yet had no idea which feeling to focus on.

That’s why you were at the park with your dad and Pepper, trying to clear your head, but they didn’t know that. You were slowly tracking behind them as they talked and acted like the poster child of happy couples. There was talk of him having a dream about kids and asking her if she was pregnant which, to his dismay, she was not. You weren’t paying attention to much when an orange ring appeared from nowhere and a wizard looking man stepped out causing you to trip.

“Tony Stark?,”

You mumble an “Uh oh,” under your breath because with the way the man said his name, you knew it wasn’t good.

——-

You were stuck on an alien planet with your dad, Peter, Doctor Strange and group of space weirdos that were after Thanos just like you were. You were all trying to come up with a plan to defeat this... guy? Monster? Alien? You weren’t sure what to call him... he’s just.. the villain.

In the midst of your dad trying to get the others to cooperate you found yourself sitting beside Doctor Strange and regressed into a memory, why this specific memory? You weren’t sure?

———-

Everyone was sitting around the table, talking about close calls they’ve experienced while out in the field. Some stories were horrifying and while everyone had a story, you didn’t. You were more cautious than the others so that’s never happened to you. The conversation then turned to how they would want to go while on the job if it came down to it.

“How about you, Y/N?,” Nat asked. Her voice pulled you out of your own head as you stared out the window behind Bruce’s head.

“Huh?,” you sat back in your chair and looked at her, waiting for her to repeat herself.

“When you go... how would you want to go?,”

“Quickly and Painlessly,” you answer without hesitation. Everyone else had to think about the specific hows and whys but you’ve ran over this in your head so much that you didn’t need to do all of that. “So fast and painless that I don’t even know I’m going. Doesn’t matter who does it or how it happens... I just.. would want to go in a way that was peaceful and didn’t leave me in pain or scared.”your voice got lower as the room got quiet.

“Can we stop talking about this? I don’t want to think about my daughter dying,” Tony awkwardly laughed and drank from his cup. He was such a great dad. That man loves the hell out of you, he would do anything for you. But that didn’t keep the depression away. It didn’t keep the anxiety away when you tried to sleep at night and had to keep the tv on to dull down your own thoughts so you didn’t scare yourself into an anxiety attack.

Many times you’ve written notes to leave behind for when you were ready. But each time you tried or planned to leave everything behind, the method was too painful.

“I love you too much to even think about it in the slightest,” he shook his head.

You smiled slightly and nodded, “And I love you too much to think about you leaving,”

————

You were all fighting this giant with all your might and mid-fight you wondered if it was even worth it. Maybe this guy had a point. He said it would be mercy being placed on you all if he carried out his plan. The idiot named Star Lord had fucked up your plan though and you knew he was hurt, but now was not the time to fuck up. That could have came after you got the gauntlet off but no. No...

Peter was webbing himself in and out of different portals thanks to Doctor Strange but was soon caught and slammed to the ground.

“Y/N!,” your dad called for your help and you flew over to him, helping him fight but you were losing your will to fight hard. You didn’t want to fight, you wanted to let him win. Maybe this was your way out.

————

You sat in your bathtub full of water. You didn’t even take your clothes off, you just sat in the cold water and stared at the faucet. Right beside you on the rim of the tub was a blade. You were contemplating hard, you knew your disorder couldn’t be cured by a bottle, blade or dose, but it helped you keep a grasp on your own pain, you controlled what you were feeling in this moment. You grabbed the blade so quickly it. I nipped at your finger tips, causing little red bubbles to seep through the small openings it created.

You had a letter on the toilet seat just in case this was it. Maybe this could be the final time. Maybe you could finally rest but. Though you didn’t want to live, you were too scared to die. You rolled up your wet sleeve and didn’t even look at your arm as you started moving the blade across it. You numbly stared at the dripping faucet, feeling the sting of your skin opening and soon you saw the clear water become tinged red with your blood. You weren’t sure how many marks you made but you rolled down your sleeve against the stinging, raging cuts and just sat back in the tub, sliding down. You turn your head to eye the note. You know what you wrote in that note specifically.

You were apologizing to your dad, telling him you’re sorry you couldn’t make it and push through for him. You told him how long this has been happening and were sorry you didn’t speak up. You told him how scary speaking out about it was because in society, people believe black women can’t suffer from anything other than fucking heat damage! But no matter what is said you can not “strong black woman” these illnesses out of you!

So you suffered in silence... especially when you slipped into a slumber just for you to wake back up.

———

Your distraction caused your father to get stabbed and you screamed out for him.

“Please! Stop! No no no, not him,” you cried. Your father sat wide eyed at the fact he had an open wound and was bleeding out, “Not him!,” you begged the titan. You tried to tend to your dad but nothing was working.

Then Strange took it upon himself to give Thanos the time stone. Which was shocking considering he said he wouldn’t trade lives for the stone. The stone always came first.

“No!,” you and your dad yelled. But Strange ignored you both and gave it to him anyway. Then the titan vanished and you helped patch your father up, he fell back in relief and wiped your tears.

“I’m not leaving you, not yet,” he sighed with a stupid smirk on his face.

“Dad... we need to talk. If this doesn’t work and he finishes what he started, I need you to know something.

—————

You shouldn’t have to be afraid to speak up about what you’re feeling. You shouldn’t fear the looks of others when you admit you’re suffering from mental illnesses. No one should look at you as if you said you had a talk with Santa to discuss your behavior this year when you finally admit you need help. But you knew those were the looks you’d get, you knew that.

As if mental illness was as racist as the people out in the world. Your melanin didn’t get the memo if that was the case but it’s not. Each day your depression would wrap its arms around your chest and bind you to the mattress which in turn would make you seem lazy or that you had no work ethic, that you just wanted to be catered to.

You weren’t a bitch, as some people thought you to be... it’s just the personality they were talking to didn’t like social interactions and didn’t know how to handle them because they were too much of a burden to bear. As if your illness and compulsions could be neck rolled, bubblegum popped and eye rolled out of you.

Black girls couldn’t be depressed.... black girls don’t get to be depressed.

Right?

————

“I’m not going to ask you why you didn’t come to me about this because I don’t want to seem like I’m guilt tripping you. But we are going to get through this. We are going to win this battle and yours, Y/N,”

He was so hopeful but while everyone else was ready to fight and win, you didn’t want to fight, there was no more battle to fight.

“Dad, you can’t possibly think this is going to go away?... whenever you would ask me if i was okay I’d lie and tell you I was fine because I didn’t have the guts to tell the man who helped give me life that I don’t want it anymore!,” you stood up and held your chest.

He just stared back at you and he felt his heart drop. This whole conversation you’d been trying to avoid telling him what you were really thinking... that you were ready. Unlike everyone else on this alien planet or anyone else fighting back on Earth, you were ready.

“Y/N, please don’t say that,” he felt tears in his eyes. You were everything to him and he would lose himself if he lost you. He stood and took a step toward you only for you to take a step back.

You were about to open your mouth when things got eerily quiet and you got the instinct to turn your head. Mantis disappeared and you gasped turning to look at your dad, “It’s happening, Dad,”

He shook is head defiantly, “No-no,”

Drax looked to Quill and whispered his name before he disintegrated as well. Quill started breathing heavily and your dad stepped toward him, “Be steady, Quill,”

But he just sighed, “Oh man,” everyone was going fast. Now it just left you, your dad, Peter, Nebula and Strange.

You sat back down and stared at your shoes. Just waiting to see if you would all go and if so, what order?

Doctor Strange called out your dad’s name and everyone turned to look at him as he started to crumble and blow away with the wind.

“There was no other way,” he stated before he was gone for good.

You all just stared at each other waiting. You started to feel tingles in your body and you knew it was your turn.

“Dad,” you called out for him and he turned to you, horror in his eyes, “I love you. Just know that okay? Get back home and have that kid with Pepper, yeah?,” tears welled in your eyes as he ran to you holding your face.

“Y/N. Don’t you fucking dare!,” he gritted through his teeth, “You’re fine, you’re gonna be fine!,” he tried to keep a sob down but to no avail, it came through and his voice cracked.

“I’m not in pain, Dad,” you smiled at him, “I’m not in pain, that’s what I wanted remember?,”

His heart broke as he knew exactly what you were talking about, it hurt even more when he realized you were hurting back then as well.

“Y/N no! Stay with me, stay with me please, baby. You can’t go,”

You rested your hand against his cheek and one tear fell as you saw him hurting.

“It’s okay, Dad. I’m ready to go... I wanna go,”

You fell to ash in his hands and Tony screamed in horror. He never screams unless he’s angry but this was different. He just watched his daughter die in his arms and all that was left was ash.

Peter fell to his knees beside him not knowing how to comfort him. It was just him, your dad and Nebula now and no one talked as Tony sobbed out your name.

“He won’t get away with this... he may think he won but he’s wrong. So wrong,”

————

I am going through it right now so I just needed to purge some thoughts and feelings. I’m sorry if this hurt anyone but this is the reality of being a young black woman and having mental illnesses.

This was also somewhat inspired by Black Magic by Jasmin Nicole (it’s a spoken word and I’d recommend listening to it)

I’m always here if you anyone wants to talk. I love you all💕

Tags- @blackreaders-assemble @mbaku-babygirl @vozit @chonisberonica @majikmelanin @sideeffectsofyou @yournonlocalpoc @amethyst-dreams-and-candy-canes @curlyhairclub @mirajanestrauss1999 @babybubastis @blowmymbackout @mokacoconut @fromlia-withlove @livayah @lusty-leopard

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dxlansfxck · 5 years

Text

Saints & SINS [G.D] part 3

Y/N went straight to bed without talking to Grayson, without trying to solve their problem. She even woke up an hour before him and went into the classroom without him. She was the first one there, which gave her more than enough time to think about yesterday. Grayson never came to class, the seat next to the pretty girl was empty the entire day. Everything was like before, when there was no weird but attractive boy in her life. The only thing that has been changed were her thoughts, running back to last night, back to his hands roaming her body and soon enough, she was squirming in her seat, groaning in frustration. She couldn’t help but start drawing Grayson, his messy hair, wide grin and red, sad eyes.

She knew it was right to end what happened, it was just the weed that made her kiss him. She shouldn’t have smoked in the first place, like her parents always told her. But she had to admit that the kiss turned her on, even thinking about it now made her wet again.

“Y/L/N, I’m talking to you, don’t you listen?”, the weak voice of her teacher drags Y/N out of her daydreaming, while she was trying to find out what they were talking about. “I wanted to know which disorders of the synapsis exist?” “The synapsis can be damaged by, among other things, strokes or Lyme disease. But you can also loss of synapses by age or health differences”, Y/N rolls her eyes, sinking back into her fantasies.

After lunch, she went straight back into her room, where Grayson was lying on his back, surrounded by smoke. He of course had her entire attention while she placed down her bag and opened the tie around her neck. He’s just laying there, eyes closed and listening to music, yet looking like a Greek god. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and Y/N could finally concentrate on the tattoos around his chest, which was completely hairless. Her feet dragged her to his nightstand, where the rest of his joint was laying in an ashtray. Without looking at him, she took it and inhaled a few times before taking the ashtray to her desk, the joint still between her lips. “You could’ve asked instead of stealing my weed, y’know? But I guess it’s how it is, you take what you want before realizing you don’t really need it, huh?”, his groggy voice made her shriek, yet send tingles through her entire body.

“Oh, I’m sorry, if I knew you were awake, I wouldn’t have taken it. Well, I need to do my homework anyways.” “Mh, sure.” The THC starts to work his way into her brain so that she needed to repeat every other sentence before giving in and laying down onto her bed with Kodaline in her headphones.

She automatically looks over to Grayson, listening to the lyrics and comparing them to her life so far. He had changed her the past few days. She smokes weed. She made out with a guy. The thing is, she didn’t mind it at all. It was different than the world she was born into, different than the secret kisses she shared with some of her friends so far. She was so lost in her own thoughts that she didn’t even notice Grayson’s gaze. Her heart cramps as she saw his sad expression and the frown he had. She didn’t want to see him suffering, wanted him to be happy. The music touches her inside, the bottom of her heart, and she was able to feel anything. Closing her eyes, she allows to let herself sink deeper into the music and away from Grayson.

“Y/N, don’t act like you’re sleeping now. I’m not that stupid, if you don’t want to talk, then leave it. But don’t ignore me”, she hasn’t noticed that Grayson was now sitting next to her, but she had so many questions to ask him. Sighing, she sat up and started to chew on her lips, biting on the dead skin and pulling it off. She didn’t want to start talking, but mostly didn’t want to give him another reason to be mad.

“’m sorry, Gray”, she mumbled, not daring to look up at him. He just looks down at her, confused but grinning. “We nearly fucked and all you’ve gotta say is that you’re sorry? You’re so brave, angel.” The ‘angel’ rolls her eyes in annoyance and stands up, walking to her desk and tries to get more distance in between them. Grayson just groans, holding her wrists and pulling her back into his chest. “No, Y/N. We really need to talk. Not even a Junkie like me could forget about this”, he looks at her with his big brown eyes and she furrows her eyebrows. What did he say? Junkie? All he does is smoking weed, just like most teens would. “Grayson..” He just shakes his head at me.

“I’m talking. You sit down so I can start. You don’t really know how fucked up I am, angel. Why I landed here. Y’know, in the past, I drank a lot, but I always hated the aftermath. I thought weed would be the best option. Well, I got kicked out of high school ‘cause I was always stoned, never came to school and didn’t do anything. Well and because I fucked one of the teachers, but never mind that. I tried to experience everything, especially with my sexuality. I had lots of meetings with my clique where we all just fucked. Girls, boys, girls, girls, boys, boys. Name it, I had it. Y’know, sex with guys… It’s just so different and I preferred it over girls, but since I saw you, it seemed to change again.

Anyways, my mom found out what I was doing, so she sent me into some kind of drug cleanse camp ‘cause she wanted me to get off the weed. In the camp, I met this guy which had lots of pills and ‘cause we couldn’t smoke, we took those instead. We swallowed one trip after another and when I came home, I never stopped. Of course I had to tell my friends about it and soon we started to take whatever pills. One day, we didn’t get the effect we wanted to, so one of us brought cocaine and crack. I took coke too often, my nose never stopped bleeding and I had lots of problems to breath because it was completely crusty. I never dared taking crack tho, I knew how the junkies looked like and I didn’t want to end up like them.

When my best friend’s grandma came into the hospital ‘cause of cancer, she got lots of morphine and fentanyl plasters to help her pain. Well, he stole them. We were one step closer to our end. I took coke to party and fentanyl to calm down afterwards. Ethan, my twin brother then brought H to us. He smoked it through a Dr. Pepper can, of course we knew what he was doing. Just a few days later, I found him dead because some fucking idiot sold him dirty H. Ever since, I stopped doing most drugs except for weed.”

His gaze finally met hers and she could tell he was scared of her reaction. She couldn’t help herself to hug him, let some of her tears break free and give him the warmth he had probably missed forever. But now she knew what she wanted, him, his life. To experience exactly what he had experienced.

Y/N hasn’t said anything the past few minutes, so she had to clear her throat before starting to talk. “Grayson, I… I don’t know what to say or how to react. I mean, it’s great you didn’t do hard drugs, what happened to your twin… It would’ve broken anyone. You stayed strong, that’s what counts. I guess nothing bad can happen when you’re just smoking weed. Besides that, I’m with you now and you know, I’m sorry. I mean, I enjoyed this kissing situation, but it was my first time kissing a guy. My parents always taught me it’s a sin to do anything like this before marriage. I really didn’t want to hurt you, I just didn’t know how to react, okay? Maybe we could just take things slow, yea?” She rubbed circles on his back, trying to calm both of them down.

“Sure, angel, it’s your decision, I’m already glad you accept me the way I am. I just acted like this ‘cause I thought you’d like it too. I mean, you obviously did, but I guess next time I’ll ask before just attacking you, I’m not the devil, y’know?” He Grayson chuckles and to Y/N, it sounded like heaven. He doesn’t usually laugh besides his cocky smirk, and it really made her happy to be the one that could cheer him up. “Am I even allowed to say the d-word in here?” “Dunno, but you’ve had sex with boys, you’ll end up in hell anyway. By the way, were you top or bottom?”, Y/N laughed, but still curious about the man in front of her.

“Ouch, angel, that hurt. Would you really consider me being bottom? But it would be a shame to waste the half-smoked joint, would you please finish it with me, my lady?” How could anyone ever say no to this beautiful man? Y/N shakes her head, laughing before grabbing the glimstick between her lips. They decided to stay in bed the entire day, smoking and kissing here and there, being lost into each other and the stories they had to tell until they fell asleep curled into each other.

The next weeks went by much quicker than anyone would’ve thought, exams came and went by, there weren’t lots of lessons Grayson & Y/N spent clean, but their pocket money couldn’t buy them as much weed as they soon needed, which brought them to different kinds of medicine, to keep them high enough. This way, they took antidepressants to get rid of their low. The time came and they were already taking pills for breakfast, just to ‘survive boring lessons’, to get through the morning before smoking their first joint for lunch. They were never arguing, just laying in bed, making out and whispering sweet words to each other. They haven’t had sex yet, Y/N just wasn’t ready for it and Grayson accepted it. He was just a generous boyfriend, taking care of his angel. Y/N knew she loved him, but sometimes her mind wanders off to his past, high thoughts running through her head.

Grayson kissing other guys, while she was alone in her room.

Grayson fucking other girls, because she wasn’t ready for him.

Grayson cumming into other guys and girls, because she couldn’t fulfill his lust.

Of course, she knows they weren’t in a serious relationship so far, Grayson said those don’t really exist between stoners, but Y/N didn’t want other people to fuck the guy she was currently hooking up with. She was never the jealous type, but Grayson was supposed to be hers. In his opinion, he could do whatever he wants with other boys and girls, but as soon as she looks at some boy in class, he would get angry and stop talking to her for the rest of the day, leaving her behind in their room. Especially those days where the meds weren’t enough to share, they were angry at each other but would end up in bed, kissing and excusing themselves.

Those days, she liked to say that she was independent. Today, she can only laugh about this tragedy that was happening, because all she felt wasn’t real. She was just in love with the drugs he gave her.

#Grayson dolan #Dolan twins #graysondolan #Grayson Dolan fanfiction #fanfiction #masterlist #smut

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imightbeapotatobutihavestandards · 6 years

Text

He’s Hurting Me Pt 3

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4

Summary: Patton returns home

Warnings: Swearing/explicit language, abusive relationship; verbal, emotional and sexual abuse (It’s not explicit it just implies, I guess, still is very much present)

Part 3

Patton’s heart was beating frantically as he pulled into his own driveway. He leapt from the car, a torrent of emotions waging in his stomach. He hurried to open the door, scrambling with the lock slightly.

“Baby, oh God, I am so so sorry-“ Patton began rambling as soon as he saw his boyfriend, sat at their dining table, with two cold meals in front of him. He didn’t look at Patton, just at the floor, rage and hurt swimming in his eyes. “-I completely lost track of time, I’m just not used to the new timings yet is all. I hadn’t realised how late it was, the film hadn’t finished you see-“

“Patton.” Mike’s words were a short, sharp, bark. It was a command. He stopped glaring a hole through the carpet and let his eyes’ meet Patton’s. His motions were controlled, yet there was a fierceness behind them, as he stood suddenly, pointing at the food. “I waited for you. I cooked you a meal. I let you see your friends. I don’t care that you want to spend time with them. And this is how you respond to me?”

“Baby no-“

“-I just wanted, some extra time with you. Why is that too much to ask, Patton? Why? Answer me!” He ordered.

“It’s not, it’s not, you’re right, I ju-“

“You just what? Would rather spend time with them than me? Is that it?” He interrupted again.

“Of course no-“ Patton tried again to calm the situation, to bring order, like he normally does.

“You’re cheating on me. That’s it, isn’t it? You useless slag, that’s what you are.”

“Oh Mike… Please, calm down, I’m no-“

“CALM DOWN?! HOW DARE YOU TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!” Mike yelled, his voice shaking with anger.

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Patton’s voice was a complete contrast, it was sweet, sympathetic, with a dash of sadness.

“FILTHY WHORE.”

“Please Mike, please, I-I promise you nothing happened, I’d never do that to you. Please believe me.” Patton’s heart slammed against his chest, he could feel tears prick the back of his eyes, he hated it when Mike got like this. His accusations would come out of nowhere, and the flurry of insults wouldn’t stop, Patton knew he didn’t mean it, so why did they still sting?

He didn’t even have to look into the kitchen to know he’d been drinking, he always got like this when he had been drinking. He could smell it, see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice. That’s why Patton knew he didn’t mean it, knew he shouldn’t listen to the words and just focuses on helping him, it was only the alcohol.

Patton was convinced these conclusions Mike jumped to, his massive mood swings, and his unparalleled paranoia, were to do with some sort of mental disorder, perhaps an anxiety related persecution complex? Or anger-management issues? Or a many number of things, however, whenever Patton brought it up with Mike it could go one of two ways; one way, Mike would go quiet, he’d nod slightly and let himself curl into Patton’s side, he’d say he was scared of getting diagnosed with something, because what if they couldn’t help, what if there was something wrong, what if it was nothing, what if, what if. It was a never ending stream of what if. It proved to Patton he needed help, but he couldn’t force it, all he could do was be there and support him, and that’s what he planned on doing. The other way it could go, was a way akin to this, a lot of shouting.

“Why should I believe you?” The anger still dripped from each syllable, but the voice sounded hurt, like it was on the verge of breaking.

“Because…” Patton begun, moving closer to the taller man before him. Mike’s soft, black hair, was pushed over the side of his head. His hair was long enough that he could sometimes pull it back into a small bun, exposing the shaved sides of his head. Mike was taller than Patton, with broad shoulders, he wasn’t overly muscular, but he was fairly toned. His eyes were a bright, beautiful blue, but right now they were darkened by a feeling of betrayal, a feeling Patton would do his best to dispel. “… I love you Mike, I really do. I would never do anything that would hurt you like that. Ever.” The words were sweet and caring, and Patton tried his best to put his heart into every letter. He smiled gently, reassuringly. He did everything, and he did it right. So why did that disgusting guilty feeling eat away at his insides.

Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter, Patton’s words failed. Mike huffed slightly, pushing Patton roughly to the side as he stepped past him. “Whatever. Fuck off.” He growled, moving towards the front door.

“Wha-Mike, where are you goining?” Silence. “Y-you can’t leave.” Silence. “Please, Mike you can’t drive like this.” Patton reached forward to grab his wrist, and something snapped.

Before he could even react, Patton felt himself being slammed into a wall, he wincing as the force shot through his bones, it wasn’t painful, but it shocked him.

“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?! CAN’T DRIVE LIKE THIS?! WHAT ARE YOU IMPLYING?! HUH?!” Mike yelled ferociously, leaving the smaller just to whimper, fear coursing through his veins.

“P-please…” Was all he could manage, he could feel his body shaking, he could feel as he began to lose control. Could feel himself shattering.

“You annoying little shit. Just fuck off, alright?” Mike released his grip on the shaking wreck of a man, letting him fall to the floor. Patton stared up a him with terrified eyes, as if waiting something more. He looked so weak, and pathetic, and a whirlwind of emotions began to build. The anger and betrayal at Patton, the guilt for making him so scared, the pleasure for seeing how he looked right now, the pain of too many emotions, it was all too much. He had to get it out, had to do something, had to hit something, had to break something, had to destroy something. He turned back to Patton, still looking terrified and vulnerable, an almost sick pride pulling at his heart, Mike balled his hands into fists, dramatically spinning around, catching sight of an old vase.

It was done in a split second. Crash. The shattered pieces exploded out onto the floor. That was his mothers, that was all he had of her, he’d given it to Patton because he knew it was what she would’ve wanted. He didn’t care. He had to break it. Had to destroy something. It was enough, but then it wasn’t, his anger was still boiling over, he still had so many words left unsaid, he still needed another drink. He let himself walk towards the door.

So many things tugged at his mind, so many things to say, so many “I’m sorry”s, so many “don’t worry”s, but instead he just slammed the door harshly. Disappearing into the darkening night, walking in any direction that was away from Patton.

Patton could barely move, he felt some tension seep out of his body, out the door with Mike, but not all of it. Not enough of it. He suddenly realised he wasn’t breathing. He tried to breath. He was breathing too quickly. Everything was too fast. Too slow. Too loud. Too quiet. Everything was silent. The nothing was deafening.

Calm down Patton, you know this, you know this, think about what you’d say to Virgil. Think about what you’d say to Virgil.

Okay, breathe in for four seconds. One, two, three four.

Good, alright, hold it for seven. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

Perfect, now out for eight. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Well done, you’re doing great, just repeat that.

Patton managed to talk himself down, glad to have experience in dealing with these types of things. He stayed there for a moment, on the floor, surveying the rubble. The cold food, the empty house, the broken vase.

Patton forced himself up, willing himself to the window. He sighed deeply, and relief washed over him as he saw the car was still there. Mike hadn’t driven. That was good. He felt a little spark of pride, that he had been reasonable enough to walk out his anger. Next he moved over to the vase, sadness pulling at his heat, knowing how much that meant to Mike. He sighed again, getting out a dust pan and brush and sweeping the remains into it.

Just as Patton was about to stand back up again, he heard the door swing open. Mike was back; that was either a very short amount of time, or Patton was on the floor longer than he thought. Either way, he didn’t care, he placed down the dustpan and brush on the table and ran to meet his boyfriend.

“Patton, I’m, er I-“ Patton cut him off with a hug.

“I know you are. It’s okay, don’t worry.” Mike melted into the hug, smiling into Patton’s shoulder at his kind and understanding nature. There was still that nagging feeling in the back of his mind though, the feeling that maybe it was all an act. Maye Patton was unfaithful. He felt the sudden urge to prove that Patton was his, that he owned him.

“So, wanna kiss and make up?”

Patton giggled lightly. “Of course.” He smiled before lightly pecking the other’s lips, sweetly. Mike wasn’t satisfied with that, Patton had to know who he belonged to. And he couldn’t get the image of him earlier out of his head.

Mike grabbed Patton’s waist, pulling him closer, trying to deepen the kiss. Patton struggled under his grip immediately, searching for a way out. He managed to pull away.

“Um, I’m sorry baby, not tonight. I’m kinda exhausted.” He tried weakly, but Mike stepped forward again, grabbing the smaller’s hands and tugging them, guiding the other to follow him.

“Come on darling, that’s not how this works.” He tried to smile innocently.

Patton froze for a second, he really didn’t want to, but he didn’t want to upset Mike. And he loved Mike. It wouldn’t be that bad, he’d be fine, he just wanted his boyfriend to be okay.

He didn’t say anything, but he let himself be dragged to his bedroom, mind already beginning to wonder if this was the right decision. If any of this was the right decision. He wanted so desperately to help him, but was this helping himself?

Of course it was…

Notes: So I know Mike goes from 1-100 real quick, like Pat’s ten minutes late must mean he’s cheating... I know that his thought process can sound a little far fetched but, actually, it’s not. Of course Mike is entirely a fictional and original character, however a lot of inspiration for his mood swings and persecution complex are based around a person in my life. Obviously no where near this extent, but how quick he is to change and jump to conclusions, even how quick to turn to anger, is inspired from someone real. I don’t know why I felt the need to say this. I guess it was to emphasise how personnel Patton’s story is to me. Anyway, thanks for reading.

#thomas sanders #logan sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #logicality #eventually #ish #prinxiety #sanders sides #sanders sides au #au #alternate universe #sanders sides fic #highschool au #abusive relationship #fanfic #fanfiction #he's hurting me

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marshmallowprotection · 5 years

Text

Convallaria Majalis

Pairing: SaeranxOC

Warnings: This is Self-Insert type story. This is not beta-read, and constructive criticism isn’t wanted. It’s written purely for own my amusement. I’ve been posting his story on AO3 and FFN for a while, but I figure there an audience here on Tumblr that could warrant me posting here as well. There are some mature elements that should be taken with care, it includes warnings for Anxiety, Depression, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Body Dysmorphic Disorder, and PTSD. This story contains spoilers for Ray Route, and V Route, as well as elements from the Secret Ends.

Word Count: 12,169.

AO3 | Fanfiction

Chapter One

L I L A

"Awake."

"Error, again?" I stared at the phone with disdain. "Really? Why is it that everyone else can enjoy the DLCs and I'm stuck with an endless error message? I guess I could prowl forums until I find an answer."

Mystic Messenger was the height of Otome games on mobile platforms. For a long time the only quality romance games that you could play were desktop based, so when I found out there was a good one for your phone, color me stoked. I had been playing nonstop since my sleeping schedule was shit and I needed the affection from something. There wasn't any answer to be found, I scowled after checking a few pages. It wasn't like I hadn't already finished the deep routes, but I wanted to complete the Christmas DLC to one hundred percent. So much for that, ugh. It was too early in the morning for me to consider crawling out of bed just yet but I didn't have any more apps that I could refresh but - if the game wasn't going to be working for me, again! - I would just have to sit here in the quiet and think about my life. Poor choice, really, but I wasn't going to venture into the cold of my apartment until I had to do it.

"Then again, I can just check my to-do list." There was my sloppy but carefully taken dribble as I opened the app. I flipped through my notepad and did a mental run-through of what needed to be done for work and the house. I had to finish my report before I submitted my updated proof for my supervisor, make sure the fridge had enough for the rest of the week, and I needed to do a head-count on my paint supplies before I marched out the front door. All and all I would be home before noon if I didn't want to do anything else. I set my phone down and decided to shut my eyes for a few minutes.

My alarm clock began to sound not even five minutes after I dug my head back into my pillow.

Sometimes you happen to have a chance encounter that might change your life. Sometime you might just wake up and things are out of your control, or maybe you wake up in a different room then the one you're used to... either way, there's a day when things change direction and I know firsthand that these days can come out of left field. Something that you find yourself comfortably living every day until a new normal finds you. For a long time, I would wake up, crawl out of bed and begin my work in the kitchen after splashing water on my face and brushing my teeth, and keep working until I got hungry. It had been like this for a couple of months already, and the lingering scars in the mirror couldn't bother me as long as I kept to myself and did what I needed to do. You see, only a few months ago, you could have found me doing a stint in the hospital for my poor health habits. I had a hard time taking care of myself when it came to sleeping and eating, it wasn't exactly a trait that I was proud of, but it was something that had been with me since my teen years.

Whispers and murmurs behind my back about my appearance from my classmates and even my parents had destroyed my confidence and by extension, I had hurt myself to make others like me. I'm not proud of it. Every time I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I would feel disgusted and look away. Dysmorphia had a way of crawling up your spine like a spider and waiting for the moment to jump out and take a bite of you when you could do nothing but try to push it away - but fail.

Today wasn't all that different.

I got out of bed and hastily did my morning routine. I just had to go out of my apartment to run some errands instead of going straight to work, that was normal for a Wednesday. I had a list of this and that, that and this, but it shouldn't have broken too much time in the rest of the day as long I as get myself together in this good mood. It started as a better morning, really, I found it in me to fix my hair back and put on one of my jumper dresses. The reflection didn't make me feel as bad as it might have another day.

Hopefully, that would last.

How wrong I was, I realized when I slung my bag over my shoulder and opened my front door to see someone standing in the way. I gripped the door handle hard, and grit my teeth. "It's nice to see you again, Mom."

There she was standing in the doorway, my Mother, with a vase of sunflowers and the most unnerving smile. She had her hand raised as if she were about the knock the front door but couldn't when I opened the door instead. Of course, when I said that it was nice to her, I didn't mean it. We had never had a close relationship and it was only strained at this point. She didn't agree with my choices that I had been making over the last year, although she was the first one to say that she was proud of me on social media for the attention and sympathy. "Hold the pleasantries, Lila. I know you wouldn't have opened this door if you weren't on the way out."

I stepped to the side, and let her into my apartment rather than deal with an argument. "Is there a reason why you stopped by this morning?"

"Do I need a reason to visit my daughter?" She countered without even blinking, sauntering into the living room and setting her flowers down by the kitchen table. "I happened to be in the neighborhood."

"You live five blocks from here, you're always in the neighborhood." I returned. "I'm kind of in a hurry, Mom. I have a lot of errands to run before my appointment with Karen."

The ever-present smile was a little troubling. Mom turned back around to face me after looking at the canvases and makeshift art studio that my kitchen had become in the last couple of weeks. "Ah, yes, your therapist. I hope that's going well. All of my friends are concerned about your well-being after that mess in April." That mess in April that she was referring to had amounted to a situation where my Grandparents caught me in a lie, and I passed out in their home from malnutrition, and partly exhaustion. It occurred just three months after I had broken up with my abusive boyfriend after six months of terror, and five months after the loss of my father. It had a been a long and grueling year for my family, not that we never had a time where we weren't living some kind of lifetime drama film.

"And?" I braced myself.

"It's almost been a year since... the accident. Your sister has been living her life while you've been couped up, locking yourself in this apartment without even trying to make a difference." She started, walking back over to me. "Everyone is concerned that you're wasting your life here, it's one thing that you've been trying to waste your life painting, but now everyone is starting to pity me because my depressed daughter is unable to help herself. You need to stop wallowing about your father and get out there, date, have fun."

I started to talk back, "I'm content the way I am, Mom." but she cut me off and began to talk louder, to talk over me.

"And look where that's getting you, dear, you need to take a hard look in the mirror and get yourself together." She rested a hand against my shoulder, nails digging into the skin. "I expect you to stop embarrassing me before the holidays. I don't want to see you crying and making a fool of yourself in front of everyone again." That hung over my head like a weight. There it was again, the attitude that I couldn't just wash off. My Mother wasn't one to be trifled with if you decided to openly disagree with her methods and while it had been alright when I was a little girl; It was unbelievably too much for me to bare these days. It might have been because I was the only target of this thinking. We had been going back and forth like this for months because she wanted to be the one that was right in the end.

I didn't have the energy for it.

I shook head, just pretending to agree with her words. "I don't want to argue. You can do whatever you want to do, but I'm heading out."

"Wisteria, how are you feeling today?" Her hand was firm against her pad of paper as her pencil began to jot down the little things. Where we could improve on my function and how I could live my day to day without letting my impulsivity control me. This office smelled of disinfectant and cleaner. It wasn't something that bothered me much but it was all I could focus on this whole session. It was one thing that my day had started like it would be alright, but when my Mom came over and soured the whole thing, my mood had shifted and I think she could tell. She started and ended every session by asking me how I was feeling at that moment. I wasn't in the mood to talk about what had happened, so I carried on as if it were any other session.

The clock on the wall read a quarter past three and that meant we were coming to a close for this meeting.

"Huh?"

"I said how are you feeling? You've been a little distracted today. I've been doing most of the talking, and I'm curious where you're thinking today."

"It's already been a day and it hasn't even really started." I leaned against the table in front of me. My hand sinking into my chin as I closed my eyes. "I'm alright. I have had some alright days this month. I haven't felt... acted on the need to purge since my release. Sorry I didn't mention that at the beginning... I've been following my meal plan that we worked out to a tee thanks to my family. It's been a long couple of days, but I'm feeling a little better about my control when it comes to my dysmorphia. I just didn't get a lot of sleep last night, that thunderstorm kept me up for a while."

"I'm glad to hear things are going better for you. You've been doing an excellent job lately at keeping up with that. Has there been any change in your mood? In regards to what you were struggling with about your father? You seemed upset during our last session but are you ready to talk about it?" She asked, the quirk of her eyebrow lifting just enough that it caught my attention. She always tried to pull that topic up but I wasn't ready to deal with it, we had mentioned it here and there, but it wasn't something that could come out yet.

My shoulders lifted into a shrug. "Let's give that a little more time, Karen. I'm doing that on my own right now - there's still a lot I want to think about before I open up about that. It's not bothering me as bad as it was before because I've been focusing hard on getting my physical health better, along with my job and affairs. I just don't want to deal with that can of worms right now."

"That's understandable, but you know we'll have to deal with that eventually. Just think about how we can better address it for next time." She reminded me, as she set her pen down against her desk. "Let's meet again in two weeks to discuss any more changes... but in the meantime, you can call me whenever you need to talk about anything."

That was therapy for you. I had been making some progress since we had started the meeting, which I was grateful for, but my mind had been other places during our session. I wasn't going to admit it to anyone, but I had been spending my time doing more than working and listening to a meal plan. My phone indicated that while I had been in my session I had missed a few things. I pilfered through what I missed, this and that, that and this but cleared them all out until I got to the most recent notification. I had missed a chatroom deadline on the game that I was playing. An Otome, Mystic Messenger, one of those exciting games where you could pick anyone you wanted and romance the.

"Huh, I guess I missed another chatroom." That wasn't the worst thing in the universe. I was trying to go through the Christmas DLC on Mystic Messenger at that moment, and I had enough hourglass to spare for one uncounted chatroom but I probably wouldn't waste it knowing the whispers of extra content coming very soon. I had already done a run-through of the different routes and now I was trying to get the DLCs entirely done before any more were released onto the game. There wasn't anything else left to complete with all of the RFA's routes done on my application. I was a little desperate for the interaction with my fictional friends so I settled for this.

I booted the messenger but it errored out.

"Please?" I begged, silently.

It errored once again when I attempted it open it again.

"Goddammit."

This had been happening a lot lately when I tried to play the game and it didn't seem to be happening to anyone else. It forced itself out at various times of the day and I couldn't fight it. Nobody else had this problem when I cruised the blogs and pages about it. I just mounted it to my luck. It was just a weak signal or maybe a bug that needed to be corrected. Little did I know, but there was a reason why my game was lagging and it wasn't just a chance of bad luck, and it would stem back to an encounter that I had put in the back of my mind.

I could always play some of the other Otome games that I had on my PC in the meantime if this was going keep happening. "Really? I can't believe this, maybe there's some traffic on the servers or something. Ugh, I was hoping to finally get Unknown after clearing everyone else." I grumbled, stashing my phone back in my bag as I headed into the cafe across the street from my therapist's office. It had been another meeting, uneventful and we didn't make a lot of progress. I was a lot more comfortable with her lately, which was good because she didn't treat me poorly if I slipped up and made a mistake. It was much better than dealing with what my Mother thought was the right way to handle the situation. She wanted to throw me to the dogs, so to speak. She wanted to make me work with her at her salon so she could make sure that I didn't embarrass her with my health problems. Fortunately, my older sister and Grandparents advocated for me and I got into the proper programs to help me piece my life back together.

The door jingled with alarm as I entered.

"Hi, Lila!"

"Oh, hey," I greeted the girl behind the counter with a weak smile. She knew my older sister but I hadn't ever caught her name. I think it was Samantha, so let's just go with that for now, I never would be able to work up the courage to ask that since she assumed I knew. "I'm looking for my usual, I need something to pick me up for my next project."

Samantha raised an eyebrow, "Another all-nighter?" she asked.

That was a jab at my poor working habits. I was already well aware that I had a beautiful little ring of purple underneath my eyelids for how hard I had been working these past few months. It was my choice to get involved with the projects that I was working on, it was so much of my own choice that I could work as long as I wanted and was physically capable of doing so, that I didn't mind if I was awake at three in the morning. It was my choice and nobody else. It had been only a year and some change since my choices weren't my own - since somebody told me what to do when to do it, and how to do it. I was beyond that life now and living how I wanted to, and I was managing my own life much better than I had been once before. Six months ago was my breaking point and I was forced to deal with the lingering haunt behind me; The remnants of that relationship had left me with self-loathing and the inability to look into a mirror for even a moment.

My dysmorphia was a ghost that lingered in my shadow and it would always haunt me from just beyond my peripheral vision. It was all that was left of that failed relationship and it stuck to me even now, it was a daily struggle to combat but I made due. Some people would look at me and call me brave for fighting - fighting a monster that had been created out of my fear and someone's else's control - but I didn't see it that way. I wasn't some knight fighting for my own life in battle, I still sometimes saw myself as the fearful princess in the tower.

I was a graphic designer who ran on her hours most of the time. When I wasn't creating websites and pamphlets for people, I would pour myself into my real passion which was painting and illustration. It was what I loved doing the most but it wasn't easy to do it and getting paid for your passions was next to impossible in the eyes of many of my family members. Alas, that's how I ended up where I was. I disregarded her tone and I shook my head. "It's not for work this time around. It's for the baby," I explained. "I promised Lucy that I would have my gift for the nursery done before the holidays and it needs a few more touchups."

"Oh. I can't wait to see what you're doing then, at least I can trust you to show me how it'll be. I can't count on Lucy to answer my texts lately. I haven't seen your sister in a few weeks, could you remind her that I know she sees what I'm saying but she doesn't reply? I know she posts about being too busy to do anything but I beg to differ." Samantha rang up the register and retrieved my drink from the back.

She handed me the cup and I smiled back at her with a little shrug. "No promises."

I decided that I needed to clear my mind that afternoon. I had all of my supplies with me on purpose, I made sure to leave my apartment that morning with everything that I might need to keep my mind occupied out of the house for a while. And for once I was glad that I grabbed everything that I needed before I opened the front door, I might have never been able to get out of dodge so fast this morning if I hadn't done that. My apartment was inevitably going to be cleaned up thanks to my Mom but it was going to be the kind of clean that she was fond of, it meant that a lot of things weren't going to be out of place. I lived in an environment that could be called controlled chaos; Nothing looked like it made sense to an outsider but for me, I knew where everything was that I needed and I liked it that way.

It didn't matter if anybody else liked it, it was my home and that meant I could have it the way I liked it. When I finally moved out of my childhood home a few months ago after the accident I made sure that my new place would be everything that I couldn't have there.

I knew I needed to get back and finish the project that my supervisor needed the final proof of, but I wanted to have at least an hour to work on something that for me, not just for some company. There was a creative control over my work that I couldn't entirely show what I wanted because I had to do what the client wanted, not exactly what I might have liked to do. When I was painting or trying to do something for myself, I could do anything. So, I walked to the park after I left the cafe, I would have to walk through it to get back to my apartment anyway. This place was a place that held a lot of good memories and bad memories; The good ones outweighed the bad ones in my opinion, and I wanted that comfort of the pleasant times in my mind instead of the pain that lingered from the present.

It took a few minutes, but everything poured out of my bag and I started to take work the moment I found a spot that caught my attention. It was a shaded tree close to the overpassing bridge, a patch of roses planted by the city not too long ago had taken root and the striking red color stood out against the sea of greens and browns.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" I didn't turn around but I hear someone stir from behind me. The voice wasn't familiar, so I chalked to a stranger that had seen me painting from afar and wanted to learn more or even see what I was doing. "You don't see people painting out in the open like this, forgive me for being forward but I like what you've done with the flowers."

My little laugh left my lips. That wasn't a new experience. People had watched me before so it didn't bother me too much when someone wanted to see or make a little comment. It was nice to hear something positive after the morning that I had. "Thanks for saying so, but it's not precisely representational of the scenery. I took the liberty of adding some more native flowers to make it feel a little more striking."

The man leaned a bit closer, not enough that I wanted to flinch but enough that I could feel his presence. "Yes, the dogwood gives clarity to your canvas. It holds many meanings, but might I guess that you mean to use it as a sign of rebirth or hope?"

"Regret," I murmured. "Actually."

"Interesting, I wouldn't have expected that to be your choice." The man commented. "You don't seem like the type to have experienced that kind of a pain in your life."

My pencil continued to rake across the paper as I added a few details, making sure to note things my eyes might miss when I was to begin painting. I pursed my lips. "That's the funny thing about people you pass by every day. You might not know anything about that person but they're going through something you wouldn't believe. It's like that flower there," my eyes fell on the bud that yet to bloom. "It hasn't bloomed like the rest of its friends for a number of different reasons, but it'll sprout it leaves one of these days and be just as beautiful as the rest."

"The other flowers are blocking it from receiving the adequate amount of sunlight. It might not ever bloom without a delicate hand to guide it to its full potential. " He said.

I set my pencil down and took a closer look. "Oh, wait, you're right. If they trim back some of the tops it'll reach it a lot better right now. I can't believe that missed that and I call myself a girl with a decent green thumb, hah. I come to this spot pretty often because I can't go out to the Lancelot Gardens every day, have you ever been?"

"No, but I've heard a few things about it," the stranger replied.

My smile widened at the thought of getting any more strangers to visit the place. I was always advertising for my Grandparents when I got the chance and I wasn't about to stop doing that just because I didn't see them as often as I would like anymore. "Oh, you really should if you ever get to the interstate. They're just right of it down a clay road. I grew up on those gardens and they still never fail to take my breath away. I'd be pressed to say that there isn't another place like it in the world." I could see it in my mind when I shut my eyes. "There's just about anything you could imagine down there, but there are sprawling fields of Wisteria out there. Some people call it invasive but lemme tell you, seeing it cover the landscape and treetops is awe-inspiring. It's a page right of the storybooks."

"I could show you one better," He began to say. "But hearing you speak so fondly of the flowers makes me wonder what you might think if you could see the spot I often visit."

"And where might that be?" I asked, curious.

When I turned around to see the man he was gone. I thought for a brief moment that I had just hallucinated the entire encounter but left on the ground was unrest in the dirt, a footprint impression on the ground told me that there had been somebody these speaking to me that time. It was odd to just some idle conversation with someone and then just disappear before it could be finished. I hadn't had such a calm conversation with someone about the flowers since I ran some of the tours back at my Grandpa's gardens. I almost felt a little sad I couldn't ask him his name. My phone was sitting on the ground behind me as well, I raised an eyebrow at the sight. I thought I had set it in my bag. Why was it sitting on the grass?

It would be a few nights later that I would realize that that chance encounter would change my life forever.

"What would you do if I told you that sometimes growing up feels like you're burying your childhood and kicking it for good measure?" The phone was on speaker so I didn't need to put the effort into holding the device in my hand. The moment that I got out of the rain and back into my apartment I collapsed onto my bed in a crumpled heap. Another week of mindless work, sleeping when I could find the time to do it and working when I wasn't sleeping. It was just another day in the life. My phone started ringing at that very moment as well, and while I might have usually just ignored the sound and just laid there something told me that I needed to check who it was. Lucy had such a lot going on lately in her life - and I did as well, that meant that we couldn't just talk to each other like we used to be able to do.

While I felt like this was a heavy weight upon me - I never expressed it to her completely... not when she had a small child on to tend to.

On the other end of the phone, she let out a small scoff at the question I inquired. Typical for Lucy, she had a clear head on her body even if she sometimes seemed like the world's biggest goofball. "Have you been binging Disney movies while you're feeling the height of your depression again? That's kind of a weird way to deal with all you're going through right now, but if it's helping go for it." This was her attempt at trying to tease me - to make me feel better about myself.

I rolled my eyes. "There's nothing wrong with indulging in fairy tales as long as you know how to separate fantasy and reality. Life is a little different than being a Cinderella, where your misfortune can lead you to something better you weren't expecting along the way, but hey, I can dream. I might digress, but I have been painting a lot of castles lately."

"And I'm still dreaming I can fly." Lucy retorted. It was always great to know her sarcasm was holding up ever since she had her daughter - as if I could ever believe that it was going to go away just because she had a mini-me in the making. I could only hope that her daughter wasn't going to turn out like her because if she did, I might start losing my hair well before my time. There could only be one Lucy, after all. I hoped. I grumbled under my breath and she just laughed at me.

When her laughter quieted, she got serious. "What's got you feeling like that anyway?"

"Oh." There wasn't going to be one little thing that made me feel this way. With a little sigh, I admitted to her just a little bit of information. "A little of this, a little of that... you know the deal. It's just one of those days, Lucy. There were some good things and there were some bad things, it's hard to say what pulled me back into this rut."

Lucy gave a soft hum in response. "How's everything holding up other than that?"

"I've been rocking a killer headache today, but I just took some painkillers that might be able to knock it down just enough that I can get some rest later if I try. Other then that it's been kind of a decent week if you ask me over." I grimaced as I remembered the one point bad point of my week that I wanted to forget. "Mom did drop by earlier this week, but that's not worth mentioning."

"Oh." Lucy didn't have to say much else about that.

It was coming out like word vomit. This feeling that Lucy had heard something from the woman that I already knew. "If she told you that I hadn't cleaned up the place, she's exaggerating like always. I left her in my apartment for a few hours and when I came back everything was out of place because she has her system that she thinks we should follow." I paused as my eyes darted around the living room of my apartment with a grimace. "A few magazines on the floor is enough to start World War Three in her opinion. You know how that goes."

My eyes lingered on the flowers that sat on the corner table next to my lampshade when they reached them. It was a simple pot and a big array of flowers that my Mother preferred. They were a shade of yellow that I wasn't fond of, they reminded of something that I wanted to forget desperately, however, no matter how hard I glared at the floral arrangement it would spontaneously combust. My Mom didn't listen whenever I told her not to drop by flowers if she wasn't going to remember the ones that I couldn't stand. "You know what kind of flowers she dropped off when she visited though? I've told her time and time again that I don't want to see them."

"Sunflowers?" She asked.

I rolled over on the couch so I wasn't facing the vase. "Who do those flowers think they're fooling? They can't be as bright as the sun and make me happy as they do her." I said. "I just don't think they're all that great." There was a pause on the other line for a moment. Lucy sounded like she was shifting something in her hands and then set it down onto something like a table from the clank in the background. "Well, you can get a decent snack out of them if she got them from Grandpa's gardens, so that's a good bedside treat. I'll try to remind her to pick up something different if she wants to bring you some next time. alright?"

"Much appreciated, sis," I told her with a weak smile crossing my lips. The light from my phone diminished into darkness. I would never have the heart to tell her that those were the flowers that Dad would get for Mom on their anniversary every single year and they just reminded me of a man that I used to know and who was long gone. Someone who was once impossibly light - once who bore the universe, the sun, the stars in my eyes - turned into a withered bed of thorns and a face that I could no longer see behind who he had become in the process. I couldn't stand that thought - and our Mom would never understand how much I hated to see something once great turned into something that left a sour taste in my mouth. I wouldn't be able to sleep if my brain wouldn't give me some reprieve from the nightmares.

I crawled out of bed and decided to go for a walk.

The only place that I could go to think was the bridge in the park that Father had often taken me throughout my life. It was surrounded by the rushing water and some plants overcast from the trees nearby. It was nice to see, well, it might have been nice if it wasn't for the thick dense fog that had brewed before morning twilight. I tried to keep my thoughts together and just feel lighter than the nightmares that haunted me. For a while, I just stood there and tried to feel something. The flowers were out of my reach but I could see the roses from my spot. I hadn't yet begun to paint the piece that I had started a few days but the red flowers reminded me of that strange encounter.

I wonder if I'll ever meet that guy again. They do say people run into others for a reason and the thought of a place prettier then the one I knew still left a little curious. Oh well, I decided. I'll leave that one to fate. The chill air against my skin reminded me that I should turn back head for my apartment. I counted the cracks in the pavement as I headed back - when I counted the last crack, I lifted my head and looked around to see if the dense fog had begun to clear just yet.

"Huh?" I couldn't recognize my surroundings at all. The morning fog was strong enough that I couldn't entirely make out the surrounding buildings but they were not the ones that should have been here. Now, I had experienced periods of fatigue and confusion that left me confused about myself or my environment at times, but this was a different feeling that I was experiencing. This wasn't like my town. I pinched myself and that proved that I was awake and - yes, this was happening. "I guess I should have slept some earlier because I can't even recognize my park. Oh my God, Karen was right about deprivation."

Grabbing my bag, I tore through it to find my phone. When I looked down at my phone I noticed an application was installing. My apps usually updated by themselves during the might when I slept, but this one had a name I wasn't familiar with... Against my better judgment, I decided to see what it was. It opened on my screen and gave me the option to input some reasonably necessary information and then it gave me one more option.

I plugged in my alias as the nickname.

The application didn't give me any option but to enter a mysterious looking chatroom.

Wisteria has entered the chatroom.

Unknown: Hi! Finally, someone to talk to!

I stared at my phone screen uncertain if what I was seeing was real, had I accidentally opened Mystic Messenger and started a new game? The static of the background reminded me of the first I didn't remember doing that... Might my phone be on the fritz? I thought. The background of the chat room was of data and code but it wasn't exactly like the one that I had put to my memory. Something about it made my stomach churn with butterflies. Why was this appearing here of all places?

I clicked the dialogue box.

My keyboard sprung open... and the line flashed as if it was waiting for my input into the box. It didn't give me a choice. It wanted me to input something as a response... Nervously I began to type a message.

Wisteria: Oh... hello?

Unknown: I hope I didn't surprise you. Don't be nervous I'm just an "ordinary person".

Wisteria: Usually when someone says that, they are anything but ordinary, Mr. Unknown.

Unknown: You're funny lol I can't say that I'm extraordinary when I'm introducing myself. Shouldn't I be humble and modest?

Wisteria: I suppose I might have cracked a joke too if I was introducing myself to somebody for the first time too. I can understand the sentiment you're going for. I think. Who are you, exactly? Um, how did this even open? I don't remember downloading any apps.

Who are you, indeed. I clicked out of the chat for a moment to see the name of the application.

RFA...?

It was called RFA Messenger. That was suspicious enough for me to wonder what was going on. It didn't say Mystic Messenger despite looking damn-near identical to the platform with some minor visual differences. Why did it appear so much like it? I wondered. Was this one of fake versions that appeared on the app store? I didn't remember downloading anything like that - I certainly didn't put one on my waitlist. So... What the heck? Sometimes I would download something interesting if it caught my eye but I couldn't remember clicking anything before I left my apartment. It wasn't out of the realm of possibility that I did do it.

"I saw one of those before but... this looks too legitimate to be a fake," I mumbled as I inspected the screen further with scrutiny. "What the heck?"

Another message came in. I continued walking down the path but the bridge seemed much longer than usual for some reason, and for a moment when I knew that I had to look back down at my phone, I stopped just at the second to last pillar.

Unknown: I'm sorry if I surprised you out of nowhere.

Unknown: I'm the developer of this app. What do you think of it? I was hoping you would like it... I'm excited. Because you're the first one to come in, Wisteria! I was worried that no one would come in while I was making the app.

Wisteria: I'm not sure I'm made up my mind on my opinion just yet. This interface looks a simple so props for that concept. I guess I must have downloaded this without entirely reading through it. It's been one of those days. Though, I'm flattered the developer wanted to talk to me directly. Is there something that I can do for you?

Unknown: Oh! I'm so glad you asked! cuz there is a favor I want to ask of you. Though, it is kind of much to ask from a stranger. There is something I want you to help me with.

Wisteria: I guess I can. But I'm still a little wary. Sure!

Unknown: You already decided without hearing me out? My heart's fluttering... I'm so lucky that you came here. This app isn't just a messenger app, it's a game messenger app. I wanted to ask if you could test it.

Wisteria: Why you couldn't you test it yourself? Oh, are you so focused on putting it together that it's hard to look for bugs? I guess it would be easy to overlook something if you've been looking at it for a while. That happens to me sometimes when I'm drawing something and another opinion is always a good thing.

Unknown: You could say something like that I also think an outsider's opinion like yours would be a massive benefit to my game, though as well.

Wisteria: Hm. Well, I can't lie and say I'm busy because I'm not. What's the premise?

Unknown: This app... lets you chat with me but also good-looking AIs. I may be a good looking guy too. But that's for you to decide - The chats aren't everything. There are also hidden stories... Amusing stories that will stir your imagination. All you would need to do... is to play the game and tell me your honest opinion.

Unknown: These are the characters that come out of the game. They're not real people but characters created with AI. What do you think? Don't you think it will be fun?

If I had been holding my breath at that moment it broke past my lips into a gasp. That image! He had sent an image was of the... It was the original title screen of the game when it debuted in the app store! Somebody must have been playing a clever trick on me. Except... Nobody that I was close to knew that I had been spending a lot of time playing Otome games, be it Mystic Messenger on my phone or the few of them that were on my laptop. The only person that might have known about it was my Dad - given he was still around when I started playing in the hospital.

So that couldn't be the case. It was bizarre... yet, compelling. Even if it was some kind of joke, I felt like I should go along with it. Against the feeling in my stomach, once again, I decided to see what would happen if I were to agree to this. I didn't have anything to do except paint and submit my work to the publisher or the writer this week. If this was a joke or a game it would end soon if I just agreed with them.

Wisteria: Alright, sure, I'll help you out!

Unknown: Did you find a pretty face that you like on the poster? If so, you are genuinely fascinating lol

Unknown: I've studied hard to make this messenger game. I hope you enjoy it. I think it will be better if we talk over the phone about the details. Let's talk over the phone. Don't freak out when you see an unknown number pop up, okay?

Unknown has left the chatroom.

The chatroom fizzled into darkness and disappeared from my view.

What had just happened? It was like I was walking through a replica of the game model down to the letter! This was going to end with me looking up and seeing the crew from Punk'd despite it being off the air for more than a decade and a then phone was back to normal so I took what should have been the next few steps off the bridge to the path that would take me home but my feet didn't hit the dirt, they hit concrete instead. I spun around to look at the bridge behind me. It wasn't the same one that I had just stepped off of at all... and the strangest thing was, I thought I saw a stream along the fog that looked like something had warped the space around the bridge.

What I thought was my eyes playing tricks on me at first turned out to be something different entirely.

As the fog cleared up and the sun began to overtake the sky above me, that was when I knew that things weren't as they should have been with a new sense of clarity. This wasn't my neighborhood. These weren't the streets that I knew like the back of my hand. These buildings were just as ordinary as any old city would have but they weren't the ones that should've been here. Nothing was written in English either, the characters seemed familiar but I couldn't gauge them given my panic. I had walked a few blocks ahead to see if anything might have struck a nerve in my memory but it was no use. I could feel the anxiety and panic budding in the pit of my throat. This was not the ideal situation but I needed to stay calm.

I counted to ten... then took a deep breath. I looked at my phone and at whim, opened my Map app just to confirm the theory of my proximate location - the app surged to life and began to search for me, it dinged when it was finished and scrolled out to find my answer. I was... This wasn't home. I was somehow a million miles away from my home, in South Korea of all places. That's not how travel works. How I just traversed the seas and lands in a matter of seconds startled me to my very core.

My phone started to vibrate and I fumbled with it in my hands before pressing the answer button. My breathing was uneven but, I managed to squeak out a little bit in response. "H-Hello?" I asked.

"Hey, it's me, the one you were just chatting with." He said.

"...Unknown?" Were my hands shaking? Was my voice quivering? What was happening right now? I was at the park one moment now I wasn't sure I was in Kansas anymore, Toto. Korea, South Korea of all the places to somehow wind up. I wasn't registering the connection yet because my brain wasn't going... This wasn't my town. My mind was whirling around at a hundred miles an hour and I didn't know what to do. I needed to talk. What did I say? My nervous laugh escaped my lips. He said he would call, right? This is him. The guy pulling this ruse on me. "Oh. You told me not to be frightened but I have to admit the sudden call startled me."

"Yes, that's me. I hope I didn't startle you too much... Your voice sounds so cute over the phone, I can't wait to meet you in person." He paused for a moment. Unknown was someone that a lot of people didn't understand. Well, I could guess his motives and what he doing from what I knew about him from Seven's route but it wasn't enough. This game he was talking to me about wasn't a game, not if I was standing smack dap in the middle of South Korea right now. That was beyond reason and I was struggling to even know what to say to him to make this end well. I could gauge whom he was and how he got there, but why he was tricking me like this was beyond me. "As I said in the chatroom, I called you to explain this app. And I thought talking to you like this would make me sound more, credible. There's a tutorial in the game that can explain everything to the player but it's still being modified, you see... Do you remember those characters I showed you?"

Did I know them? Yes. The five members of Rika's Fundraising Association that were accessible when I played the game. Yoosung Kim, Jaehee Kang, Hyun "Zen" Ryu, Jumin Han, and Luciel "Seven" Choi. The whole point of the Otome was centered around those characters and they were the components of the game. But did he know that I did as far I knew? No. "I do," I said.

"Yeah, that image I sent you of the game consists of the characters that I've been developing. Those will your chatting partners... All five characters in the image are members of an association called the R.F.A." Unknown explained away his plans. He believed that this was a game that he had made, or was this some kind of ploy? These were real people, right? "R.F.A is a closed organization with the purpose of holding fundraising parties... You've been set as the party coordinator, in charge of inviting guests. Just think of it as you being the one in charge of choosing who attends the party."

His voice sounded very familiar. Although, I wasn't sure if Unknown was who I honestly assumed he was just yet. It could just be a coincidence. It couldn't be Saeran Choi, no, no, it couldn't be him and this was just some dream that I was having after a lousy night. I couldn't just gauge by his voice through my cell phone. I wouldn't know until my eyes were on him and I couldn't be sure that, that was a good option. I focused on talking about this game he was telling me about instead. "Whomever you invite as this coordinator will probably gain you more affection points with certain characters, right?" I said. "Though it would depend on how well you can pick up which answers are right and wrong."

"You pick up pretty quickly." There was a chuckle on the other end of the phone. "It would be pretty boring if all you had to do was just that, though, wouldn't you say? You will find out more of their secrets by chatting or calling with them. It would be faster to learn by playing it if I'm honest." So what did he want me to do? He wanted me to test his game that wasn't a game. These were real people with real problems and lives. That was the primary purpose of Mystic Messenger from my world. You play the game and solve the problems for a character. Unknown leading MC to Rika's apartment was the only scenario I was aware of that lead her to the RFA.

This wasn't like that.

I was somewhere that I didn't know the lay of the land and I had no way of finding my way back home. Mystic Messenger was set in South Korea and that was leagues away from where my home was. This wasn't what I knew. I couldn't exactly refuse what he was offering If I did, that might run the possibility of something worse then being on the streets of a country that I didn't entirely know. If I was really in this game right now than I could cause a bad ending by doing something wrong. That didn't leave much of an edge room to make any other answer than the one I had to. Was it possible this was a parallel reality to Mystic Messenger where Unknown was just trying to make a game? That would be too easy of a theory to believe in. Something was going on right now that I couldn't be sure of. His intentions have to be similar to the regular story...? He wants me to get the RFA on my side, so they could be lured to Mint Eye one by one for his savior... Rika.

How would I be able to do this, under the guise of an Otome?

It didn't entirely make sense given what I know.

I had no choice but I decided that I would stick with it.

My silence might have left him nervous about what I was planning - but I brought myself out of my head and gave him my answer. "Sure, alright, I'll do it for you. You've been nothing but polite to me so far. I see no harm in doing something that might help you feel better." Was I going to be in trouble if I went along with him? My memory of the sad endings flashed in my head. He wasn't a bad person, but he had been twisted into something by someone who wanted him to be a pretty pawn. We had that in common. But he was my only choice given my situation. I didn't know where else to turn to but to him now, hopefully, it wouldn't come back to bite me in the ass.

"Thanks! I was worried you would refuse." His cheery response caught me off guard. I didn't remember Unknown coming off like this... He was supposed to brash and calculated. He didn't put up the pleasantries because that was too much effort for him. Unknown seemed different than the one that I had come to know playing the game. "Right, but the game hasn't been released yet and it cannot be revealed to the market. So, to perform the tests, you have to come over here." He said.

Come here? He couldn't mean what I thought. Was he intending to bring me straight to Mint Eye?

"Where's here...?" I asked him.

"You probably won't know even if I told you. It's in the mountains and hard to see from Maps. To maintain confidentiality before the release, it's being developed in a sparsely populated area... Of course, you don't have to come here by yourself if it's too troublesome. I'll send a car over to you if you tell me your address. You could hop onto that and head this way." Well, that answered that question. This was the kind of thing that your mother and father would tell you never to do when you're talking with strangers. It wasn't like I could get his location and head there myself.

I doubted that that sort of liberty was ahead of me. "You're not ridiculing my sense of direction, are you Mr. Unknown? I'm competent, you know. I'm sure I could find my way around."

"Oh, of course not! It would be easier for you is all I'm saying, and it keeps everything tied to the game confidential." Unknown was quick to reassure me of this. "This just saves you some headache, Wisteria."

"Well, I guess if you put it that way. How - How can I refuse?" I gave him the address. I knew my hands were shaking now, I was aware that this was becoming too real for me. If I was going to find out how I got here and understand the situation at hand - It meant that I was going to have to throw myself into the unknown. That meant standing in a place where the root of unrest and fear lived ahead. There was a trickling fear crawling up my back and I wanted desperately for him to take it all back.

"I'll send a car there right now. Please be there. Keep in mind that the road there is confidential, so just do as I tell you and it'll be alright. I should hang up now. I need to get ready." He hung up.

"Wait, tell me this was just a prank!" I cried out, at last, the dull end of the other line of the call was silent.

Unknown wasn't going to answer me. This wasn't a joke anymore, I wasn't playing a game, this was real. I was living and breathing this game now. The morning air seemed thick, just as thick in the bile in my throat. I was left with my thoughts and the jarring realization that I didn't know what was to expect ahead. What had I just gotten myself into? I signed myself to the devil more or less, in a country that wasn't my own and a fear that I knew too well. This city surrounding me wasn't familiar to me and what was worse was the colors of this city seemed muted, not as lively as it should have been. At first, I thought it was my eyes adjusting to the sun once again... But, I now realized this wasn't normal.

I rubbed my eyes.

Everything was blocky, and in a sense, two dimensional. Why was that? The streets were barren for this time of day and I wouldn't be able to confirm my growing thought until the car arrived. My theory was confirmed when a driver appeared a half an hour later, with a blindfold in tow and the appearance of a two-dimensional person.

The driver drove for a period that I couldn't gauge, the roads twisted and turned so much that I would never have had a chance to make a mental map of the roadway if I wanted to do it. It was well outside of the residential area that I had once been in. It was at least an hour away from anything at most - no wonder it took so long for anyone to find out what they were running here. This was somewhere out of the way and out of sight of the average person. "We have arrived." The driver informed me when the car finally went silent and died down and was swallowed by the noise of nature. "You'll need to wait here for a moment, and place the mask back on." I did as I was instructed to do.

It was a few minutes before the driver spoke up once more: "Mr. Ray has arrived." The door opened to my right. "Welcome. I've been waiting. Welcome to this wonderful place. It wouldn't have been an easy decision to come here... Thanks for trusting me."

It wasn't that I trusted him - this was the only thing that I could accept at the moment. I knew better than to say his name, his actual name if it were him, instead, I opted for: "Unknown?"

He seemed to be pleased that I could it was him. "You knew who I was just by listening to the sound of my voice?" He laughed that off. It was the voice that I knew it to be from my time listening to him in the game. There was little no doubt left in my mind that this was him. "Yeah. It's me, username Unknown. Didn't you think Unknown was a funny name? It was a default option because I didn't set up a username in the first place. No special meaning. My name is Ray. Thank you for coming all this way."

"I wanted to show you around," He continued. "I prepped up this and that while waiting for you." Show me around? This was news to me. The Unknown that I knew didn't play around like this. He wouldn't have asked he would have just done it. My fingers lingered against the edge of the mask. I wanted desperately to confirm his identity - the voice wasn't enough for me to accept my situation - I wanted to be entirely sure that this was real. "Oh, don't take off the mask just yet. You can't take it off until you reach your room." He said.

"My room?" I echoed him. I wasn't entirely sure what to make of that. That meant that there was somewhere in this place that I wouldn't be leaving anytime soon. He seemed intrigued by how well I was playing into this on the surface. "Yes, I prepared a comfortable space for you while you're here... I mean, while you're testing you have to stay here. I was worried though since I didn't know what you liked... I hope you'll like it." He said. "I'll hold your hand on the way down from the car."

I took his hand. "Thank you."

"Oh, no thank you. You are doing what I tell you to do." Ray said. Something about that kind of praise didn't make me good. He leads the way into the building and I stayed close by his side. Ray, as he told me, didn't say much at first until we had been walking for a while around the jungle that was this massive building. This was no different than the roadways that lead to this place. You couldn't try to know how you were turning if you wanted to do it. An escape plan wouldn't be possible yet. "You have no idea what a relief it was when you said you'll help. What a relief, thanks to you. You'll be a big help."

I looked in his general location. "Well, you didn't give me any reason not to trust you," I told him even if it was only half sincere. "You seem like a nice guy, I honestly don't mind helping you if it means it'll do you some good." It was better to be on his right side. I didn't know how to predict his movements - I liked Saeran, as much as I liked anyone in the RFA, but I wasn't sure what to expect from him when I wasn't trapped in Rika's apartment. Everyone was hurting to some degree and I couldn't bring myself to be with ill thoughts. He was acting so pleasant and cheery compared to the twisted persona he had garnered from this place.

This response seemed to be good enough. "That's very kind of you," Ray said. "I'll do my best to make you happy while you're here for your diligence." He stopped in his tracks right then as his footsteps died down "Oh. We're here, come I'll remove your blindfold." My eyes readjusted to the light and he came into focus at last in my vision. It was Saeran, it was him. Why was he referring to himself as Ray now? Was it just another alias? He was dressed much differently as well, the tailored coat was bright and he was looking at me with green eyes filled with hope.

"This would be our first time seeing each other face to face, right?" He was smiling. It wouldn't be for me, I thought. This was my first time seeing him in a light different than the dark demeanor and look he had as Unknown, the sole hacker against the RFA. Ray was much softer in appearance somehow - Ray wore a magenta overcoat over a grey vest and white button-up, a striking blue flower was pinned to the lapel of his overcoat. It was a change to the leather and ripped clothes. If he noticed any hesitation in me, I couldn't be sure.

"I suppose it is." I murmured when I found the use of my voice. His character was one that had a lot of struggle. I could relate to his pain on many levels but seeing him in the flesh made me very... wary. It wasn't a good idea to trust someone who lied to you like this. I did want to like him. I just needed to think clearly as I moved forward. "It's nice to put a name to a face."

He returned that with a solid nod of his head, Ray gestured around the room where we were. I just noticed the environment for the first time. This was the kind of room that walked out of a princess fantasy. It was impressive at its grand scale and I had to give them credit for keeping up with the theme like they did. "This is your room. I did my best to prepare everything in here to your liking... still, let me know of any inconvenience. You have full access to this floor of our headquarters, but you'll have to let me know before you go anywhere else. The reason... you know why, right?"

"Because it's strictly confidential like you said," I echoed his words from earlier. "Right?"

"Correct. You have a great memory... I don't hate smart people. I get the feeling you'll pull this off quite well." He said. There was something in his tone that left me feeling like there was more to this then he let on. If the RFA truly were real as Ray was, what did that mean for me? "We still have some time left, I'll explain a bit about the game. As I mentioned before, the purpose of the game is to hold a party with the RFA. All of the characters are the AIs that I have designed. There's one problem as I've tried to make it super realistic with the AIs."

Super-realistic? Was he just trying to downplay how they were really... real people? "They aren't self-aware, are they? That would be a concerning bug to deal with." I cocked my head to the side. "Science hasn't exactly figured out how to perfect them just yet so if you cracked the code, color me impressed, Ray."

He had a small chuckle escape him at my inquiry. "Aha... it's not like that per say. The AIs become just super suspicious when a new person comes in. Your concept is that someone hacked into your messenger and that's how you got into the RFA messenger. Quite suspicious, isn't it?"

I pursed my lips. "Oh. Yeah, that would be cause for alarm."

"Exactly. That's the setting of the game, it's not fun when everyone likes you from the start, is it?" Ray nodded, clearly pleased with my assumption. "They'll ask you about this hacker, of course. But you can't answer them because you know nothing. They will try to pry information out of you though, like your location and this hacker, and they might even try to get information about the creator, me." He continued. "At that, you can't reveal the truth. You must keep the secret until the end. Can you promise me that you won't reveal what we've been talking about to the AIs?"

"It would be game-over otherwise, right?" That look in his eyes told me my answer. "I'll do my best, Ray. That's all I can promise." I told him.

I wasn't entirely sure that I was going to able to keep that promise, however, I would be doing my best for everyone.

"Thanks! I'm so happy that you're so cooperative! Meeting you might have been... fate. Just remember to avoid a game-over, okay? Everything up until now is a secret, and who I am, the fact that they're AIs is a secret too. Be careful, if the game goes through a forced shut-down, you have to start all over again from the beginning. Slight differences are depending on how you talk to them... but even if they don't accept you from that, just tell them: Someone called Rika sent me to hold the party."

"Rika, huh?"

The savior of this place.

"She's a character. The other characters will tell you what kind of character she is, but simply put, she's the one who founded the group in the game. And as I mentioned over the phone, your role in the game is the party coordinator. Depending on how you talk to those potential guests means whether they will attend or decline." He nodded his head. The run-around he was giving me had my head spinning. It was like he was trying to drill the information into my skull over and over to make sure that I understood him. "The number of party guests is also dependent on whether or not a good end is reached, right?" I asked.

That was how it worked, after all.

He nodded his head, pleased. "That's a good guess. It'll spoil the fun if I tell you in advance, if you wanna find out, you'll have to play. Inviting the guests is crucial, try to invite them with whole-heartedly. Don't forget that there will also be interesting events beside the party, within the RFA itself, depending on the choices that you make. You'll have to tell me what you think as you play... even the smallest things are okay. Tell me everything, how the party went, what those characters said to you... That way, I'll know how well the game is going... Your role is important."

I nodded my head and reaffirmed my words. "You can count on me."

My gut told me if I didn't do what they asked I would be in trouble.

"You're very confident! I'm also getting more confident thanks to you. I'll work even harder making his app. It was worth waiting for a tester." That last comment seemed to be more for himself than for me. He outstretched his hand towards me with a lift of his right hand. "Here, hand me your phone, I'll add the app for you."

"Here." I lifted the gadget from my bag and into his waiting hands.

"Thanks, it will only take a few minutes!"

I was being used for something.

Rika's sick little game with her former organization couldn't be stopped quickly.

"Do you have any more questions about the game?" He asked.

There was something I was curious about. "I'm a little more interested to learn about you, Ray." I inquired. "I mean, this is your creation after all. The more I know about you the more that I can understand your game and give you feedback worth listening to, you know." The more that I understood about him the more natural it might have been for me to understand my environment. What was going on in Magenta? What year was it? What was the RFA going through if Saeran was like this? The boy in front of me was much softer than the Unknown I knew. As we looked into each other's eyes, I could see something in them that I often held.

Ray seemed startled by the admission. "Me? Hahaha... You're more interesting then I thought. Though I'm not a character inside of the game. I've always dreamed of someone who's a good listener to what I say. My voice is quite small... Most people don't seem to listen very well. Oh, I know I keep emphasizing this but... don't forget to keep the secret, alright? Don't ever... try to get game over easily, promise me that, please?"

"Of course." I didn't want to face something grim.

He handed my phone back to me with a smile. "Thanks a lot! I want to talk to you some more, but I have to get going now, Wisteria. I want you to give it your best, party coordinator." Ray made the move to head to the door after this. I turned around to watch him take a few steps towards the door and when his hand touched the knob - the words left my lips before I could stop myself.

"Wait."

He didn't move.

"My name isn't Wisteria."

"Oh?" Ray was staring at me from the corner of his vision, he didn't say much else when I spoke. I'm sure he had his theories if he hadn't found out already by going through my phone. "Is that so?"

"It's not safe to give out your name over the internet so easily you know. That's why people use usernames in the first place, sometimes you chose something you like other times you just let the default stick as you did with Unknown." That was a layer of protection, be it chosen or not. Nobody wanted everyone to know who they were, it was easier to pretend. I wanted to trust Ray because I knew he could be good. Anybody else with the right mind would have refused him and called the police about the operation. That was the realistic option. But if I dropped the line and did that would it solve the problem of me being a different country by myself? How would I know that that was going to do it? Even if I said no to him in the first place, was somebody watching me while I was on the phone with Ray? Would they have gotten me if I didn't?

What was even a stronger thought was: I couldn't be sure that I even existed in this reality. There was a massive possibility that any attempts at searching for me would be filled with confusion and endless error screens. If nobody knew I existed here, then there wasn't a chance of getting out of the situation unscathed. I didn't have any records. No one could come looking for me. I guess it didn't matter if I gave my name or not. The only traces of who I was were with me. It wouldn't hurt me if Ray at least knew my first name.

"Is there a reason why you chose that one?" Ray asked, breaking my train of thought.

"I guess you could say that, or it could no different than how you accepted Unknown as yours," I said. "It's just one of those things you learn the truth of after you've been friends for a while." I wasn't sure why I felt compelled to be honest with him. Somewhere inside of me, I knew that Saeran wasn't intentionally a villain in this story, he had been coerced and deceived by Rika for a long time and it took its toll and twisted him into someone he was not. I wanted to trust him, or maybe I just wanted him to trust me. "And - And if we're going to working together from now on, then, then I would like us to be friends someday."

I lifted my head and looked at him. "It's Lila."

"Lila, huh?" With those words in his mind, he exited the room and went back to who knows where in the building. This was different then the Mystic Messenger I had been playing, the last route I had completed was Seven - It had seemed to be the route that explained everything and cleared up all the answers that we learned along the way in the other routes with the RFA members.

The fact that I was standing here meant there had to be something more to the game or this was some kind of alternate universe. The moment Saeran- no, Ray left me to my thoughts was the first moment that I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror. I had to do a double take on my reflection. "It's me...?" I raised my hand to the mirror - my fingertips brushing against the edge of the cold glass. It looked like me, but at the same time, it didn't seem like it was me. It was as if I were me, but I wasn't me.

As if it wasn't jarring enough to my vision for the world to appear two dimensional- it appeared as though I had been changed to match my surroundings. My eyes and hair were the same color as always, brown as always. My features were much more subtle here, I almost wasn't sure this was me. I was wearing the same dress that I had on when I left my house this morning, my hair was tucked back with the black bow I always pulled it in when I wanted it out of my face and a reassuring pinch lets me know this was more than mere fantasy. My figure was as thin as it had become... I knew underneath my clothes there was the body I hated and yet it still belonged to me. It was like I had become a drawing in my own notebooks and not in a good way. My heart pounded in my chest at a resounding rate.

"It is me."

My phone went off in my hand. I lifted it into view and saw the notification alerting me to an open chatroom that I could enter. That meant that my game had officially begun.

Wisteria has entered the chatroom.

#mystic messenger #mystic mess #saeran choi #saeran x oc #fanfiction #saeran x mc #mystic messenger fanfic #canon divergence #self insert #you have been warned #original character

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mosylufanfic · 6 years

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Killervibe + 10 or 18 (I can't decide lol)

I thought these were both pretty cute, so you may see the other one eventually, but for this story I picked - well, you’ll see.

Dodging the Clue Bat

"And that's how I ended up standing naked on the Brooklyn Bridge on Christmas Eve," Barry finished up.

Cisco pinched the bridge of his nose. "That's a hell of a story, man. Glad to see you found some clothes. Merry Christmas, I'll see you -"

"These clothes are terrible," Barry interrupted.

Cisco looked him up and down. True, the I (Heart) NY t-shirt strained at Barry's shoulders and exposed his belly button, and yeah, the sweatpants hit him mid-shin, but - "They're literally covering your ass," he pointed out. "They're fine until you get home. In like three seconds," he hinted broadly.

Barry had always been gloriously impervious to hints. "What if I have to make a save? I can't do it like this."

"Do you honestly think I have a Flash suit lying around my apartment, just in case you knock on my door at half after midnight?"

"I - maybe?"

Cisco stared him down.

"Okay," Barry said. "You don't. But can you help me anyway?"

"If it's that damn important, just zip over to Star Labs and grab one of the spares."

"Oh, I guess I could do that, huh."

"Mhm. Or alternatively, you could take your genuine Little Italy gelato directly back to Iris's pregnant ass because she's been waiting for it for like an hour in the middle of the night."

"Did I wake you up? I'm sorry."

"No," Cisco said. "But I was kind of in the middle of something, and I'd like to get back to it."

"What were you in the midd - " Barry's feet hooked in a puddle of green cloth, and he almost tripped. "Whoa! What's this?" He reached down and picked it up.

Cisco went very still.

"Dude," Barry said. "Dude! Is there someone here? Like an overnight guest?” He punched Cisco’s shoulder. “Why didn't you tell me?"

"Do you remember when I opened the door ten minutes ago and said ‘I can't talk right now?'"

Barry blinked a few times. Clearly, he didn't.

"Yeah, well, that's why."

"Oh my god! When did this happen?"

"Uh - "

"Is she cute?"

Cisco looked at him oddly for a minute, then said, "Yeah, I think she's really cute."

"Why didn't you tell me you met someone new?"

Cisco looked at him oddly for another minute. "Because I didn't," he said. "I've known her for a few years now, but we just recently decided to try this out. See where it goes."

"Wow," Barry said. "Way to loop your best friend in, man." He actually looked a little hurt.

"Sorry, but we haven't told anyone. We're taking it slow. Not really spreading the news around until we feel like it's going to stick. So if you'd - you know. Button the lip on this."

"Oh, yeah, yeah." Barry mimed the action. "Hey, if you want, I can turn up sometime. As the Flash. Tell her I know you and that you're awesome."

Cisco chewed on his cheek a moment. "That's generous, man. Thank you. But Vibe already vouched for me, so - "

"Oh, right, I guess two superheroes would be overkill." Barry rubbed the back of his neck. "So I guess I should go, shouldn't I?"

"So soon?" Cisco said, opening the front door. "Aww, gee. Good night, man. Merry Christmas."

"Bye," Barry said, and was gone, touristy t-shirt and all.

Cisco rolled his eyes and shook his head. Finally. He went back to his bedroom.

In the doorway, he stopped and savored the sight of Caitlin in the middle of the disordered blankets, propped up against his pillows, wearing one of his t-shirts and playing on her phone. She looked up. "You finally got rid of him?" she asked, tossing her phone on the bedside table.

"Finally," he said, climbing into bed next to her and kissing her on the lips.

"I was starting to think I'd have to go out here like this," she said, kissing him back and stroking her hands down his chest.

"Mmm," he murmured. "No, it's probably better you didn't. It might have broken him."

"You think he suspected it was me?"

Cisco snorted. "He deadass picked up the dress you were wearing all night at Joe and Cecile's party, looked right at it, and asked me when I'd met someone new. No. He had no clue."

"Good old Barry," Caitlin said. "On the other hand, Iris is probably going to take one look at us and know I spent the night here."

"Probably," Cisco acknowledged, kissing her neck. His hand slipped under the hem of the t-shirt she wore. "So we should make tonight worth it before we get all the West-Allens up in our business."

She gave a pleased hum as his hand drifted higher up under the shirt. "If you ask me, we’ve already made tonight more than worth it.”

"Well, you know me," he murmured, pushing the shirt up over her breasts. "Thorough."

She giggled and pulled him down into the blankets with her.

FINIS

#Cisco Ramon #Caitlin Snow #killervibe #fanfiction #mosylufanfic lives up to her damn name #birthday prompt party #Barry is a goober #fluff #the flash #Anonymous

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setaripendragon · 6 years

Text

Girl Genius - Role Swap???

This idea occurred to me last night, and I’m still trying to work out how all the pieces would fit together, but I’m really enjoying what I’ve got so far.

At first I just thought ‘what if one of the boys was the Heterodyne heir instead, and Agatha was either the Storm Queen or the Princess of Skifander?’ but then I thought ‘no, what if Agatha was still the Heterodyne, but either the daughter of an ‘illegitimate’ emperor or the daughter of a well-established noble family?’

What if Barry, on getting back from killing Lucrezia, took one look at the mess Europa was in and lost his temper in the most epically Sparky way: ‘I spent my entire life cleaning up your damned messes, and this is what you do when we disappear for a few years?! No. If you can’t be trusted to keep Europa clean yourselves, I will make you, and you will like it! No more nice Heterodyne!’ so he goes back to Mechanicsburg with bb!Agatha, and he’s travelworn and weary and grieving and has a massive case of PTSD (...if it can really be Post Traumatic Stress Disorder when the stress hasn’t stopped yet), this little blonde toddler in breakthrough on his hip, and he goes straight to the Jagerhall, and they’re all stunned, and so relieved to see one of their boys home safe after so long, and to see him in their hall, when Bill and Barry always used to avoid the Jagers as much as they could...

And Barry just ‘Get everyone ready to march; we’re conquering Europa.’

The cheering probably did literally knock the roof off the jagerhall (they are jagers) and Gkika absolutely made Barry sit down and get a hot meal inside himself, and Agatha is completely doted on by every single jager ever, but then Barry goes off to war, taking most of the jagers with him, and Agatha gets left in Mechanicburg, with an honour guard of jagers, because the geisterdamen are probably still looking for her, and feeling really rather abandoned. I don’t think she’d have quite the same identity issues as Gil, because I don’t think there’s any way to hide her identity from her when she’s the Heterodyne Heir living in Mechanicsburg, but it may leave her similarly isolated from her peers. All the other kids would love to be her minion, but that’s not quite the same as having a friend who’s an equal.

Which is where Gil and/or Zeetha comes in. Of course, in this AU, Klaus is playing the role of Aaronev, although it’s his loyalty to Bill, rather than Lucrezia, that leads him to join Barry’s budding empire while secretly plotting to undermine it. Because, really, Barry is acting disturbingly like an Old Heterodyne, and Klaus doesn’t like it, and he’s pretty sure Bill wouldn’t like, and someone needs to be there to nudge Barry away from more despotic behaviour like ‘no, you can’t just kill anyone you think is incompetent, you think everyone’s incompetent’

I’m thinking that things in Skifander went differently from what little we know, and that Zantabraxus was killed, probably in some sort of civil war over her consort and/or kids and, since she’s taking the role of old Andronicus, maybe possibly was ressurected by Klaus into a terrible ravening monster that promptly had to be sealed away to protect the city. And of course with Zantabraxus dead, the main protection for Gil and Zeetha was gone, so Klaus scooped them up and ran, to give them a chance to grow up safely and then return to claim their birth-right.

In that sense, it would make sense for Zeetha to be the younger sibling (by a few minutes, because I’m too fond of them as twins to change that), because she would be the heir, being the girl, even if Gil was older than her, which matches better to the dynamic Tarvek and Anevka have. In which case it would be Zeetha, not Gil, who wound up visiting Mechanicsburg and becoming BFFs with Agatha, but perhaps it should be both of them... Because then, they’d end up discovering that Agatha’s mother was the Other, which distresses Agatha into a fugue, which would be even worse if she dragged Gil into it with her, that does enough damage that Barry comes home and has to explain about her parents to Agatha and sends Gil and Zeetha home. Maybe he does that because Agatha got them hurt during her fugue? I’m still trying to work out what could have happened to Gil to parallel the ‘abomination of science’ trait Anevka has.

Which brings me to the Sturmvoraus siblings. Tarvek gets to be the long lost heir to the Storm King, who honestly has no idea of his heritage, because he was too young when Barry Heterodyne smashed through the Storm King conspiracy and murdered most everyone involved, including Tarvek’s father, and probably Anevka too, and maybe it’s Margolotta who snatches up Tarvek and flees with him. She ends up running to Beetleburg, where Tarsus Beetle is more than happy to protect the heir to the Storm Kind legacy. After all, one day, Tarvek will have command of the Muses, and we all know that Beetle loved the Muses.

And I don’t know exactly how it would work, okay, but to parallel the whole ‘being left with constructs’ deal, I really, really want Tarvek to be raised by Eotain and Shrdlu while Margolotta goes off to see if she can discover if any remnants of the Smoke Knights or anyone survived. Of course, the geisters are still trying to get at Agatha, but Barry and the jagers have been hunting them pretty relentlessly, and they haven’t been able to get at her. (Actually, maybe Barry did try to hide Agatha’s identity? With the locket to suppress her Spark and orders to the jagers not to tell her... basically so the geisters are left thinking their holy child died.)

Huh. Maaaybe Margolotta (or Tarvek’s mother, even? Do we know her name?) actually got a copy of Lucrezia downloaded into her brain, and she was still trying to salvage the ‘Heterodyne girl marrying the Storm King’ plot, so she handed Tarvek off to a couple of trusted geisterdamen and then went to try and sabotage Barry and discover what happened to Agatha, only maybe that copy of her personality was corrupted, or a non-spark mind just can’t handle her consciousness for very long, and her sanity started degrading as time went on. Anyway, Tarvek grows up ignorant, with only vague memories of his family, and Eotain and Shrdlu as the only parents he’s ever really known. And he knows he’s a Spark, but he also knows that Eotain and Shrdlu are trying very hard to stay incognito, so he learns how to repress it himself.

Which brings us to the beginning of the comic. I’m pretty sure that Beetle would still try to hide the hive engine, because the geisterdamen can command Lucrezia’s ‘lesser servants’ which I assume includes revenants, and if he was going to try and use Agatha to command them, he might also try to use Eotain and Shrdlu. Either way, Barry isn’t quite as circumspect or subtle as Klaus, or willing to give people the benefit of the doubt anymore, so he just comes down on Beetleburg like a tonne of bricks.

And Tarvek gets to meet Agatha, who’s finally been allowed out of Mechanicsburg to help her Uncle purge her mother’s works, and maybe finally been allowed to break through, so she’s pretty furious and in full Sparky fugue (Barry has been in varying levels of a fugue state since he got back to Europa, it’s not very healthy at all, and it makes him a pretty terrible role model for Agatha), and severely intimidating to Tarvek. But when he goes home after Beetle’s dead, Eotain and Shrdlu are like ‘-gaaasp- The Holy Child!’ and are all set to go and try and kidnap her right away. But Tarvek, of course, loves his creepy ghost mums, and knows that they’d be worse than dead if the Heterodyne caught them, so he offers to go, instead. Get into Barry’s good graces (if he has any), charm Agatha, and maybe convince her to run away with him.

So, he probably courts Agatha, reveals himself as a Spark, and Agatha insists on him coming back to Mechanicsburg with her. At which point, Tarvek begins putting the pieces together of who the geisterdamen’s Lady really is, and he’s not morally against mind control to start with, because he’s still under the impression that the Lady is benign. But he’s actually falling in love with Agatha, and Agatha reveals that her mother was going to overwrite her brain, and it dawns on Tarvek that if he doesn’t like the idea of that happening to Agatha, it probably shouldn’t be done to anybody.

Buuut, just as he’s having this change of heart, Barry finds out he was raised by geisterdamen, and Tarvek is forced to flee. (Agatha is not happy about her Uncle scaring off her boyfriend, maybe she even counts it as the second time he’s done that, depending on what happened with Gil and Zeetha and discovering her identity.) And he flees right into the arms of Master Payne’s Circus of Adventure, where he meets Tinka and Moxana, who promptly recognises him as a direct descendant of old Andronicus Valois, and reveal his Storm King heritage to him.

He also meets a charming young actor who looks just like Bill Heterodyne, except for the rather impressive scars over the majority of his body, who was picked up by the Circus when he was very small somewhere near Mechanicsburg. His name is Klaus Barry.

Now, I have no idea how Klaus Barry would have survived the attack on the Castle, but I’ve got some vague ideas of maybe Von Pinn attempting to use some of the Sparky devices in Lucrezia’s lab or something to revive him, and whatever it was didn’t work quite right, so Klaus Barry is sort of... only half there, sometimes. Or maybe Von Pinn took him through the portal thingy? I don’t know. I’m also undecided on whether Von Pinn should have gone with him, or stayed in Mechanicsburg and wound up playing nursemaid to Agatha. But Klaus Barry is still a bit of a nascent hero (maybe he even blew up a pirate fortress once, by complete accident, he swears, he has no idea how that happened) and he helps Tarvek figure out his morals/political standpoint and totally accidentally starts training him to be King.

Either way, the Circus eventually ends up rolling through Wulfenburg, and I have no idea why they take an interest in Tarvek, maybe Gil has a clank limb or something after the Agatha incident, and Klaus (Wulfenbach) wants to study the muses to help him, and Tarvek is protective enough to be like ‘if you’re taking them, I’m staying too’, or maybe Gil just goes to have a look, and he and Tarvek end up geeking out over amazing clanks together, and Gil invites Tarvek back to his labs (you know, for coffee- or rather, science!) and then Klaus (Wulfenbach) recognises Tarvek as the boy Barry was hunting, and promptly imprisons him, though not with any intention of handing him over to Barry until he knows what the hell is going on.

Gil (and Zeetha, and Klaus Barry, and the Muses) help Tarvek escape, obviously, and after that...

Well, the whole ‘reclaiming his throne’ thing could either happen in Sturmhalten, which is where Tarvek’s family lived, but maybe it should happen in/around Paris, and whatever the GG equivalent of the palace of Versailles is. It could be fun to drag everyone to Paris early, where perhaps Seffie is hiding from the rampaging Heterodyne out to murder her family. (And you know, madly in love with Colette, but resentfully resigned to the need to marry a guy to continue the family line and produce an heir to the Storm King, but then Tarvek shows up, which not only means she doesn’t have to worry about continuing the bloodline, but also Tarvek is, given who he was raised by (and the fact that he’s falling pretty hard for Gil), very supportive of inverts, and encourages Seffie to follow her heart, because he’s actually a sappy romantic under all that plotting and pragmatism.) (And of course, Tarvek and even Gil and Zeetha and Klaus Barry get into Paris just fine (maybe Agatha sent Vanamonde to protect Tarvek when she heard about him being in Wulfenburg?) but the Master of Paris is just like NO HETERODYNES when Agatha and Barry try to get in, so Agatha convinces Barry to let her try and get in incognito, and she does manage it long enough to find Tarvek and Gil, but then there could be drama with the Master of Paris trying to kick her out, and Tarvek putting his foot down and excersizing his Kingly rights?)

I have no idea how things would all fall out in the end, but I really kind of love this AU so I thought I’d share.

#Girl Genius #role swap au #Agatha Heterodyne #Gilgamesh Wulfenbach #Tarvek Sturmvoraus #rambly ramblings #sort of a not-fic

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amylillian22 · 7 years

Text

I’m Nothing Without Her – Part 3 - Liam Dunbar Imagine

Requested: Yes

Word Count: 1,674

Warnings: curse words

Author’s Note: I’m so sorry this took forever! I’ve been extremely busy, but here it is. The final chapter to the mini I’m Nothing Without Her series. I hope you enjoy it. Also, this wasn’t beta-proofed, so sorry for any grammar errors.

[My Teen Wolf Master List]

[Part 1] [Part 2]

I watched Liam and Brett from the sidelines, standing next to my teammate Nolan. The team was completely quite as Brett ran towards Liam. Brett tricked him into thinking he was running to the left side before he changed his mind and ran to the right side. Liam missed Brett completely and ended up falling to the ground. Brett pulled his lacrosse stick back before he flung it forward, letting the lacrosse ball fly straight into the net, scoring a goal. The guys on the sidelines “Oooh-ed”, completely impressed by Brett’s trick.

“Perfect split dodge,” Brett explained the play to us with a smirk on his face. He walked backwards until he reached the middle of the lacrosse field. He picked up the ball with his stick and started running towards Liam again. Liam charged towards Brett, only to be shoved to the side with Brett’s shoulder, making him stumble to the ground again. Liam quickly looked up and saw Brett make another goal.

“Perfect rocker,” Brett said as he walked by Liam. The guys were impressed by Brett’s lacrosse skills.

“Just remember to cover your back, especially if your opponent’s a dick,” Liam explained to us as his eyes never left Brett’s.

“You got some pretty big cleats to fill with Scott leaving. You ready for all of this?” Brett asked Liam.

“I managed all summer,” Liam answered, causing me to roll my eyes as I let out a small scoff.

“Summer’s over.”

With my werewolf hearing, I could hear Liam panting heavily as he stared at Brett. I didn’t need my werewolf senses to know he was getting angry. Everyone on the sidelines could see it. Liam was pissed Brett was kicking his ass on the field in front of everyone. As captain, he shouldn’t be this bad. Maybe if he got his head out of his ass and used his werewolf powers, Liam would give Brett a challenge.

The entire team stayed quiet as we watched Brett running towards Liam again. Brett shoved Liam to the ground, his legs flying in the air before his back hit the hard ground again. The guys “Oooooo-ed”again. Liam grunted and huffed as he slowly got up from the ground. His anger was only getting worse by the second. I had no doubt he would be shifting any minute. Even though we weren’t speaking to one another, I knew he was having trouble with his shift with everything going on in his life.

I turned around and saw Mason and Brett’s sister, Lori, sitting on the stands, watching Brett and Liam on the field. They were talking about the first game starting in a couple of weeks before I looked back at Brett and Liam on the field. They somehow ended up inside the goal’s net with Corey. When they untangled themselves and got up, Liam’s breathing was getting heavier by the second. He walked back to his position and if looks could kill, Brett would be a dead man.

Brett was back at the center of the field. He picked up the lacrosse ball with his lacrosse stick again and ran towards Liam. Except this time, Liam bent down and threw Brett over his shoulder, instantly sending him to the ground. Liam picked up the ball and ran towards Corey, whose eyes grew wide with fear. Liam flung the ball to the net, making Corey fall back and the ball going inside the net.

Brett quickly got up and ran towards Liam. “There he is! There’s that IED I remember. What’s it stand for?” He asked.

I heard Liam’s heart racing against his chest. My eyes flickered from his chest to his eyes, which turned gold as he gripped the lacrosse stick tight in his hands. He was seconds away from shifting and I knew I had to do something before anyone on the team would notice.

"Intermittent Explosive Disorder?" Brett asked Liam.

Suddenly, I was mad as I walked towards them. I don’t know what Brett’s plan was, but him taunting Liam wasn't helping. Being a werewolf himself, he should know better than to try and provoke an angry beta with anger issues.

"That's enough, Brett," I said as I shoved him back and stood between them, creating some distance between the two.

"Aww," Brett cooed, "Liam's little girlfriend is here to protect him."

"She's not my girlfriend." "I'm not his girlfriend," Liam and I said at the same time.

"Oh, that's right. She's your best friend," he smirked before his eyes landed on me. "In that case, can I ask her out, Dunbar?"

I crossed my arms to my chest as I stared at Brett. I had no idea what he was doing, but I didn’t like it. I could practically feel Liam's anger radiating off of him. Even though I should have played along with Brett and purposely hurt Liam, because he deserved it, I couldn’t do it. Deep down, a part of me didn’t want to hurt him because I still cared about him.

"No," Liam gritted between his clenched teeth.

"Why not?" Brett asked.

"Because I said so," Liam answered as he took a step forward.

"Liam-" I said as I placed my hand on his chest, stopping him from getting any closer to Brett.

"What are we in 3rd grade?" Brett chuckled at Liam's childish answer. "That's not a good enough reason."

Liam let out a low growl, his eyes turning yellow once again. I turned around and placed both my hands on his chest, holding him back. "Liam-"

Liam looked over my shoulder and ignored me as he stared down at Brett. "Because I'm in love with her!" He snapped loudly.

"Oh snap!" Someone from the sidelines whispered, but us three heard it loud and clear with our werewolf hearing. Soon the guys were talking about how they’ve always known Liam and I had a thing for each other. Some assumed we had already been dating or sleeping with each other.

My hands dropped from Liam's chest before I turned around to look at Brett. I hated him for taunting Liam and making him admit how he supposedly felt about me in front of everyone when I knew deep down nothing was going to happen between us. Now the guys were starting rumors about our “friendship”.

"You know what? Fuck you, Brett, and your need to always push our limits just to try and prove a point!" I snapped before I walked off the lacrosse field. I quickly brushed the fallen tears from my cheeks, hoping no one saw them.

"Y/N!" Liam called after me. I could hear him chasing after me, which only made me walk away from him faster.

"Go away, Liam," I said over my shoulder once I reached the double doors to the locker room building.

"Y/N, please," he begged as he stopped the door with his hand, preventing me from going in.

"What?! What do you want?!" I snapped as more warm tears formed in my eyes.

"You!" He answered without hesitation and with complete honesty.

I shook my head, letting him know it wasn't that simple. "Liam-"

"I want you, Y/N," he said more softly, yet with a hint of pain in his voice. "You have no idea how fucked up I am without you. I thought," he paused for a second and let out a deep sigh as he ran his hand through his sweaty matted hair. "I thought Hayden moving was the worst thing that happened to me, but it wasn't. It was you walking out on me. I'm literally nothing without you, Y/N."

"Liam-" I whispered as tears fell down my cheeks and my heart racing against my chest with his words.

He stepped forward before his hands gently cupped my cheeks. He wiped my tears with the pad of his thumbs. I tried not to crave into his warm touch, but I couldn't help myself.

"Why else would you defend me from Brett? Huh?" He asked as he lifted my chin and looked directly into my tear filled eyes. "Because I know deep down you still care about me," he whispered.

I bit my lip before I spoke, "I'll always care about you, you jackass... I'm in love with you."

Liam's lips formed a small smile, "And I'm in love with you."

I shook my head. "Liam, I would be a rebound-"

"No, you wouldn’t be," he leaned in and captured my lips with his. This time it wasn't forceful like the other day in the locker room, where he seemed like he was trying to prove a point. It was gentle, nice, and slow. The kind every girl wished her first kiss would be like, pure bliss. I wrapped my arms around his neck and sunk into the kiss as he released the butterflies in my pit of my stomach. He pulled me in closer as I deepened the kiss before he wrapped his arms tightly around my waist. His lips were so soft and gentle as our lips moved in perfect sync. It wasn't rushed or rough. It was sweet and slow, just like how I imagined our first kiss would be like. It was perfect.

When the burning sensation in our lungs was too much, we broke the kiss. Liam rested his forehead against mine, his warm breath fanning against my lips as his chest quickly rose and fell against mine, trying to catch his breath. "Now tell me that didn't feel like a rebound. Tell me what you felt was real," his lips ghosted against mine.

My heart was still racing against my chest as my hand slid down to his chest, just above his rapid heartbeat. I look down at my hand and traced a heart with the tip of my finger.

"I love you, Y/N. I always have. It just took me a while to realize that," he whispered, almost in a apologetic tone.

I took a deep breath before I looked up at Liam, immediately locking my eyes with his sapphire eyes. "I love you, too, Liam... Just..." I trailed for a second, "Please don't break my heart again."

"I promise if you promise to do the same," he whispered back.

"Promise," I sealed with a kiss.

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iammultifandomaf · 3 years

Text

Chapter 34 - New bonds

BROTHERHOOD

https://m.fanfiction.net/s/12211562/34/?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=874edf8ccb3eb224f123b6137111e6cb5ca18407-1610473576-0-AY1c-tA6LiARf8FXte0zH0cKKkr-bsleTg4fZ3QG2ssWDJpAQsUQgEguN7huC6zf5-LZrWKxo5As4M5vwz77ih_OymLqWb4m5ZcnE0chhRwPTF3jix9mnMo2RrIBtkZvYUdO3FPjjxjmV9LTw5KzEt38XzYet0WOZxPa7JIsBMnFNfQEjOZGG4BhZuqJTkjALvx4V6QLBaLhjQYK3_ZAnC-Mz8ADbZHUzTVWMQrpJ_3wJh3cXWBICLKNKL82ZjjS05e1jXfwXHjlNYCDvIv1yMAVLPG45vOGqmeVOxMq3IChRH_5Xvl6xWhdWsDWm5ixlzVRihrWmIIVFX8jP3GVKNlt6dGmOKd5Nnmolr_TpNW-LbBEU6lhuVG3DoQdqDEMUg

"Nothing at all, so, do you have any questions in mind?"

"Questions?"

"Yeah."

"Uhm... why are you so nice to me? After I... did what I did..."

Michendros shrugged and pulled his knee closer so he could rest his chin on it.

"I like talented and smart people and you seem like one of those."

"But–"

"Yeah, yeah," Mich waved with his hand in the air, dismissing his worries, "I know, you did this and that. I did a lot of stuff, too. Life isn't that straight forward, you know?"

"So, you aren't angry with me at all?" Thomas asked with a weak voice.

"Hmm," Mich's eyes wandered away from Thomas' face, "I suppose I am - for hurting my brother. And then again I am angry at myself that I wasnt't there for him for all the years to look after him. He's my little brother after all... I should've paid attention to him.

"What... what can I do so you won't be angry with me?" Thomas asked and felt surprised hearing himself saying that. Mich's piercing eyes landed back at Thomas' who quickly averted his gaze. Michendros smiled and lifted his head from his knee, straightening his back again.

"You may as well say sorry to him."

"Maybe I should say sorry to you, too..."

Michendros changed his posture again by situating his elbow on the knee, using his palm as a support for his chin. His eyes seemed entertained. Thomas noticed that.

"What?" Thomas asked nervously.

"You might as well do that, too," Michendros said calmly, "I wonder, though," Mich continued, "why do you suddenly have the need?"

"I-I don't know... you did help Allison... and... offer me your teachings... it seems appropriate after what I've done."

"So, I am not a monster anymore?" Michendros asked with a very neutral tone, his previous entertainment gone.

For the first time, Thomas really looked in front of him, his eyes meeting a beautiful view of the sea and the sunset. The sunset? Thomas thought. How long have we been here?

Michendros noticed Thomas' focus on the surroundings and his reeking uncertainity. He decided to leave his question unanswered and said: "Don't be worried... we're not in New York, that's why the sun is setting."

Thomas looked at him in surprise and felt a slight relief that he didn't have to answer his question right away.

"Where are we then?" he asked carefully.

"Mageroya." Michendros said shortly.

"Where's that?" Thomas furred his eyebrows, unaware of such place.

"Norway."

"What?"

"It's an island... in Norway."

"How did we get here?" Thomas asked, feeling panic rising in his chest.

"Well, how do you think?"

"I thought... you can teleport to only a reasonable distance."

"Yeah, yeah. That's true. But I have ties to this place, so I can get here, too."

"What ties? The bench?"

This question made Michendros gave out a ringing loud laughter which took Thomas aback. He never thought of this man laughing genuinely since he was only met with controled smirks and small smiles of entertainment which made Thomas feel as if Michendros was belittling him.

"I am sorry," Mich said after he calmed down, "I just thought it's funny. I suppose the bench is a part of it, yeah. You see, after some time, we got a bit bored with Stolos, so I - being the bookworm like Stolos always says - looked for a way how to... well, get some people around us... naturally. So, I figured out this spell which would reincarnate us and we would be born to some parents somewhere in the world. I wasn't really sure if it would work, but when I showed my work to Stolos, he - being a bit impulsive - said let's do it. He casted it and... it happened. I just didn't work out the time aspect of it, so we were thrown in time backwards and were born in a time even before the Roman Empire which is the time when we lived... Stolos was born in nowadays Japan and I was thrown here."

"You were so far apart..."

"Yeah... we were kind of considering that it could happen. But we knew that when we reach in our reincarnation the age when we ceased to be human in our original lives, we'd remember everything again and get our mojo back, we weren't worried much. However, I really did not expect what would happen to me on the first try," Michendros laughed softly.

"What happened?" Thomas asked, catching himself being actually interested in his story.

"Well, everything was fine, I had a nice family, four siblings even and we really loved each other. It was a good childhood. But since we went back a lot... that meant that also a lot of spiritual beings and overall the connections to the nature was deeper which later on lead to some people being actually able to bend the elements but that's another story... What I wanted to say was that it wasn't uncommon to bump into supernatural entities and I unfortunately did so when I was about 12 years."

"How old are you, really?" Thomas said in bewilderment.

"I kind of lost track, to be honest. With reincarnating into different times. We eventually figured it out how to fix the spell to reincarnate chronologically... but for example you activate the spell in the year 570 and you reappear in the year 599. So, after a few of these, I didn't really keep count. I only know when I was born somehow for the first time..."

"Wait, does that mean that how you look like now... you didn't look originally like this?"

"Nope."

"Isn't that... confusing?"

"I don't know... My personality still stays same... somehow, so it's not like I have a disociative disorder or anything."

"Huh... so... when you were twelve?"

"Oh, right. You know Hel?

"Hell?"

"Hel as in the deity."

"I guess not..."

"Well... Hel - and she beared many names. In every culture she was called something else. Mictlanteuchtli, Thanatos, Anubis, Yama and so on... so, her underlings saw me when I was looking for wood in the forest and probably saw me for what I really am. And they took me to her. Hel was amazed by me somehow... however I didn't understand what she said at that time. And she decided to devour me."

"What?!"

"Yeah, well, I guess she thought of me as being some empowering snack... I am not sure. Thankfully, I thought of a back up when creating the spell. That would be that if I or Stolos died before we 'remembered'-"

"Oh yeah, Credence told us that..."

"He did? Oh well... so I suppose that when I was being eaten by her - not a pleasant experience I must say-"

"Did it hurt?"

"Yes," Michendros said shortly, looking at the darkness of the sea in front of them.

"I am sorry," Thomas said quietly.

"No worries. Apparently me getting my mojo back absolutely messed her up because while I was... 'putting myself together' inside of her... the process devoured her as well."

"Wait... what are you saying? That you killed Hel?"

"Yeah... and kind of also became her."

"Are you telling me that you're the god of death?"

"Basically."

Thomas just blankly stared at Michendros, even though he couldn't make up that much. After the sunset, the darkness quickly followed. Now, they were sitting on the bench in pitch dark. Why am I not cold actually? Thomas thought.

"Life is funny sometimes this way. Me becoming a deity was also the reason I and Stolos came to be this way."

"I don't under-"

“The witch who changed us... I met her later in life then... she summoned me with multiple and pretty horrendous sacrifices I must say... and she wanted to devote herself to me. I recognized her as the girl who I met as a young solider... I totally had a crush on her," Michendros laughed and continued, "and I remembered her saying that the gods decided that I and Stolos will become extraordinary... and there I thought... that it might have been me."

"No way," Thomas breathed out in disbelief, being completely absorbed by Michendros' storytelling.

"Haha, yeah... I wasn't sure what to do... but I knew that Stolos and I also had pretty good memories from the lives we lived through and didn't want to lose that. So... I told her to find... well... me and gave her enough spiritual power to give it to us. She was a bit mad I realized... when I saw her like that... but without her, I wouldn't be sitting here now."

"So... you gave yourself your own powers? How does that even work?"

Michendros shrugged and simply said: "If I only knew."

"Shouldn't you be the one who knows?"

"I might know a lot of stuff but I definitely don't know all the secrets of the universe. And I know that unfortunately, a lot of people suffered because of us. Elyana, Dentoros... and heck that's just the beginning."

Thomas didn't ask further and sat there in silence a bit.

"I don't think you're a monster, Michendros," Thomas suddenly said. He felt Michendros' hand grabbing his and squeezing it lightly.

"You aren't all that bad either, Tommy."

Thomas let out a little wheeze which made Michendros laugh, too.

"Why aren't I cold?" Thomas wondered after they calmed down.

"Because I don't want you to be."

#michendros #thomas shelby #brotherhood #new bonds #chapter 34 #fanfic #fanfiction

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isa-ly · 3 years

Text

“I HATE MY LIFE, LMAO”

TW: mental illness, therapy, self-hatred, self-deprecation

Let's start this one off with a text I received a few months ago from a friend, who I hadn't seen or spoken to in a while:

For anyone who isn't fluent in German, it reads as follows: "I'm hip and have a Twitter too now, as you probably noticed. Your own Twitter doesn't sound like you're too doing well. Can I help in any way?"

At first, I was like: "Huh? What does she mean?"

But, well...

Alright, I see her point.

And that's what I'm here to talk about today: Tweeting and joking your sorrows away (and why it's so hard to stop doing it). Before we get into it, however, I want to drop one last screenshot, because it just fits this current situation oh too well, and the irony made me giggle:

Okay, enough social media plugging, let's get back to business.

As you can see, I am quite active when it comes to tweeting about my struggles with mental illness. Which, in this day and age, really isn't a rarity. You just need to take one look at Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, TikTok or any dank meme, to see that joking, down-playing and iRoniCalLy tAkiNg tHe piSs out of personal problems and issues, has become quite the trend for millennials in general. Once again, I'm not the only one guilty of doing that.

Had you asked me a year ago whether or not I thought that constantly ridiculing very serious and traumatic incidents in my life was maybe a bit worrisome, I would have probably gotten very defensive and told you that "it's called coping, okay?” Because hey, making jokes and laughing about the bad things in your life gives them less power over you and helps distract from the pain. And that's good, right? That's what you're supposed to do. Right?

Well.

Dealing with your own issues, whether that's big or small ones, is a very personal process that, quite frankly, no one really gets to have a say in except for you. And yeah, sure, as we all learned by watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, ridiculing and laughing about something that really scares you, loosens the hold said fear has on you and makes it easier to deal with. However, there is a very big difference between the boggards of life (if you don’t get that reference, you clearly weren’t around when J.K. Rowling wasn’t problematic and transphobic yet) and medical mental health issues and disorders.

I am no doctor, I am aware of that, but even I know that having an ironic laugh about a shitty day is something very different to basically verbally abusing yourself and trying to make your own depression or anxiety relatable to ... well, to whom, actually? Random people on the internet? That are never going to really care or react to your self-deprecating jokes? That doesn’t seem like it’ll do much now, does it.

And that’s kind of the whole point, if you’re really honest with yourself. Social media has made it oh too easy to simply shout those invasive, painful and scary thoughts and feelings out into a void before they eat you alive. The thing about a void is, though: You're still alone in it. It doesn't answer you back. It's empty. And it will make you feel that exact emptiness inside you, too. It poses no comfort, it doesn't offer advice, it doesn't give you a hug, a shoulder to cry on or anything, really. It may swallow your word vomit whenever it bubbles out of you, but it will still leave you feeling drained and hollow because there's nothing you get from it in return.

Twitter, Instagram and every other easy-to-access-and-rant-on social media platform lets you dump your initial hurt all over it, but it doesn't lessen the pain. And neither do the self-deprecating jokes and dank depression memes.

I’ll say this once again, for the people in the back (me, I’m talking about myself here, I am the people in the back): Being mentally ill isn't a quirky personality trait, and making a lifestyle and constant comedy show out of is never, ever going to solve your problems and make you feel any better. You'll still be miserable if you don't actually work on solving your issues because you're too busy letting them define you.

Depression is not an aesthetic. Anxiety is not a competition. Panic attacks aren't funny memes.

I'm not saying that you can't and shouldn't joke or laugh about your own problems. Humor can be a very cathartic thing, I'm the living example of it. But staying put in your depression, anxiety or whatever issues you're dealing with, and trying to make a comedy skit out of it every time someone asks you how you are, is only going to make you more comfortable and validated in your own misery. And there are way better places to be comfortable in than that. Trust me.

You are not your mental illness. You are not your disorder. Those things will never define who you are. They're a part of you, yes, but they aren't you. You will always be the one that calls the shots and you always, always have choice and hope on your side. Even when it feels like you are alone and being swallowed whole by the darkness, it is never too early or late to get help. It might feel insincere, it might feel terrifying and impossible. But it never is. That's exactly what your disorders and problems want you to think. But they are wrong.

I had to accept that too. I had to accept that, once again, I wasn't as special of a snowflake as my mental illness painted me to be. By doing that, it simply did what any mental illness does best: it isolated me even more. With every joke, every #relatable tweet, every "lol" behind yet another truly worrisome sentence, I sunk back further and further into the cocoon of loneliness. And, plot twist, you can't finger-gun your way out of depression. Sorry, babes.

So, every time you’re about to chuck out another "I wanna die lmao" in a casual conversation with friends or yet another self-deprecating tweet, just take a second to ask yourself: Is this really a way of coping? Is it really making me feel better? Or is it actually a subconscious, desperate attempt of getting someone, anyone, to see that I'm slowly breaking on the inside?

Again, I don't want this to come across as a self-help guide on how to battle your mental illness. Not at all. If anything, the reason I phrase this blog and all my entries the way I do, is because it's what I need to keep telling myself, every time I revert back to old habits. It's a reminder. For me and, in case you want it to be, for you too. I'm not here to lecture anyone. Well, maybe myself, a little. But everyone makes their own choices and I'm no one's guide or saviour, nor do I want to be. However, I made a promise to myself to really commit to this blog thing, so here I am. I'm my own harshest critic, always have been, so if anything, this is a call out post for my own self-deprecating habits.

Receiving that message from my friend made me realize that even though I would have never admitted it to myself at the time, all those tweets and casually dropped “I’m gonna kms haha lol”s were nothing but very badly disguised cries for help. I was just too much of a coward to admit that to myself. Okay, maybe coward is a bit of a harsh word. I don’t want to diminish my fear or vulnerability just because I know the reason for it now. It’s just that looking back at my own denial, and still sometimes catching myself in moments where I slip back into this behaviour, makes me want to grab myself by the shoulders and shake me until I snap out of it.

Which is why I’m just going to do this through my blog now – for past, present and also future me: Get it together. Stop yourself in your own tracks when you’re about to word-vomit up another cryptic tweet or self-deprecating joke. Instead, talk to a friend. Type up a text. Call someone. Schedule a therapy session. It's always gonna help, way better than forcing out a laugh about something that is in no way a laughable matter. Reaching out is not going to fix everything immediately, but in the long run it will. And that's what we're in for, after all.

You can ask any of my friends and they will tell you that whenever they express feelings of insecurity about sharing their worries to me, I will be quick to stop them in the middle of their sentence to tell them that they can, and always should, talk to me. About any- and everything, be that day or night. It is something that I have been preaching for God knows how long, and I genuinely mean it, too. So, I’ve kind of just been a huge hypocrite by never listening to my own advice. And I knew that. Deep down, I always knew that I was ignoring the exact thing I kept telling the people I loved to do too. And what can I say, I hate being a hypocrite.

I’m not saying that any of this is easy. Hell, it can be the hardest God damn thing ever, especially when you’re as emotionally repressed and inept as I am most of the time. And yes, venting and shit-posting about how much you’ve been crying all day or how much you “hate your own life” might work as a quick fix to let off some of that frustration steam. But it’s never going to actually repair the underlying issues that cause you to feel this shitty in the first place. The only thing that’s gonna do that, is actually talking to people. Whether that is family, friends or a therapist, doesn’t matter. Because other than an Instagram story that disappears after 24 hours, or a tweet that has a 280-character limit, real life people who care about you will actually take the time to listen, say something in return, and provide the comfort and open ear no social media platform or meme ever could. You know that. And I know that too.

So, I want to try and quit lmao-ing my way through life and instead do what I actually, secretly know I am trying to do anyway with all those self-deprecating attempts at morbid comedy: ask for help. No lol’s needed.

#therapy #introspection #social media #oversharing #self-hatred #self-deprecation #self-deprecating humor #mental illness

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dallongrey · 7 years

Text

dallon grey & christopher sterling - session 001

[ the beginning of the session focused on family and chris’ eating disorders. it picks up a few posts in because initially the session moved so quickly chatzy ate it before i could save things!! ]

Dallon nodded, offering a soft smile. "That's nice. I have a sister here, a half sister. Her name's Maddie, Madeleine. It's always good to get to see your family after you've been apart. I'm glad you see it like that-- but instead of being scared, let that motivate you. And consider why you don't want to see her like this. You know you don't deserve it, deep down, if she doesn't. Right? I know it's not that simple, but start from there." She rested her chin in her palm. "I'll tell you something about me. I left home when I was thirteen because my parents kicked me out. For dating a girl. I ended up doing fentanyl for a couple years. And I wish I'd stayed in my sister's life, because she needed me, just like yours does. All of us make bad decisions, and usually they hurt us, and we need something to pull us back out." She frowned when he switched back to the topic of his heart. "Okay. That sounds like bradycardia to me, possibly combined with a weakening of the muscle. But we'd need to follow up to be sure. Bradycardia won't kill you, at least, not like an arrhythmia will. But it's still not something to be ignored." She took a few notes on his explanation, nodding with a small smile. "Alright. That's good, that you don't necessarily want to take it to the limit. You said you know how far you can go, but your body is constantly changing. What you could do before may not be plausible now. You could do exactly what you've done before and die, just like that. So you have to reevaluate what's most important. Going as far as you can, or living? Being there for your sister? I think I know. And you know. It's just a matter of turning that into action."

"That's cool that she's here, kinda. I mean, not cool that she's at a place like this, obviously, but it's cool that you get to see her and stuff. I've got, uh, two sisters that's are older - Sharon and Ella - and then three younger half sisters. Kimber's the one I'm concerned about, though, she's the youngest. I know I don't deserve it, and she especially doesn't, but I've done it since I was, like, thirteen and nothing's ever changed." Really, he was kind of surprised that he hadn't already died, but he was also glad that he hadn't because then he wouldn't be able to be there for Kimber. "That's kinda fucked up. I've never been, like, legit kicked out but I've ran away before. It's just - I've done a lot of bad stuff, things I don't even want Kimber to ever know about. Drugs, drinking, stripping, the occasional prostitution when things were a little too tight with the money situation. Like, I feel like that on top of my medical problems would just be such a huge disappointment to her when she's older because right now she looks up to me. I don't want her to look back and think that I'm just fucked up or something, I don't want that." Chris sighed softly, shaking his head and rubbing at his face. He hated the subject, it hurt him, but he wanted it all on the table. "Bradycardia, that's a big word. I don't think I like that," Chris frowned, biting his lip for a moment before shaking his head a bit. "I don't wanna ever get back on that brink of death thing. That was some fucked up adrenaline kick that I was getting. Like, what can I do next before I actually die? What's gonna be the thing that pushes me over the edge? I don't go as far as I can anymore. If I really wanted to, I'd stop eating all together. But that's an extreme I'm not willing to go to. I mean, what I'm doing now is like nothing compared to what I used to do. I feel like this is kind of an improvement."

"Yeah, I'm glad I get to be here now. I can try to make up for my absence, at least." Dallon raised her eyebrows. "That's a large family. How was it growing up with so many siblings? Was it fun, or kind of overwhelming? Just because you've done something for a long time doesn't mean you can't stop or change." Dallon took another sip of tea, tapping her fingernails against the glass bottle. "Yeah, it was really horrible. They're intolerant and they don't understand that there's a line separating pure Christianity and using it to push a hateful agenda. It's hard to make them see it. I wish I'd tried harder, rather than giving in and leaving. I'm not even sure they would've gone through with it, but they gave me the ultimatum and I'm stubborn, so I walked. We've all done bad things. I've stolen things and pawned them for drug money, lived with guys who were way older than me, all of that-- you just have to work on getting to the point where you're well enough to know you're never going to do any of that again, where you respect yourself, and tell her. The whole thing. And she'll love you, because you came through all of that and you're still here for her." She nodded and typed a request into his file for a heart consult and EKG. "Well, it's definitely not good. But like I said, it could be much worse. And it's not an official diagnosis, we'll have to see what the test results say." She turned back to her notepad, wrote his words down. "Good. It's good to know what about your disorder upsets you, scares you, so we can work to keep you safe from that. And that's a good point-- anything could come out of nowhere and hit you, whether it's an arrhythmia, a seizure, cardiac arrest, organ failure-- that's why eating disorders are the most deadly neurological conditions. But I'm glad to hear you say that. You made a small improvement-- let's just keep doing that, slowly."

"Oh, I didn't grow up with all of them. Just the older two," Chris smiled a little. "Sharon and Ella pretty much raised me when I was a kid, they were always the ones to help me and get me through stuff. Two of my half sisters are my moms, they're only, like, thirteen, and then Kimber's just six." It was a strange situation with his entire family - there was a lot of them, but a lot of them weren't fully related or anything like that. There were a lot of step-parents and extended family that made it all seem kind of overcrowded and weird. "God, that sounds like my mom's family. Nana and Pop were like that, like, really hardcore. I thought they hated me for a while because they always talked down to me and said what I did was wrong, uh - they wanted to say that I was a sinner and all that stuff. Like... it's just hateful and rude. It isn't right. Ultimatums are bullshit, though. I wouldn't choose if someone gave me choices, I'd do what I wanted to just to piss them off more. I just - hate shit like that. I'm scared that Kimber will think infucked her up, uh - I don't want her to think that, if she ends up sick, I did it to her, y'know? That scares me. Then she really would hate me because I would be the influence of her being sick and I don't want that, ever." Chris let out a shaky breath, rubbing at his face and squeezing his eyes shut momentarily. "I just don't wanna go through one of those cat scan machines where you gotta lay super still, those are scary. Like, scarier than dying. I'm more afraid of that than I am of dying from everything wrong with me. I mean, maybe my progress is fucked up and it shouldn't be considered progress, but it's better than not eating or throwing up so hard that I rip open my esophagus, I guess. A lot of people don't consider it to be progress and I fucking hate it, because for me it is progress. I just - hate all of this."

"Ah. I guess that's a pretty nice way to do it. Not a lonely childhood, but not crowded to the point of lacking individual attention. Are you close with all of them, then? There's a pretty big gap between Maddie and I, too, six years. Ah man, little kids are fun. If I had one, I'd spend my whole paycheck on toys, they're so cute." She sighed quietly and laced her fingers together. "You said you *thought* they hated you. Did they make you think otherwise? I think, or I hope-- in most cases, people realize that their prejudice is wrong when it comes down to the people they love. Which is one reason why I wish I'd stayed at home. Maybe they could've learned to change, and Maddie wouldn't have had to-- deal with it. I feel a need to ask-- are there problems that linger, do you think, based on your sexuality? Or do you feel like you've mostly been able to move past that conflict?" She paused. "I think these kinds of disorders are extremely hard to pass on based purely on influence. Addictions are very easy to pass to new generations. But eating disorders are a bit more complex... I think as long as you show her that she's loved, make sure she's not exposed to the things that hurt you, she'll be able to avoid it. I know that was an assumption, but I do think there are painful reasons for what you're doing. If you want to talk through that, let me know." She reached across the desk to touch his hand lightly. "You don't need to go through a CAT scan to detect what we're looking for. So, don't worry about that. An EKG is simple, they'll put little stickers on your chest, doesn't hurt, and then attach the wires to a monitor. Shows the electrical pattern of your heart." She made another note, a suggestion to be careful with wording. "If you see yourself making progress, don't worry about how other people see it. We're focusing on you, so don't think that anything you do isn't enough. Just make sure you keep it going, that's what matters."

"God, there was still a lack of attention," Chris laughed, almost bitterly. "None of us got attention, not a bit. Sharon and Ella were the ones who pretty much raised me, they cared more than momma or daddy did. I'm close to them, though, and Kimber. Not so much with my mom's other two kids, though. They don't really know me, I don't see them often." He paused, picking at the hem of his shirt before glancing up at Dallon. "Six years, huh? That's about how much is between me and my oldest sister - out of the original three of us, I'm the youngest but we were all mistakes, there was no planning on how far apart we'd be in age." Shifting a bit, the blonde started to pick at his shirt again, tearing out a a couple of strings and letting them fall to the floor. "They didn't. They died hating the way I dressed and acted, and they berated the guy I was seeing when they were still in the nursing home and all that. It was bullshit. They never realized or apologized, but it was always brushed off as them being old and Catholic, so I needed to respect them and pretty much stay closeted but I couldn't do that," He stopped briefly, thinking. "I think there's a lot of problems because I couldn't properly get closure, I guess. I got, um... Like, a lot of pent up feelings toward them and just my mom's family in general, most of them were the same way." It was more than just feelings - a lot of it was aggression, and he was afraid to be around them because he'd snap and cause a scene, which would only make them dislike him more and that was the last thing he needed. "Oh, there are, I know there are. The main reason that this all started was because when I moved in with daddy, I was overweight and he was disappointed. He wanted me to be skinny and pretty, it was expected of me. So he did lipo on me at fourteen and then said I had to stay on a diet to keep the weight off, so I got on my own diet of sticking my fingers down my throat. I never really thought it was a big deal, it's been normal to me for years." Looking back up, Chris made eye contact with Dallon and turned his hand over so he could take hers and give it a gentle squeeze. "Little stickers, huh? I like those. What if it comes out bad, though?" He frowned. "The other doctors and stuff won't accept it as progress, though. They think it's still bad, and it is, but it's better than being worse. It isn't fair 'cause the ones in the cafeteria won't leave me the fuck alone."

Dallon drew a small star and wrote in his words again. **No attention, not a bit. "I see. That must've been very hard to deal with. I'm sure it was comforting to have your sisters there. Do you have any idea why your parents were so absent? --Are you worried your sister might be put in the same position?" She nodded, taking note of the word *mistakes.* "That's so sad... I pity people who die ignorant and blind... I think one of the most important parts of life is learning to adapt and coexist. It's sad to me when people fail to do that." She nodded and flipped the page, wanting to keep what they were about to come to on its own page. "That's totally understandable. I resent my parents, and I know my sister does, too. It's okay not to love or respect toxic people, no matter what people expect." She nodded, kept her eyes on him as she wrote. **Skinny and pretty **Liposuction 14 **Diet --> bulimia. She offered a smile when he squeezed her hand. "I understand, it was-- what you thought you had to do. But you don't. If the test comes out with a negative result, we'll take action. If you're prone to arrhythmias, we might put in an internal defibrillator. The most obvious course of action for bradycardia would be to increase caloric intake, since your heart is likely slowing down to conserve energy. They might also put in a pacemaker." She nodded. "I get what you're saying. It is bad, but each step that's better than the last is progress. We're going to appreciate whatever you can do."

"They were alcoholics, both of them. They had Sharon straight out of high school and daddy was going to college, so he didn't help much and my mom couldn't deal with it, I guess. I dont know. They shouldn't have had kids but they did, and we all suffered for it. It wasn't fair," They were either being ignored or used as punching bags - it had become normalized to them. "Yeah, I am. My stepmom is just as bad, I've always been the one who takes care of Kimber because nobody else can get their head out of their own ass long enough to do it." It scared him - he knew that if things continued how they were, Kimber would come out of it fucked up just like he had, and that was the last thing he wanted. "Right? Like, this isn't the fifties anymore, older people have to learn to adapt to the new age and deal with how we are, whether they like it or not. Like, damn Barbara, I don't like you being a biblethumber but I'm not gonna smack it out of your hands and be intolerant." It was strange to Chris that religion was the first example he could come up with, considering that his entire family was Catholic, but they seemed to be the most intolerable of them all. He took a sip from his bottle of water, rolling it between his hands slowly. "At the time, I had to. I still have to, I think, or else daddy will hate me. He'll hate me if I ever come home fat because he's worked so hard to make me how I am now, it would all be ruined," That scared him - he didn't want to be rejected by the person he'd always worked so hard to please. "Defibrillator? Is that the thing they use to shock your heart if you're dying? What's a pacemaker?" Chris didn't understand much about medical things, and that was pretty clear - he'd never been educated about such things, even his experience at Glendale was the first time he'd ever gotten a real explanation about what was wrong with him. "I just - wanna be better, yknow? I want custody of Kimber and I can't get that if I'm not better."

"I understand... in that situation, I think it's important to realize that-- they aren't necessarily against you, and there's nothing wrong with you that caused them not to give you the attention you needed. I mean, you love your sisters, and they love you-- it was just poor timing. If you had been born after extensive rehab, I'm sure everything would have been different. You're right, it wasn't fair." Dallon nodded and sighed. "Alright. Then we better get you out of here as soon as possible. What are you willing to do to get her back? We'll start there." She took a few notes on his dad, glancing up occasionally. "You think if you treat yourself with respect and get back to a healthy lifestyle, he'll hate you? Why is that? If he never gave you affection when you were younger-- why would you do this to yourself, for him? What's the motivation? The way I see it, his love should be unconditional. If not... it's not worth having." She nodded. "A defibrillator normalizes the electrical conduction of the heart. Electrical pulses travel from the sinoatrial node to the Bachmann's bundle, then to the atrioventricular node, to the Bundle of His, to the left and right bundle branches and the purkinje fibers at the bottom of your heart, making the atria contract, then the ventricles. The defibrillator fixes any problems in the pattern. A pacemaker is like a fake sinoatrial node, and it makes sure your heart stays on rhythm even when there's not necessarily an arrhythmia that requires a defibrillator. Let me know if you want me to go over any of that again. Then if the cardiologist finds a problem, it'll be easier to understand." She gave a thumbs up, taking note of his desire for custody. "Great. That's what I was hoping you'd say. We're gonna get you better. If you work with me, I promise I'll get you out of here."

"It's just - it seems like they didn't care about us, yknow? They were busy drinking and daddy was in school, so there was never any time for us. It sucked, I didn't have a good childhood. Like, at all. Neither of them ever went to rehab, though, they just kinda drifted apart and that helped things, I guess. They were better after they got divorced." His mother had gotten better - Todd, not so much. His alcoholism never quite went away, and Chris had dealt with it his entire life but ever realized just how much of a problem it was because it had become so normal to him. "God, I'd do anything for her. Anything I had to do - I'm willing to do anything for her." Kimber was the most important person in his life, and not having her was such a struggle for him. It was bad, and he knew it, but he kind of relied on her to preserve his sanity. "I know he'll hate me," He shrugged. "I love him. I just - I want his approval. I crave it, constantly. I'd do anything to make him happy with me, I mean I already do. I just... it isn't unconditional. It should be, but it's not. If I do what he wants me to do then he'll love me and he won't leave me again." That seemed to be the deep rooted cause of a lot of his problems; Chris was afraid that daddy was going to leave him again, and he wasn't sure how he could survive without him. Of course, he'd done it in the past during his phase of running away from home, but that was different. That was his decision to leave - he wasn't the one being left. "That's - a lot. Do those things go inside your body, then?" Chris asked, raising his brows. "Do they hurt? I mean, do thy shock you if your heart starts acting funny or what?"

"I'm sure it did. And it's hard to say whether or not they cared. Sometimes with addictions, it's hard to focus on what previously would've been more important than the substance. Sometimes, people are just not prepared to have kids, and don't connect with them like they should. I'm glad the separation helped. It often does with addicts, considering the aspect of codependence." Dallon flashed a quick thumbs-up. "That's good. So, even when it's hard to work and make progress for yourself, remember that you're also working to make her life better. But it can't always be for her-- it has to be for you, at the end of the day." She sat forward and clasped her hands tightly. "If he'll hate you, you don't need his approval. You can't let him maintain such a place of importance when he doesn't reciprocate it. If you have to hurt yourself to be loved by him, it's a toxic relationship. It's abusive and poisonous and it's okay for you to acknowledge that. And realize that you don't need him. I want to address this completely." She nodded slowly, still processing everything he'd said. "Yes, both would be implanted. I've heard that some people can feel the shock, but don't necessarily say it hurts. Some people don't feel it. The pacemaker will send an electrical signal like the sinoatrial node, a low energy signal. The defibrillator will essentially do the same thing, but is typically used for more serious arrhythmias or for people who frequently experience them or cardiac arrest."

"It just feels like they didn't care because they didn't raise us very much, I guess. I mean, they were around, but it was my nana and pop more than anything. They did a lot for us." Chris shrugged, shifting in his chair so he could pull his feet up, propping them in the chair so his legs folded against his chest. "I don't know what I'd do without her, honestly. She's my best friend and, like, confidant. Maybe that's bad to put pressure like that on a six year old, but she's all I've got, yknow? My older sisters have their own lives, I don't really know momma's other kids, so she's what I have left." He felt kind of guilty for doing that to his sister - but if he wasn't doing it for her, then it was all for nothing. Chris didn't care about himself enough to do anything specifically for himself, it all had to be for Kimber. "He's just - I love him a lot, I don't want him to be disappointed in me. He will be if I do anything different than what he wants, yknow? I feel like he knows what's best for me." All Todd had ever done was put him down, but that didn't change anything. He loved his father too much to change anything. "I just don't want it to shock me and actually hurt, yknow? That's kinda scary. Like Frankenstein or something. It'll be bolts out of my chest instead of my neck or something, that's freaky."

"Maybe at some point they would be able to come in for a family session. And we could talk through all of this, since I can't speak for them." Dallon nodded again. "That's okay to see her as a best friend. You can support each other, to a degree. I think you know what's too much for her to know about right now, but eventually, you can tell her everything. And even if your sisters have lives apart from yours, I know they'd want to help you as much as they can." She sighed heavily, not exactly sure how to address this, even after years of school. The memory of leaving home, now knowing what they'd done to Maddie, made it hard to speak positively regarding poor parents. "I understand that you love him. But you can't hurt yourself for him to love you-- that's horrific and abusive. He doesn't know what's best if this is what he's made you do. You will die if you try to please him like this." She shook her head. "It won't be visible, it's all internal, and you may not feel it. And if you do, it'll likely only be once, and then we'll address the cause of the shock afterwards. I'll see when we can get you in for a cardiac assessment."

"Daddy and my stepmom, maybe, but I don't know that my mom would. I mean, maybe it's worth a shot but I doubt she wants anything to do with me, honestly. She still doesn't care enough to do anything for me." Chris shrugged, rubbing his hands across his face and letting out a heavy breath. "Yeah, I don't wanna overwhelm her or anything - she doesn't deserve that. I want her to have a good childhood but I also want her to have a realistic view of things, yknow? I tell her things that'll make her grow up stronger because she'll know things that other kid's would never hear from their parents," He hummed. "Sharon and Ella, I know they love me and care about me, but they've done their time taking care of me. They did it when we were younger, they don't want the responsibility anymore." He almost felt guilty even bringing his sisters into this, but he knew that it would help if he talked to them eventually. "I've just... always been used to it, doing what he wanted so he'd be happy," The blonde started slowly, almost as if he was explaining to himself as well. "I, uh - I don't want him to leave me anymore and that's kept me in the habit of doing what he wants even if it isn't good for me." Chris knew that what he did was bad for him, but that didn't mean he was going to stop. "Will it be,'like, surgery to put it in, then? I've had a lot of those, like, lots. As long as I get pain medicine and stuff."

"We could invite everyone, and if only some attend, that's okay. I think it would be good for everyone to vocalize their feelings. Your sisters, too. You didn't get into this situation by yourself." Dallon raised her eyebrows slightly. "Supporting your family isn't something you do to get it over with. Their 'time' should never really stop-- you'll be prepared to be there for Kimber even when she's a grown woman, won't you? Because you love her. And I'm sure they feel the same about you, and wouldn't want you to think they see you as a burden. They don't have to drop everything and become surrogates-- they'll know what to do if you just let them help you out. Even if it's just a little, I'm sure they'd be happy to do it." She shook her head slowly at his broken reasoning. "If you pushing yourself to the brink of death to look a certain way makes him happy, what does that say about him? We need to address this immediately, but-- I dunno if we have time to focus on it now, someone else will be in soon. I'll make a note, so whoever sees you next will hopefully spend more time on his role in your life." She quickly typed it into his file with one hand, nodding as she listened to him as well. "Yeah--" She finished typing before looking back at him. "If they decide you need one, they'll insert it surgically. Under anesthesia, don't worry."

"I don't want my mom's husband or her two kids here, though. That's my condition - deal?" Chris wasn't close to his twin half-sisters, hell, he barely knew them, and he'd always had a bad feeling about his mother's husband, so he didn't really want anything to do with him either. "I just - I feel like I should be better by now. They worked so hard to try and help me, especially when we were in middle school and high school and I... I don't know, I feel like maybe I've let them down because I'm not better. I'm not fixed or normal or anything and it isn't fair to them because they invested time in me," He took a deep breath. "I'll always be there for Kimber, no matter what, of course. I want her to have a good life, I wanna help her have that." Chris cut himself off almost abruptly - if he kept going into the subject he was going to cry, and that was the last thing he wanted right now. "I - I don't think I wanna talk about any of this anymore, not right now," He said finally, rubbing his hands across his face and keeping them there for a moment, letting out a shaky breath before dropping them back into his lap. "Good - yeah, good, anesthesia," He murmured, giving a brief nod. "Thank you, uh - thanks, yeah. Thanks for letting me talk."

"Alright. If they haven't really been a part of your life, it might not be worth them coming, so I won't try to force that. I'll see about contacting the rest of your family, though." Dallon thought about his words, then laced her hands together. "A person-- especially your family-- is not like a business, or a share in the stock market. You don't invest in them and get frustrated when it doesn't 'pay off' quickly. You keep investing, because you love them, and if they're willing to invest in themselves, you'll see good come of it, no matter how long it takes, and it's worth it. And you are willing to invest in yourself, you've shown me that. So don't worry about them being impatient-- just show them that you're doing your best and it'll be enough for them." She nodded at his next words. "You have to believe that your sisters care as much for you as you do for her." She made sure to note which family he wanted present in case of a session. "Alright. We can finish up for today." She smiled and extended her hand across the desk. "Of course. Thanks for talking to me. It goes both ways."

Chris hated to exclude some of his family, but he didn't consider himself to be close to them. After all, he was the one that had been excluded for all those years when his mother remarried. She'd wanted nothing to do with him, and didn't want him around her children. It hurt, but he was such a people-pleaser that he wouldn't try to fight it. "It's just that it's been so long and it seems like nothing has really changed, I guess," Chris said simply, not wanting to drag the conversation out any longer. "I think they do - I hope they do, I mean." He shrugged, sitting up and reaching out as he stretched a bit before taking her hand, giving a gentle squeeze as he shook it. "Thank you. Have a, uh - like, good rest of your day and stuff, man."

"Alright. If you think of a deeper impact they've had on you, let me know-- just so we can talk about it, if nothing else." Dallon hoped his sisters would be more present, that they'd show him the love she felt for her own sister-- he deserved that much from them. "You don't have to correct yourself. I'm glad you can say you have some faith in them." She smiled and stood up slowly as they shook hands. "No problem. You, too."

Chris nodded, pushing himself up from his seat slowly. After all of this, he felt like he was somewhat strung out - like his emotions were out of whack. Some part of him felt numb and confused, but that wasn't something he felt like bringing up now. "If I think of anything or whatever, I'll be sure to let you know. Thanks, lady," He shoved his hands into his pockets. "I'll, uh - see ya soon or whatever." The blonde pushed his chair up to the desk and turned quickly, shuffling out the door and shutting it behind him before heading down the hall back to his room.

#omg i really thought i had it straight from the beginning in my google docs but #when i first checked it was already like /ur late bitch them posts are already gone/#so yeah now they're long gone #rip i'm sorry #session:chris

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pirirps · 7 years

Text

mythbusters starters: season 5

i guess the moral of this story is, don’t paint your airship with rocket fuel.

this ingredient is made of blur. and this ingredient has some blur in it too. this is very dangerous. don’t mix blur with blur.

that took almost ten times longer than the hindenburg took to burn. the entire hindenburg.

if you’re getting chased by a crocodile, you can easily escape them by running in a zigzag pattern, because they can not turn corners.

they’re fishnet stockings.

oh no, they’ve got feathers on them still!

megadope!!!

duuuuudearonomy!

is everybody okay?

oh noooo! the crocodiiiiiilleee!!!

this should solve the mystery once and for all.

you want three zeppelins in a day? we’ll give you three zeppelins in a day.

these things are always catchin’ on fire!

and that, kids, is the textbook definition of “irony”.

next up on discovery: the world’s deadliest piñata!

why are they hissing?

i’ve been watching a lot of professional wrestling on television, so i’ve learned a lot of wrestling moves, and i’m gonna test them out on this crocodile.

there’s only one thing left: plan c. and that’s c for “crazy”.

that’s crocodiles… but what about ALLIGATORS?

this thing is going to buuuuuurrrrnnn.

if you’re driving around with a truck full of birds, and the birds take flight, will your truck get lighter?

the birds will be too fat to fly!

____’s pain threshold is way lower than a pigeon’s.

is that photoshop?

oka [voice cracks] ay.

the only evidence they have is this photo and accompanying reports.

his ocd kicks in– that’s “obsessive crash disorder”.

ooooohh, five bucks?

[smashing things with a sledgehammer] i am! so! sick! of! _________!

bueno! that’s spanish for “good”.

i’m gonna do my pole dance.

just had to mention the weather, didn’t you?

_______ makes it look so easy when he does it!

team unity is the first casualty.

seeing as ______ and ______ are rejecting each other’s reality and substituting their own, this argument is going nowhere.

i guess it didn’t happen exactly the way it was reported.

i wanna see some carnage.

okay, escape plan: same as last time.

i’m givin’ up.

i think it’s gonna be a web-shooter.

i’m ready. [covers crotch with hands] yeah, i’m ready.

see what happens when we pull this string.

with thoughts of unemployment crowding his mind, how could he fail?

is he saying “red rum”?!

no, my dog voice doesn’t work.

look into my eyes… deeper… you will fall into a deep, deep sleep!

exactly! except we won’t kill people.

can i be hypnotized to do something against my will?

i know he’s not that good an actor.

just because we can’t do it doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

i don’t like the idea of this.

this is trickery.

the only way that any of that would’ve made sense is if music started playing and he started taking his clothes off.

this is the burrito.

that’s high explosives, huh? it looks more like a taco.

you’re gonna shoot my hat off?

i’m gonna shoot your hat off.

oh, can we break out of jail? i’ve always wanted to do that!

yippee-ki-yay!

when they made _____, they broke the mold.

so this is what you were expecting all along, and you were just gonna watch us bumble around with this?

just imagine what i could do with steel-toed boots.

i’m sick of being the guy that throws up on camera.

i’m afraid of commitment and i don’t think that’s gonna change.

you’ll know it works because i’ll come back with, like, purple eyes.

spin me, baby.

come on! i wanna see you blow chunks!

attaboy!

i just can’t stand those things. they freak me out.

that 100% sucks.

i didn’t want to listen to you going “dude, it’s totally okay. dude, it’s totally okay. dude, it’s totally o–”

the fake blood department would have its hands full.

i’m tired of being the ______ guinea pig.

you know when you haven’t eaten for a while, and you’re just throwing up bile? yeah. this is just bile.

never leave your position, _____!

boys will be boys.

well, actually, i heard this one about this guy, and he had a jet pack?

why does it smell like this? what did he keep in here?

all in the name of science, of course.

y’know, something tells me that this is, maybe, not the best of the options.

if you’re thinking that a refrigerator is going to contain a grenade, you’re dead wrong.

we’re what you’d call “experts”.

you can jump around, make cat noises, do karate chops, all kinds of adolescent behavior like we know you love to do.

what makes you think i have a ninja costume?

well, maybe we should start by finding a real ninja.

i’m hoping _____ won’t get hurt too bad. a little bit is good.

jimmy choo can rest easy.

decapitation hazard, everybody!

people say i’m not that quick.

[trying to sword fight with a measuring tape]

[clapping] yaaaaaaayy!

not many people know this, but ______ comes from an ancient line of nine generations of shoe-tiers.

come, silent walrus! let us storm the castle! i will don my safety gear!

the important thing is that i look damn good.

______ were not at all above trying to encourage the belief in their supernatural powers.

they wanted people to fear their magical powers.

do it like your life depends on it.

thanks for that motivation, ______.

don’t think of it as a competition… but it is.

a ninja must go to the bathroom before he swings his sword.

he hasn’t looked this incensed since star trek was cancelled.

this thing’s starting to look like a monster. pretty soon you’re not even gonna recognize it.

everybody knows being caught on the rebound doesn’t count.

he stopped it with his head.

hai! ikimashou! – that’s “let’s go” in japanese.

whoo! if i had any dignity, that would have been humiliating.

i’m stealthy as the night.

don’t i look like silent death, bringing justice in the night?

so i notice you have all your fingers.

wow, you have a lot of confidence in her. more than we do.

so you mean all those ninja movies were not true?

it’s water. it’s… got something else in it. but. it’s water.

there’s nothing _______ would rather do than play in a giant tub of goo.

ohh, that’s so funky! ooooohhh, duuuude, that feels so wrong!

come on in, the water’s great!

is that legal in baseball?

it’s ever so slightly totally illegal.

something’s gonna go somewhere it shouldn’t, we’re gonna have mayhem one way or another, but– what the heck, it’s all in the name of science, right?

it’s a brand new, high-speed, intricate rig with multiple moving parts. seriously, what are the chances that it’s going to work the first time?

[cupping hands over mouth to make walkie talkie noises] one small step for man… one giant leap for mankind.

aaaaand the bat is still there.

swing like you’re pissed off.

do you watch ANY sporting events?

yeah, i watch sports. i watch robot combat.

how ‘bout humid balls?

there’s actually a lot more to baseball than you might think.

great. because there’s nothing we’re better at than organized sports, right?

HEY batta batta batta, SWING batta batta batta, SWING!

is it a bird? is it a plane?

it’s fight club– superhero style.

no one can run at the speed of light, no one can spin webs, and no one turns green when they get angry and has super-strength.

if we’re gonna do this in true superhero fashion, i think you all need to put your underwear on the outside of your pants.

it’s a key component on the belt of… nocturnal echolocating flying mammal man.

in a never-ending fight against crime, superheroes often have to leap tall buildings.

we’re gonna have to do this one for real, man. we can’t fake it this time.

it’s a little bigger than batman’s.

i’m not in really great shape like batman is, but, you know, i’m gonna try.

that’ll feed my family for a month!

you all set, batman?

i’m all set, boy wonder!

i don’t remember batman having this much trouble.

ladies and gentlemen, there’s a new superhero on the block.

if you guys don’t mind, i’m just gonna lie here for a little while.

superheroes big and small are getting put to the test.

he’s that guy who could punch people so hard he left a scar in the shape of the skull on his ring.

if we can’t punch each other, who are we gonna punch?

as we know, ____ was raised by robots.

i need these two in adamantium, and these two in kryptonite.

his name is porkloinio. he’s an evil… pig… man.

our comic book criminal is down for the count.

you know, i can’t me _____man all the time. sometimes… i just have to be _____.

batman probably didn’t get it on his first try, either.

let’s go be batman.

what’s in the bag?

i like how she does the little hair flip.

holy awesomeness, _____!

this is gonna be the coolest batmobile ever!!!

holy air-cannon, _____!

this is actually the most dangerous thing i’ve built in a long line of dangerous things.

oh! newton’s laws! we forgot newton’s laws!

who says superheroes don’t bleed?

it’s not good for the image to be seen taking the elevator.

while it may look like an abandoned aircraft hangar, it is, in fact, a super-modern superhero training facility.

god, i hate these things. gimme a ladder any day of the week!

yeah, i still have to come up with a name for this thing. i’m thinking… “nocturnal echolocating flying mammal man’s cable shooter”.

this is all a little frightening.

this is definitely harder concrete than anything i’ve ever seen before.

curses! foiled again!

NOW LET’S GET OUT AND FIGHT SOME CRIME!!!

what is it with you and these robots?

i call the gun!

well, that’s gonna suck.

i can’t believe this is my job.

right, so here’s your motivation: you’ve just robbed a bank and you want to get away.

you know, this is my first surgery ever, aaaaaand– i feel like it went pretty well. i didn’t even go to med school, either.

i feel so sci-fi!

it’s probably gonna explode and she’s gonna lose her arm. i can’t wait to see that.

look, i think we’re already on enough government watch lists. let’s watch this one go.

that doesn’t seem very… logical.

now that’s an enterprising idea.

the ninja is making a comeback.

we killed the ninja!

yeah, but the law in the us and the uk is different.

where are we gonna get a car that can go 200 miles per hour?

this thing is beautiful. i think i’m gonna cry.

where’s the satellite radio? where’s the cup-holder? this is very primitive.

that’s on purpose. that’s what’s supposed to happen.

it’s really only demonstrable through telling a story.

the police are coming, so let’s wrap up and get out of here.

can i fire this one? can i? can i? can i? do you mind? do you mind? is it alright?

you’re a freak!

now all we need is a 40-AA bra.

a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

i can’t look.

i just don’t know if these express me. i think i might want a different color.

is this as disturbing as i think it is?

it’s even more disturbing than you think it is.

[tosses bra on your face]

you need some help, big guy?

you didn’t take off your shirt, did you?

what are you, nuts?

it’s kinda dark in here. maybe we should light a fire.

it’s a bad idea to cross the streams.

he’s going through a rebellious phase and wanted to upset his mom.

ugh, it’s like you’re a mind-reader or something!

you pushed me out of the way, what the hell was that?!

i was giving you more of a challenge!

i like to live my life halfway like an action hero and halfway like a cartoon character.

[racecar noises]

i remember it like it was only yesterday…

i figure if you wanna get out of a ticket, short skirts and crying is still the way to go.

________ only works if the officer is human.

once the bumper goes back on, it’ll be fine, no one will know. … until they crash.

one car. almost two miles of runway. no speed limit. it’s just another day in ________ paradise.

i’m gonna have a fire suit on, a helmet, the whole nine yards. just in case i crash. and burn. and stuff like that.

ah, _____. ever the optimist.

based solely on my own intuition and on now practical experience whatsoever, i estimate that we can get this car up to 100 miles per hour.

let’s see ______ bat his baby blues now!

we’ve caught you red-handed!

i dunno, old man, maybe you just don’t have what it takes.

nitroglycerin? that’s explosive!

i mean, we break everything we touch.

when you say “we”, you mean “you”.

it’s going to be… potentially… the most lethal thing i’ve ever built.

this thing, if it works, will definitely kill you.

it’s like frankenstein’s laboratory.

well, y’know, normally the paddles don’t have serrated edges, but this is a homemade defibrillator.

think we could go get first place in the science fair?

this doesn’t look dangerous enough. you think we should go get some buckets of water to stand in? or turn on the sprinkler system?

just put your safety glasses on.

she made it!

yeah, i’m sure my mom will watch this later and she’ll be like, “augh! not again!”

it’s open season on speedsters.

you know what? i’ll save you some time. it’s probably illegal.

i’ll eat my hat if this is legal in even one state.

it’s enough to make your hair stand on end!

want an umbrella?

that seems reeeeeeeeeally reeeeeally really dangerous.

lots of water? large amounts of electricity? i don’t see a danger in that at all.

i… didn’t think it was gonna hurt me. i thought i had that one under control.

can someone unwrap me?

turn off the camera and help me get out of this thing!

i love being wrong.

you did very good, sweetie.

well, i’m pretty sure no one is going to sell us nitroglycerin.

can i drive the car?

all that’s left now is to gently break _____’s heart.

i’ve got a little somethin’-somethin’.

nice work, speedy gonzalez.

we’ll be checking in often.

weren’t you a bugler in the civil war?

trust ____ to turn a trombone into an instrument of torture.

why don’t we let the narrator explain?

nag, nag, nag.

you’d think we would learn.

it’ll toast your waffles to almost 3000 degrees.

it’s in the danger zone.

excellent! danger!

[smashing things with hammers] ABANGADABANGADABANGADA–

did you see the death star when it went out? i want an explosion like that.

_____’s mug is looking smug.

i bet you’re wondering why i’m standing here holding a plunger.

it gets me all steamed up just thinking about it.

_____’s going to be playing cowboy.

okay, so, the ranch actually has a psychic horse.

god, this seems like a really stupid idea.

deedoo! deedoo! deedoo! fashion police!

do you feel any heat? in your pants, i mean.

our patient is sick.

jim morrison, eat your heart out!

there’s no way of doing this without looking creepy right now.

he’s a genius… a demented genius!

are we gonna have to amputate his legs?

badabing, badaboom.

welcome to the ______ clubhouse!

tight jeans look very foxy.

this kind of stress on a regular basis can’t be good.

it just goes to show, there’s danger everywhere.

did you know what was lurking in your basement?

do either of you want my jeans that were dragged through horse manure?

gee, that sounds like fun!

i’m gonna go talk to him, find out what he knows.

have i ever told you that i sing in _____’s band twice a month?

he was voted in germany the sexiest tv star alive, second only to david hasselhoff.

i was a small wookiee in star wars episode 3.

no you weren’t, because i would have seen you, because i was also a small wookie in star wars episode 3!

i haven’t been this excited since my last cage match!

we have a few friends in law enforcement.

you ever get the feeling people are watching us work?

zis… it may look like simple clockwork, but… i seenk of it as a map of ze most complex clockwork art, like ze planets. it is not a planetary gear, but i seenk of it as a planetary gear because each thing, like a planet, moves in its place and goes where it should. it is not only a map of ze planets, it is also a map of ze atom! in zis vay, the microcosm is the macrocosm! and phylogeny recapitulates ontology!

that is so creepy!

i feel a total kinship with the guys who made this thing.

it put a dent in a quarter inch of steel.

i’m very pleased. and terrified.

our criminal mastermind has the details.

oh, this sucks. this went from fun to not fun.

is your first name salvatori?

i got the third degree.

my happy-slash-erotic thoughts are puppies licking my face and scantily clad women.

i don’t like people asking me unexpected questions like that. i’ve seen montel. i know how they get people.

_____ and _____ are involved in a steamy affair.

it’s a ballsy plan.

what can i say? i’m not cut out for crime.

i didn’t bring me bikini. did you bring yours?

[driving right past the building] we are looking for… the _____…

that sucks. that sucks!

have you ever ridden on the bus long distance before?

i don’t wanna take this test. can i opt to not take this test?

i think he’s dead.

it’s shiny. it looked like a fun thing to take.

well, looks like we get to take that cross-country trip you’ve been talking about.

i might forgive you, but not for the next two days.

now drop and give me twenty.

c'mon, c'mon, we need to come up with something!

so in all of your eclectic careers, have you ever gone and gotten a pilot’s license?

this is all alien to me.

why’s it telling me not to think?

unfortunately, i died. and all of my passengers and my crew died with me.

hey, it’s like we’re stormchasers!

that’s a bird, dude.

so that’s what they look like inside…

[addressing the beeping computer] what? what? i don’t know what to do?

i– i– i– crashed. i crashed. i landed in some farmland about ten miles out of denver.

adios amigo!

OH SSSSSHHHUCKS!!!

we’re doing point blank! can’t you tell? i’m keanu reeeves!

i have a feeling this will probably be a new high in terrifying moments in my life.

what are we, like, ten?

[UNINTELLIGIBLE HIGH-PITCHED SCREAMING]

I’M ALIIIVEEE!!! I’M AAAALLLIIIIIIIVVVEEE!!!

so get this–

ever since people invented planes, they’ve been wanting to throw themselves out of them.

we’re gonna go to some hot night clubs.

i just gotta remember to breathe, not shit my pants, not pass out, and not scream like a little girl.

______, i’m frightened!

what kind of special treat do you have for me today?

for your sake, i hope so! [maniacal laughter]

are you gonna stay in-character this entire time?

when it comes to magnets, i’m your guy.

it looks like a watch, but it’s not.

it’s really good that we get this chance to bond.

it’s a classic james bond maneuver.

in the words of dr. no: “we never fail, mr. bond.”

i’m sick of these monkey suits.

moneypenny never packed a piece like this!

it’s best not to anger ______ when he’s got a steel girder in his hands.

well, i’m just gonna go for this and hope for the best.

i’m gonna be rc-ing this boat. and then maybe i’ll let _____ sit in it and then let it go out of control.

allow me to demonstrate with secret agent yarn.

anyone else feeling like an evil genius?

today, propane tanks. tomorrow– world domination!

you’ve had your last martini, _______!

as many times as we do this, i don’t get used to how much fun it is.

i mean, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

let’s go get a couple of martinis.

have you lost your damn mind?

cowabunga! let’s rip it up!

i am ready to rip it and– shred some– some stuff. did i say that right?

is it really impossible to fly a lead balloon?

yup, the insurance doesn’t cover that.

robot! i knew it!

ready to hang ten?

how’s he gonna hang ten? he’s got no feet.

you look nervous.

yeah, spank that water!

is it just me, or is he trying to clone himself and make a little army?

the ingeniously named "step 2" is complete.

i still want more... balloon-ness.

if someone says it’s impossible, we just take it as a challenge!

the kids can’t help but destroy their creation.

#meme #*mine #rp starters #sentence memes #sentence starters

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