#i use a wheelchair because of it but there is no physical reason - apart from my brain ofc; which is physical. brains are physical things | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

fictional-orphan-smackdown · 23 days

Text

ROBIN VS. ROBIN, GO!

All propaganda and what each competitor is from under the cut

Dick Grayson (DC Comincs)

So a bunch of Robins are orphans or orphan adjacent but Dick has the strongest case in his birth parents, whom he was raised by, being very very dead. The kind of orphanhood that sticks in the characterization marrow. Plus in some versions he was carted off to the orphanage and everything, starting his "what if I fist-fought my parents' killer myself" arc early until Bruce ultimately decided to pluck him off his warpath and adopt him.

Dick Grayson is truly the orphan of all time not only is he the ward of another famous orphan (batman) but he really was able to surpass his mentor after being orphaned and used that anger towards his parents death to immediately start fighting crime under the Robin Moniker. The other orphans in dc wish they could do it like him. Plus his name is Dick which is objectively funny.

Dressing like a stoplight and kicking people in the face under a bat furry's direction was the MORE reasonable coping strategy than his original plan. Of singlehandedly taking down the entire mafia even though he was a baby.

Think Batman had issues? Well, consider what happens is he raises his mini-me. This guy is waaaayy too tactically driven and ambitious for a thirteen-year-old. And awesome. And the adult version is —- somebody append a photo.

Okay I submitted Bruce Wayne but like I can’t not submit my beloved boy as well! Anyway his parents have the nebulous honor of being so fucking dead, like literally never coming back to life ever. They died in that circus and the only time I can possibly think of them as ‘coming back’ in any way is in Darkest Night, where there were zombies everywhere. So even when they return to the story they’re still fucking dead! Anyway Dick is like super orphaned, I love him but you look at him and you know his parents are dead.

Please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please

Trust me bro

Tim Drake (DC Comics)

An early reader-insert character, Tim had all the traits the average comics fan at the time wanted: money, martial arts skills, cool skateboard tricks, lots of girlfriends, secret knowledge about Batman and Robin. He volunteered to be Robin, because what comics fan wouldn't in his place? Continuing to be relatable, he's now bisexual, depressed, and living in a crappy apartment. Which is also a boat, because comics readers think it would be cool to live in a houseboat.

His biological mother, Janet Drake, was murdered in the carribean. In the same attack his biological father was hospitalized for injuries and in a coma. Janey Drake was buried on Christmas Eve. During the period that Jack Drake (his biological father) was in a coma he was temporarily under the care of Bruce Wayne. When Jack got out of the coma he was confined to a wheelchair while he went through physical therapy. He would meet his future second wife, Dana Winters through the physical therapy. The two would get married later, Tim having a good relationship with Dana. Her mediating between the father and son during some of the misunderstandings. Jack would find out that Tim was Robin, then realize Bruce Wayne was Batman, threaten Bruce with a gun, and order Tim to quit being Robin. Though later, Tim would get approval from his father to be Robin again and the two would start improving their father son relationship. During the event of identity crisis Tim's indenture would be at stake and Captian Boomerrang would break into the Drake's house and murder Jack just as Tim arrived. Tim having heard his last words over Comms. His stepmother Dana Winters would be hospitalized in Bludhaven for the mental trauma this inflicted on her, and would soon find herself a victim when Bludhaven was bombed/nuked. Tim would then be adopted by Bruce. Though in 2008 Bruce would be supposedly killed by an Omega Beam, leaving 17 year old Tim as a three times over orphan. Though Tim didn't believe Bruce to actually be dead, but lost in the timestream and would go on a Brucequest to get him back. On this trip he would lose his spleen, and nearly die multiple times.

Doomed by the narrative to become an orphan. Tim had a good thing going for a while, but after he started getting involved with the Bats, his life went downhill from there. He became Robin on the day of his mother's funeral. (I should note that the racism I mentioned in her cause of death is that the person who kills her is an awful racist caricature, NOT that she's canonically a POC.) From there, he spent a while balancing Batman (mentor) and his biological father (who was rendered comatose in the incident that killed his mother, but woke up not long after). Both the Robins that came before him were orphaned. As one Tumblr user put it: while Tim Drake managed to beat the odds and remain not an orphan, eventually, the writers succumbed to the calls of orphanhood. His father dies after he finds out Tim's identity, and it is because he knows the secret that he is ultimately targeted and dies. In the aftermath, Tim attempts to get revenge by assassinating the culprit, but ultimately is unable to betray his personal values and go through with it. He has one of the more realistic parent-child relationships among the Bats because it is down to earth in spite of the eventual doom. Really, it comes down to this: Robin isn't just Batman's sidekick, he's Batman's child. And that meant it was only a matter of. time before Tim Drake was orphaned

#poll #dc comics #dc robin #dick grayson #tim drake #batman

57 notes · View notes

try-set-me-on-fire · 11 months

Text

Tagged by @devirnis for WIP Wednesday! Here’s a whole scene from proposal fic because why not… (vomit content warning)

Bobby shows up on the doorstep before Buck's first PT appointment after being discharged and Buck is hit by sudden intense gratitude for the stupidest possible reason. Ah, he thinks, thank god Eddie isn't going to see what I'm like during one of these. And then What the fuck, Buckley? Eddie did see him after that first session, and it's not like his patheticisms start and end within a 45 minute time frame and the clean walls and persistent disinfectant smell of Dr. Shelley's office. He's spent the last two days in a shivering little lump on the man's bed, sleeping 16 hours out of 24. He's not really sparing him anything he hasn't already seen. What, then? Spread the different facets of exactly how fucked up he is around? Like if no one has to deal with too much they won't get tired of it? Here, Eddie, you can have helping me go to the bathroom because I can't stand up on my own. Maddie, you get me crying whenever I see you or even hear you on the phone because you're my big sister so I get to dump all my feelings on you, that's fair right? Bobby, you can hear me screaming in pain, is that ok with you? You were there last time, I'm sure you'll do fine. It's too much for any of them. It's too much for Buck.

"You ready, kid?" Bobby says, with the softest little smile. God. Buck is going to fall apart into tiny, gross little pieces. Eddie can mop the floor and be done with him.

“Ready,” is what he says, knowing it sounds like a lie.

They have him walking between the parallel bars today. He remembers them, from his leg. They don’t start there, most of the hour is more stretching (ow) and fine motor skills practice (frustrating). But they told him at the beginning they want to get him walking again as soon as they can to avoid any further muscle loss or atrophy, and they want to work with him to see if they can figure out how much of his dizziness is from brain injury and how much is from vestibular damage.

Well, he’s up on the bars now and he couldn’t fucking tell you. The whole world is just spinning around him at a sickening speed as the physical therapist and Bobby both mutter encouragement, tell him to keep taking one more step, he can do it. Buck tries, he really tries, he wants to take these five steps on his own and for the doctor to tell him he’s progressing fantastically and to be tired but happy on the drive home with Bobby, both of them smiling and cracking jokes. Instead he collapses three steps in and vomits on the soft plastic-y blue floor covering. His ear is ringing and he only has a split second to feel humiliated before there are arms around him.

“Sweetheart,” Bobby is saying over the background hum, “Sweetheart, I’ve got you.” There are hands in Buck’s hair and he chokes out a sob. He doesn’t really stop crying until they’re almost back at the Diaz house, how he got from the office to the car a mysterious blur. Bobby is holding his hand on the center console. When Buck squeezes a little tighter he hears him sigh in relief and it almost starts the tears up again. Bobby is out of the car as soon as he's parked, hurrying around to the passenger side to help Buck to the house. He’d protested, days ago, about the need to rent a wheelchair until he could carry a little more of his own weight, but now he guesses getting rolled to the door is more dignified than Bobby having to put him in a fireman's carry.

He’d do it. Buck knows he would, Bobby would pick him up and hold him in his arms and carry him as far as he needed to go. Bobby settles him on the couch, handling him as gently as he would a child at a disaster site, running to bring him mouthwash to get rid of the bitter taste of stomach acid, finding saltines in the kitchen, pouring ginger ale on ice and procuring as if by magic a bendy straw in old fashioned, environmentally unfriendly, single use plastic. He sits on the coffee table in front of him, at attention, ready to appease any want.

"Thanks, dad. Bobby! Thanks- thanks, Cap," Buck slams his eyes shut and drops his head onto the couch behind him. The indignities never fucking end, apparently. He's stopped from withering away entirely by the warm weight of a hand over his own where it lays on the armrest. Buck opens his eyes. Bobby is staring down at their hands, jaw working, breathing through his nose.

"It wasn't even-" Bobby frowns as his voice fails, and clears his throat to try again. "I kept wishing I could be mad at you. Being reckless again, running into danger, getting yourself hurt." He exhales heavily, breath stuttering into a sad little laugh. "But I watched you climb that ladder. I kept playing it over and over in my head. You had three points of contact the whole time. Could have filmed it for a goddamn safety manual. It could have been-" his voice catches again, and Buck turns his hand to grab onto Bobby's. "It could have been any of us. It could have been any of us up there. All the stupid stunts you pull that you walk away from, and it's-" Bobby's free hand waves wildly into the room. "It's a random fucking act of god that nearly-"

"Bobby-"

"That nearly takes you from me," he finishes, squeezing Buck's hand. He's crying, and Buck thinks he might be again, too.

"I'm so sorry-"

"Oh, kid," Bobby says, leaning forward, gathering Buck up in his arms. “Nothing to apologize for. You’re right here. You’re still breathing. That’s all I need.”

Buck weeps again, into Bobby’s shoulder, his captain or father or good friend’s hand rubbing up and down his spine. He is still breathing. He’s still breathing. Bobby’s soft flannel shirt smells like grill smoke and Eddie’s couch is familiar beneath him, and Buck hurts and feels sick and dizzy, and he exists. “Bobby-“

“It’s alright. It’s alright.”

Bobby’s face is wet when Buck pulls away after however long it takes for each breath to stop aching so bad as it rattles in and out of him. Buck wants to say all sorts of things, most of which amount to I love you, but what comes out is a nod towards the TV and “You wanna stay for the game?”

Buck doesn’t even know what sports, if any, are on today, but Bobby seems to hear some of the other words he meant to say because he smiles so kindly at him and says “Yeah, Buck. Anything.”

Tagging @iinryer @bigfootsmom @shortsighted-owl if you’ve got anything to share!

#wip #wip wednesday #proposal fic #thats his dad boogie woogie woogie #was listening to the interstellar soundtrack while finishing this scene up #i remember fuck all about that movie but the soundtrack hits #listen to Stay and cry about how that song feels like a building plea and a desperate desire to answer that plea #stay!! stay with me!!#arms wide open for you

88 notes · View notes

ghostieagere · 7 months

Note

do you have any thoughts about disabled ghouls and how that effects them regressing?

this isn't something that i've thought about much unfortunately, but i have a couple of posts i've made in the past and one or two other thoughts to share :) also, be aware that these only revolve around physical disabilities and chronic illnesses

first up, i posted this on my other blog about rain using crutches when regressed, so that's my first thing :D

the second thing is this post that was sparked by another lovely anon asking about regressed zephyr who uses a wheelchair !!

in a lot of cases with my regressed and disabled ghoul headcanons, if they experience any kind of pain, the pain tends to be what sends them down into that headspace, so if any of them have a flare-up, they tend to be regressed a lot more often

i think it's important to mention that sometimes the pain makes it harder for the regression to be a happy place for the ghouls. if rain's joints are causing them a lot of pain, for example, then they'll probably be spending most of regression crying and throwing tantrums because they're hurting but don't know how to express it with the right words (but there's always a caregiver nearby ready to dole out some gentle affection to try and help ease rain's troubles)

i think.. that's almost it apart from some of my headcanons about dew having chronic illnesses and regressing, and i thought i'd use this post as an excuse to share them, hehe !! (most of these have come about from discussions with @cirrus-ghoulette, @denimpera and @marsohthree)

more under the cut because it's long and there's descriptions of medical things

in this specific headcanon, dew's chronic illnesses mean that he needs to live full-time in a private room in the infirmary under omega and aether's care. he regresses as a result of many things (including pain from his illnesses, mental health reasons as well as wanting a mental space where he can be happy, safe and carefree) and depending on the reason why he's regressed, his regression can look very, very different. sometimes he's nothing but tears and tantrums about how much pain he's in and how he wants aether to take the pain away. but other times he's relatively calm and content to sit and play with his blocks on the floor or curl up against omega and snuggle as they watch dew's favourite tv shows together

sometimes dew will get upset when he's little because he can't always do the things that the other regressors in his pack can do. all his medications tend to make him overly tired and he can't often stand for long periods of time, so when rain invites him to splash around in the kiddy pool mountain's set up on the lawn, dew's not allowed to join in, just in case he falls asleep and/or injures himself by falling over

he also gets all of his basic nutrition through an NG tube and (most of the time) he's not allowed to take any food or liquids by mouth. this isn't too much of a big deal, except for when aeon's playing blocks with him and they get interrupted by cirrus because it's aeon's lunch time. dew ends up getting a little upset and jealous of the plate of carefully prepared food that aeon keeps offering him bites of, not understanding why omega isn't letting dew taste any of his yummy food :(

#this went off on a bit of a tangent i hope it's still okay anon !!#ask box #ghostie headcanons #regressed ghouls #regressed ghoul headcanons

25 notes · View notes

lefluoritesys · 10 months

Text

TW: ableism, discrimination, eating disorders, strong opinions

"Oh, DID/OSDD is so difficult to understand, though!"

The more I live with it, the more I realize that no, it isn't. The problem here isn't that DID/OSDD is a "difficult" disorder, the real problem here is people refuse to understand that things apart from what they're used to are also, in fact, normal. They come up with excuses for why they can't understand it and attempt to push it down due to ignorance and plain lack of desire to actually make an effort to understand (which is, by the way, manipulative).

It's as easy as coming up to someone and saying you have a common physical medical condition. You don't have to understand it fully to realize that same person with asthma has limited physical abilities and needs an inhaler from time to time. Or that someone with allergies can't eat certain foods. Or that a person in a wheelchair most likely cannot walk at all. For singlets, there is no "digging deep into it to understand," this "understanding" of disorders is something we came up with as an excuse to brush off other people's experiences.

"I just don't understand why the littlest of things can send you into a breakdown," said to people with BPD, autism, ADHD, etc.

"Why is this noise bothering you so much? It doesn't bother me. I just can't relate," said to people with misophonia and sensory issues.

"Why can't I talk about this? How can it even be a trigger?" said to a person with PTSD/C-PTSD, and continued talking and mentioning said thing.

"Why can't you get out of bed? I just don't understand you. You have so much stuff to get done, so many things to look forward to! I think you're just being lazy." said to a person with depression.

"Why are you so worried about your weight? You look amazing! I wish I had as much self-control as you do and look like you! You should feel lucky for knowing when to stop eating!" said to a person with an eating disorder(s).

It's as easy as avoiding a subject because the other person doesn't want to talk about it. It's as easy as explaining your actions a little more and clarifying your words in a conversation because the other person is more sensitive to rejection/certain topics. It's as easy as coming up to someone and going "Hey, I do not like this thing. Can you stop doing it/do it differently?" "Yeah, sure, thank you for telling me!"

And it's as easy to understand DID/OSDD as saying "Hey, I have multiple (semi-)distinct personalities called alters, AKA alternative states of identity, all of them are different people with different roles to keep the body alive. They formed during my childhood due to prolonged/repeated trauma, and they keep that trauma away from me. Together, we are called a system." "Okay, cool! I accept you for who you are. Although, I haven't had experience with systems before, so I would need to learn. I will be patient with you, and I hope you can be patient with me. Walk me through it?"

I used to think that my DID/OSDD was difficult for people to understand, and I drowned in the thoughts of how much of a burden I was to singlets. Or, really, everybody in that case, because that wasn't just about my DID but any medical condition we have. We used to mask as a singlet even around people who we came out to, and they seemed more comfortable with us going by our deadname and pretending to be one rather than who we are, claiming they just feel "weird" and "awkward" because they don't have other friends like that. Until I began realizing that the only reason people don't "understand" is because they simply don't want to.

Yes, you may not get something right off the bat. And that's okay. But it isn't difficult to understand. You are not difficult to understand. It's other people who are ignorant enough to make you feel like crap to avoid being a little open-minded and kind. It just lies a little out of their comfort zone where they have stayed comfortably their entire lives.

It is that easy. It is that simple. Only thing you have to do is hear the other person out when they're talking about their DID/OSDD. Negotiate and/or find compromises when necessary. Learn, research, interact, ask questions, and most importantly, take it as it is. No questions asked unless they are clarification and curiosity. If you have questions you count as disrespectful or out of line, either keep them to yourself or warn the system about them and give clarification on what you meant. Give trigger warnings.

You are not difficult for having a disorder or a medical condition. It's other people who are difficult due to their ignorance.

#did #did system #osdd #osdd system #system #dissociative identity disorder #other specified dissociative disorder #system stuff #system things #did osdd #osdd 1a #osdd 1b #system positivity #plural positivity #ableism

47 notes · View notes

dairy-farmer · 1 year

Note

Bruce announces to Jason and Dick one day, out of the blue, that he’s getting married — they’re mad, he’d not told them he was dating, and they know that it’s gonna be some 20-something gold digger he met at a party once.

They’re shocked when it turns out it’s their 13 year old neighbour, whom Bruce has been grooming for *years* (maybe the marriage is allowed in NJ in this au? With parental consent or something), and they are deeply uncomfortable

Especially since Tim doesn’t always look entirely comfortable with everything Bruce does, how physical he is, how graphic their pda can get — when Bruce picks him up from middle school by picking him up, groping his ass, and making out with him just outside the school gates, how Bruce will pull him from his seat during dinner with the family and hand-feed him while pressing pressing Tim’s ass into his clothes dick, etc

I can’t think of more, basically Bruce being a giant creep/probable pedophile and forcing tim into acts of extremely graphic pda that are just barely legal (maybe sometimes cross the line, but he’s rich?) he is obviosuly not comfortable with, and maybe the tabloids all won’t dare say a thing because their biggest advertisers are WE? Also Dick and Jason are extremely uncomfortable

a dark au where brutim is genuinely as twisted as everyone thinks!!! there's no 'we're actual soulmates' or 'tim pursued him/came onto bruce first' or 'bruce and tim are basically at the same developmental level even though bruce is much older'!!!

in canon there's a lot of evidence to suggest that bruce is harder on tim than he'd been on dick and jason in terms of treatment and training and in allowing him to have "disturbances" i.e date and extracurricular activities (bruce is notably much tougher on 2 of his robins out of the 4, those being damian and tim). the reason behind it, i believe, is that bruce sees a lot of himself in tim. they both come from similar origins, tim has the same kind of mind, follows the same line of reasoning and thinking as bruce does. it's why i think he was so disturbed and angry when tim nearly killed boomerang he didn't see TIM as the one making that move but he saw the version of himself that he superimposed over tim making that move. bruce meeting tim outside of all the cape stuff, maybe janet and jack have an accident years earlier than scheduled and tim and his father move to the empty house next door because it's wheelchair accessible like in the comics. now tim is young and even though he had his father he still feels so lonely and, even worse, he has none of his old playmates. before tim and his parents used to live in a big fancy luxary apartment building in gotham with a park on the roof where the children of the building could play. tim used to be able to play with other kids his age but now not anymore since they moved to a township where houses were separated by acres of land.

tim is one of those sweet nature and explorer type of kids. both his parents are adventurers! he loves telling other kids that and getting oos and ahhhs. tim has a big backyard that stretches into some woods, the real estate agent had left them with a topographical map of the surrounding which included where a small freshwater lake should be along with some creeks. so tim one day, packs a bag with some juice and snack, "borrows his dad's compass, and takes a first aid kit to go explore. his dad's asleep and the housekeeper won't arrive until later to make them dinner. so tim goes on a little adventure and triggers bruce's batman proximity alarms in case anyone tried sneaking through the woods to reach the manor, and bruce...bruce had just been going to see the situation, maybe return the kid home.

but the sight he stumbles across has him freezing. a little boy with yellow rainboots peering into the creek running through various properties and gently trying to cup a newt in his hands. he's smiling and giggling as little legs run all across his little cupped palms and for a moment bruce sees someone else kneeing in the mud by the creek. a boy with his hair combed back and his trousers rolled up, little loafers and socks discarded somewhere along the bank as he splashes and harrasses the wildlife with his curiosity. when he returns home dripping and grinning he will earn a scandalized "master bruce!" and some fussing before being hurried off to the baths.

bruce sees that sweet boy for whom the worst thing that has ever happened to him is a spanking from his father. he sees and he feels...strange. a longing, a desire for times gone by, a want to go back and return. a burning need.

it's not sexual. not at first. tim is so small and so sweet and so desperate for attention and companionship. he has a paralyzed father and a recently deceased mother. he's taking time off school while his family deals with the tragedy that's hit their family. tim just babbles about being happy that his dad is now around even though he's sad his mom isn't around anymore. too young to understand the full depth of tragedy, even when tainted by the callousness of the world it bounces off him. bruce sees it and...desires.

he speaks to tim often by the creek, following him around, helping him trap newts and dig up worms. tim's so small bruce's entire palm covers half his torso. bruce wonders what tim's father would think about his son conversing with and playing with a stranger who picks him up and helps him cross the creek. he's not sure. but he knows how a good parent would react and so bruce...asks tim to make him a promise. he asks tim to keep their interactions just between them. a secret for his new friend. and tim gets so excited about having a new friend to play with that he agrees.

that's how it starts. just two young boys playing together by the creek that cuts through their houses. but despite bruce's efforts and mind pushing him to believe it's as innocent as when he was young- it isn't. bruce's mind may never have progressed past that night in the alley but his body has.

the desires for companionship of an adult are far different than that of a child's. tim thinks them playing together and running through the woods like lost boys is the pinnacle of childhood. he doesn't understand how bruce feels an odd tingling underhis skin and clothes that tim doesn't. that the heart racing excitement bruce feels makes him...react in certain ways.

tim doesn't mind being touched, in some ways he even enjoys it even though he's confused about what he's feeling. bruce is careful about it, not wanting to scare tim away. maybe he should hate himself for it but he uses the cases where he's seen this happen before as a guide. he identifies where others went wrong, where they messed up, how they scared their child, their sibling, their niece or nephew- and he's careful not to make the same mistake. he makes tim want it, ask to play that game again- the touching one. he makes tim carry the burden of increasing their interaction. when bruce touches him back it's careful, he's careful that his eagerness isn't too obvious. tim likes it because it makes his hear tbeat fast and makes his insides all strangely warm and hot. bruce calls it special kissing when he kneels between tim's legs and presses kisses to tim's special. they're special kisses for very special friends.

it's a while before bruce fucks tim for the first time. he invites tim over when the manor is empty and leads tim to his room to show him a new game he'll enjoy, one that's just like wrestlying, it'll be super fun because bruce learned it from actual wrestlers. tim tries so hard to pin bruce, bucking his hips and gasping with effort as bruce snapped his hips into that little hole that was stretched to its peak to accomodate him.

that's how it goes for a few years with bruce getting tim to reciprocate more, to understand that their bond is like no other, to know that what bruce and him have is special. tim likes it, enjoys it, he's happy.

until he's not.

a girl asks tim out and he's excitedly telling bruce about it. talking about how pretty she is and how she came up to tim during lunch and asked if he wanted to go see a movie with her and...

bruce's mind is young. it's jealous and vindictive and he tears into tim's 13 year old classmate for trying to steal tim. he tells tim he can't go because he's bruce's. the two of them are together and have been for a long time and tim will be deeply hurting his feelings if he does this.

bruce starts initiating the touch between them now. the affections of an adult body are more ravenous than those of a child.

tim's body gets exhausted by all their activity. he pushes bruce's hands away and whines about how his hole is hurting, its all achy and pulsing and sore. bruce offers to kiss tim's hole for a while and, because it feels nice, tim will agree and let bruce tongue fuck his pussy and lap at his clit until a single tired orgasm is forced out of him. then bruce will push up and press his cock in because tim is too tired to push him away. tim's body is used to bruce's touch, it reacts to it when he squeezes tim's developing tits and presses a hand between his legs.

tim gets wet by instinct, his mouth drops open for a kiss when bruce hugs him from behind, his legs part slightly to accomodate bruce's size.

bruce cannot forget about that one audacious girl and knows he can't allow something like that to happen again.

bruce tells tim they're getting married. it's legal so long as bruce has jack's signed permission which won't be hard to get. he's more out of it than in the majority of the time ever since bruce started breaking into the pharmacy where his prescription was picked up from and messing with the doses to ensure he was kept nice, sick, and asleep so bruce could come over to their home and fuck tim whenever he wanted.

tim makes soft noises of confusion as bruce fucks him deep and tells him about the ring he'll get tim and the dress he'll wear and how tim will move into the manor to live with bruce and his sons.

his sons take the news poorly. as bruce expected. they tell him about his fiancee being a criminal or a gold digger. they fall silent when they meet tim who is dressed pretty and virginal with lace and shiny little mary janes.

bruce can see out of the corner of his eye how they shift uncomfortably when bruce presses a kiss to tim's mouth and he hesitantly returns it.

tim is uncomfortable at the new pda. before it had just been him and bruce. alone in his room, alone in bruce's room, or alone in the woods.

now they have eyes on them, cameras flashing when bruce takes tim to some steak restaurant where tim will order chicken fingers and mac and cheese because bruce is the only one who likes a fat cut of dripping extra rare steak.

tim's eyes dart around at the people staring at them both curling closer to bruce for comfort and curling away when bruce slips a hand under his dress or presses his hard on to his back. most of the time they barely make it out of parking lots before bruce is unzipping and tugging tim onto his lap to fuck against and into that hot, wet little seam that's always dripping wet for him.

bruce has taken to picking tim up afterschool and being sure to kiss him in full view of the students and teachers. he doesn't know which little bitch it was that tried to steal tim from him but he makes sure all of them know tim is taken now.

sometimes tim gets angry with him. he'll get fat tears in his eyes and tell bruce about how people keep looking at them. then bruce will tone it down for a few days before starting up again. even in the manor bruce will be public, displaying everything by groping tim's behind and little tits, he'll tug tim into his lap and hand feed him like he's a little bird. all while tim blushes red and keep looking up through his lashes at where dick and jason are tensely seated.

it'll take him awhile to adjust to it all. bruce knows that. but he's a patient man. he can wait.

#anonymous #asks #answered asks

22 notes · View notes

canadian-cannibal · 1 year

Text

May is EDS Awareness Month

EDS, or Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, is a genetic disorder that affects connective tissues and causes numerous intense physical problems all over the body. Think severe pain no matter what position you’re in, joints dislocating seemingly at random, gastrointestinal issues, fragile skin, becoming seriously injured just by stepping wrong, extreme fatigue and more. It’s a huge disorder that affects many different systems across the body, and it’s incredibly rare, making it hard to diagnose. There is no cure.

Despite the rarity of the disease, I have three close friends who have EDS.

One of them is an incredibly influential mentor to me. She teaches amazing classes and sets up huge camps each year to take care of families and needs in our community, despite the hardships that she and her family have to go through. One day in a class I was taking from her just last semester, she was not able to teach because she was having seizures and could not physically stand. She is often in at least one brace, and it’s not uncommon to see her rolling around on her knee scooter because one of her feet or ankles popped out of place or a tendon tore. Sometimes I will even see her in a wheel chair, and it’s hard to see such a vibrant woman who is usually enthusiastically jumping around and gesturing wildly (maybe not the best idea for someone with EDS, but there’s no stopping her, she’s like a force of nature) confined to a wheelchair. She has told me that when she is in a wheelchair, people don’t talk to her, they talk to the person pushing the wheelchair. It’s like she’s invisible.

Knowing that has made me a lot more conscious and deliberate about talking to people in wheelchairs or with other disabilities.

Another friend is graduating this year and may or may not be able to walk across the stage to receive her diploma. Some days she can walk on her own, but other days she is confined to her wheelchair. She never knows which one tomorrow will be. I saw her last summer at a youth camp where the majority of the camp is spent hiking through the woods while pulling carts. She was determined to make it through the camp, but by the end of the first day, she could barely stand. The only reason she was able to continue on is because the people running the camp had a cart for especially for the handicapped with seats on it, and the other youth happily volunteered and took turns pulling her up and down hills and all around the camp.

My third friend is one of my closest friends. She struggles daily with all the crap that entails having EDS. Some days, to me, it seems like her life is a living hell. Yet somehow she has always been there for me, even when I have acted like the idiot I am and made her tear her hair out over my antics.

I’m incredibly grateful for these friends in my life who have taught me that even if someone looks ok on the outside, on the inside they may be literally falling apart. And that’s not just physically. I know this is a post about EDS, but even if someone doesn’t have a disability, we should still treat them with kindness and respect. Everyone who surrounds us is a human being with their own struggles, and who are we to judge? Who are we to tell someone that they are wrong for hurting and crying and being vulnerable? Why can’t we make a safe space for them to fall apart in, and let them fall apart, because it’s ok to not be ok sometimes, then be there for them when they’re ready to pick up the pieces?

My EDS friends have taught me a lot, and I hope that maybe I’ll have shared even a little bit of their light. The world needs it.

So as you do whatever it is you do today, remember to treat others like they’re human beings worthy of your respect, especially those with disabilities. Because they are. Talk to someone in a wheelchair, not the person pushing them. It’ll make a big difference to them, even if it’s small to you. Make a safe space for all of the people out there who are falling apart, even if you can’t see it.

Some resources for EDS:

https://www.ehlers-danlos.com/

https://themighty.com/topic/ehlers-danlos-syndrome/ehlers-danlos-syndrome-support-resources/

https://gptoolkit.ehlers-danlos.org/

#eds awareness month #eds #ehlers danlos syndrome #disability #give respect #be kind #disability awareness #treat people like theyre human beings dammit

7 notes · View notes

scripted-downfall · 2 years

Text

The Curious Case of Bobby Singer

So, apparently I was mistaken in one of my earlier posts; specifically, Lucifer May Be Rising, But So Is My Temper. When I introduced that, I said “I love Bobby Singer with all of my heart,” and that’s not completely false… but also, I was thinking about season 5 episode 7 “The Curious Case of Dean Winchester” and I realized that I have serious qualms with how both Bobby and Sam acted in that episode.

I mean, I get that it’s supposed to be funny, but the humor used kinda turns my stomach a touch. Don’t get me wrong: the concept? Brilliant. The acting? Great. The villain? Lovely.

But. The humor.

I mean, for one thing, every single time Bobby teases Dean for his age is bloody asinine. He seems to forget that the only reason they were in that mess in the first place was that he decided to play the who-knows-how-old witch and lost, to the point that he might well have been about to die, and that Dean sacrificed half of the years he ended up losing to bring Bobby back to normal.

And also, for all that Bobby was struggling with his sudden need to adjust to being in a wheelchair, Dean was suddenly having to adjust to being old. It’s not like it happened gradually; he literally aged 50 years in the span of a few minutes, and no one had any patience for that whatsoever. Instead, it was all jokes about how funny it was when Dean tried to be his usual self (the burgers, the flirting, the safe-cracking) and it fell through. The increasing number of medical conditions that are just sprung on him all at once? He says, “a little sympathy wouldn’t hurt” and he’s not wrong. I feel the need to point out that he’s 80 years old and digging a grave. For reference, apparently, according to the SPN Wiki, Bobby lived from 1950 to 2012 which means he was 62 when he died. 18 years younger than Dean was in the episode where Bobby and Sam found it so funny to mock him.

Oh, and Sam’s impatience at Dean climbing the stairs? Holy shit, can you get more dickish? Once again, in terms of physical age, Dean was 80 years old. Climbing up 37 flights of stairs to the witch’s apartment would be hard for a great deal of people a lot younger than 80. I’ve known 70-year-olds who can’t walk around their one-story house without struggling. It’s a fact of getting old that things get harder, and Sam giving Dean a bitchface about him being a touch slower due to the whole magical aging thing is just uncalled for and selfish, especially since it’s not like Sam was dealing with anything of the sort and he couldn’t possibly know what it was like. (And, since we see Sam get old in a less-than-graceful way — his wig-I mean, hair alone was horrendous — he really has no room to mock Dean.)

Also, no one seems to address the fact that the magic is basically putting Dean at his actual age? I mean, it’s easy for them to forget because they were on Earth the whole time, but Dean spent forty years in Hell. That means that he’s, what, 70? In terms of how many years he’s lived through? Sam’s response of “You’re thirty, Dean!” to “Sammy, when you get to be our age-” is played off as a joke, but, once again, it’s a jerk joke to make; he’s very much not thirty. He’s been through more shit than Sam has (at least at that point), and Sam acting like he knows everything and has any right whatsoever to lecture Dean is ridiculous.

Anyway, maybe I’m just being oversensitive or something — I’ll be the first to admit that I never find jokes about someone losing their identity, losing the things that make them them, to be funny or, really, anything but hurtful and objectionable — but the humor woven into this entire episode was just… ugh. No.

I don’t know if anyone agrees, but this is one of those episodes that I’m very rarely (if ever) going to rewatch because of how in-poor-taste I find it.

#supernatural #spn #dean winchester #anti sam winchester #anti sam #sam critical #bobby singer critical #bobby critical #i love bobby but #that was out of line #5x7 #the curious case of dean winchester #i swear i love bobby #it's just that i don't *always* love bobby #joking about a loss of identity is bad form #and bobby especially should know better since he was suffering an identity crisis himself #it's just #the humor (alleged) of the entire episode makes me cringe

25 notes · View notes

stormxpadme · 2 years

Text

Whumptober 2022 No. 30 - “Please don’t touch me.”

02/24/2001

"The sheer, unblinking audacity of this man.

Charles stopped his wheelchair at the door of his apartment the second he realized he was having a visitor who'd definitely not been invited to the party downstairs, and one of the few people capable of hiding their presence from his powers at that. For seconds that felt like an eternity, he was at a complete loss. This was impossible. He'd only been in the celebration hall for half an hour tops, less out of necessity to show his face, given he was the host of this superhero gathering hardly even in name, than to make sure that when the day came, he would be able to rely on the help of Flash Gordon and his people once more to put his final plans on Earth into action. Just a few minutes of polite smiles and empty talk, enduring the jackhammer of pain behind his forehead that was the voices of too many people around him since being robbed of a small part of his powers on the Scapels moon not too long ago … A few moments only of carelessness in his overloaded mind, of not monitoring every smallest process in and around his house …

That had apparently been enough for his former partner, not least to the metal around his head shielding the keen beauty that was his brains from Charles' mental tendrils, to slip by all security systems and dozens of highly capable warriors in his damn living room unseen.

"How …?" He closed his mouth again before he'd even really started asking because truth was, it didn't matter. Not how Erik had made it in here and definitely not the question as to why. This time, Charles couldn't look the other way. This time, he had to alert the others, make sure someone would call the authorities to take back in what was a highly dangerous terrorist, finally …

'Because that has worked so well the last two times?' a nagging voice in the back of his head whispered, and if Erik's and his mental link hadn't been cut decades ago, Charles could have sworn, it was his dry chuckle he could hear there.

No, it wasn’t likely that someone would build a prison this time that could hold one of the most powerful mutants in the world. And whenever Erik escaped confinement, it was only a question of how many had to die for that, not if it was possible. The only place this man could reasonably be expected to be held in without casualties was this very house, and that was the last place Charles had wanted to see Erik enter ever again. He was still trying to decide whether to send the emergency signal on his watch before Erik could think about crushing it on his wrist with his powers – or possibly ripping it off him along with his arm, depending on the mood which was highly unlikely to be exactly splendid – or project a respective order straight to Jean's head, when Erik finally deigned to give him attention.

His tall shape, wrapped in the grey and black camouflage of the night and dripping wet with melted snow, remained unmoving where he was leaning heavily on Charles' desk, skimming with trembling hands through documents that had been safely locked away in the vault when Charles had left the room. But when he turned his head an inch or two, it became clear that Charles at least didn't have to fear much from his old lover tonight, at least not physically. The shock about what Erik must have read in these letters, legal forms, and business contracts sat visibly heavily in his bones. The shadows under his eyes were approximately the size of Ontario Lake, and his skin color matched the empty wall over his head where once their portrait had hung, removed, and burned the day Erik had left this house behind. Somehow, Charles had never got around to find something adequate to fill the spot. "I used to live here, that's how. If you're quite done staring, do you horribly mind?" He waved at the door, grabbing the knob with his powers to lightly knock it against the wheel of Charles' chair. "It will be a while until whoever you think about calling will come. Let's use that time."

"What makes you think I want anything to do with you after all that you have caused?" For some reason though, Charles found himself finally entering his apartment anyway and even locking the door behind him like the fool he was. Maybe he just didn't want Erik to do it for him, needing to keep a sense of control in a situation that could be potentially lethal for him, and that he didn't want to become lethal for the people in his house who had earned Erik's hate or even worse, dozens of innocent children.

"As long as you're still residing in this galaxy, you'll have a hard time avoiding me. But right now, all my bullet cartridges are empty. So stop fussing. I'm not here to be trouble." Erik skipped to the next page of Charles' inheritance documents as if he had a right, his jaw set tight in bitterness at that least appeasement that shouldn't have been necessary in the first place. Not if they'd still be who they'd used to be. Yes, soberly seen, Charles’ old lover still needed only a couple of gestures and half a focus on his abilities to raze this whole building to the ground and crush everyone in it to pieces. But looking into his own angry heart, Charles found without much surprise that still, after everything that had happened, he couldn't bring himself to believe Erik capable of that. Not even after all the defeats, the X-Men had handed their enemy last year. Erik had a lot of flaws, but vengeance against mutants had never been high on his agenda.

So Charles came in and left the world outside as if it was still 1960 and his lover and he would be retreating for a few private moments after their work at the school was done, hanging up his jacket over his dresser and driving over to his small cocktail cabinet for a half-finished bottle of brandy that hadn't been opened since the 1980s, all of that without leaving Erik out of his sight who still stubbornly had his back to him. "Spill it then, so I can say no and decide in which cell to have you thrown in."

"With all that obsession lately about seeing me in restraints, one could almost forget we're no longer committed to each other." The tired twitch around Erik's lips at another brief look back over his shoulder only made those deep lines around the corners of his mouth stand out all the more. Not only the residents of this house had aged by what felt like 10 years in these last few months of hell. "Why are you so angry? Your people won."

Charles knocked back a first shot glass without letting go of Erik's amused gaze and poured himself another one right away. He had a feeling he would need that for this kind of conversation, though he still intended to make it a short one. "And you think that makes it all go away? Liberty Island, Alkali Lake, the Inferno, Washington?"

Erik put him off with a still conspicuously unsteady hand, obviously not much impressed by the new pages in his terrorist file that named things like attempted genocide, assisted murder in tens of thousands of cases, or failed coups at world domination. "You stopped me from doing far worse things."

"I didn't stop you. They did." Charles nodded sharply downstairs, tapping his fingertips against the activator button of his watch to remind Erik, his patience with semantics had started to become very limited when his former lover had turned his back on him for a life of crime. "And they're ready to do it again anytime. If you've come to make peace, look somewhere else."

"Peace stopped being an option between our groups in 1979." Erik finally straightened up, only to sway on his feet unexpectedly so that he had to hold on to the desk, blinking rapidly. He sharply held up a hand when Charles tried to approach him, with a worry he didn't think could ever die completely in his mind, no matter how bottomless the depths of violence and madness this man would fall in. So it was not just the shock about what Erik had found in this room that caused his compromised condition, a shock that maybe hadn't even been such a big one in the first place. "Don't. I don't need anything from you. I just came to see for myself if the rumors are true."

Charles decided not to think about too hard who in his environment could possibly be gossiping about something he hadn't even been entirely sure about until a few weeks ago himself. With the news somehow having reached even U.G.E.R. already, it had probably been only a matter of time, or of Mystique nosing around in this house once more unseen for his old lover to know. As long as Charles could keep his intentions from the people he didn't want to burden any more than necessary, he could deal with talking behind his back. That had been happening since he'd stepped into public with this school for the first time. "Why? You shouldn’t have moved out if you are so concerned about my living accommodations."

"It didn't seem like much of a choice at that time." Again that sardonic, unbelievably sad grin that had dominated the last few months of their relationship as well. "One thing I learned from being with you was, I'm not big on sharing the people closest to me. Give the Empress my best, now that she'll have you all to herself soon. I'm taking my leave."

Charles had a harsh comment about how distorting history wasn't suiting Erik too well on his lips, but he never got around to giving it.

The moment his former partner stepped away from that desk for good and approached the window to leave the way he'd come, his legs gave out under him.

Charles arduously fought his first instinct about getting Hank or Jean immediately when he felt a weak but still very effective invisible grip around his watch, blocking all functions. Such an emergency call would at least the traditional way not have left this room anyway. Instead, he drove his chair to Erik's shaking silhouette on the ground as fast as possible and leaned over him with suddenly very cold hands, feeling for life signs that were far too shallow and irregular for his taste. "Erik, you need …"

"Not from people who would rather give me a lethal injection than do what they're being paid for." He was interrupted sharply, his old lover already recovering enough to push himself to his feet somehow, past Charles' chair and over to the sofa with his unsteady gait where he dropped heavily and rested his face in both hands. For long seconds, he didn't move, didn't even seem to hear Charles' questions, or remember he was in an enemy fortress where every moment of weakness could be his last one.

And suddenly Charles knew, just like that. He might have understood earlier if he hadn't spent the last few nights without an overabundance of rest himself, not least because the direct cause of his ex-lover's lousy condition was busy drinking and laughing two stories below. "When was the last time you slept?"

"The night before the UN/NATO summit." His former partner sought his gaze from bloodshot eyes through his fingers, shrugging slowly when Charles' let out another strangled, disapproving noise. More than two months. It was a miracle that man was still on his feet at all. "I said, stop fussing. That includes fussing about me. I get naps in between, even an hour a night every night and then. As long as I avoid REM sleep, I get by."

Charles spared his old friend the question about which nightmares it was that he was fearing so much that he was running his health into the ground so willingly. He had a vague idea, he'd soon see them from up close. "Get on my bed."

"That Shi’ar dictator you married really did a number on you. You used to be so much more romantic." Erik didn't move a muscle. Maybe his exhausted mind really hadn't even caught on to what Charles was offering him here, against every better knowledge and reason.

In such a state, only the clearest, simplest orders had a chance to make it through a thick haze of threatening cognitive impairment. "Bed. Now. Take your helmet off."

Only now Erik finally looked up again, suspicion and reluctance immediately furrowing his brow. But in those unbelievably tired bright eyes, Charles also thought to see a glimpse of hope. "You can't possibly expect me to …"

Charles interrupted him harshly, pointing next door. "It's you who came here with expectations, even though you couldn't admit it even to yourself. So make up your mind before I change mine."

"Are you sure that's all you're trying to change?" Erik still wasn't moving, but at least his agitated fingertips started tracing the edge of his helmet on his cheekbone. The wish to end this grating, dangerous condition of his was bravely holding its ground against the fear he'd been meeting Charles with ever since they'd started to work together. Ever since they’d both started to understand how little it really was what they shared.

In those years before they'd finally had to admit, these were distances impossible to bridge, a lot had happened that had discouraged Charles henceforth from even thinking about getting in another kind of relationship, safe for one that had only required his physical presence once a year at most so far. But nothing hurt as much as this one reproach of a kind of violation Erik seriously thought him capable of. "Next time you try to kill billions of people, I won't be there anymore to take a bullet for you. If they came in here right now to take you back to your plastic cell, you wouldn’t see me stop them. But I have never once, ever since we first met, altered a single thought in your head. By the end of the year, this will no longer be my war. Least I can do is make sure you're not too tired to remember surviving it yourself. You know my only condition."

"People in this house never had anything to fear from me." It was Erik's turn to look hurt and his turn to lower his head promptly at Charles' huff. Good intentions quickly reached the end of their effect when clinically insane ferals, power-hungry shapeshifters, and cast-out children of the sewer were involved. "What happens between our people, on the other hand, when they go to war, is out of our influence. We knew that from the start."

Charles did, and so did the people he was no longer responsible for anyway. This was a choice he couldn't take from them. He’d done that too often already.

With that mutual promise renewed, this time, Erik obeyed his gesture next door, sinking so heavily down on Charles' mattress, upside down with his head right by the foot end, that Charles wouldn't have been surprised if he'd fallen asleep instantly. He didn't fall asleep. He pulled his helmet from his face, revealing hair that was going from grey to white alarmingly fast, and put his most important mean of defense down next to him with a tense sigh, waiting for Charles to drive up to him with his eyes wide open. New pain, raw and honest glistened in them when Erik reached out for him just for a moment and Charles pulled away immediately.

"Please don’t touch me." It should have been an irritated warning but came out like a despaired plea. No more threats, no more hostility between the two of them, no crying over spilled milk. All of that, Charles could live with, not least because any attempt to stop Erik from his ongoing plans against humanity on his part would have ended the same as the last few times. Besides, he didn't turn anyone away coming to this place for help. But what had once been between them was also no more, and if Charles allowed himself to forget that right now, no matter for how shortly, he might not be able to send that message to Gordon and make his way to U.G.E.R. to wait for his space cab when the time came after all. Then this endless battle that his people long knew to fight far better than he could, would continue to wear him down to the bone until the day he died. Ending, sooner or later, with either Erik or him having to take each other out in the field against their will. Charles had sacrificed his own wishes and needs and a great part of his soul for the safety of this planet countless times and never regretted it. But this small, tarnished, splintered-off piece of his heart that was the undying memory of his biggest love, he wanted to take with him to the grave without having it turned to nothing but hate. “Close your eyes."

He did the same before Erik had even followed the gentle request, his hands left and right of his former lover's head, no longer afraid to turn his sight away from someone who'd had all the chances to kill him in the world already and had made his choice against it every time. Charles owed him the same. He dove into the troubled labyrinth of blackest abysses that was Erik's mind and started to block out, bit by bit, what the touch of a certain magical ring had planted in Erik's head in Washington. All these voices and faces of his ancestor's souls, tortured, mutilated, and disgraced behind the walls of a concentration camp all these decades ago ... It was enough to have him shake with terror and shock himself just half a minute in, but these, at least, were ghosts he knew how to fend off.

***

"Will you tell him?" They both were exhausted after that session that had taken a lot more of Charles' energy than he'd expected it to thanks to fighting powers that had nothing to do with mutations and were twice as hard to block especially in a mind that wasn't his own. Erik had withdrawn to the other side of the bed, leaning tiredly against the headboard, fingertips trying to rub away the ache behind his forehead in vain, with his thoughts already back on what had once been their common work. Which was the clearest sign of Charles' efforts having achieved their goal. "The boy. You should tell him at least. That you're going, and everything else you kept him from since you found him. You're leaving him one hell of a legacy. Half a manual might not be enough to navigate through it."

"Scott's mind is sharp enough to piece the missing pieces together on its own one day when his soul is strong enough to deal with them, but it isn't exactly telepath proof." Charles came back in with that bottle from earlier and put down the glass for Erik on the nightstand. "The moment he knows, Jean knows and then all of them will. They wouldn't understand."

"You really think so?" Erik clanked his glass against Charles' amicably before emptying it in one go, with a little shudder. Neither of them had ever been that big on drinking, but anything that would help that man finally get some good sleep tonight again was welcome right now. Given that he was doing well enough again though to provoke Charles, the worst of fatigue seemed to be fading already. "Or is it maybe that you think they'd understand too well? Last time I saw them, they would have been all too happy to sit you down in a shuttle with a one-way ticket themselves. It’s probably easier to take a memory of friendlier faces with you."

"You don't get to be my judge, Erik. Not after all that you did." Charles quickly turned away from the bed before a far more rude comment could escape his lips, and drove towards the door. "Get some rest. I'll wake you before sunrise."

"Charles." That tone. That damn broken, yearning tone in Erik’s voice that Charles had been certain he would never have to try and ignore ever again. Sleep deprivation really was a hell of a drug.

"Don't." His hands clenched hard around the armrests of his chair but he couldn't get his fingers to reach back for the stick to move on. Not even when he could hear his lover get up, and approach him. The exertion earlier, and being so deeply in a mind he'd once used to know inside out and had loved in spite of all the darkness in it, had shattered a lot of his own mental barriers. "I told you. If I don't leave now …"

"You won't." Erik knelt down in front of his chair to look him straight in the eye, inches away from him but without laying as much as a finger on him. No matter how little respect they'd had for each other's work after they'd stopped doing it together, their mutual personal boundaries, Erik usually respected. "You won't leave me if I ask you to stay tonight. But that doesn't matter, Charles. Because I will. Unlike you, I have managed to do it before."

Charles didn’t know what to say. He didn't know what to do. And he didn't move away this time when Erik rested one hand on his leg, warm and firm. Maybe for once, he needed someone to make a decision for him.

Silent resignation had never been enough for Erik though, not when it came to the two of them. "Will you let me say goodbye to you? Or do I not also deserve to be a memory of happiness in your head instead of blood and wrath?"

Charles closed his eyes for a long moment, swallowing away the salt burning in them, his hand a helpless fist by his side, just for a second, before he closed it around Erik's without remembering giving that order, his other one locking his chair's break. "You do."

It turned out, Erik had more strength in him still than Charles would have expected at the beginning of the night. His arms around Charles' back and legs had the never-forgotten routine of years of care in their muscles, his elbow even remembering to hit the light switch before carrying Charles to the bed because Charles hated the sight of them together naked, the shape of their bodies so uneven, his own robbed of all the strength he'd used to stand by Erik's side with once. The dark also made it easier to pretend, those worrisome lines of age and weariness were not on his lover's face when Charles recalled every inch of it with trembling fingertips, a last choked noise of defeat in the back of his throat when their lips finally met. And to pretend not to feel all that rough, tender skin of countless scars when he reached lower, stroking, gently tugging, and twisting on the sensitive spots he remembered all too well. It wasn't only age that had turned them both into mere caricatures of the idealistic, hopeful couple once so sure the world was theirs for the taking, but also decades of fighting windmills, too many of them spinning in their partner's own damn backyard. But age was a number and latent anger had always yielded to lust once the decision was made, so they were both panting and throbbing against each other's touch soon enough, minds and air heavy with relieving heat and, at least for the moment, all thoughts of war and parting forgotten. The tiredness was in both their cells still, so Charles willingly leaned back and waited when all too soon, Erik sat up to rummage in his nightstand. With a pillow placed under his hips, his useless legs wide around Erik's kneeling shape he writhed against a touch long-missed, quiet moans on his lips, his hands firmly buried in Erik's thighs. There was just enough light falling in from the night illumination outside to not be able to forget that it was silver and no longer jet-black hair he clenched his fist around next, groaning against his lover's neck at a far thicker, more satisfying intrusion. But those well-aimed, sensual trusts finding their target with ease in spite of the difficult angle, helped keep up that illusion of traveling back, at least for a few minutes, to a time when happiness had always been only a kiss away. They were basically asleep the moment they'd reached their height, but somehow, Charles managed to tear himself from the screaming of the dead in his own dreams just in time before life could start over in his mansion at sunrise. The haze of disorientation was thankfully thick enough to not remember how to regret yet, but also too intense to think of anything to say when Erik started getting dressed. He wasn't sure he wanted to anyway.

"Call me," his lover suddenly said, almost out of the door already, without turning around. "When it's time … let me know. I'll drive you."

"I can't take you to U.G.E.R., Erik, you know that." After what they'd just done, Charles was reluctant to drive another wedge between them right away, but he was far from being fucked out enough to get careless in the presence of an enemy leader.

And Erik was aware enough of that himself to keep the cynicism mostly out of his answer, of his wry grin at a last look back over his shoulder. "I have a pretty good idea which area in Canada we need to go to at least. And if you want to feign your death believably, you can't let them get you with a helicopter in Westchester. We started this together, Charles. Let me help you end it, too."

Charles decided not to remind his old friend, he didn't exactly have his cell number to even contact him when the time came, so he just shrugged tiredly and signaled Erik, it was time to go. But he also made no move to say that goodbye he indeed owed his lover at some point before being parted from him forever yet. When the moment was right … things would probably come together. With them, no matter how bitter the enmities between them, somehow, they always had. That at least was a loose end, Charles would be able to tie up before leaving his home behind forever.

*******************************************************************************

@whumptober | @whumptober-archive

#no.30 #“Please don’t touch me.”#x men #fic #nsfwhump #everything after x2 didn't happen sue me #x men original timeline movies #cherik #charles xavier #magneto #stormys fanfics #long post #whumptober2022 #whumptober 2022

2 notes · View notes

feralgoblinchild · 2 years

Text

Fun facts that SUCK about chronic illness:

I have POTS-Postural Orthoststic Tachycardia Syndrome among other issues, but the POTS makes me pass out and makes me feel like I'm about to pass out. It also flares up REALLY bad if I have to miss my antidepressants (I can't afford $188/month for that AND another $188/month for my heart meds so sometimes I don't get to take either unless my mom covers the cost for me right now). Chronic illness is EXPENSIVE!!!!!!! This doesn't include medical debt I've accumulated. Thats literally just two of my medications monthly cost right now. Insurance systems don't work. They make people even more sick.

With antidepressant withdrawals, mine makes me violently vomit. One day when I was JUST BARELY able to not vomit all over all the surfaces in my work, one of my coworkers asked how I was doing on my lunch. I was honest and explained how shitty I felt. He said he meant it as a compliment, but you can't tell that in feeling bad at all. We learn to mask disability and illness because its so much easier than explaining to every customer or patient that you're chronically ill and drinking more water or meditating will not cure your neurological dysfunction. No matter how well meaning they are. We can be at an 8 or a 9 on a feeling shitty scale and a good percentage of people may not be able to tell. I've worked through passing out multiple times in a shift. No one would have known if it hadn't happened in the middle of a case or I hadn't told them. Couldn't move the next day, but I worked through it.

We have to be so obnoxiously careful to not overextended ourselves or we pay for it the next day/later that day. I take too hot a shower and I can't sleep for hours because of the palpitations. I forget my compression socks my head might become a fishbowl on a merry-go-round. I don't get to take my meds, I feel like I can't catch my breath. I let myself overheat, I hit the ground. But we've learned that we have limits, and we're constantly fine tuning those limits. Sometimes we push past it for one reason or another, but we'll always pay for it when we do.

I can't afford basic medical care. The US has an excessively flawed system. I literally can't afford medications to make me not pass out. I have to have help from my parents when I'm almost 30 just to afford my medical bills. And this isn't even doctors appointments. We CANNOT continue to allow this country to run healthcare on insurance. It's damn well past time for socialized healthcare. It took me a fucking year to get in to see my dysautonomia specialist, so don't you DARE tell me ITS gonna make it sO mUcH lOnGeR tO wAiT NOT THAT MUCH LONGER BUDDY IT TOOK 2-3 YEARS FROM WHEN MY AYMOTOMA GOT BAD ENOUGH TO SEEK MEDICAL CARE TO THE TESTING TO DIAGNOSE IT. TWO TO THREE YEARS OF MY LIFE LIFING WITHIUT A DIAGNOSIS TO AN ILLNESS THAT TOOK ME OUT OF MY DREAM JOB, ENTIRELY OUT OF MY FIELD, AND LEFT ME SCRAMBLING TO FIND ANY JOB I COULD PHYSICALLY DO

And I'm one of the lucky ones. I'm able to stand up to work sometimes. I'm able to enjoy active activities if I've spent enough time resting. I'm not entirely reliant on my wheelchair. I have a doctor who cared enough to get me a parking placard. I made enough money in my dream job to start looking into what was going on. My parents make enough money to help me. I'm LUCKY over here with my life falling apart in so many ways. There are people who can't even afford a diagnosis to take to a disability hearing, but disability will be damned if you don't have a diagnosis.

Disabled and chronically ill people struggle on the daily, regardless of government's decision on their disability, regardless of the degree of their illness. We fight tooth and nail and claw and every last possible tool we can find, down to the last dirt clod we can throw. If you're dealing with any disability or chronic illness, no matter the extent, no matter the type, know you're strong just for being here right now, even if scrolling on Tumblr is all you could manage today. Ita hard as hell dealing with this crap. And you're fighting every day to stay here. That's hardcore if I've ever seen it

#chronic illness #disability #disability pride month #my queer disabled ass over here SICK AS FUCK OF THE WAY THIS COUNTRY TREATS US

2 notes · View notes

minimalism-fox · 5 months

Text

Minimalism and Disability: A Personal Study

Ooooh a title! This one must be more thought out!

Okay, so, the TL;DR of it is this: I'm trying to make a bullet points post of why minimalism helps me manage my disabilities. Bullet points are quicker and easy to read than a word-vomit post that's actually an essay.

What I am not doing is telling other disabled people that this is the only way to manage disability. It's very much not feasible or desirable for a lot of people. And that's fine! I want you to find what works for you! Managing disability is a very personal and unique experience for every single one of us. What works for some won't work for others.

Less things to clean means less fatigue. I don't have to move or lift as much, and it's a lot quicker. Less exertion is less fatigue, and less exertion is fewer migraines.

Easier to wipe away dust. Dust, for me, is more than an allergy trigger. It's a fucking migraine trigger, too.

Less visual clutter. I'm autistic and ADHD. Visual clutter means I have to spend more time looking for things, and if I can't find things quickly I experience a lot of "I'll do it later." So things never get done.

Less self loathing because I'm not being like my mother (the root of all my therapy needs). She's a hoarder. She's also always had insect infestations that are really hard to manage when they have more hiding places.

Compliments. Yeah, it feels nice when people say "Oh wow, it's so clean. It's really peaceful." I got yelled at a lot for messes despite constantly cleaning right up until I moved away from my mother. It's not the healthiest reason, but neither is the previous point.

More visual light. I have a small apartment The windows are nice but face the parking lot on the ground level, and I really don't like people looking inside my bedroom. Less stuff means less shadows, means easier to light with less sources. We still rarely use the overhead, mostly while cleaning, cooking, or in the otherwise unlit office, but there's less really dark places with less stuff.

Wanting another robot vacuum. I really loved my dearly departed Toby, but I often had to pick up so he wouldn't eat my stuff. I'm the messy one, not my fiance, so that's entirely on me. If I don't have so much stuff it overflows onto the floor, I won't have to pick up for the vacuum. So, if I get another in the future, it can wander almost anywhere with no risk of devouring things it shouldn't.

Physical accessibility. I was in a wheelchair. I'm not counting on never being in wheelchair again. I want to be able to physically access the spaces in my home. I want to not trip over things with a cane, or stumble over things when I'm too out of it to do more than shuffle my feet. I want to be able to reach in to a cabinet without having to rummage and find things when I'm clumsy as hell, and other such access issues.

Being able to actually be finished. "I still have to--" is a massive source of stress, and while truly cleaning is an always task, being able to say "I'm done" for a day or two without the place being unbearable is so nice.

I've recently seen more hate on minimalism, which I do understand as some parents have been subjecting their whole families to the "sad beige" for the Aesthetic(tm) and it makes everyone else very unhappy, my fiance likes that I've been doing this because it means it's easier to clean, looks 'nice' and I'm a lot more relaxed. He sees these as all good things.

0 notes

the-firebird69 · 8 months

Text

There's a couple things going on people are figuring out what it may have happened on Saturn. That doesn't explain if Tommy f has the computer design or not it just sounds like saying playing lost the planet. He and she think that JC was taking down everybody who came in and they may have been physically coming in as well and it's true they were fleeing and he was destroying them and he's an idiot that's what they say and he is and he's not going to go anywhere says and I think that they ruined the computer it changes the whole panorama of the fight so we're going to publish

Thor Freya

It's gross but it's what happened I think and from records I have of the fight itself and I actually have noises that makes it sounds like that a lot of people have these recordings of Saturn it's almost like a very loud pop instead when you're closer it's an explosion and lots of them over a period of years and I thought it was just a gravity doing them in about to it turns out to be Dave never liked that guy and he wasn't so deep and smart and my husband says no he was not he was squashed and he was a dick that's true and it's hard on him and pushed him around and bullied him. Says he beat him up in 6th grade that's what he did didn't really beat him up fully and he thinks cheeseman beat him up afterwards and Dave destroyed him he was crippled and stayed tripled for years and was working on businesses while he was in a wheelchair then he became the guy from Ace hardware store and screwed up the order and Trump started to beat him up and yeah he's a f******. He went on to screw around with each job my husband had just like stan and they fight each other over it. They're both going down Stan has huge bills from his apartment complexes he doesn't own and lawsuits are erupting because he didn't fix anything and he's going to court he also lost over half his fleet no his fleet is pretty much gone most of it. He had like 400 million ships and he lost 300 million, plus another 50 million this week up to yesterday and he started to lose about 3 million an hour and it's because of his mouth people said and it is 2 degree it sure didn't make you go slower and he lost probably 33 to 35 million more they're saying it's almost 40 million and he has 10 million left sume are huge. And out of those 10 million is probably about 2,000 death stars and 40 are bigger than 5,000 that's a huge number of huge death stars and people worried about what he's going to do just like this guy Tommy f so yeah they're waiting to see if the ships will launch they have not yet and they're prepping to do so we can see them getting ready. There's going to be a challenge for them but they think they can do it they have Giants and they're pretty big the bearing Sea is not that deep but they have chances are pretty huge and a few Jagger now this is going to be an event because people have been playing with us for stuff and I'll see that they're putting up the walls.

Hera

Zues

And that was our Empress and yes we like her she is our person and you are not too harass her. Especially you Stan. And you lost all your stuff yeah the large jesters death stars and ships have been infiltrated and she didn't even say that and you're a man of fighting on board all day and night and it's getting creepy because you're so weird hey you're a loser now you sound like a retard. He said that these guys probably are mutating into idiots because of the atmosphere coming down from higher atmosphere it's true too some of you get a radiated and you go places where you get that from the ship out to the perimeter and that's where it goes down here the air from the top doesn't get here. Lots of you go out there a lot of you become stupid. It's only going to be days before Stan and Sherry can't hold the house anymore thier whole army will be dissolved. And their equipment infiltrated and for some reason he goes to Tunisia and to be his clones. He'll be fighting over something there and we're not sure what it would be it's just a few things there.. been seeking most of his it is now a special warrant there a bunch of jackasses.

Tommy f and it was Hera above yes it was said already but Tommy f was after her and his fleet was destroyed the stone ship fleet and the black ship fleet. And he says good to her. And the fleet going to Saturn was destroyed and both of them utterly destroyed and they're halfway gone when we were talking about it and it weren't that big and Mac is recovering ships and he's one of the biggest players fighting stan. It's a huge fight. Mac Daddy's still has ships and retained a lot of them he'll be lost a couple hundred million out of 1.2 billion and then he regain them from Stan and a lot of powerful items and soon will have huge death stars that rival the empires and that's who's at him. And it's looking at Tunisia and the shape of the object thinks it might be a huge empire ship so he's going to try and take it and the sun says it looks like it's in movies and you can't believe it cuz it is in movies so he likes it is going to go try and grab it. In other news the warlock a launching full blown assaults on the clones everywhere oh yeah the ships came down the rivers and pushed out tons of poop but not the mother load of skeletons is a small bunch of them and they're practically gone already but it pushed it down a couple feet but there's still about 10 to 15 feet of it and a big ship is not up there the place is empty and we receive threats not to pull things out and they monitor they say so he says start pulling things out and negate the threats and interfere with their monitoring.. and of anyone's so we're going to go ahead and do that. There's a few other things going on.

-the New Vegas area was under attack almost by several groups mostly warlock Max and they were decimated they attacked all throughout the night and probably lost 1.5% out of the 3% in the West and yeah they're gay and another 1% went North leaving only 0.5% there. The max attacked they sent a column. And they lost probably 0.1% and don't want us to build it and we build it better but okay. The McDonald's attacks and they're forces not huge now and they said before 0.2% and literally they're under 5% already and they were decimated and a few other groups minority more lock and they said 0.1% and the other stuff warlock Max have not and the rest are decimated too miscellaneous it's a small group and said no thanks and foreigners said 0.2% and set offshore and were wiped out yeah I've seen this kind of behavior before but really from all of you is fairly disgusting and the foreigners didn't Master a huge Force with the max did by comparison and had special and they want to hit the desert it's really not much out there. Right now there's several roadways and apartment complexes and we're going to put in the factory tonight and trying to hire people to work there but some people like to watch you get hit I guess. And we also will put in The four towers we've been mentioning and a suit of other buildings we use high early. This is going to go on this way but really the other buildings are going to put in in the foundations within yesterday and it should be hard enough tonight and probably not so I guess we put in three buildings for building centers and I'm putting the infrastructure in for the main drags and the two of them and they're huge and people can see it from space and they know what it is since they can build it better or something take it over we don't want a war zone there. This effort is huge going into making this place and her son says that the idiots will come there and they'll do what they're doing here over there instead of here because it will be our place and we will be building it and we stole it on top of it. And ben Arnold's son can confirm that people want to go there and pay money to try and do things to capture our people. He knew about the effect and she did but they're thinking that the city of these ragtag s******* forces that's what they are to say we don't really want you to and our son usually sits back and doesn't do anything she says I can't do it yeah but in this case we're just going to keep plowing forwards. And people don't like it but they want to try and do it from there. I'm going to show you what it means. This other news we were not defeated at any of our citadel or bunker systems we vanquished all of the aggressors

And there's a lot of people who think that this is going to be a huge problem New Vegas and we know it will but they have confidence I guess

Thor Freya

I'm going to post it I'm going to tell you what it means and it's exciting I heard him and I said no way that is what it is

Hera

We heard it too and we examine the video forward to back find out that's what it means

Olympus

0 notes

ecoamerica · 1 month

Text

youtube

Watch the 2024 American Climate Leadership Awards for High School Students now: https://youtu.be/5C-bb9PoRLc

The recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by student climate leaders! Join Aishah-Nyeta Brown & Jerome Foster II and be inspired by student climate leaders as we recognize the High School Student finalists. Watch now to find out which student received the $25,000 grand prize and top recognition!

17K notes · View notes

1shirt2shirtredshirtdeadshirt · 2 years

Note

hi, wheelchair anon! i think tumblr keeps eating my asks 👿 and i cannot for the life of me figure out why. anyway, trying again:

i understand who pike is and what his story is and all that. the reason why i said i think that joke could benefit from rethinking is because it implies that wheelchair users are inherently suffering (the "suffer in style" line especially). wheelchairs are liberating tools, and implying that using the sauna thing will let you "suffer" like pike makes it sound like you view pike as only suffering, and that those in a similar situation to him must also only be suffering. it echoes the assumption that all disabled people are miserable tragedies and all we do is suffer, even if that wasn't the intention

Thanks so much for writing back! :) I was glad to hear from you again. I am sorry that it took so long for me to write back, but I wanted to give this response the thought, respect and time that it deserved. I've been writing it over the past few days.

I completely understand your perspective and how a person may have come away with that interpretation; I want to take the time to wholeheartedly apologize to you and anyone else who came away feeling that as a product of anything I've posted.

Having heard your perspective, that is 100% a valid take without context and makes complete sense. I hate that I made you or anyone else feel that way, regardless of my intent/perspective. With that said, I hope you will be willing to hear and consider mine and where my idea of "suffering" re: Pike came from - and how it truly had nothing to do with his wheelchair use.

I want to make it clear that the "suffering" I was referring to regarding Pike was not that he was in a wheelchair, but the fact that his whole body was so horribly irradiated by the accident that he (canonically, he expresses this himself in the limited means that he has at his disposal) is suffering with no quality of life.

The machine he is encased in is not exclusively a wheelchair, but an entire life support system; it must carry out all of his bodily functions for him. It helps to physically keep his body together and from further deteriorating as it had begun to burn and melt due to exposure to excessive radiation (see the purple scarring along his face from radiation burns and know that they cover his whole body).

The chemical bonds that hold a person's DNA together break down from high radiation exposure and causes tissue and organs to come apart and/or mutate; this is incredibly painful to live with if you survive it. Firsthand accounts from individuals who have survived high levels of radiation or who have seen others die from radiation exposure corroborate the fact that survivors of extreme radiation exposure - however long they survive after exposure - tend to live very painful, agonizing lives as a product of those burns and mutations.

In canon, Spock has a rare obvious burst of empathy and emotion when he sees his former Captain in his irradiated form. He literally steals Pike to bring him to another planet to have another chance at life as the extreme radiation Pike was exposed to has left him absolutely suffering (Pike also confirms later in The Menagerie that even though he didn't want Spock to risk his job, he does want to go to the planet to alleviate his established suffering.) The burns/mutations that followed Pike's accident rendered him in constant physical suffering as well as a complete inability to express himself outside the binary (yes and no).

Pike isn't suffering because he is in a wheelchair, he is suffering because he is permanently, intensely irradiated: his body began to break down due to radiation, and the side effects of radiation burns and mutations are documented as excruciating.

TLDR: Pike is known to canonically suffer; not due to his mobility issues, but due to the fact that excessive exposure to radiation caused his body and organs to burn/melt to the point that a machine completely self regulates for him and holds what was left of him together. His body is a prison of pain as an after effect of radiation exposure, and the side effects of that was the "suffering" I referred to.

- - -

I hope after reading that, you understand my perspective and accept this answer as genuine; that I am of the belief that Pike suffers as a character not because he is in a wheelchair, but because he is immensely irradiated and burned.

I work with trauma informed asylum seeking refugees, many of which have disabilities as a product of war, and students who are wheelchair users.

I guarantee you, my students are thriving and well; I am absolutely not of the belief that wheelchair users are collectively or inherently suffering.

In fact they are some of the most motivated, driven individuals I've worked with who inspire others to live life with their same gusto. I have seen what my students can and do achieve. They are thriving, and I hope you are, too. :)

Again I apologize for how that may have been interpreted. In no way do I feel that all individuals in wheelchairs are inherently suffering. Some of my happiest, most diligent and driven students who have spoken at national conferences or starred in some of our biggest musicals have also happened to be wheelchair users, and they inspire many of my other students and myself to be brave, to put ourselves out there to try new things, and to live life unapologetically.

Thank you for taking the time to write me and to bring my awareness to a perspective that I had not considered prior to posting. Even as an adult I am ever growing and learning from others how to improve upon myself and live as a better, socially conscious person. I just hope you know that what I have written here is genuine and where I was coming from. I appreciated the opportunity to have this discussion with you and to share our perspectives on this front. It is what Star Trek is all about!

#I hope this provides some clarity on where I was coming from #fantastic discussion #thank you for your insight and perspective on this #star trek #tos #pike #captain pike #star trek tos #tos star trek #st: tos #idic #christopher pike #chris pike

14 notes · View notes

lexosaurus · 3 years

Text

Everything Was White Part 13

[see all chapters]

read on: [ffn] / [ao3]

General Warning: From this point on this fic is going to deal with reoccurring themes that may be triggering to some. Please check out the ao3 tags if you’re unsure.

---

Muffled voices pulled him from the comfort of unconsciousness, shaking his mind awake despite his feeble attempts to brush them off. For a moment, he thought about trying to tell the voices to keep it down, but that would have been too much effort, and he was so comfortable in this blanket and pillow…

…

...the voices rose in volume, this time gaining clarity, shape. Almost words. Close, but not quite. Not yet. Danny wasn’t ready. Five more minutes, he was so tired…

“...Danny…”

Wait.

What was that?

His eyes fluttered open, and he immediately took stock of his unfamiliar surroundings. He was...not in his bedroom. He was in his living room, on the couch where he must have fallen asleep after his almost mental breakdown over a glass of water.

How embarrassing. Danny hoped that no one spotted the water glass on the rug. Or, if they had, they hadn’t thought anything about it. Hadn’t figured out that it was on the floor because Danny tried to get water from the sink without using his wheelchair.

Maybe they wouldn’t connect the dots. Honestly, the thought of seeing that pitying expression on their faces as they watched him fail to do a stupidly simple task made him want to fall into a coma.

Oh well. He was awake now. Might as well go get something to eat to make his family and therapists proud.

Just as he was about to toss the blanket off his body, Jazz’s quiet voice sounded from the kitchen. “You can’t keep the truth from him forever.”

“We can, at least for now,” his dad said.

“It’s not going to work.”

Danny froze, the last of his fatigue zapped from his brain.

What truth? What were they talking about? What was going on in there?

He debated standing up and announcing his presence, but the blossoming sense of dread in his gut kept him still.

Whatever was going on, he had a sinking feeling that it was about him.

His mother spoke up. “We have to. It’s for his own safety.”

“It’s wrong,” Jazz countered. “It’s wrong to keep secrets like this.”

“I know, Jazz. But if we told Danny, he…”

His eyes widened, his breath catching in his throat.

Tell him what?

“Jazz, you have to understand. With Danny in the position that he’s in right now, there are just certain limitations that we need in this house in order to stay on top of his recovery,” Jack explained.

“But cutting him off from his core?”

It was as if he were punched in the gut. He clenched the blanket, balling the edges in his fists. His instincts were screaming at him to jump up and demand the truth, but he buried that part of him back down inside his mind.

They would never tell him. They didn’t trust him enough. He wasn’t human enough.

But they always trusted Jazz. They favored her. She was the ideal child with her perfect grades, perfect ambitions, perfect brain.

Even if they wouldn’t tell him, of course they would tell her.

“We have to do it, honey. We have no choice,” Maddie said.

“You see how he’s reacting to this though, right? He’s not himself.”

“We know, but it’s what needs to be done. He can’t be given access to his core, not right now.”

Why though, Dad? Tell me why...

“This is cruel,” Jazz said.

There was a brief pause, each second like a knife in Danny’s chest. He wanted so badly to snap, but he forced himself to stay still. To stay silent.

To listen.

There was a sigh, and Maddie broke the silence. “You have no idea how much it hurts us to see him like this. We know it isn’t right to keep a ghost from its core but...at the school that day. Jazz, I’ve never seen him like that. And it terrified me.”

Danny felt his blood drain from his face. His body turned ice cold.

He knew what they were talking about, and he assumed that that day was a distant memory in the past, something that would never be talked about again. And yet, here his parents were, digging up the most humiliating moment in Danny’s life, throwing it at his face like a weapon of why he couldn’t possibly be allowed his ghost half, why he needed to be shut off from himself.

“He’s come a long way since then.”

“Not long enough.”

They didn’t know. They didn’t understand what it was like. They weren’t there, they weren’t the ones who were cut open, who were beaten, who spent all day in and out looking at white walls, white floors, white suits, white ceilings, white equipment.

He hadn’t been himself that day at the school. He’d just come home from the hospital, he was coming off of a cocktail of heavy pain medication, he was physically exhausted from the PT and mentally exhausted from everything else.

Okay, so he snapped in the locker room. He’d been pushed back into school, pushed into being around people, pushed into acting normal, like nothing was wrong, and the world was warping around him and he just fell apart. He freaked out, he broke a mirror, Dash and Kwan found him, and he paid the consequences for it.

“I don’t think he’d do that again.”

“You don’t know that, Jazz.”

“But his Obsession—”

“It’s protection. Phantom will make him do whatever it can in order to protect itself. Even if that means…”

It.

The word echoed in Danny’s head.

You’re an it.

Something inside him cracked.

His vision glazed over, and suddenly the two students in Casper he’d hoped to never cross paths with again were standing over him, approaching cautiously, as if he were a wounded animal.

“Give me the glass, Danny,” Dash had said. “You don’t need it. Just give it to me, I’ll hang onto it for you. I’ll keep it safe.”

He looked down, and blood trickled through his fingers, splattering onto the white tile.

It was red. Why was it red?

Crack.

Maddie’s voice faded back into his consciousness. “We just can’t risk it.”

“So what, your genius idea is to keep lying to him about why you won’t take the chip out? Feed him some bullshit excuse about the lab? Danny’s a human but he’s also a ghost! You can’t keep him from his core and expect him to turn out okay!”

“We know that.”

“No, you clearly don’t!”

“Keep your voice down, hun. He’s asleep.”

“Then stop lying to him. Tell him the real reason why you won’t give him Phantom back.”

Danny couldn’t breathe.

His parents. The people who had gone to court for him, who fought so hard to get him home, who assured him that they’d go to the moon and back if it meant keeping him safe.

He trusted them.

And they...they just…

Crack.

“You know we can’t do that,” his father said. “You said it yourself, Danny’s just as much human as he is ghost. Ghosts don’t have the capacity to think rationally about something like that.”

They just…

“Kwan, get Lancer.”

He didn’t understand. Why were those two here?

“Please, give me the mirror, Danny.”

No, they didn’t get it. He needed this. This was the only thing he could do, it was the only way out. He couldn’t let Operative O take his body again.

“Danny...”

They were afraid, he realized. They thought he was going to hurt them. He was a rabid animal, wasn’t he? And they thought he would attack them?

Another drop of blood splashed onto the tile.

Crack.

Jazz scoffed. “I cannot believe you would just—”

“He’s fragile, Jazz!” Maddie protested. “Whatever happened in the government facility changed him. He’s not the same boy he used to be, something inside him is fundamentally different now. Frankly, we have no idea how that has affected his Obsession.”

His head spun.

They lied to him.

“What, so the better option is to just cut him off from his core altogether and force him to play human all day? Great plan, Mom.”

“If that’s what we need to do to keep him safe, then yes, that is the better option.”

The mirror shattered, the pieces raining down, echoing as they bounced against the tiles. He watched with unfocused eyes as everything around him crumbled.

His heart pounded in his ears, drowning out the arguing voices in the kitchen. He fell to the floor and clutched a broken shard.

He needed...he needed to...

Protect.

Danny saw red.

His lips moved before he could stop them. “I thought you’d accepted me.”

The argument from the kitchen came to a screeching halt.

“Danny! I didn’t—”

“No!” Danny pushed himself to a seated position.

They kept him from his core on purpose.

His parents, after all those painstaking hours in family therapy, all that talk about how they were a team and how they needed to work together, had lied to him.

They weren’t a team. They had never been a team. Danny was just…

He was just a ghost to them.

An irrational, stupid, ectoplasmic creature.

They scrambled from the kitchen, moving into the living room with fear strewn across their faces.

They hate ghosts. You know this, Fenturd. They hate you.

“We do accept you, Danno. We love you.”

They didn’t love him.

“We were just trying to protect you. Please understand, Danny,” Maddie begged.

They’re scared of you. They don’t know what it means to protect. They’re lying.

“Danny, you need to understand—”

“SHUT UP!” Danny gripped his hair with his hands, covering his ears to quiet the hurricane of emotions devastating his mind. “Shut up, shut up!”

He didn’t know whether to laugh, scream, or cry. After all this talk, his parents had never accepted him as a ghost at all.

“I’m so sorry, son,” Jack said.

“I can’t—I can’t!” Danny spat out. He had a thousand different responses swirling through his brain, so many things he wanted to say, but he couldn’t. His brain wasn’t working, his voice wasn’t working, and everything he saw was painted in blood.

They lied to him.

“I—you—”

“Danny, you need to breathe,” Jazz said, but Danny could recognize that tone. That was the same voice she used when trying to calm down the neighbor’s hyperactive dog that had a bad habit of finding ways out of its fence.

Danny ripped his head out of his arms, swiveling up to meet the concerned gazes of his family. “Shut up! I’m not a fucking dog!”

“Danny, I never—”

“Stop treating me like a fucking animal! I’m not—I’m not!” Danny attempted to grip the coffee table to push himself up, but he only succeeded in falling back onto the couch. He cursed and blinked away the mist that clouded his vision because he was not crying right now. His parents did not get to see that.

Maddie jumped forward. “Careful!”

“No, shut the fuck up!” Danny yelled. “You don’t get to—to be concerned! You don’t get that!”

Maddie stepped back, looking as if someone slapped her across the face.

“Danny, please, calm down,” Jack tried.

If anything, the red lining in his vision only deepened. “No! I won’t, and you don’t—don’t—ah!” Danny hit his forehead with his hand, frustration clawing at his throat.

There was so much he wanted to say, but he physically couldn’t get it out. He couldn’t stand, he couldn’t talk, he could only sit here drowning in rage.

His body was betraying him.

His parents could fix this right now if they wanted to. They could take him down to the lab, remove the chip, give Danny any semblance of freedom back. They could do that.

But they stood there doing nothing.

They like you like this. Helpless. Grounded. Easy to control.

“You lied to me! You knew—you fucking—my core isn’t even damaged, is it?”

Jack wrapped his arm around Maddie, who hadn’t even bothered to wipe away the tears that had spilled on her cheeks.

Because of him.

They hate you.

“Is it?” Danny pressed, but he didn’t need a response. He knew the answer. He knew the truth.

It was written all over his parents' faces.

“Was my core ever damaged? At all?”

“It was, but—”

Danny shook his head in disbelief. “Cores are self-re—self-regenerating. I—I knew that. I knew that! It—it was healed before I left the hospital, right?”

His parents refused to meet his eyes.

“You lied to me. All this time, and—and you...you just…” Danny tried to stand up again, but failed. “I’m so fucking sick of this!”

“Danny, please understand. We only did it because we needed to protect you.”

“Protect me?” He let out a sardonic laugh. “You thought—you seriously thought you were—you were fucking protecting me? Do you not...even see? I can’t—I can’t even fucking stand up! I can’t stand! I can’t do anything! And you thought you were protecting me? Are you serious?”

Jack’s lips thinned. “Danny, do you not realize how close we were to losing you? And I don’t mean to the government. You blasted a school mirror and then tried to use one of the pieces to kill yourself! I mean, come on, son!”

Danny lurched back, stunned. “I wasn’t trying to kill myself!”

“Then what were you trying to do, huh?” Jack shouted back. “Because not even a few hours after we dropped you off back at school, we get a call from Mr. Lancer saying a few students found you in the locker room threatening suicide because you thought you were back with the government! What do you expect us to think, Danny? We’re your parents.”

“Shut up!” Danny squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the flashes of memory that threatened to surface.

“Jack—”

“No, Maddie—”

They hate you.

His throat burned. “Shut up!”

It wasn’t fair. His parents weren’t being fair. That incident—that was a fluke. An anomaly. And yet they were punishing Danny for something that happened weeks ago, before he went through the painstaking ordeal of inpatient and psychiatry and the PHP and the whole other host of therapies he’d been forced into.

“What was the point in sending me to—to inpatient then? If you were just going to keep treating me like a stupid animal?”

“Danny, we’re not treating you like an animal.”

“You sure as hell got me caged up like one!”

“Don’t talk to your mother that way!”

“Jack, honey—”

“Everyone, please calm down!”

“Stay out of this, Jazz!”

“Danny, I think—”

“I don’t care what you think!”

“Guys—”

“I NEED MY CORE!” Danny screamed, the sob finally tearing its way out of his throat.

His family fell into a deafening silence, and Danny could feel their stares as ugly sobs overtook him, ripping down any semblance of an emotional wall he’d managed to construct over these weeks.

His tears boiled on his skin, and he dug his hands in his hair in a desperate attempt to ground himself. But it didn’t matter, his body shook uncontrollably, his emotions burning through his throat leaving him gasping for air.

All while his parents stood there ten feet away from him. Frozen, unwilling to approach. Because he was a halfa, a monster, broken, unstable, trapped, feared. He was the demon that parents warned their children about, the thing that his parents had dedicated their careers to developing weapons against, a creature so dangerous that the government had funded an entire group to research and exterminate.

And up until two months ago, it was legal for him to be vivisected, to be experimented on, to be tortured to the point of paralysis.

He rocked back and forth, struggling to piece himself back together. And when he could make it through a shuddering breath without breaking down again, all he could do was croak out, “Why…”

His parents remained unmoving, faces pale, arms by their sides. Tears streaked his mother’s and sister’s cheeks, and his father’s unblinking gaze bore down on him.

But their silence wasn’t good enough, their sorrow and tears weren’t good enough. An invisible wall was growing between them with each passing second and they couldn’t even see it.

They know. They’re doing it on purpose. They don’t care about you.

“Why?” Danny insisted. “How could—how could you...how could you do this to me? I’m...I just…”

“We had to, son,” his father said. The moonlight cast a shadow over his face. “It was for your own safety.”

No. Danny was done with the lies. Done with the excuses.

He was done.

Flaring his eyes, he bit back, “My safety, or yours?”

His parents flinched, and Danny couldn’t find himself to care. They’d lied to him, they’d dug their hole, so now they had to live in it.

“Danny, please…” Jazz stepped forward. “Don’t do this.”

“No! You—don’t you get it?” Danny pleaded. “I can’t—Mom, Dad, I feel like a prisoner. I’m trapped in my body. I can’t—I can’t live like this anymore! I can’t fucking do it! You have no idea...and you don’t even care!”

“Of course we care, Danno.”

“Then why? Tell me the truth! Please, tell me why because—” His voice broke, and his head fell back into his hands. “Please...tell me why…”

Jack sighed. “It was just the decision we felt we needed to make. It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t something we did because we wanted to hurt you. We love you, son. And we just wanted to know that you were safe.”

“We love you so much, sweetie.”

But they were blind because he wasn’t safe. And he was never going to be safe again. There would always be someone out there who had power over him, who wanted to control and erase him.

If they loved you, they would have listened.

They’re scared of you.

He glanced up to see Jack putting his arm around Maddie, pulling her in close. Jazz stood behind them, allowing their shadows to overtake her body.

Jazz said something, but Danny wasn’t listening. He didn’t care. He was trapped and completely alone. There would be no protests, no online petitions, and no jury on his side. No one to rescue him.

“Then give it—give me my core back.”

Jack shook his head. “I’m sorry son. We’ve made our decision.”

“I’ll find a way,” Danny insisted. “I know some ghosts. I’ll get them to—to take it out. You can’t...you—you can’t stop me.”

“Danny, I don’t think even Frostbite could—”

“You don’t know that, Jazz! He could—he could do it. He would figure it out if I asked.”

His parents exchanged a look, one reminiscent of the exasperation when Danny would tell them that the detention hadn’t been his fault, that he did try to do the homework assignment, that he would try harder next time.

They didn’t believe him.

“He’ll do it,” he reiterated.

“Danny, we’re not going to let any ghosts near you right now.”

“Like that ever worked before,” he retorted.

There was a pregnant pause, and Danny looked away. He felt nauseous, and anxiety speared through his chest.

“Please, I can’t—I can’t live like this. I can’t…”

He knew how desperate he sounded, but for once he didn’t care. His parents were going to kill him by keeping his core locked up.

Right now it was about self-preservation. If he couldn’t protect himself, it was over.

“Graduate from the PHP program first,” Maddie finally said. “Once you’re back in school, then we can talk, alright? We’ll talk about...about removing the chip.”

Danny whipped his head up, his eyes searching for any signs that she was lying, that she was going to pull the rug out from under him again.

But her face betrayed nothing.

“Graduate?” Danny breathed. “I just have to...graduate?”

“Yes. Show us that you’re okay enough to go back to school, and you can have your ghost half back.”

“I…” He tugged at his hair. “But that’s...that’s weeks…’

Maddie crossed her arms. “Those are my terms.”

Time slowed, and the distance between them only seemed to grow. He knew he was already behind leaving the PHP center that he was almost certain there was talk of shoving him back into inpatient.

But they didn’t get it. It wasn’t his fault, it was the government stalking him. It was Vlad. He had no choice, and he would never be able to graduate PHP. Not without his core.

“I—but—but, Mom. I need—”

“Son,” his dad said sharply. “I understand how difficult this is for you, but you’re not in a place where we can trust you right now. This is our compromise. Show us we can trust you, and you can have your freedom back.”

His eyes stung, and his throat was starting to squeeze shut.

No…

“Do we have a deal?”

This was impossible.

Even if Frostbite had a way of removing the chip, Danny had no way of finding him. Not without Clockwork’s interference, who didn’t seem to have any interest in contacting Danny as of late.

The thought of Clockwork left a sour taste in Danny’s mouth. He hadn’t thought of the ancient ghost since his nights in the government compound, his body splayed out like a rag doll, shivering from shock. He remembered staring into the pitch black abyss around him begging for Clockwork to come help him.

But his calls were never answered.

Danny knew Clockwork could have freed him whenever he wanted, government ghost shields be damned. But he didn’t. And that made him just as guilty as everyone else.

And now Danny was alone, bound by his human physiology and his ghost hunter parents.

He had no choice.

“Okay. It’s—it’s a deal.”

---

His body was cold, dead, with waves of trembling coming in and out in spurts. Every breath hurt, and he wasn’t sure if it was because of the burning in his chest, the soreness in his throat, or the way the alien warmth in his core seemed more overbearing than ever.

He could feel it, the hand reaching between his ribs, gripping his core with its warm, gloved fingers. It was revolting, violating, how the hands invaded his body, tearing off his skin and ribs as if he were nothing but a rotting carcass.

He felt dizzy. Lightheaded. He put a hand on his chest, crinkling his shirt in his fist. It was his core, he needed to protect it.

But he was useless. Nothing. He was at the mercy of his parents who were all but holding a loaded gun to his head while telling him to trust them. Who lied to him that they accepted him, that they were there for him.

That they loved him.

He was stupid, so stupid. After all the months of hearing them enthusiastically discuss the ways they’d love to rip him apart, what made him think they’d love him just like that?

Their acceptance was conditional, and their conditions were impossible for him to meet. How the hell did they expect him to graduate from PHP and reenter society like a normal person while they were drowning his core like this? Did they not see how badly he was suffocating? How much he was screaming, thrashing in the ocean for air, desperately trying to fight the undertow pulling him further and further away from his sanity?

He wasn’t going to make it. He was going to fail, he was going to drown. He couldn’t do this.

But there’s one way, a small voice in his head whispered. You’ve done it before and you were fine. It helped you.

His eyes trailed over to his nightstand with his old model rocket sitting proudly on top. He had never flushed the oxycodone.

Maybe…maybe…

It can help you again.

He just needed to graduate the PHP program and he would get his core back and then everything would be okay. He could work on his problems the right way later. The way he was supposed to be doing it, that he couldn’t do right now because he was still missing half of himself.

Two weeks. That was all he needed. Just two weeks worth of medication, and then he’d be on his way.

You need this.

He pushed himself up as if he were a puppet on strings. Everything was bleak, gray-washed and oppressive. Nausea rolled over him in waves and a hand gripped his throat, pulling the oxygen from his body.

The nightstand glowed in the moonlight, and like a moth Danny felt himself drawn closer to it. Tunnel vision took over, and the world morphed into a series of photos in a time lapse. Snapshot after snapshot flickered past his eyes until a hand—his hand—was pulling the drawer open to reveal an orange bottle inside.

You’re ready.

He couldn’t live like this anymore.

The fear, the anxiety, his core. It was all so much easier before, back in the hospital. Back when the only thing he had to worry about was what constellation he was going to draw that day. Back before he had to face the public, his family, or Vlad. Back before he knew that the government had his phone tapped and was watching his every move.

Back before he knew that his freedom was only temporary.

He was a sitting duck, a kid trapped in no man’s land with no weapon, no armor, nothing to keep him alive.

“Two weeks,” he whispered. Two weeks and then he would be okay. He would graduate from PHP, he would get to go back to school, he would become a regular person again. He just needed to get there first.

He opened the bottle and shook out a small white pill into the palm of his hand.

Two weeks.

Tilting his head back, he tossed the pill into his mouth, took a sip of water, and swallowed.

There.

It was done.

---

Thank you @imekitty for beta-ing the fic as well as helping me organize my plot better!

Thanks for reading!

---

#danny phantom #everything was white #chapter 13 #breakdown #EWW #my writing #phicc

93 notes · View notes