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har-rison-s · 2 years

Text

mask & seek: 4

batman x fem!reader

based on: Hello! May I request Battinson x SpiderWoman!Reader fic where she's from the MCU but then she ends up in Battinson's universe and meets him? Maybe he doesn't trust her at first but once she saves him from something, he relents then begins to trust her and maybe then a relationship ensues?? Thank you so much and have a great day!! ❤

a/n: fuck, i just realised i've put the wrong synopsis of this story for the last 2 chapters i'm so sorry guys, my mistake LMAO. sorry to break y'all's reality like that, i really am. so hi. because this is the first chapter that really deals with the multiverse stuff head-on, i have to clarify that in this DC universe new york doesn’t exist. i haven’t read a lot of the batman comics, so i’m not really sure if it exists there. but since gotham (at least in my opinion) is based off new york city, i’m writing it so in this au that new york isn’t a place in America. hope you get what i mean :D happy reading. i’m seeing the batman again tomorrow!!!!! beyond excited

main masterlist

bruce wayne masterlist

part three

part five

warnings: descriptions of injuries, of fixing one; brief mention of using a knife, mentions of needles and catheters (i hate them so much); slight insecurity talk; oh and the best one - silent pining :)

word count: 4.8k

a/n: (who got you frowning like that baby girl) took me 15 minutes to find a suitable gif, god help. full credit to owner / maker!!!

y/n grunts and wobbles from one foot over to the other, holding her side. it hasn’t been a particularly successful night, to say the least. one of their opponents had a nasty knife, and, unluckily, she wasn’t as agile to avoid its sting. “my place is so far away…” she whines, thinking of any other place to go where she could tend to her wounds and rest. just a little. only an hour or two of sleep sound heavenly right now. plasters and gauze around her waist sound nice, too. and she’d love some water. or hot cocoa.

bruce’s ears prick up at the desperation in her words, and he turns his head sharply to her. “we can go to mine,” he tells her in his vigilante-husk that she knows fades away as soon as there’s only the two of them in a room without their masks on. she gives bruce a confused look and quizzical eyebrows. he notes her unstable stance and tries to identify her injuries.

“you sure?” she asks.

he’s never taken her to his place before. he’s never even offered to take her there, either, in the last four months of them working together. she doesn’t know where it is, what kind of property it is—but does that really matter? they’ve always gone to her place because it’s in the center of gotham, and she’s just always had the upper hand in that. plus, she has a first-aid kit and wound-tending skills, which—she’s quite sure—batman doesn’t have.

bruce nods and then struts the few steps over to her. he reaches an arm around her shoulders, his other arm circling the front of her torso, holding onto her hand above the problematic spot in her side, “i’m sure,” he tells her and begins to lead her down the dirty old alley, into the depths of the narrows, it seems to y/n, helping her with every step, “i’ll take you on my bike.”

she finds the last remnants of humor in her system and makes a chuckle, “that’s what a girl’s gotta do for you to take her on a motorbike ride—get nearly beaten to death?” she asks him teasingly. bruce has learned over time to take her humor as it is—as humor—even in gloomy situations. and so his lips tug upwards in a half-smile at her joke. but he can’t distract his mind from her being as injured as he was on the night she saved his life. okay, no, she’s worse tonight than that.

“here we are,” he says once they’ve rounded the corner far from the site of their recent fight, and a beautifully subtle motorcycle comes into y/n’s view. bruce rests her against a near-by wall while he goes to unlock the vehicle, and y/n can only make out a “wow” at the sight of the thing. all black and, though it has signs of frequent use, all the surfaces look like silk. this motorbike sure is worth getting beat up for.

bruce unlocks the bike and comes over to y/n again, with two helmets in his hands. he helps her put hers on—y/n’s vision has started to blur and sway a little, and her limbs grow weaker and weaker by the second—then he secures his own helmet on and helps her walk over to the bike, his hand on the small of her back, the other still holding her hand. once at the bike, he places both hands on her ribcage, right below her chest, and, trying to do it both gently and with strength, lifts her up onto the seat of the motorbike.

y/n cries out like a hurt child—first time bruce has seen and heard her like this in all this time—and her face twists up from the pain, her features and the tears in her eyes visible in the as-of-yet open screen of the helmet. it breaks bruce’s heart to hear that sound from her. “i’m sorry,” he tells her quietly, sincerity thick in his husky voice, “i know it hurts.”

she gives him a momentary glance through the slit in her helmet, and their eyes connect in a deeply private look for a few moments. trust, loyalty and submission are dark undertones in their eyes, and for those few moments, they just stare into each other’s orbs, searching them, exploring them, emerging themselves into them, not saying a single word. they’re sure that not even thoughts pass through their minds in that brief time.

their faces close, bruce’s hands on her body. care for her pulsating through them with every pump of blood his heart makes. y/n nearly reaches out and runs her hand across the side of his face. if only he wasn’t wearing the helmet, she could thread her fingers through that night-black hair and be even closer to him than she is now.

he knows her. he knows nothing about the her that she is on the surface. he doesn’t even know her name. but he knows her essence, he knows her depths. and he knows how important it is to her what she’s doing, and what they’re doing together. he hadn’t realized how much meaning it held to him, too, until now. and he, too, almost reaches out to touch her face. both of their shyness wins over their boldness to act.

but when he finally does, having gained the courage and boldness to, he touches her to close the screen protector on her helmet, so she wouldn’t get any dirt, mud or possible rain into her eyes or face while they drive. the air of disappointment hangs between them afterwards—a sour one. but y/n is losing consciousness and willpower too fast to dwell on it much. and he’s supposed to be caring for her so, even though his body screams at him to move his hand lower, to cup her neck from the side in the gentlest, most affectionate manner, he withdraws from her to get onto his motorbike.

y/n is feeling or seeing hardly anything at all right now, but when batman rests his gloved hands on her legs to move them on each of his sides, she almost moans. almost, and thank goodness for that. he finds her arms next and pulls them around his torso, pulling her body closer onto his. “hold tight onto me,” he tells her, “don’t you let go.”

and she tries her best to do that throughout the quick and bumpy ride around gotham. she has no idea where he’s taking her exactly, she couldn’t map it out in her current state if she tried. all she sees are lights and objects flashing past her at lightning speed, and she hears all kinds of different sounds around her, as well. the world blurs into one big tornado milkshake from her point of view, and she can hardly keep herself conscious. but she has to, otherwise her arms will let go of bruce and she’ll fall off. and merely the thought about those consequences sobers her up for the remainder of their ride.

the noises and lights fade away towards the very end of it, and y/n furrows her eyebrows as she feels the world around her go quiet, so quickly and suddenly. she sees only darkness now around her, the single light source in it being batman’s motorbike light at the very front. she moves her head slightly to the side and lifts it, too, to try and recognize her surroundings. as if that’s going to do her any good, what with her state and the unknown place she’s in.

then batman pulls his motorbike to a stop, inside a room or hall—y/n can’t really tell—that has some barely-working lights on the ceiling, as well as rows and rows of something moving, something alive. she can’t see what it is, but it looks like a huge quantity of some small creature.

bruce makes sure to move y/n off the bike before she can slide off it, and he hoists her up bridal-style in his arms, carrying her over to one of his desks afterwards. he lays her down gently on her back, lifts the helmet off her head, and does the same to himself, ridding himself of his cape and armor, too, immediately afterwards. y/n tries to move, tries to sit up on top of his messy desk, tries to get a hold of herself and the situation, but bruce captures her again before she can make any movement. “don’t move,” he tells her in a half-commanding and half-pleading whisper. he takes her mask off—he’s seen how she does it before, and he slips it off with complete ease—and looks into her eyes again. he sees her eyes for real now, and he sees her face, too—hurt. a bruise on her cheekbone, a cut in her cheek. how did he let this happen? her eyelids are fluttering in weak efforts to stay conscious, but she mostly fails. how can she look so heavenly even in a state like this? “just stay with me.” bruce finally tells her before scooping her up into his arms again. she won’t get the help she needs down in his lab cave.

perhaps alfred has some first-aid kits. no doubt he has those, he’s patched bruce up many times before. bruce gets into the elevator and presses the level number for the living quarters of wayne manor. he glances down at his partner, and his heart lurches in his chest. her face has gone pale. he looks down to where her side is hurt, her hand still lightly hanging onto that spot, and bruce gulps. her thick, dark blood is seeping through her suit. it’ll be ruined.

his trembling hand reaches over to the dark patch, and he cups the side in the gentlest way he can, so as not to cause her any more pain. and he feels the wet liquid against his skin, coating his pale pigment a dark color immediately. bruce grows scared of it, of how that feels. her blood on his hands. his first instinct is to let go of her, of what makes him scared. but he doesn’t. he can’t. he pulls her even closer into his hold, and now he looks at her face again. his blood-coated hand absent-mindedly reaches up to her cheek.

he just wants to feel her in his hand, feel that she’s still there, feel that the silk of her skin is still intact. y/n doesn’t feel much of anything at the moment, bruce’s touch on her in those multiple places is such a far-away feeling. one she wants to feel completely, but is miles away from, unable to reach. she’d much rather drift off to sleep now. she feels so tired. there won’t be any harm in simple slumber now, will there?

bruce doesn’t understand how this escalated so quickly. she was joking just some ten minutes ago, and now the very life is fading away from her. bruce doesn’t know if he’ll be able to… he doesn’t even want to say the words. in short, he’s not sure if he’s fully capable. he needs help.

and it arrives sooner than he expects. as the elevator pulls to a stop at the right floor, the door slides open and no other than alfred is standing right behind it. the older man is immediately confused about bruce using the elevator at all, he’s confused as to why the man who will always be a boy in his eyes has come up at all. bruce breathes a quiet gasp of pleasant surprise, and then he almost trips over his own tongue while trying to say something. “bruce, what are you—” but alfred’s question stops half-way when he notices the limp figure in his godson’s arms. and the blood on the figure’s side, the blood on bruce’s hand. and then he sees the desperate look in bruce’s eyes.

“help,” he manages to say, “help her.”

alfred sees the slowly-healing bruises on bruce’s own face and arms, but he nods. the woman in his arms is in need of much more urgent care than bruce himself. alfred doesn’t need any closer inspection to determine her state of health, and how important it is to act now. so without another word, he ushers bruce to the spare room he set up himself a month or two after bruce started his vigilante night shifts. a room with everything that a badly injured person could need. a bed, medical equipment, books, even a tv, and a bathroom connected to it. one of the guest bedrooms that alfred couldn’t bring himself to make into a storage room.

his breath trembling, arms shaking, eyes filling up with tears, bruce carries y/n to the large bed as quick as he can. he and alfred lean over her for the older man to determine what they should do first. cuts along her arms, those two bruises on her face, and the big, bad bleeding injury in her side. alfred looks to bruce. “what were you doing?” he asks his godson, and sees he’s staring at the woman before him with glassy, strong eyes so full of emotion as he’s ever seen.

bruce shrugs. “nothing extraordinary,” he says, “was like any other night. only…” he gulps, “only the thugs had more weapons we didn’t know about.” he shrugs. “i don’t know how it happened,” bruce’s breath hiccups in his throat, his voice now verging on crying, “can you just help her, please?” he finally looks at his godfather. bruce doesn’t care how he sounds. he just wants her to look alive again, to be alive.

“we both can,” alfred assures him, “we’ll need to take off her suit to get to that horrible wound. you do that,” he walks off towards the small trolley of medical equipment in the room, “we’re gonna clean it, and then we’ll have to stop the bleeding first and foremost.”

bruce looks at y/n again. he needs to take off her suit. will she be okay with that? would she be okay with that? he wants to ask her, but, judging by the pale, unconscious look on her face, that’s quite impossible now. bruce just doesn’t wish to expose her to him while she’s unconscious and doesn’t know he’s doing it. but he needs to get over that, over those anxieties. her life is at stake.

so he turns her over to her side just for a moment, while he finds the hidden zipper in her suit and unzips it. she makes a small noise, a near acknowledgement of bruce moving her around. much to his peace of mind, a bra comes into view, the black strap of it hugging around her back. as soon as the zipper is down enough, bruce turns her over to her back again and carefully, with all the caution he can muster up, he takes the suit off.

holes show in places where the suit—and her skin, too—has been cut into. dried blood sticks around the corners of them, but some blood is fresher than some other. bruce gulps at the sight of it, but keeps peeling the spandex off her. once he’s peeled off enough for the biggest injury to be out in the open, he leaves the rest of it be, the elastic fabric bunching around her hips now.

god in heaven, it looks really bad. she hasn’t just been cut, she’s been properly stabbed. somewhere near her large intestine, though bruce doesn’t know precisely where, and just hopes that it’s nowhere critical. alfred has come up beside the bed, where bruce sits with y/n, and prepares some disinfectant and cloths for them both to use. disinfectant. just the same one she always uses on her own and bruce’s wounds. he’d make a smile at that connection if the situation was any less grim than it is.

“here, just—” alfred hands the tools over to bruce, and he quickly takes them.

“i know how,” bruce tells him and immediately gets to work. alfred gives him a puzzled look, and bruce can feel it on his temple as he gets to cleaning her bad injury. there’s so much blood, it’s seeping down into the sheets. they’re gonna have to change them if she’s staying here.

alfred connects the dots. “so she’s the one after my job of patching you up nearly every night, is she?” he asks his godson. alfred begins to prepare a needle and catheter for the stranger’s vein, so he can hook her up on a pain-killer patch.

“think it’s the other way around now,” bruce tells him. alfred shakes his head with an almost-smile. no matter how long bruce holds a cloth to her wound to stop the blood, it keeps pouring like a waterfall.

“she’s losing a lot of blood, bruce,” he tells him, “you know a hospital would do a much better job than us.”

bruce gives him a sharp glare, “and you know why we don’t do hospitals,” he says in a grave voice, “she also heals faster than us.” he adds then, and keeps tending to her hole of ever-pouring blood now that he’s cleaned it. alfred raises his head after adjusting the catheter into her vein. she makes a small noise at that, too, obviously having felt the prick to some extent, no matter how subtle. bruce’s heart lurches in his chest at the small noise, his eyes immediately looking to her face.

“what do you mean, bruce?” alfred asks. bruce just looks at him momentarily.

“she’s enhanced,” he says, “doesn’t work exactly like you and me would in these cases.” alfred’s still confused, but he brushes it off, telling himself he’ll probably find out later or won’t need to. the important thing now is to make sure this woman survives the night.

“what about her blood? does that regenerate faster, too?” he asks, and then shakes his head again. “we’ll need to get more for her. you don’t know her blood type, do you?”

bruce doesn’t, but he can find out. he finally dares to look below her face, where those sacred letters lie, an abundance of information with them. that tells him everything.

y/n parker

birth date: 04/06/1994

city of origin: queens, new york city, NY

occupation: barista at saint jeremiah's coffee

former occupation: waitress at mudd's cave

OPEN MEDICAL FILES? the system suggests.

bruce hesitates a little, processing all this new information on her all at once already, but then nods at the system’s question. an out-poor of medical records, vaccines and tests done comes up in his vision. thank god he didn’t take out the lenses in the cave, or this would have taken a lot, lot longer.

allergies: lactose, strawberries, tulips

blood type: AB+

chronic diseases: none

blood type AB+. the same one as bruce’s. he looks to alfred, who meets the younger man with an awaiting look. “she has my blood type,” he tells him the discovery. and she wasn’t born far from his birthday, either. just a couple months earlier. how curious.

“interesting,” alfred says finally, “i’ll try not to drain you too much, bruce, so i’ll take just a drop now and we’ll see—”

“take as much as she needs,” bruce says with dark determination in his eyes, “i’m not injured.”

“can’t exactly let you die, sir,” alfred argues back and prepares another needle and an empty plastic patch to withdraw bruce’s blood. bruce doesn’t care what happens to him. alfred might take every drop of his blood if it meant y/n would be saved. saved. certainly an interesting word.

alfred knows what bruce thinks of himself in this case. he never cares what happens to him. what matters to him is what happens to the world. that his job has been done, that it has been done well. bruce doesn’t care if he dies, either, as long as his message and goal has been fulfilled. this time, the world is swapped for y/n. she’s all that he cares about, all that matters right now. y/n. what a name.

knowing this, alfred fills two of those empty patches with bruce’s blood. just to see if it might be enough. the prince of gotham has to admit he feels light-headed already, he guesses his worries and stresses, and over-all regular exhaustion from the fight before have been slowly draining him, too. but he helps alfred patch y/n up with cotton and gauze to secure her injury, protect it from the outside factors.

alfred handles the patching up itself—plasters, balls of cotton and gauze. bruce merely helps move the unconscious y/n around slightly, so that alfred has no trouble wrapping the gauze around her waist, so that they don’t make her injury worse. bruce’s hands splay on her partly-covered hips, the very tips of his fingers only digging into her skin very slightly to lift her hips up and down from time to time. bruce has to say he feels awkward and not right, handling her the way that he is, while she’s unconscious and ignorant of the way he touches her.

but that over-whelming care he feels for her, that has gained almost an animalistic trait, seeps through and makes that anxiety of his sink. he’ll just have to tell her about what he and alfred did while she was unconscious, and she’ll understand. there’s no way she won’t. he won’t tell her, of course, how right her silky flesh felt against his rough hands, how well she fit into his hands, and how his first instinct was to touch the rest of her skin, as well. he’ll keep that to himself, and will hope that urge will pass with time.

after her injury has been wrapped up and secured in isolation from any harm, the two men of wayne manor work to settle y/n into bed properly. while alfred changes the sheets, bruce lays her on a near-by couch, and rids her of the rest of her suit, throwing the ruined piece to the ground. thankfully, she’s not as badly injured anywhere else in her body, so she can rest now. bruce searches the cabinets next to the large bed for any clothes, and, luckily, there are a couple pieces laying about. he chooses sweatpants and one of the plain shirts for her.

while he pulls the pants on her with ease, bruce experiences trouble with the shirt. how can he put it on if she’s connected to the blood patches through her vein? he has a bit of trouble figuring it out, but at once he does. he pulls the shirt over her head, puts her mobile arm through the sleeve, and then carefully puts the attached-to-the-patches arm through the sleeve, as well, but leaves the small wire that’s pumping blood into her to snake upwards. it now runs across her upper arm and sneaks out through the top opening in her shirt, further running up to the adjusted patch, just closer to her now.

she doesn’t make a noise or move at any point in all this ruckus, and bruce is glad to see her at peace. she’s not as pale anymore already, and her breathing has regulated. she’s healing herself and is getting the amount of blood she needs. as she now lays in the bed, dark grey sheets tucked around her, pillows in the same dark grey tone tucked behind and below her, bruce just watches her. alfred is cleaning up their medical equipment, but he’s doing it quietly in another corner of the room. bruce hardly acknowledges his presence at all. he just watches her as he sits in bed beside her.

how her chest rises and falls with long, even breaths. how her eyes flutter here and there—she must be dreaming—and how her fingers twitch slightly at her sides. he hopes it’s something pleasant she’s dreaming of. y/n. his whole world seems to have changed now that he knows her name. y/n parker. it doesn’t change her in his eyes, and it’s strange that he knows her name. he’s not entirely sure he wanted to know her name, now that he does. it’s strange.

her origin being new york city explains… exactly nothing. bruce doesn’t think he’s heard of a place like that before. the system showed him a state, too, behind the city, but it didn’t ring a bell, either. what could she be doing here, in such a place as gotham, if she’s from there? it sounds like a famous place, one bruce should know. but he doesn’t. though, he reckons, he’ll spend some time searching for it during the day, once she’s all settled in under the covers.

even though he wants to be at her side at all times. he wants to be here when she wakes up, he wants to be here with her when even the smallest thing happens. but he also has her suit to work on. that ruined, full-of-blood suit. after this incident, he can’t let her roam around the city in spandex and rely on her agility or his protection to keep herself safe. he won’t hear any protest from her about it, either. he can’t let her be this vulnerable to these thugs, or to anyone for that matter.

bruce blames himself for what happened to her. he never cares what happens to him, either if he’s fighting alone or together with her. he didn’t even catch one of the thugs striking her with a knife, brutally stabbing her, until the very end of the fight. how could he have not seen it? how could he have not heard it happen? he should have been by her side, should have kept a closer eye on her. yes, they’re both kind of independent in their fighting styles, but still, they work as a team, they’re supposed to be looking out for each other. how could he have let this happen?

the dawn rises and ignites light across the sky, which can be perfectly seen through the window of this bedroom. bruce sees it only when that light hits y/n’s cheek in a soft manner. he turns to look around the room, then, and finds alfred sitting in a chair in one of the corners. bruce rises to his feet and draws the big curtains closed, so that y/n wouldn’t be bothered by light from the world and could sleep as long as she needs to. he feels a sour tone as the last ray of the sun caresses his own face, but he pulls the curtains completely closed.

“you should get some sleep, too, bruce,” alfred says quietly as he rises from the chair, “she’ll be alright without you. just needs time.” he walks over to the door. bruce turns to look at him.

“how much?” he asks in a hush. his and alfred’s eyes connect. the older man shrugs.

“a couple days, if she gets better.” he answers. “a week, just to be sure.” he tells bruce. “if she doesn’t get better, well… then we’ll really need to get her to a hospital.”

bruce averts his eyes from those of his godfather’s, but nods. neither of them are doctors, scientists or miracle-workers, even if they try to be. so they can’t always expect themselves to be able to do everything. some things are out of their hands.

“i’ll send breakfast up for you, you need your strength. then you can get some rest,” alfred informs bruce, his ringed hand tapping on the thick mahogany door, “as for her,” he looks to the sleeping woman in the bed, “we’ll get her a meal as soon as she wakes up, alright?” bruce nods in response, still not saying anything. “good night, master wayne. or should i say—good morning.” alfred says and leaves the room, closing the door behind him. bruce knows he’s exhausted, too. the paper work usually keeps alfred up at night, but when that’s not the case, then it’s bruce that keeps him up. this time, it’s both bruce and his accomplice.

alfred will enjoy to get acquainted with the woman when she’s in a much better state, because, dare he say, she’s been keeping bruce busy in a healthy way, and she’s been caring for him now that bruce forbid alfred to do so. bruce has also been in better moods lately, and alfred can only thank her for that. he just has yet to know this wonderful person.

with half of the sent-up breakfast in his stomach, the blood loss and exhaustion wearing his body down and the darkness of the room due to the drawn curtains, bruce can’t keep himself awake anymore. sitting by the bed in one of the bigger sofa chairs, on the side she lays in, and watching her, he feels himself nodding off every once in a while. eyes drifting closed and head dropping onto the mattress. so he finally gives himself that sweet release—bruce gets comfortable with half his body on the mattress and half still in the chair—and lets slumber take complete control of his body and consciousness.

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morganaspendragonss · 3 years

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Hello 🥰 Whump fic idea :)TK lands in the hospital, again. But this time they're serious, serious injuries, he is under a respirator, he is not breathing on his own, the doctors do not give him much chance of survival, they even advise it would be the best to prepare for the worst and say goodbye, just in case. Owen calls Gwen, she's arriving the same day with Enzo and baby junior. When in the hospital they find out how it happened and that it's mostly Owen's fault (I don't know, for example, he allowed Tk to enter the unstable building to tend to the patient, or whether he made someone else angry and this person unloaded it on TK, or Owen decided to do something reckless and TK wanted to save him or it is The arson situation from 2x12 so Gwyn arrives pregnant, without a baby of course), Gwyn slaps him twice and Enzo punches him right in the nose, breaking it, for risking TK's life. Fortunately, despite the bad prognosis, TK wakes up, but after he took his sweet time being in a coma.

holly's august extravaganza day 3: the meetings for those in my wake

thanks for the prompt! i really loved writing this one though i need to confess to toning it down a little? idk but with the way it was going it didn't feel right to have enzo break owen's nose. i hope you still like it!

ao3 | 3.3k | major character injury, coma, angst with a happy ending

For years after the divorce, Gwyn came to learn that any call from Owen was almost certainly bad news.

TK got in a fight.

TK overdosed.

TK was shot, he’s in the hospital.

Over and over, until the first words out of her mouth whenever Owen’s name flashed up on her screen were, What’s wrong?

Things have been better in the three years since her time in Texas. Gwyn suspects it’s partly TK’s influence—he’s been more than enthusiastic in getting to know his baby brother, and Isaac has latched onto TK despite only seeing him in person every few months or so. But they’ve talked as well, she and Owen, and they really are doing better. They’re almost like friends now, which is why Gwyn thinks nothing of it when he calls just after she’s put Isaac to bed for the night.

“Owen, hey,” she greets. “What’s up?”

The silence she’s answered with is the first sign that something’s wrong.

The sob that follows is the second.

“Owen?” Gwyn repeats, louder this time, her heart leaping into her throat. She sits down heavily on the sofa as she waits for Owen’s response; there’s only one thing that could make him cry like that, and tears prick at Gwyn’s eyes as she imagines TK hurt again, or worse.

“Gwyn,” Owen eventually manages to gasp out, voice wrecked. “Gwyn, it’s TK. He’s… You need to get here. You need— It’s not like last time. They don’t know if he’s going to— They don’t think— It’s bad. Really bad.”

Owen breaks off, crying harder, and Gwyn claps a hand to her mouth. She remembers well how devastated he’d been when he called about the gunshot, but this a whole other level. Gwyn’s head spins with the potential implications of that and she finds her breath coming in sharp gasps, but it’s Owen’s next words that knocks it from her altogether.

“They think we should say goodbye.”

The rest of the story comes haltingly—someone got angry after his son couldn’t be saved on a call, he came to the firehouse, he attacked TK—but Gwyn barely hears it. Her boy is in the hospital again and this time…this time he might not be coming home. She can’t understand it; she spoke to him just two days ago, they made plans for he and Carlos to visit for Isaac’s birthday, and now…

“I’m so sorry, Gwyn,” Owen finishes. She feels a flash of that age-old urge to scream at him, but she fights it off, not wanting to wake Isaac.

“I’ll be on the first flight over,” she promises, then ends the call, sliding off the couch to the floor. Her phone falls from limp fingers and harsh sobs tear from her throat, muffled by the press of her fist against her mouth.

Enzo finds her there an hour later and immediately takes her in his arms, not complaining about her tears soaking his shirt. When she tells him what happened, he insists on joining her, and Gwyn allows herself to take that shred of comfort and run with it.

She thinks it’s the only comfort she’s likely to get right now.

The next flight isn’t until morning, so Gwyn spends a sleepless night packing and unpacking their suitcases and making phone calls with the firm and her clients to cancel everything for the foreseeable. She has the brief, terrible thought about whether she should pack funeral attire, which almost sends her into a panic attack as reality hits her all over again.

Enzo saves her from it, gently guiding her to bed, but not before she packs the clothes anyway.

Isaac seems to pick up on her mood when they’re hurrying out of the house, remaining mostly quiet aside from the odd question about where they’re going. He perks up considerably when he finds out they’re heading to Austin, babbling about seeing TK, and Gwyn has to blink hard to keep from crying again. Enzo reaches over to take her hand, and he barely lets go until they’re landing in Austin.

The entrance to the ICU looms before her, and Gwyn feels stuck. There had been a part of her, still, that had hoped to find TK miraculously awake and on the mend, like the last time she had made this trip. She doesn’t want to believe that he’s here, hurt, maybe dying.

But he is, and she’s forcefully reminded of that fact when a kind-looking nurse approaches her hesitantly.

“Ma’am? Can I help you?”

Gwyn blinks at her, her brain taking a moment to catch up. “I, um. I’m here to see my son. TK Strand.” She pauses, then shakes her head, cursing herself internally. “Tyler Kennedy Strand.”

The nurse’s entire demeanour changes, a sympathetic smile taking over her face. “This way.” She leads Gwyn through the ICU, then points at a door near the end of the corridor. “Tyler’s room is just there. I promise, we’re doing everything we can for him.”

Gwyn nods absently, her gaze stuck on the door the nurse had indicated. She walks forward slowly, the room seeming to get further and further away until, suddenly, she’s standing on the threshold, and she sees her son.

TK is barely visible, his face half-obscured by the ventilator, half by bruises, and heavy gauze covers his forehead. His arms, resting limply at his sides, are littered with scrapes, and if Gwyn squints, she can just about make out more bandages peeking out from under the hospital gown.

She’d thought that seeing him would make it all real, but she feels separate from everything somehow, only one thought going through her mind on repeat.

This is not my son.

A quiet whisper draws her attention to the figure sitting at TK’s side. Gwyn has to suppress a gasp as she takes in Carlos’s appearance; she hasn’t seen him in person since the wedding last year, and his pale face and red-rimmed eyes cut a stark contrast to that day. He hasn’t noticed her yet, wholly fixated on TK, one hand gently stroking the tufts of hair poking out above the bandage. His lips move and Gwyn knows she should walk away, but instead she finds herself leaning closer, straining to hear Carlos’s words.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he’s saying. “I know you’re fighting and I know you’re going to try as hard as you can to come back to us—believe me, Ty, I am praying every day to see those pretty green eyes of yours open again. But I—I want you to know that it’s okay if you can’t. If it gets too hard, if you need to let go, you can. I already miss you like crazy and I really, really, don’t want to live the rest of my life without you, but the thing I can’t stand more than that is the idea of you suffering.

“Come back if you can, but if someday you find you can’t, remember that I love you and we’ll be okay. I promise.”

Carlos sniffs and ducks his head to place a gentle, lingering kiss on TK’s cheekbone. It’s such a tender, intimate moment, but it quickly shatters when Carlos looks up and spots her, his eyes going wide. “Gwyn. I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you were there.”

She waves him off, willing herself to finally step into the room. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I should have said something, but I didn’t want to interrupt.”

Carlos nods, giving her a small, sad smile, which Gwyn does her best to return. She pulls up another chair and sinks into it, reaching out to take TK’s hand. She’s startled by the coolness of his skin, and more tears burn in the back of her eyes.

“What did the doctors say?” she asks, clearing her throat and twisting her body towards Carlos, though her eyes never leave TK.

“That it was a miracle he made it through surgery,” Carlos says, sighing wearily. “Eight stab wounds, too much blood loss, damage to his organs, broken ribs—that’s all bad enough, but they’re most worried about his brain. He took at least two blows to the head, and add that to the fact he wasn’t breathing for a good few minutes… They keep saying not to speculate, but we all know the odds here.”

Carlos’s voice breaks and Gwyn reaches out to comfort him, feeling sick to her stomach at the revelation. Why anyone would do this to her boy, she can’t comprehend; she finds herself both wanting answers and feeling unable to take any more.

Owen chooses that moment to appear in the doorway, looking every bit as wrecked as he sounded on the phone. “Gwyn,” he says roughly. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Carlos moves as if to give them privacy, but Gwyn shakes her head at him, cutting off his protests before he can even get them out. “You stay with him, Carlos,” she tells him. “We’ll talk in the hall.”

They head to a quiet spot not too far from TK’s room, and Gwyn turns to face Owen, holding her arms. “What the hell happened, Owen? Why is our son lying in there, not even breathing on his own?”

A flicker of a frown crosses Owen’s face. “I told you—”

“No, you didn’t.” Gwyn clenches her jaw, staring him down. “You said he’d been attacked, not that some maniac had used him as their personal punching bag.”

A few more seconds pass before Owen relents, sighing. “There was a call,” he starts, voice heavy with sorrow. “A car accident; dad and his kid were trapped inside. We got the dad out but the son was stuck pretty good. It took a long time to free him and by then it was too late—EMS did their best, but he was gone.

“The dad went ballistic, screaming at all of us, but especially at TK. We don’t really know why, but it was probably a convenience thing; TK had been the one to break the news, he was the closest person—the guy wasn’t exactly thinking clearly. He threatened him, tried to hit him—the cops had to arrest him eventually, but you know TK. He refused to press charges, said that the dad was just in shock and that he understood.”

Gwyn smiles a little at that; her son has always been too forgiving for his own good. It’s never come back to hurt him this badly before, though.

Owen pauses, throat bobbing as he seems to work up to the next part. His voice is quiet, and he seems reluctant to meet Gwyn’s eyes. “He showed up at the firehouse a week later—the dad, I mean. He said he wanted to apologise and, I swear, Gwyn, he really did seem genuine. None of us wanted to let him near TK, but ultimately it was TK’s decision. They went round the side of the house to talk; when neither of them came back after twenty minutes, we went looking.

“By that time, the guy was gone, and TK was…” He stops and shakes his head, swallowing hard. “He could barely breathe. Tommy and Nancy did what they could and they got him here quickly, but we have no idea how long he’d been like that before we found him.”

Gwyn’s head snaps up, a white-hot anger flashing through her. “I can’t believe you,” she hisses. “You left our son alone with a man who had already threatened him for twenty minutes, Owen.”

Owen frowns. “I told you, he seemed genuine. And TK—”

Gwyn can’t help it; she slaps him. “Don’t you dare,” she grounds out, crowding into Owen’s space. “Don’t you dare act like this was his fault.”

“I wasn’t—”

Her arm moves on instinct, but before she can connect again, a hand closes around her wrist. Gwyn turns to find Enzo staring at her, brow wrinkled in confusion.

“Gwyn, what’s going on?”

She shakes her head and takes a step back from Owen, freeing herself from Enzo’s grasp. “What’s going on,” she responds tightly, “is that he is part of the reason why my son is half-dead in there.”

Enzo gapes between them. “What?”

She ignores the question, needing to focus on anything else to keep her anger from overwhelming her. “What are you doing here anyway? Where’s Isaac?”

“He’s with Grace and Judd, they offered to babysit so I could come here. What—”

“Hang on,” Owen interrupts. “What is he doing here? I figured he’d stay in New York with the kid.”

“Isaac is TK’s brother, Owen,” Gwyn says, turning on him again. “And Enzo has just as much right to be here as any of us; he was more of a father to TK than you were sometimes.”

Owen’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. “Him? You’re joking, right?”

Gwyn isn’t sure what happens next, who starts it, but soon they’re all yelling, insults and accusations flying around the ward. There’s a furious nurse heading their way, but before she can say anything, another voice cuts through the argument, quiet and trembling but still somehow powerful.

“Get out,” Carlos says. “All of you.”

They all turn to him, Gwyn’s lips parting in shock. Owen takes a step towards him, holding his hands out in a gesture that’s probably meant to be pacifying.

“Carlos—”

“I mean it, Owen,” he snaps, harsher than Gwyn has ever heard him before. “You all screaming at each other is the last thing any of us needs, least of all TK. The only person to blame in all this is the guy who attacked him, and he’s already in custody; he’ll get what’s coming to him. If TK—” Carlos breaks off, clenching his jaw and staring down at the floor. He closes his eyes for a moment, before breathing out shakily and looking back up at them. “If anything changes, I’ll call you, I promise. But you can’t be here right now. Go, please.”

Carlos doesn’t wait for a response before turning on his heel and going back into TK’s room, reassuming his position next to the bed. Gwyn watches him for a second, nodding when Enzo pointedly takes her elbow.

“He’s right,” she says, directed at Owen. “We should go.”

Owen glares, gearing up to argue again, but he must think better of it as he suddenly slumps, all the energy draining out of him. “Right,” he mutters. “Right.”

They file slowly out of the ICU, closely watched by the hard eyes of the nurse from before. Gwyn spares one last look before forcing herself forwards; if getting here was hard, walking away is a thousand times worse.

Three weeks pass with no change and, crucially, no improvement. Gwyn spends more time with Carlos than she ever has before, and she hates that it’s her son being comatose that has brought the two of them closer. A tentative peace exists between her and Owen and she knows—truly, she knows—that the attack wasn’t his fault, that there was nothing that could have stopped it.

But she can’t help but be angry that, once again, her son was seriously hurt and she wasn’t around.

She takes Isaac to see TK once, when the worst of the bruises have faded a little. She worries that he’ll be scared, and he does seem to hesitate when they reach the room; in truth, Gwyn hadn’t wanted to bring him at all, but he’d kept asking about TK and she’d found herself helpless to do anything but acquiesce.

They still haven’t told him what’s going on. No-one knows how to. All Isaac knows is that TK is a little hurt and he needs rest, and even that knowledge seems to upset him.

Once he gets used to the sight, Isaac stretches his hands out to the bed. “TK,” he says simply, looking pleadingly up at Gwyn.

She hugs him close, trying to smile for him. “TK’s asleep, sweetie,” she explains. “He needs rest.”

“When wake up?”

“I don’t know, baby. I don’t know.”

Three weeks pass, and the doctors start talking about options and next steps. It’s obvious what that’s code for—they want to pull the plug. They’re told to take all the time they need to discuss it but, ultimately, the decision will be Carlos’s, as TK’s husband and next of kin.

Gwyn knows what choice he’s going to make; it’s the same one she, or anyone else in his position, would make.

That doesn’t make it any easier to bear, for any of them.

Gwyn finds him in the hallway, bent over with his head in his hands. She goes over and quietly sits in the chair next to him, placing a comforting hand on his back.

There’s a long silence before Carlos sniffs and turns to her, his face the picture of devastation. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to do this, Gwyn,” he whispers, voice cracking. “How am I supposed to just give up on him like that?”

She shakes her head. “You’re not giving up on him, Carlos. You’re letting him go.”

“I don’t know how to do that either.”

“None of us do.”

Silence again, but this time, it’s Gwyn that breaks it first. “Listen, Carlos, I know this is hard. God knows I wish none of us were even here. But we are, and we have to do what’s best for everyone, including TK.”

“I know that,” Carlos admits. “I just don’t want to lose him.” He closes his eyes and leans into Gwyn, allowing her to wrap him in a hug. “I wish we had more time.”

Gwyn’s heart breaks all over again, and she squeezes his shaking shoulders. “We’ve got time,” she says, though she knows that’s not what he meant. “As much as you need.”

The sob she’s answered with tells her there’s not enough time in the world for Carlos to say goodbye to TK.

The call comes in the middle of the night. Dread pools in Gwyn’s gut as she accepts it and lifts the phone to her ear, her hands trembling.

“Owen?”

“Gwyn. TK, he—he woke up. It was only for a few seconds, but he woke up, Gwyn. The doctors said it was a miracle; they think he might actually recover.”

Gwyn gasps, a sob crawling up her throat as the news sinks in. It’s everything she’s been praying for ever since that first call, and all she can think about now is getting to TK.

“I’ll be at the hospital in fifteen,” she says. She ends the calls and raises her hands to her face, wiping away the tears beginning to fall from her eyes.

Maybe this nightmare is finally coming to an end.

TK is off getting tests when Gwyn arrives, but she’s finally allowed back in the room an hour later, Carlos and Owen on her heels. The ventilator has been removed, replaced by a nasal cannula, and his eyes are open—barely to slits, but Gwyn doesn’t care. TK is awake and alive, and that’s all that matters.

As soon as she’s in the chair by the bed, she reaches out for him, her touch feather-light as she strokes his cheek. “My brave boy,” she whispers wetly. “My brave, brave boy.”

TK’s head rolls on the pillow so he’s facing her and he mumbles something that’s probably meant to be a greeting, but the words jumble together and come out as gibberish.

Gwyn thinks it’s the most beautiful sound she’s ever heard.

They’ve all been briefed about the risks of brain damage and all the potential lasting consequences which could impact the rest of TK’s life. But right now, as she holds TK’s hand with Carlos on his other side and Owen at her back, Gwyn chooses to take solace in the constant rise and fall of TK’s chest and the heart monitor beeping out a steady rhythm.

There’ll be enough time for worry later; for now, her son is alive, and Gwyn can’t think of anything else that's more important.

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24-guy · 3 years

Text

More *clap* headcanons *clap*

God... This has no limit. Warning, angst for some, fluff for others. And, usual disclaimer, this is just the characters.

Quackity visits kinoko kingdom as often as he can, but due to Las Nevadas he hasn't been a lot. The next time he goes, Karl barely remembers him and all he does is hold Quackity's face, searching for something, anything. He eventually finds it and starts crying, not putting a name to the face but it doesn't matter because he just holds his fiance tightly, frightened over what will happen/what he'll forget the next time Quackity visits.

The reason Karl remembers is because Quackity starts humming a stupid song that the three of them had sung together on karaoke nights. This brings Sapnap into the room, who is met with Karl in tears and Quackity realising what's happening and also holding back on tears as they hold each other. Sapnap makes it a group hug and they just stand holding each other.

Puffy wishes she could give therapy to everyone, but she needs to fix herself first. She understands that you can't help anyone else if you aren't fine yourself. She, of course, helps the children first. Then she goes and visits her "duckling". It hurts to admit, but he's too far gone. She knows, however, that it would be inhumane to leave him alone, and that would make him worse. So she visits once a month at the least. Dream appreciates it. (Not a dream apologist, he's morally a shit character. The character development, though, is amazing. And as a writer I love his character. Not enough to dismiss his actions. Because those are irrademable.)

Tommy is very clingy, we know this, but especially to Sam nook. When he feels a little left out, he'll leave and go to Sam nook, putting time and effort into a re-claimed hotel because jack is off doing something (planning murder). So tommy and Sam nook fix up the hotel and improve upon it greatly because Tommy enjoys the monotony of it and the almost complete undivided attention of Sam Nook. Sam Nook still reports to Sam. And because I like awesamdad and it's dead in canon, Sam knows this is the one way he can directly make sure Tommy is still doing okay.

Sometimes Sam doesn't believe that Tommy's revival is real, which is why he still looks at Sam Nook's feeds.

Chat takes place in different forms for different people. For most, they're non-existent. In tubbo, they're his conscience, his decision making, his sense of right and wrong. He doesn't always listen to it, doing things on the fly, but a lot of the time he does. He hears them more when he's alone.

Phil has murders of Crows that surround him. He has crows that lurk and say nothing, perching close and just enjoying the company, he has crows that are loud and give him trinkets and jewels.

Techno has the voices, clearly. But he can chose to tune into them or not. They're mostly background noise, but he hears them mostly in war, where they scream and overpower the sound of explosions and fire with their chanting.

Foolish, though he has said fish, I still like the thought of him having small phoenixes that circle his head and talk to him. They give him ideas to build, but he can easily get them away or will them away by forcing them to erupt to flame. He is the god of death and undying, of course. The phoenixes also often get involved in rom-com esque drama in that they can be left alone for five minutes and some will be married, some will be devorced, some will be pregnant, getting adopted, having adoptions, the occasional funeral. Foolish is often very confused. They like speculating about the fellow inhabitants of the server and the futures they hold.

Michael never dies. He's like Techno, but better because people like him and everyone can agree on that. If they disagree, then they have over half the server to fight.

The mansion never gets burned down. Purely because Michael lives inside. That man has solid plot armour stronger than Ranboo and Tommy combined and he's not even a playable character. Anything that Michael has that's his? Nah. You can't touch purely because if you did then you have an incredibly unstable half enderman and a man who doesn't fear death who holds nukes against you.

#dsmp #dream smp headcanons #karlnapity #dsmp michael #ranboo #tubbo #karl jacobs #sapnap #quackity #foolishg #philza #Techno

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thedevilsmemes · 3 years

Text

PINTEREST QUOTES I USE IN MY MUSINGS BOARDS ~ A SENTENCE MEME - PART 2

Change pronouns as / when needed to preferred pronoun.

“I do not do justice, I do damage. I do not do empathy, I do damage. I do not do forgiveness, I do damage. I do not do mercy, I do damage.”

“Like, you can boss me around in sexual situations but you better not try to tell me what to do in regular life.”

“I’m fine, I’ve had worse.”

“I’m meaner than my demons.”

“If I cannot bend Heaven, I will raise Hell.”

“Well, aren’t you a little ray of pitch black?”

“He was like a storm.”

“You want to play dirty? Fine, let’s play dirty!”

{ feels an emotion. } “Who the fuck authorised this?!”

“What the fuck? What the fuck is this? What the fuck?”

“Judge if you want. We are all going to die. I intend to deserve it.”

“Goddamn right you should be scared of me.”

“They wanted a monster; I decided to give them one.”

“Seduce and destroy.”

“What the fuck is intimacy? How does that work? Letting… people be close to you? What the fuck?”

“You couldn’t kill me if you tried for one hundred years.”

“I’ll do this my way.”

“I am severely emotionally unstable.”

“What, from the bottom of the heart, the fuck?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t take any orders. I barely take suggestions.”

“I send my best regards from Hell.”

“I like my coffee how I like myself: Dark, bitter and too hot for you.”

“Me and God, we don’t get along.”

“Be brave, Angel.”

“Self care is drinking three pots of coffee and getting into a knife fight with God.”

{ takes gulp of vodka straight from the bottle } “My day was fine.”

“Have I stabbed you? No. Then I am being nice.”

“Holy Shit! I’M the demon living in my house.”

“Sir, that’s my emotional support knife collection.”

“I want an ancient elaborate dagger with my name engraved into the blade as a gift. The only romantic gesture.”

“ ‘Are you a top or a bottom?’ I'm a threat!”

“Stop being so defensive! I’m just trying to hit you with weapons.”

“The more knives you have the more valid you are.”

“She’s strong but she’s exhausted.”

“She loves moonlight and rainstorms and so many other things that have soul.”

“My darling, you can’t see it can you? How like the moon you are. Both of you so timid in yourselves; hiding pieces from the world. Then, there are those rare moments when you are both full, and it becomes hard to look away. You are beautiful.”

“Calm her chaos but never silence her storm.”

“She wears strength and darkness equally well. That girl has always been half Goddess, half Hell.”

“She has been through Hell, so believe me when I say, fear her when she looks into the fire and smiles.”

“She’s proof that you can walk through Hell and still be an angel.”

“She is both hellfire and holy water. And the flavour you taste depends on how you treat her.”

“Even the mountains can not hold all you have been carrying.”

“Storm with skin.”

“She’s thunderstorms”

“Kindness is a language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”

“Sometimes it takes only one act of kindness and caring to change a person’s life.”

“You have a heart of gold.”

“Butterflies are the Heaven-sent kisses of an angel.”

“She who is brave is free.”

“Clever as the Devil and twice as pretty.”

“Shut up. I wear heels bigger than your dick.”

“Girls who run in heels should be feared.”

“Family is everything to me.”

“She’s an old soul that believes in chivalry, romance, and love.”

“I hate getting flashbacks from things I don’t want to remember.”

“I run on coffee and grace.”

“I’m glad I’ve got boobs… the last thing I need is people making eye contact with me.”

“Tell me to put on my big girl panties one more time… and I’ll take off my thong and strangle you with it!”

“Please read all my posts in a sarcastic tone. You know, for full effect.”

“I have one nerve left and you’re dry-humping it, go away.”

“If I offend you, cry me a river. I’ll bring snacks and a raft. I will literally float down your tears, eating chips and working on my tan.”

“When she is happy, she can’t stop talking. When she is sad, she doesn’t say a word.”

“Music becomes my best friend when nobody else understands me.”

“Act like a lady, think like a boss.”

“I know I have friends but I feel I have no one to talk to about the shit that goes on in my head.”

“She was special. She combined a mean angel and a kind devil.”

“So much pain for someone so young.”

“She’s one of a kind.”

“Red lips and wine sips.”

“Brave girl, it’s time to love again.”

“She is intelligent.”

“Sometimes, when I say ‘I’m okay.’ I want someone to look me in the eyes, hug me tight, and say, ‘I know you’re not.’ ”

“Because I’m not the kind of girl guys fall in love with.”

“I fear I will spend my life, waiting for a love story that doesn’t exist.”

“You’re a woman, use it; bring every man you meet to his motherfucking knees.”

“She denies it but, the truth is, she’s falling in love with him.”

“Hearing your heels click on the floor sounds like power.”

“She loves deeply, regardless of the love she gets back in return and it’s both her biggest strength and biggest weakness…”

“Experience raised her. Hurt taught her. Neither defined her.”

“She was not fragile like a flower was, she was fragile like a bomb.”

“Life is short; make every hair flip count.”

“I’ve always been someone who looks ‘too deep’ into something or someone. That’s because I realised from a young age that there’s always more than what meets the eye.”

“If I say ‘first of all’ Run away because I have prepared research, data, charts, and will destroy you.”

“Underestimate me, that’ll be fun.”

“You think I’m sarcastic? You should hear what I don’t say!”

“She’s a combination of sensitive and savage.”

“Stay classy, sassy and a bit bad assy.”

“She’s battling things her smile will never tell you about.”

“Ain't you ever seen a princess be a bad bitch?”

“I was told I was dangerous… I asked why? They said ‘because you don’t need anyone.’ That’s when I smiled.”

“She’s been through hell and came out an angel. You didn’t break her darling, you don’t own that kind of power.”

“Watch me. I will go to my own sun and, if I am burned by the flames, I will fly on scorched wings.”

“Her messy hair is a visible attribute to her stubborn spirit. As she shakes it free, she smiles, knowing wild is her favourite colour.”

“She’s strong. But in the back of her mind she doesn’t think that she was meant to be this strong for this long. And she wonders if there is a man out there, somewhere, who understands this.”

“She’s not for everyone and she knows it. People find her different and strange. She dances in the rain, she laughs when she cries and loves through her pain. People fear the unknown and they never knew a girl like her.”

“Don’t tell a girl with fire in her veins and hurricane bones what she should and shouldn’t do. In the blink of an eye, she will shatter that ridiculous cage you attempt to build around her beautiful bohemian spirit.”

“You provoke her until she roars and then get upset at her for becoming the monster you created.”

“Rip out his ego with your fresh nails.”

“She isn’t the sunrise; she’s the fucking sun.”

“You can’t touch a woman who can wear pain like the grandest of diamonds around her neck.”

“Watch your tongue around her. She will bear her fangs and tear you apart with all the grace of a Queen.”

“If you won’t embrace her madness, then you’ll never taste her magic.”

“Beauty may be dangerous but intelligence is lethal.”

“She is water. Powerful enough to drown you, soft enough to cleanse you, deep enough to save you.”

“Heavy is the crown and yet she wears it as if it were a feather. There is strength in her heart, determination in her eyes and the will to survive resides within her soul.”

“I wish that I could say that I am a light that never goes out, but I flicker from time to time.”

“Spoil me with loyalty. I can finance myself.”

“Shoutout to all the people with brown hair and brown eyes! We basic as fuck but we cute!”

“I feel a nap coming on.”

“Is horny an emotion?”

“I just really like thigh-highs.”

“Even though she looks innocent, she is really a perverted demon.”

“She didn’t sob or wail. Her pain was horribly discreet but as persistent and almost as silent as bleeding from an unstitched wound.”

“I don’t rise from the ashes, I make them. I’m the whole fucking fire.”

“Beautiful but destructive.”

“I’m aiming for the ‘she’s a badass and cute as hell but I wouldn’t touch her without asking’ look.”

“Loving me must be so fucking hard and I’m so sorry.”

“Some women are lost in the fire. Some women are built from it.”

“You glow differently when you’re actually happy.”

“She’s magic, that one.”

“Kicked out of Hell.”

“Red hair: the crown you never take off.”

“You’ve got a fire inside.”

“She doesn’t need a warrior, she is one. What she needs is a devout heart, and strong arms to hold her after her battles are won.”

“You are the love that came without warning: You had my heart before I could say no.”

“You want battle? I’ll give you war.”

“True evil is, above all things, seductive.”

“The Devil’s got nothing on me, my friend.”

“Haven’t I fallen far enough?”

“I’m not like them, but I can pretend.”

“I don’t like being told what to do.”

“Now I grow wings and rage, and learn how to kill.”

“Life is tough, my darling, but so are you.”

“Though she be little, she be fierce.”

“I know what this is; It’s just myself, talking to myself, about myself.”

“You underestimate my power.”

#roleplay memes #rp memes #roleplay sentence starters #sentence starters #rp starters #sentence memes

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peralta-guaranteed · 3 years

Note

hc or ficlet of teddy proposing you amy again but this time jake decides enough is enough

(Read it on AO3)

“You’re probably wondering why I called you here.” Charles says in a deep, low voice.

“Are we not just having drinks?” Jake asks as he hands Rosa her beer and Charles his fruity rosé-tinted cocktail with a berry garnish.

“No! There are far more pressing matters at hand!”

Jake and Rosa clink their bottles together before the first sip, waiting for Charles to continue on his dramatic tangent, as he needs to do sometimes.

“Amy is going to a seminar in Staten Island next week.” He gives them both a deep stare.

“You might be surprised, bud, but I do know that.”

“Teddy is also going to that seminar.”

Jake stops mid-drink.

“I did not know that.”

“Neither does Amy.” Rosa cuts in. “Or she definitely woulda mentioned it.”

“He’s actually attended this seminar twice before, so I deduced that he’s not going for the learning material this time.” Charles leans back almost triumphantly.

“Yeah, it really doesn’t take a detective to figure that out.” Jake is trying to keep busy peeling the label off of his bottle, but Rosa can tell he’s clearly failing. There’s a furrow in his brow she’s rarely ever seen before.

“We have to stop him! He’s going to propose again, or do something romantic, or make a call-back to the seminar where they met, and Amy’s gonna get all confused-”

“My wife of four years and mother of my son is going to get confused by an unstable ex?” Jake’s voice is - bitter, Rosa thinks, is the best way to describe it, and she doesn’t think she’s ever heard that tone from him. Neither has Charles, it seems, because he backpedals immediately.

“Well, no, but- I mean- Amy is going to be upset- she’s been looking forward to that seminar and Teddy is going to ruin it!” He sputters, and Rosa can’t help but nod.

“And what do you suggest we do about that? We can’t keep Teddy from attending a work-thing, and I’m not going to stop Amy from going.”

“We can- we could kidnap Teddy just for the week, and then-”

“Kidnap a police officer.” Rosa interrupts again. “Because that’s gonna go over so well with the authorities.”

“Well then Jake can go to the seminar as well, and punch him out if he tries anything-”

“Yeah, because Holt’s totally not gonna be suspicious when Jake asks to go to a seminar that doesn’t involve some action training.” Rosa quips.

“I’m also not that big a fan of the idea of punching a man for, like, talking to my wife.” Jake grumbles, the label of his beer now completely gone, and only half-sounds convincing.

“It would be for love!” “It would be fucking creepy, is what it would be. Like I’m laying claim to some property or something in the most machismo-asshole way possible.”

“Yeah.” Rosa nods. “Amy’s a grown woman, she can tell him to fuck off herself, and she’s done it before. She doesn’t need us to bring chaos to her ‘fun’ little seminar.” She does sarcastic finger quotes around ‘fun’, but she also does know how much Amy is looking forward to this boring thing again - it’s her first time away from Mac on her own, and she’s planned her own trip just as meticulously as she’s planned for Jake’s stay with the kid, as if he has never taken care of his own child before, and kept her up to date on all of it in case she needs to jump in and help in any situation (which she won’t, but she might go over for a playdate anyway, just to see her godson).

Charles grumbles a bit more, something about ‘true love’ and ‘knights in shining armour’, but he drops the subject before their first round is finished and they can actually spend a nice evening together.

-*-

Rosa hands Jake a beer in return, once Charles has called it quits for the night because he has to go say goodnight to Nikolaj (Jake facetimed Amy and Mac instead and promised he’d be home soon, to which Amy rolled her eyes and said ‘Sure, babe. Tell Rosa to keep you out longer for some fun, please.’ the same way he had when Rosa had picked her up for a girls night two weeks ago).

“You okay?” She asks as she watches him peel the edge of the label almost immediately.

“Charles has really gotten into my head. I hate it when that happens.” He sighs as he lets go of the paper and drinks instead.

“Again: Amy’s a grown woman.”

“I know.” He’s fiddling with the label again after just one sip. “It’s just that all this Teddy-shit really does upset her. I mean, not in the ‘confused’ way like Charles said, which is bullshit.” The furrow is back for a second, Rosa notes. “But like… she just mulls it over in her head so much and it makes her feel like shit even if she won’t say it. I think the stunts he pulled at our wedding bothered her more than the whole thing actually being cancelled.”

Rosa nods as she takes her own first sip. She remembers Amy’s face when she realised Teddy was also at that stroller-contest thing she dragged her to. She remembers her face when they finally drove back to the precinct together too. She knows her friend, and if there’s anyone who knows her even better, it’s obviously Jake.

“So we gotta prevent that somehow.” She tries to continue the conversation without delving into Charles-level shenanigan-planning.

“”I just don’t want Amy’s first time off from Mac to suck because of some inconsiderate asshole. But I can’t exactly go along with her like Charles suggested, I have a kid to take care of, and also that idea is kinda insane.”

“Guess I gotta make sure it doesn’t suck, then.” Rosa finishes her beer and tries to ignore Jake’s gobsmacked stare at her. She doesn’t know when it happened, but at some point, apparently, she’s become willing to attend a boring seminar for Santiago.

-*-

Howzit goin

learn to write like an adult Peralta

also your wife will not stop talking about your kid

you love him

I do

but I don’t need updates on his bathing habits

no Teddy sightings yet but we’re also way too early because Amy. Keep you posted

Jake smiles at the text chain on his phone and makes a mental note to send her a picture of Mac in the tub later tonight, just to annoy her a bit more. Amy had handed the baby over to him at the precinct like she was going on a year-long world-cruise instead of just a five day overnight stay in another part of their own city, and Rosa had been standing behind her with her travel bag, rolling her eyes.

It had taken surprisingly little to convince both Amy and Holt that Rosa was actually interested enough in the seminar to join it at the last minute, and Amy had immediately included her in her itinerary, as well as offered to drive with her so she didn’t have to carry all her luggage on her motorcycle. Jake was going to owe her so, so many favours after all this.

The Mac-inna-tub picture only gets a grumbling emoji response, but she texts him again at around 9, when Mac is already fast asleep and he’s finally turned on Die Hard at the lowest possible volume to not wake him up again.

Teddy showed up

tried to say Hi (or worse) to Amy but I stared him away

going out for first day drinks with the group. I’ll keep him away. Maybe slip something into his drink.

why do I not question you having something to slip into drinks?

I can do more than just knives

don’t stay up all night watching all Die Hards. You gotta take Mac to daycare early tomorrow

Amy told me to tell you that

sure

and it’s only Die Hard 1 tonight

gonna spread them out over all the evenings

got one night left if you skip 4

The Holiday is on Netflix

you’re a good one Peralta

There’s no more updates until 11am the next morning, long after Mac has gone to daycare right on time, as he’s informed Amy via text to calm her down, and he was at the precinct only 15 minutes late this time.

Teddy pulled out the big guns

he had an actual ring this time. Looked expensive

There’s a sinking feeling in his chest, and he wonders what he should answer before his phone pings again.

I broke the ring

and the box

also his hand (‘accident’ - have to say that for liability)

anyway he’s out of the seminar now I guess because he can’t write anymore

so no need to worry

Jake tries to suppress his grin by biting his lip as he texts her back, Charles already getting a bit suspicious over him smiling at his phone constantly two desks over. He can probably explain it away by claiming he’s been messaging Amy, instead.

You’re my goddamn queen, Diaz

Amy is

but I definitely own your ass now too since I have to spend 4 more days in this shit place for you

There’s very few updates the rest of the week (apart from several pics of Amy either working, drinking, or lying hungover in bed in their shared hotel room - Rosa has resolved to make the whole boring thing a whole lot less boring, it seems) even as he keeps texting both ladies with Mac-updates and Mac-pictures.

Amy is all smiles and definitely not upset when they get back to the precinct and he’s already there to pick her up and hand the baby to his excited mama, and even Rosa spares a smile for the two Peralta-boys after the week she’s had.

He sidles up to her as Amy coos over her little boy giving her a hug and hello kisses.

“I really do owe you one, Rosa. Thanks.” “Dude, you owe me several.” She growls. “At least I won’t have to do that ever again. I’d say Teddy’s out of the picture now.”

“Because of one broken hand?”

“Yeah, I visited him in the hospital when he was getting his cast on. To ‘apologise’ for the injury.” Rosa grins, and even her sarcastic finger quotes seem intimidating. “Not even he’s that stupid to try and come back.”

Jake raises his fist, and Rosa reluctantly bumps it before both turn their attention back to Amy, who’s already chatting about weekend plans and offering Rosa a ride home. She takes the offer, if only to play peek-a-bo with Mac in the backseat.

#b99 #brooklyn 99 #peraltiago #jake peralta #amy santiago #rosa diaz #ficlet #my writing #academy dholes

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donaidk · 3 years

Text

George Russell - We Don’t Have To Dance I.

In January I made a half ready au for something really outside Formula racing. Back then I was watching quite a bit of rally races before starting the F1 season off. Now I rewrote it as a George oneshot - which won’t stay a ONEshot - and finished it up. Sadly, this won’t be dripping from fluff just yet. Maybe there’s a chance for a happy end, but I didn’t decide on it yet 😂 Hope everyone will like it 🧡 (I accidentally deleted the previous post, so I’m just reposting it now again🤦‍♀️)

TW: car crash, injuries (not explicit but still, be careful) Title song is by Andy Black

Masterlist | Taglist/Queue | Request

" Welcome, everyone. Today will be quite a busy lobby as we have lots of people playing with us today. " He started his usual intro by describing what they will be doing. People were still arriving, but they had time until the first game would start.

Luckily streams like these were only chaotic in a funny way, making everything hilarious and ten times better. Just as the first notifications started coming in, he had to make sure the race's stream was still visible next to the other page. Then he could finally look at the incoming messages while they were waiting for the others to get ready. The first question made George realise he missed out important info from his intro.

" Hana isn't playing with us today. I almost forgot to tell you guys. I'm sorry in advance, but I will be quite distracted today. She is racing today, and the stream is open on my other screen. " He let out a laugh, already anticipating all the emojis and dripping comments about him and Johanna. " I usually put my off-days around her racing days, but it's a tournament, and I would have missed the whole week if I followed my usual plan for days like this. " He added, so they understood why today is like this. He had just a few streaming days planned every week during their off season, which always collided with Hana’s rally season, but luckily he could always play around with the schedule.

He hated not fully being there for his viewers, but at the same time, he wanted to support his girlfriend even when he couldn't travel there with her. Sometimes he could travel with her during his off-season but usually his training held George back, as he couldn’t miss them. It was the second-best way to get all the info of her racing in just seconds after the real events. Sadly the stream wasn't just about her, but as someone with a known name in the group, fortunately, they were showing her car quite frequently. By the time they went live, she already started and was on the first third of the track, completing that part in the perfect time, as she usually does. For a second, he just stared at the other screen as they were showing their inside cam but then had to focus back as they were starting the round in their game.

Luckily he manages the multitasking, mostly focusing on their game and trying to win, while catching every second they were showing Hana's car or maybe talking about her and how they're doing. He maybe lost a round because of an announcement about her time, but one game won't kill anyone, will it? In the first break, he retweeted a clip that was shared of her speeding down a straight, making him feel proud inside as they were saying no one has a chance against her. It always felt unreal how good she was in her category and how well they always talked about her. It was something that made him feel strangely proud, even though he had nothing to do with her skills. Everything she achieved was hers and no one else's, no matter what the haters would say. Her formula racing career may have ended early, but George was quite sure that she felt a lot more comfortable in the world of rally. After the first few bumps in the road, Hana found her place and style, getting her car onto the top half of the leaderboard every race.

The moment they start another round is when he hears the panicked voices in his headset, although lower than anything else. As soon as he looks at the stream, he sees the playback of a light blue car slipping on the road and flipping up in the air before hitting the ground with full force and starting to flip through the field until it finally comes to a stop as it hits a tree with Hana's door, the car staying on its roof. He waits for a second, hoping they will play the inside cam but as they don't include it, he knows there's probably a lot more to the crash than just a broken car. There are unmissable flames on the underside, but they switch to another driver just before he can see the marshalls getting to them and probably trying to get the team out before the fire consumes the frame of the vehicle and everything else inside of it.

" Fuck... " He doesn't even care about his own stream anymore, getting up and closing everything. As soon as the computer starts shutting off, he shoots out of the room. His phone in his hand already as there is an incoming call from Martha, his girlfriend's mother. " I just saw it, what's going on? " He spoke rushed, wanting to know everything that was said to them.

" They won't show anything, but the boss said they got them out just before it went up in flames. She was conscious but fainted as they took them to the ambulance. " Hana's mother was most likely in a full-fledged panic attack, and George could hear that they were packing in the background.

" I will get a ticket as soon as possible. I don't know when I'm getting there. " George sighed while pulling out a duffle bag to fill it with clothes for several days if needed. He didn't know how dangerous her condition was, and how many days they were spending there.

" It's okay. I will send you all the info when we get it finally. They will probably take them to the hospital. I just don't know which one, yet. Fucking hell. " It was the first time George ever heard her curse, but he didn't have the time to be surprised about it. More like it made him even more panicked as he knew the situation is probably worse than he anticipated.

He couldn't even push the phone into his pocket before another call came in from Alex. He knew they were probably puzzled about his disappearance, but he wanted to finish packing before talking to them. When he was in a taxi finally, on the way to the airport, he pulled it out of his jacket and dialled Alex's number.

" Hey, sorry for not answering. I just had to rush out of the house to the airport. Hana had a horrific crash. " He sighed, feeling as his body finally realised what's happening and started to stiffen up from the stress.

" Jesus Christ. Right. Just go, stay safe. I just wanted to ask if everything is okay, but fuck, didn't think it was this bad. " Alex mumbled out, and all the sounds were audible from the background as the others probably heard George's answer.

" She did a pretty high flip. They said she fainted just as they got to safety, so at least she's still alive. I don't think I would be if I have been the one inside. Man, I don't know what will happen. " The sentence was cut off by a choking sound as his throat tightened up at the idea of anything happening to Johanna.

" Hey, George. You know her. You know how fucking tough she is. Today's event won't be the one that stops her. Not even if she's injured. Don't even think about that as a possibility, because it isn't one. " He tried to reassure his friend, although he felt that it was almost useless. Without any real info about her condition, it's all up in the air and unstable. " The most important thing right now is for you to get there in one piece. You won't be of help if you fall apart. Her parents need you there. " He added with a sigh before saying goodbye and putting down the call so George can make the important ones towards Hana's friends and colleagues. It isn't easy but has to be done, as he knows her parents will be on their way to the hospital to be next to her, and won't be able to call everyone.

When he got to the airport, there was a ticket there already, waiting for him to pick up. It was a surprise, but a lovely one, as it saved him some time and stress before getting on the plane and starting his journey to Germany. He was sure he would have missed the first available flight if he had to buy it himself, but Hana's manager had the authority to get it for him in time. He made a note in his head to thank him for it when they met, as it wasn't something he had to do but decided to help George with it. As he had time on his hands, he tried to relax, although all the images in his head didn't let him sleep or anything. It was strange to see everyone so nonchalant about life while he was fearing for someone so much he was on the verge of throwing up the whole time. But he knew they were not horrible people, just that they didn't know what happened. They didn't have to know about everyone else's pain and life events. It was strange but completely normal.

As he knew he wouldn't be able to rest, he opened up his phone and went onto Twitter to see the news. Although there was nothing new on the tournament's page, Hana's team shared that she's on the way to hospital with injuries but nothing life threatening. It should have made him calm down, but as he thought how many small things can turn into huge problems, it didn't help. There were people, probably viewers and subscribers tweeting at him, sharing photos and thoughts with him, hoping Johanna is okay and healthy even though it was a nasty crash. The pictures of the wreck the car became, made all the good news unbelievable as he just couldn't understand how someone could get out of it without any injuries. He knew that her team wouldn't be lying and that they would have called him if there's anything he needs to know, but it was just all too much for his brain. He thought about putting out a tweet so everyone knew what was happening, but decided against it. Everyone knew already as they probably followed Hana's racing account and her team's one. He didn't need to put out everything and he didn't really feel like receiving even more messages than he already did. He knew they just wanted to let him know they were thinking about them, it wasn't good to see all of this 24/7. It was enough that he knew what was happening, he didn't need others to remind him every minute of the coming days.

' She's in theatre now, fractured leg and two broken ribs. They said she will need some days under anaesthesia to fully heal without the stress of the pain she will feel as soon as she wakes up. If everything goes as it should she will be out in an hour or so. We will get you a hotel room by the time you arrive, as our house is hours away from the hospital and I think we all want to be closer now. I'll send you the address of the hospital in a second. ' Came the awaited text from Martha, making him sigh out and save the address as soon as he got it, so he won't forget where he has to go after he arrives in the country. He remembered to send a message to the group, as they were people who deserved to know all the info. They were great friends of Hana and were probably pretty nervous about her state. They deserved to know.

It took him almost 20 hours to finally arrive and be able to get his baggage back. He first went to the hotel so he can put his stuff down before meeting up with Johanna's parents, so they can go to the hospital together. They had two rooms next to each other, so as soon as he had a shower and changed into fresh clothes, he went outside and knocked on their door.

" Hello! Are you okay? " He asked when the door opened, and he could see the worry on Martha's face.

" As much as you can be after something like this. " Martha let out a sigh, hugging George as he stepped closer. " They just called that she responded quite well to the medication. Her operated leg looks good too, although it was quite hard to fix in the surgeon's opinion. " She let go of him so they could leave for the hospital and finally really talk with the doctors that were part of the team caring for her.

" Is Andrew there already? " George asked while Michael locked up their door so they could head to the elevator.

" Yes. Theo wasn’t in need of medical care. Right after he was checked out by the doctor, they let him home. He and Andrew stayed. They wanted her to have someone while we were travelling here. " She nodded, pushing the first button inside, as it would take them down to the reception. " We got our car, so we won't have to call a taxi all the time. " She added, pulling out the keys from her purse, giving them to George as he was deemed the most put together to drive among the three of them.

" He was quite lucky if he's uninjured. " He let out a huff of air, feeling strange that while Hana was hurt, her co-driver walked away perfectly fine and without a scratch. Life took strange turns sometimes.

" Most of the damage was on Johanna's side. He's got a sore neck and back, but that's all. " She sighed, not saying more. She was probably blaming the navigator for her daughter's pain. In a situation like this no one could fault her for wanting someone to take the blame.

As they got down to the garage George opened up the car, and they all got inside. It was a 10 minutes long drive to the hospital and another 5 to find a parking spot not too far away from the entrance. Inside a nurse helped them find her room, but had to leave before they could ask any questions. She probably wouldn't have been able to answer them anyway, as she wasn't on her case. Although, looking at her and the huge cast on her leg answered most of their questions. She was asleep, as she was under anaesthesia to reduce the stress the pain would give her. At this point, George just hoped there wouldn't be any problems when they woke her up finally. They all knew that everything could change in 2-3 days, even though it looked perfect at the moment. Sitting down in the armchair he took out his phone to quickly text everyone, that they're finally at the hospital and in the room. He wanted to tell them more but could only type out that she looks okay, even though she was quite injured. Somehow the peace on her face made him calm down, even though he knew it was only from the drugs they gave her. It was nothing in connection with her being completely okay and perfectly healthy.

“ Family of Miss Braun, right? ” The german words made George turn towards the door, spotting a doctor who was the one taking care of Hana. Although his German wasn’t even close to perfect, he understood the question and nodded in synch with her parents. The following explanation of Johanna’s state was a bit too complicated for his basic knowledge, but George knew someone would eventually translate for him.

It took a minute or two before they told him that everything looked perfect on her charts, considering what her body went through. Although a relieved sigh left his body, everyone knew this wasn’t the end of the story. She will probably need rehabilitation after her leg heals, even if it’s a simple fracture and will heal easily. It didn’t help their worries that she was kept asleep for four days in the end, delaying the process and making them wait even longer before they got to talk to her. George hoped that with Hana awake they could get a bit more feedback for her treatment and also finally start the next part with physiotherapy. The sooner she got up and started moving around the easier it would be to get back to her previous physical fitness level. Everyone knew that laying around in a bed all day long didn’t help with staying fit and healthy.

George was in the middle of a meeting with the Williams engineers, sitting on his hotel bed, when he got the text that they would wake up Hana that day finally. Although he couldn’t just drop everything and leave for the hospital but made sure that their call finished as soon as possible, so he could get going. When he entered the hospital room she already had a bit more lively color but there was no sign of her being back to full consciousness yet. They were still inside the few hour window of the drugs finally working and didn’t really have to fear that something was going wrong. George was just sitting in the armchair next to the bed, legs pulled up and his fingers scrolling away on his phone while Hana’s mum was out for a coffee. Her dad couldn’t take off more time from work, but he was fine with the two of them looking after his daughter until he could visit in the late afternoons. The half-an-hour-checkups were slowly driving George crazy as the nurses never had answers, just took the data from the little screens and left with an understanding smile. It must have been between the 10th and 11th visit when they finally spotted a few movements, but it took another hour for her to finally open her eyes.

From the moment that she moved her arm for the first time George couldn’t get himself to sit back into the chair, rather opting for a walk down the hallway and then circling the room several times. Martha could only watch him pace but knew there weren’t any words that could help him calm down. They both knew they were finally getting closer to getting her back as much as they could in this moment of time, and it was nerve wracking to not have an exact time limit for it. It wasn’t surprising that he was the first one stepping next to hana’s bed when her eyes finally opened, with her mum arriving second. There were almost immediately several nurses and of course her main doctor stepping into the room, after being called through the installed button. While they tried not to overwhelm her they still had to run a few tests and George’s stomach turned at how scared Hana looked, before settling down at her mum’s gentle touch on her hand. They took their sweet time examining every little corner of her body and asking questions about her pain levels and just general state, leaving all of them tired from the stress and concentration when they finally finished everything up. There was only one nurse staying back to get some medication ready for Hana, when she could finally take a breather and look around the room. Seconds later her eyes finally reached George, and there was an evident smile getting onto her face.

“ Hello. ” Her voice was almost like music to his ears, after so many days of not being able to hear it, and George couldn’t help the relieved sigh that left his body.

“ Welcome back! ” He smiled down at her, squeezing her hand on the bed gently. He was still scared to use full force, after seeing how fragile the human body was actually. These were the few moments that made you realise you have no superpowers and that you’re not indestructible.

#george russell #george russell fanfiction #george russell fanfic #george russell ff #george russell oneshot #george russell imagine #george #russell #f1 #formula 1 #f1 fanfiction #f1 fanfic #f1 ff #f1 imagine #f1 oneshot #bydonaidk #not requested

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mrs-nate-humphrey · 3 years

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What do you feel about amandamaryanna’s video on gossip girl and cosplaying poor? It reminds me of those tik tok videos that are about the most insane rich person behavior you’ve experienced. I feel like it’s subjective because the characters Dan Vanessa and Zoya are basing their poor ness around THEIR environment. So yes, there are MANY people who are actually poor but compared to their UES counterparts they would be considered “poor” due to the fact that they do not have the insane amount of disposable wealth that the other characters have and I do not really see that as them trying to cosplay as poor.

Also what are your thoughts on her argument on GG not really talking about class consciousness and POC issues. Even though the characters Ursula, Jane and Raina had short appearances on the show, as a Black person I think that is was great that they added the few POC characters on GG because their identity was not the main focus of their characters. Usually with Black or POC characters they have to go through some racial turmoil as part of the plot and in GG they got to be rich UES-ers simply because they are. Even though GG is very verryy flawed Penelope, Nelly, Kati, Isabelle and Zoe were shown how POC characters can be rich like the white characters in the show as well GG is obviously a fictional show that’s not based on anything so I don’t think that racial income statistics/racial implications need to be talked about 24/7.

so i started watching this video & just ended up reading the transcript instead. anyway. under a read more:

like, yes. i agree with her on one hand - i think gossip girl 2007 messed up by making dan's grievances be connected to financial status, because the humphreys certainly weren't "poor". like i think this point she says makes sense to an extent:

The comparison between outsiders and insiders and gossip girl is all about relativity. To the average viewer it seems absurd that a character like Dan is supposed to represent the outsider when he is so farther in than any of us could get.

But honestly, something i hate is how people who talk about this show act as if everyone who's watching is expected to know the prices of rent in new york city, etc. like i did NOT realise how expensive that loft is until someone else mentioned it to me and i would not have guessed! who is your "average viewer" - is it an American? someone who lives in New York? someone who lives in Brooklyn? you can't just define an average viewer in that way, i feel! like you are making a BIG Assumption there and it's not necessarily accurate. people who aren't american watch american tv! such is the world we are living in.

but keeping that aside, yeah: dan and jenny had stable and secure housing, the guarantee of meals, and were attending expensive private schools, so i think the show's messaging regarding class was a little strange. they definitely weren't in a financially unstable situation.

but also, you're right. like, dan and jenny weren't super duper broke, and at no point do they actually act like they are, tbh. dan is very 'oh my parents sacrificed so much to send me to st jude's' and jenny is very 'damn i wish i was richer' but there isn't really an instance where the humphreys seem to view themselves as being extremely poor, that i remember at least. in s1, jenny says something along the lines of, "we're humphreys; we're not exactly royalty." and like. she is not wrong! they're financially stable kids, but they're ordinary kids living in an environment where everyone else has the safety net of millionnaire parents to fall back on, and however much money rufus has, he isn't that.

so i think it's a grey area, like, YES, the humphreys have wealth related privilege (i don't know if this can be said for v, because honestly we don't know much about her living situation, but we do know that she works as a waitress for a bit in s1, and also that she's homeschooled, so she isn't shelling out big $$ for school fees.) but also dan and jenny are treated as 'less than' because they are considered nobodies.

and i feel like THAT is the angle the show should have taken. not "i am oppressed because i am not rich" but rather, "everyone at school alienates me and treats me different and it's making things so difficult for me." whenever people say that dan and jenny acted like they were more oppressed than they actually were i'm like. they were both, in different ways, made to feel small and insecure and hopeless, at school? like of COURSE they're gonna feel victimised. dan is treated like he doesn't exist, and jenny is treated so horribly that i don't even have an adjective. like. i think the writing of the show would've been much stronger if it had focused on THAT and not made it a class thing.

i haven't watched the reboot beyond ep02, so i'm not gonna comment on that.

so yeah, i don't think it was 'cosplaying poor' as much as it was 'showing wealth related stuff extremely inaccurately.' like an anon told me, portraying nyu as community college is super inaccurate, as well. and it makes no sense? like i don't know why they had to do this and why they couldn't just... shoot at a regular community college. gossip girl 2007 did not care for representing poor people at all, like, if you watch the show you can tell that it just luxuriates in this aesthetic of like: more food than anybody can eat at every meal. so many luxuries. unnecessarily expensive things everywhere. like the show was very much luxury porn. to me it felt like it wasn't cosplaying poor as much as it was offering people a chance to wank off to the rich. & maybe because of that, the humphreys weren't allowed to be poorer. gg 2007 wasn't supposed to represent all of NY, it was supposed to represent the uber rich elite. and then you have dan and jenny humphrey, and vanessa abrams. they weren't allowed to be rich, because we needed a class conflict. but they weren't allowed to be poor, either, because this show was all about rich people aesthetics. so we got something weird & in the middle instead.

people forget that chuck was canonically a billionnaire - like, that is a LOT of money. and he is dan & jenny's peer! sadly, i think solely because of THAT, a lot of the oppression the humphreys face... checks out. like chuck being shitty to both dan and jenny - he' has an unethical, absurd, uncomparable-to-whatever-the-humphreys-have amount of money. he can do whatever he wants & buy his way out of there. rufus humphrey's ten thousand dollars or whatever amount he mentions are like pocket change to that guy. if jenny is gonna be treated like a commodity by everyone around her, do her upper middle class roots and expensive loft really matter? well, not do they matter as much as like. can they protect her? (we've watched the show. we know the answer is no.)

re: the characters of colour... i think it's subjective. i ADORE raina, and honestly, if we'd had a NJBC that was nate, serena, blair & raina, the show would've actually been AMAZING. like raina was such a cool character to me - i liked that she was driven, passionate, intelligent, sensitive, caring, fun-loving, thoughtful.... she wasn't on the show for long, but her character felt really solid and fleshed out. i remember a review (idk who wrote this one) in which someone felt that raina's character was "lazy" because a lot of her traits and her backstory paralleled chuck, but i strongly disagree. on raina, those traits were interesting. on chuck, any backstory and larger motive felt like a carpet to cover the dust that was his predatory nature, and to me, felt forced and off. like. this dude assaulted people, i don't care about his daddy issues. but raina seemed SO amazing. her backstory actually fit her personality and gave her depth, and to me, didn't feel forced.

i liked ursula, too! she was a really minor character, but she had a whole arc, and i liked that a LOT. her friendship with serena was very cute! i sadly do not remember jane. i think she was... someone's assistant? but i don't remember who. but i agree with you about raina and ursula, their arcs were very interesting and did not end up being about racial trauma & all that, which, like you said, is refreshing when done right.

that said, i think blair's minions were, uh, an example of blair's racism, and i think it would've been cool if the show unpacked that. blair uses her minions as a status symbol - her 17th birthday at kati's place which is anime themed (?) leaves a bad taste in my mouth because it feels very tokenising of a culture that blair isn't a part of? it would be different if blair treated her minions with respect and dignity and like they were her equals and peers, but she doesn't. the word "minions" itself makes me flinch because it's such a "oh you're inferior" kind of word. it felt to me very much like - they never got to be characters in their own right. they solely existed to prop up blair. and i think that is racist. there was a sense of "Oh, I can't be racist! I have a Black friend and an Asian friend" from Blair - like that's what kati & is were to her. and i think that is a big problem, especially glossed over like that.

i also do think that racial stuff doesn't always need to be the focus! but i don't think it can ever be completely ignored, either. an example of something that is maybe unintentionally racist, but racist nonetheless, is how dan cuts vanessa out of his life entirely but forgives his white friends for treating him farrrr worse. it's an inherent double standard, because dan kind of went "oh yeah. my threshold for white people fucking me over is really high, but if my Black best friend who's so close we're practically family does something even slightly wrong i'm going to cut her out of my life 4ever." did the writers realise this? i don't know. maybe they just didn't think about it. but this is exactly the sort of double standards and racist bullshit that woc, especially Black women, have to face irl (though of course i don't need to tell you that at all), except here, the narrative doesn't even address that, hey, maybe dan's being a dick by reacting this way. and i think that's a problem, too.

#long post #meta #racism #anti blair waldorf #(for tags)#anti gossip girl #ok 2 rb i GUESS #and if any poc want to add something more or correct me please do #ditto the class stuff - i am not american #and really just working with context clues

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peaceoutofthepieces · 3 years

Text

Sink Or Swim

tag list: @cleocc @feeling-kinda-so-so @hopelessromanticvirgo @dreamy-slytherin @adora8 @lockerfivethreefive @painfully-oblivious @poeticinemaa @jjustonemorething @saraben00 @wedarkacademia @coolguyssyndrome @hischbabe @suckerforsobbe @tayspots @starmansander @theah0lt @zoenneforever @invisibleme @chibibanane

~^~

Sunday, 13:43

Song: Jeremy Zucker, Chelsea Cutler - better off

Jens reads over the text message again as he sits on the bench and waits. He rubs his spare hand over his knee, trying to ease the itch under his skin.

Jana: can we meet up? I really need to talk to you

Despite how much he doesn’t want to have this conversation, he knows it’s necessary. That’s why it had only taken him a few minutes to say yes. He isn’t sure why he’s psyching himself out so much. He supposes he and Jana just don’t have the best history with serious conversations, and he has no idea what to expect from this one.

He’s sitting on a bench at the edge of the park, waiting. Jana is only a few minutes late, but it’s prolonging his anxiety and leaving his foot tapping against the pavement. He wishes he’d denied the offer, saying he had other plans.

Only, he did have other plans.

His eyes widen as the realisation hits and he checks his phone again.

He had other plans, that he was supposed to attend to over half an hour ago. He curses under his breath as he navigates to his messages, and surely enough there are a few from Lucas. Saying that he’s there, waiting, asking where Jens is, asking if he’s okay, asking if he was coming or not. The chat with Jana had been open the whole time, and Jens hadn’t even gotten the notifications. He curses under his breath and quickly tries to think of a reply, heart speeding away and hands shaking.

I’m so fucking sorry Luc, Jana asked to meet up and I completely forgot

I won’t be able to make it

He stares, and waits, and the message remains delivered and unseen. The last message from Lucas was only about five minutes ago, and Jens realises he’s probably given up and gone home. He drags a hand over his face and he grips the phone tightly, barely preventing himself from tossing it into the street. He’s in disbelief at himself, more than any anger, disappointed and upset and frustrated and he feels so stupid.

Lucas, Lucas, how could he forget Lucas?

He knows how. It’s because he’d been distracted all morning, listening to his father rant about and insult his boss (who is at least a decade younger), complaining that he ‘can’t believe anyone would raise their son to be such a ‘pansy’. It’s because his father had turned to him and expected him to agree, waving his hands about as if to say ‘you know exactly what I mean’, and Jens had wanted to tell him that no, in fact, he didn’t.

It’s because he’s begun to understand the ache in his chest in these particular moments and why exactly it’s there.

It’s also because Jana had texted him, then, asking to meet, and despite how painful the conversation is likely to be, Jens had wanted nothing more than to see her and feel some sense of normal and comfort.

It’s because he might have forgotten Lucas on purpose.

Jana finds him like that, hunched over in a panic, still staring at his phone, startling as she sets a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey,” she appeases. “You okay?”

Jens quickly pockets his phone and lets out a slow breath, nodding. “Yeah, sorry. Was starting to think you’d ditched me, is all.”

Jana smiles, and it isn’t tense, and it eases Jens’s worries a little. “It was tempting,” she admits.

They regard each other for a moment, and even though it’s been two years, Jens almost feels like he’s been portaled back. He can recall them in this same scenario, too many times before, and it certainly doesn’t begin to make him feel better.

But Jana sits down next to him, and bumps his shoulder, and smiles. “Don’t look so scared. I’m not going to try to kiss you again.”

Jens huffs and tries to hide some of his relief. “Well you have to admit it’s a legitimate concern.”

Jana bumps him again, rolling her eyes. She’s avoiding his gaze now, looking out in front of her and making it impossible for Jens to guess where this is going to go.

“Hey,” Jens prods gently. “You can talk to me, huh?”

She offers him a small smile. “I really wasn’t planning on kissing you. I know we’ve talked before about if we still had feelings and agreed we wouldn’t go back there. And that still isn’t my intention.” She takes a long breath. “But I do have something to tell you.”

Jens clasps his hands together in his lap, pressing in and out on his knuckles. “Okay.”

“Do you remember, in the summer, when I said I was supposed to be moving to New York?”

No.

Jens nods slowly.

“Well, they’ve only just sorted out mom’s transfer. I’m leaving in a week.”

Jens’s heart falls into his stomach and he can only look at her. He’d thought, when it was first brought up, that he’d made his peace with the idea. But then school had restarted, and Jana was still there to join them, and all worries of the matter had disappeared. Now it feels like a bomb being dropped all over again, while Jens feels unstable enough as it is.

“Jens?” Jana places a gentle hand on his arm.

Jens rubs his hands over his jeans. “What about school?”

“I have already made plans to transfer there. I was going to study online with them from the beginning of the year, but I worked it out so that I could spend it here.”

“So you knew it was still happening.”

“Yeah.” Jana’s voice is soft. “I’m really sorry, Jens. I know I should have told you earlier.”

She should have, but Jens understands why she hasn’t. He wouldn’t have liked having to break the news to her, if it was the other way around.

“No, I get it. I should be the one making sure you’re okay. It’s a lot. Does anyone else know yet?”

“I’ve told the girls. But only a couple of weeks ago. I told Amber not to tell Aaron, because I wanted to make sure I could tell you myself.”

Jens nods. “Does Robbe know?”

“No. I wouldn’t ask him to keep that from you. I think he’s been through enough of that.”

She hasn’t moved her hand from his arm. Jens looks down at it and wonders why he doesn’t feel more, even though he already feels too much. His feelings and his thoughts are all a mess, but that no longer seems unusual.

“Why did you kiss me then? Was it like...a goodbye?”

Jana shrugs, and her smile returns, though a little rueful. “A bit, I guess. I was thinking about having to tell you, and I knew I was going to miss you and I wanted to spend that little bit of time just being us again. Then I felt like I needed to make sure it was really done. That we couldn’t go back there, and I wasn’t making a big mistake leaving and letting that go.”

“And you were a bit tipsy.”

Jana rolls here eyes, but laughs. “A bit.”

“But now? You don’t feel like you’re making any mistakes?”

“Of course I’m going to miss you all. I would stay if it was just my choice. I just didn’t want to leave behind any what-ifs.”

Jens nods. He understands, beyond the fuzz occupying his head. He knows what she means, and he’s now glad of it, too. He probably would’ve wondered, as well. He thinks the idea of what they could have been will always lie between them, but it would have been much worse if they’d let the idea linger with Jana leaving. He understands, because after that kiss, he no longer wonders over his feelings for Jana, either.

“This kind of sucks,” he says. “I’m gonna miss you.”

She smiles softly. “I know. But we’ll still stay in contact, yeah? And I will visit.”

“As long as you don’t forget about me.”

She scoffs. “You’re more likely to forget about me, with all your new friends.”

Jens would love to respond to the teasing with a smart comeback, but instead there’s a sharp pain in his chest with the realisation his phone hasn’t buzzed. “Yeah, well, they might not be around for long either.”

“What?” Jana’s brow furrows. “Lucas? What’s happened?”

“I was supposed to meet him at one and I completely forgot. I sent him a message to apologise and he hasn’t messaged me back.” He feels almost ridiculous admitting it. He feels ridiculously upset that he thinks he can see a pattern.

Jana’s expression turns sympathetic. “Fuck, was that my fault? I’m sure he’ll understand when you tell him that. You can be quite good at apologies when you want to be.”

Jens snorts. “You mean when I apologise.”

“It’s always worth it,” she informs him. “Really, why were you so bummed about this, huh? Lucas isn’t going anywhere.”

“What? Like you, you mean?” Jens mumbles. Then he closes his eyes. “Sorry. I know it isn’t your fault.”

“No, but you’re allowed to be upset.” Jana squeezes his arm. When Jens doesn’t answer, she takes a moment to examine him. Then she’s asking, “You really like him, don’t you?”

Jens whips his head around to stare at her. “What?”

“Lucas. He’s only been here a couple of weeks, but you get along really well, right? He’s already like one of your best friends.”

Oh.

Of course that’s what she meant, he reminds himself. There’s no way for her to know. There’s no way for anyone to know.

For a few seconds, Jens considers telling her. It would only take three words.

I like him.

Instead he says, “Yeah. He is. It’s just that...Robbe’s super busy now. He always had other things going on before, but then he usually came to me to get away from them. Now he doesn’t need to. Aaron is always with Amber or talking about Amber. Moyo is working or dancing or whatever it is he does. Lucas...Lucas feels most like my friend.”

Jens is ready to backtrack, say ‘no, that was weird’, but Jana is already nodding and the smile on her face is a little too soft. A little too understanding. “I can see that. And when he’s that important to you, you’re not just going to let him slip away because of one dumbass mistake. That’s not you.”

It feels good, to think she’s right, even if he doesn’t entirely believe it. Jana has always seemed to know him better than himself, however—at least, when she wasn’t doubting him all the time. Her having this little bit of faith in him, it does help. He decides he can probably trust her a little bit.

“Lucas isn’t you, though,” Jens reminds her. “He’s important, but he doesn’t cancel you out. I am going to miss you.”

She smiles, and it’s a little sad, and she gives his arm another squeeze. “Me too.”

“It’s still nice. Just being with you. I’m going to miss that.”

“Just not like that anymore,” she shrugs, her gaze soft.

Jens wraps his arm around her shoulders and leans back against the bench, hugging her to his chest. She winds her arms around his stomach and rests her head on his shoulder and Jens presses a kiss to the top of her head. “No,” he agrees. “Not like that anymore.”

#van der stoffels #vds #wtfock #skam nl #sink or swim #vds season fic #sos clip

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risukadarlin · 3 years

Text

[yuugen romantica] shinkocchou vol. 4: merry and hanawo - track five

track five (23:53 - 33:36)

listen along・masterpost

✿

Merry?:

Hello.

It’s me, Merry.

Do you know where my home is?

Ah, I finally found it.

I’ll head over there right now.

Oh?

It’s not you.

You’re not the person I’m looking for.

People who lie must be punished.

✿

Hanawo:

That Merry didn’t appear today either, did he?

Merry:

No.

Even though we’re on lookout every night recently, let alone every week, we haven’t seen him at all.

Hanawo:

Even though student after student keeps encountering him.

It’s troublesome for girls to be walking around this late for a joke as it is…

But a lot of people have stopped coming to school and the atmosphere keeps getting worse there.

This is a terrible situation.

Merry:

Yes…

Ah, I’m really sorry that you haven’t had time to sleep well recently.

Hanawo:

You’re kind, aren’t you.

But at this rate your parents will start to get worried.

We might have to change our method.

Well, thank you for your work tonight too.

Are you sure you don’t need us to take you further than this?

I’ll take you to your room if you need.

I can even cuddle with you all night, if you wish~

I understand.

Then I’ll see you tomorrow.

Merry:

Ah, please rest well.

Ah, yes, goodnight.

Hanawo:

Goodnight.

Sweet dreams.

Ah, the light in her room went on.

She should be fine now.

But this is a problem.

Even I can’t do anything about the fact we haven’t come face to face with the urban legend yet.

It would be good if we could come across the scene of the crime by chance…

Huh?

Merry?

He’s gone?

✿

Merry:

Where am I?

A phone box?

Why am I here?

A human?

What happened?

They’ve passed out?

I need to call an ambulance!

No, I wonder why someone is passed out here...

In front of me…

Ah, I…

What was I…?

✿

Hanawo:

I’m sorry I’m late.

We didn’t find him today either.

The other ghosts all went out to look for him in town.

It’s been seven days…

I wonder where Merry went…

That’s right.

It’s not like him to go missing without saying anything.

Something must have happened.

And…

That urban legend has been appearing every night.

They found another student in a coma last night.

Someone called an ambulance right away, apparently.

But that call came from a phone without a number…

Yes.

It could be Merry.

But he hasn’t contacted us at all.

We might have to expect the worst.

You know, don’t you?

That Merry came from an urban legend.

But that shouldn’t be possible.

Urban legends are different from the horror stories the rest of us come from.

Stories with no feeling.

Born out of trickery.

No one gets emotionally attached to them and they disappear easily.

That’s the story of an urban legend is.

So usually they don't give birth to ghosts.

Ghosts can't exist without strong human emotion, after all.

You’re right.

Merry is a giant exception.

He’s an urban legend that was given consciousness by chance.

A ghost that just happened to be born.

Merry doesn’t have a reason to exist.

It’s harsh but it’s true.

He’s more unstable than any other spirit.

Any kind of stimuli could warp him.

So when he came to this Academy, I decided to look after him.

Having fixed boundaries makes it a place ghosts can live comfortably.

Well, some of them think those boundaries are just self-imposed restrictions.

Recently, those boundaries started to bend.

The town is overflowing with spirit power and those that would usually lose their magic when going outside…

They can move freely now.

Yes.

It’s all because of that urban legend.

By the way, do you remember?

The urban legend where you felt like someone was watching you through gaps.

That comes from the feeling of wanting to be seen.

There was one where you get trapped in a game and can’t escape too, wasn’t there?

That’s the feeling of wanting to keep someone by your side, even if you have to trap them.

And the terrifying film that played in the cinema at midnight…

Below the surface, it means “Don’t be afraid. ””Don’t run away.”...

And these rumours…

You already know, don’t you?

These are all incidents caused by Merry.

He probably hasn’t even realised it himself.

The voice we heard in the phone box, that was Merry speaking using his powers unconsciously.

It’s because he has something he wants to say to you.

Yes, you’re the one who changed him.

He fell in love with a human.

He used to wander around like a ghoul and cry alone at night.

But he changed.

All thanks to a single person.

That person is you.

Holding all that love inside of him started to warp him.

It manifested as several urban legends and even swallowed the Academy.

He’s no longer the Merry we knew.

He’s the terrifying Merry from the urban legends.

What’s the matter?

Where are you going?

It’s dangerous to go looking for him alone!

You can’t.

There are too many risks.

He must be extremely terrified of humans right now.

Even if it’s against his wishes, that’s who he’s become.

There’s no guarantee you’ll make it out in one piece.

Wait!

You’re going to try and save him even if I threaten you.

You…

Maybe if it’s you…

#yuugen romantica #yuuroma #yuugen romantica merry #yuugen romantica hanawo #yuugen romantica shinkocchou #rejet #drama cd #drama cd translation

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frumfrumfroo · 4 years

Note

I’m new here and couldn’t tell from the tone of some asks (sorry) but did you like what they did with Ben in TRoKR ? I saw the discussions abt him lacking agency in it and I 100% agree but did you personality agree w/ the passive, “things only happen to me” vibe they gave him? And second question: can u give examples of how soule’s writing was telegrsmed in TFA? Thank u for taking the time xx

Like I’ve said before, it’s exactly the kind of backstory I would have written for him/always imagined. I had expected to find out he didn’t kill the other students/fought them in self defence/it was some kind of accident or emotional overload incident in TLJ. That was where everything was pointing.

Someone this insecure and conflicted about what he’s doing, someone who prays for help to resist his loving nature and cries when he sees his dad, who is so uncomfortable with himself he is covered head to toe not even his voice unmasked, who immediately latches on to the protagonist as a kindred spirit in loneliness and needs her to know he’s not a creature and wants to help her rather than hurt her- that’s not a person who had an eyes-open, all-in fall to the dark side full of decisive action and unhindered agency.

Leia saying ‘it was Snoke’ told us from the get go we’re in a situation where he was haunted and manipulated. His subservience and rote, childish repetition of ‘the Supreme Leader is wise’ when Han tells him Snoke doesn’t care about him. The constant, ongoing contradiction of his behaviour and motives tell us he has no conviction in the cause he’s supposedly supporting. His self-harm and naked suffering in the face of his own actions, his recklessness and inability to commit to selfishness and lack of ambition tell us those aren’t qualities which drove him here. He is highly emotionally driven, there’s no tangible goal and he doesn’t have a vision of the future. So why is he on the dark side?

It’s not that things only happen to him or that he’s passive, it’s that Ben has never pursued or been comfortable with what darkness really is and that has always been obvious. He tries very, very hard and fights tooth and claw to cling to something good in the comic until all of it is in ashes- he’s not passive, but he can’t win. No one can hold out forever against that kind of relentless onslaught. That he was absolutely a victim doesn’t mean he has no agency in his later choices. He’s not absolved of responsibility. But his reluctance and victimhood only makes sense, anything else would be incongruous with TFA.

There was never pursuit of power for power’s sake from him- there’s nothing he wants that the dark side can give him, he is there literally because he felt he had nowhere else to go. I said this before TLJ even came out. He felt he could not escape it, both because of the fatalism his family unintentionally instilled in him and because Snoke convinced him none of them loved him, that he is only useful or valued as a tool. Ben is a person who doesn’t believe he has any inherent value just for himself- just Ben, he believes that he can’t be forgiven for the sin of being born a disappointment, and that everything is his fault because he’s wrong and bad no matter what he does. None of his choices feel to him like real choices, all of his options appear to have been taken from him, and he feels compelled to plunge forward on the only remaining path. The comic provided an emotionally and logically cogent explanation for exactly why he would feel that way which is completely consistent with all the implications about his past and his characterisation from the films.

As I’ve pointed out before, there’s a reason he says ‘it’s too late’ to coming home not ‘I don’t want to’. There’s a reason he says ‘what I have to do’ and ‘he (I) was weak and foolish’- there’s a reason he needs Han’s help to go through with killing his father. It’s not about what he wants (he wants to go home with his dad- he thinks he can’t), he has never felt free to make his own choices or that freedom is possible for him.

Even at his darkest he never became cruel, he never enjoyed killing or hurting people, and he totally fails to suppress his instinct to be compassionate. He has a highly developed conscience and an overflowing core of empathy he can’t seal off. That’s why he’s so miserable as he pushes himself to do things he finds abhorrent- but he thinks he has to, there’s no escape, it’s the only way. In the sequence which establishes this character, even before any layers are stripped away or the investment we naturally have in him because of who he is is revealed, one of the first things we see him do is have compassion for F/nn. Those two characters are connected and a comparison is invited- this is visual storytelling showing you that they have something in common (it will be made clear later on that Ben saw himself in F/nn and that’s why he takes his actions so personally- cognitive dissonance).

F/nn was a good person trapped in the mask of the stormtrooper by circumstances beyond his control, but he is able to reject it and reclaim his identity. Ben is a good person hounded into the mask of Kylo Ren by his family’s failure to reconcile with Vader. The crushing weight of their expectations and their total lack of faith in him combined with their lies and Snoke’s manipulation convinces him there is ‘too much Vader in him’ and that Ben Solo isn’t and never will be good enough for anyone. That his love, compassion, and selflessness are all weaknesses which will only cause both him and the galaxy further suffering.

He is the most morally sensitive person in the new gen, he is the most outward-orientated and loving. His impulse is to be selfless and helpful, but that impulse has been relentlessly punished until he mistrusts it and thinks he must repress his wrong instincts and serve a ‘greater order’ guided by someone stronger than him. He has an acute sense of the impact of his actions and he considers it (even when he loses control of his emotions, he overwhelmingly targets things rather than people and his angry threats are empty).

In contrast, Anakin (who was committed on the dark side and successfully cut himself off from his empathy for many years) was all in on the pursuit of power even when he still had good intentions. Anakin also knew that power was the foundation of the dark side and he and Palpatine would always be at odds, that some day he would overthrow him and take his place. Ben only values power out of fear, and solely primal fear not more abstract, possessive fear like Anakin’s, he wants safety. He doesn’t go to Snoke thinking he’s ever going to take his place or gain his power- he wants Snoke to give him belonging and acceptance. He’s then convinced that the ends justify the means and doing things he knows are wrong and which cause him pain are necessary because his whole life and Snoke’s machinations have set him up to believe that. He is still trying to create safety and doing what he’s convinced must be done and will be done one way or another.

Ben is a beautiful compassionate person and always has been and that is why he’s in such constant, excruciating pain trying to shut himself off from love and vulnerability. He is following Snoke’s demands and trying to kill his past to stop the pain, to kill this vulnerability and need and weakness in himself. Connection was always what he wanted most and he is trying to cut off and cauterise all of the broken, abandoned bonds of love his family has left him with. And even here, he still wants Snoke’s acceptance, Snoke’s validation and esteem. He is still pouring himself out for an other, giving everything to please someone else, the last person left who tells him it’s possible he can achieve value.

He latched on to Rey instantly when he realised they were alike and did everything possible to lift her up and spare her what he went through. He only rejected Han and Rey’s offers to come with them because he thinks their love is conditional and that small, dirty, broken Ben Solo will never be able to meet the conditions. He thinks he is a tool or an obligation to them and it’s easy to understand why he thinks that. Han couldn’t wipe away a lifetime of baggage in a few words. Rey pretends it’s about the cause, she doesn’t tell him she loves him.

He thinks he must ‘become who he was meant to be’ and that his destiny is to become a new Vader. Everyone told him that. Whether with their fear or directly with words. When he finds out the truth about his grandfather, it’s a complete confirmation of what Snoke has told him and how his parents have treated him. Luke deciding he can’t be allowed to live because it’s that inevitable is the nail in the coffin in Ben believing there’s any place for him with his family. There is nowhere for him to exist as himself, he has to be someone else, someone less weak. And in running away from himself, his legacy, and his identity he puts himself under Snoke’s thumb and Snoke can finish inculcating his worldview.

Being able to love is freedom to Ben. He is an immensely loving person who feels like he is not worthy or allowed to love people, that his love has done nothing but make things worse for everyone. The tension and repression of trying not to need or care about people is what makes him so emotionally unstable. Kylo Ren is a mask and a shield and a prison built by Ben’s hurt and anxiety but equally built by Snoke out of his boyhood fancies to control him and shape him into an instrument of pain. Ben could never have conviction in it because it is so alien to his nature. He is so fundamentally unselfish that he never coveted like Anakin eventually did, his love never became possessive or jealous, he never sold his soul for a boon, the only way he could be selfish enough to murder is out of animal fear and pain. Wanting the hurting to stop. Rationalising it post-facto with the philosophy that the ends justify the means.

He pours himself out for Snoke because there is no one else left. All he wants is the safety and acceptance that he has literally never had anywhere. Anakin received unconditional love from his mother, Obi-wan, and Padmé and was warped from giving compassion into selfishness by his fear of loss and need for control. Covetousness became his tragic flaw and thus his fall culminates in trying to kill Padmé rather than lose her. Control became so important that others ceased to matter and love became possession. Anakin (despite also being a victim of manipulation and Jedi hubris) got to make real choices, he had real options, and thus he was a villain with conviction. Ben’s attempts to take control of his life are unfocussed and mostly involve abnegation, he pushes people away instead of trying to clutch them close; his response to loss is to isolate himself not seize power to recover the lost thing by force. Ben never received unconditional love until Han’s sacrifice on the bridge and the experience immediately shatters him from his already tenuous position in the dark. The only thing keeping him from coming home after that is sunk cost and the idea that he can never be forgiven. That it was too late.

He just needed someone to show him it wasn’t.

#ben solo #this is repetitive brain vomit my apologies #I can't words any more everything is too terrible #he is a good boy though okay #the fact that he's a broken person rather than someone more inclined to dark paths doesn't lessen his redemption #he still did Very Bad Things and being convinced it was necessary or inevitable doesn't make it okay when a part of you knows it's not true #healing is the thing everyone has trouble beleiving in #and it's just as difficult to heal from misguidedness you were traumatised into as willful shittiness #maybe more so #because it feels less like a bad decision and more like you're just fucked up and can't help being fucked up #he'd still be just as redeemable if he were far more evil #but he is baby and I LOVE that about him #because there's nothing I love more than characters who are not what they appear to be #anyway reason 487389750783 he needed to live #it's not that he 'deserves' it more it's that you have to show you can recover #that you're not worthless if you can't be the perfect victim and pull yourself up by your bootstraps

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angstyaches · 3 years

Note

Feverish puke for felix and elliot? You choose the sickie I can’t decidee

Hi anon! Sorry this one took so long, but this really helped me develop what’s been going on with these two.

CW: emeto, fever, bodily changes, anxiety, mention of deteriorating condition (maybe?), food mention, (un)death mention

Part of the Plan

Felix’s ears felt like they’d been filled with cotton wool. He could see that Ryan’s lips were moving, he could tell there were words coming out, but it wasn’t until he heard Elliott say his name that he managed to snap out of it.

He jumped and looked down to see that he’d been digging his nails into the back of Elliott’s hand, leaving tiny half-moon dints along his boyfriend’s warm, slick skin.

“Are you alright?” Elliott asked, even as something dulled the yellow fire that usually sparked behind his own eyes, making him sit with his shoulders sagged. Felix laughed out of disbelief and nervousness, because if he didn’t laugh, he thought he might burst into tears.

He glanced at Ryan; even she was looking at him with a strange expression from her chair, as though he was the one they needed to be worried about. She tilted her head inquisitively, her silver hair curling against the ruffles of her blouse.

“I’m good. No, I’m good. I’m sorry.” Felix cleared his throat, frowning in Ryan’s direction. “Sorry. I, um – I mean, is – is there no way to slow it down? For example, what if Elli cuts right back on blood, like me? I know it’d feel a bit weird at first, darling, but if it would help –”

“Well, I was just explaining this,” Ryan said pointedly. “Unfortunately, there’s no slowing it down at this stage. Elliott’s tendency to over-indulge on hunts, coupled with the fact that he was half-blooded directly by an Elder, seems to have caused his transition to accelerate by quite a lot. Reversing the transition at this stage, well – it’s unheard of.”

“But,” Felix said, “can we slow it down?”

Ryan pursed her lips. “I would not recommend trying.”

Felix could tell she was straining to keep her composure, considering how distressed the two of them seemed. He briefly wondered what this change would mean for her; Elliott had never planned on surpassing her status as Elder, but now he might just do it unintentionally.

Elliott shivered and hunched further forward in his chair. Felix leaned into the motion so he could keep a hold on his hand.

“His body is going to keep adapting,” Ryan said. “And if he doesn’t obey his new cravings? Well, it won’t be pleasant for anybody involved. I’m talking about intense nausea, muscle spasms, violent outbursts –”

“How?” Felix asked, his throat pinched. He held back the tears that stung his eyes, knowing that crying in front of Ryan would undermine anything he had to say. “If you knew that being blooded by an Elder would make his transition this unstable, how could you have let it happen?”

“Elliott was just as aware of what he was doing –”

“You knew he didn’t want to change.” Felix’s lips trembled apart with each word. “You knew I didn’t want him to –”

“Fee,” Elliott murmured, pinning him with a look. His expression was pained and exhausted and pleading. Come on.

“Felix, Elliott is capable of making his own decisions,” Ryan stated, draping her arms along the sides of her chair. “You both have my sympathy, since I can see it’s causing you distress, but I do not take responsibility.”

He looked at Elliott with the same anger burning in his throat, because Ryan was right. The way Elliott turned his face away, reluctant to make eye contact, suggested they were both thinking the same thing, so there was no point in Felix bringing it up; he’d told Elliott to take it easy whenever he went hunting – especially whenever he was traveling alone or with Nancy.

The feeling dissipated when Elliott slid his elbows onto his knees, hanging his head forward. Felix shifted in his chair, placing a hand lightly on the back of Elliott’s neck. His skin was much hotter than it should have been, and the contact from Felix’s hand seemed to make him tremble.

“Once the toxins are out of your system, the symptoms should ease. I would recommend cutting physical meals down to once every two days from now on, and upping your blood intake by half, at least until you’ve got a handle on your symptoms. So, for now, you should rest.” Ryan’s cool yellow gaze fell on Felix. “And you, Felix, need to adjust your attitude, quick-smart.”

Felix forced a smile. “Yes, ma’am. Come on, Elli, let’s get you up to bed.”

___

“I have a bad taste in my mouth,” Elliott muttered from where he sat at the edge of the bed.

Felix relaxed his hold on Elliott, having crawled across the bed to drape his arms around his shoulders. He was trying not to press too closely or heavily against Elliott’s skin, considering how much heat was already radiating from him, even after he’d taken off his shirt.

“I know, darling. Ryan said a lot of things that were hard to hear. Imagine, failing to take any responsibility for –”

“She only said things that were true, Fee. And I – I meant that I have an actual bad taste in mouth.” Elliott sat forward, reaching up to remove Felix’s hands while his own quivered. “I feel nauseous.”

“Oh.” Felix slid back from Elliott, watching as his shoulders clenched and he dropped his head into his hands. “Is – is there anything I can do?”

Elliott grunted as he pushed himself to his feet. “Just, um – just try to relax. I can tell this is stressing you out a lot. Put something on the T.V., maybe.”

Felix’s heart sank as he sat back on the bed. Elliott crossed the room and let himself into the ensuite. His eyes were pinned on the ground as he turned back to close the door. Felix didn’t want to put anything on the T.V.; the only thing that would make him feel better was being with Elliott, and he couldn’t do that while he was nauseous, or he’d get his arm bitten off. Metaphorically, not literally; or at least, he hoped.

Felix climbed off the bed after a minute, and started rearranging the duvet so they could get straight in once Elliott was ready to lie down. He took one of his own blood and sugar lollipops from the box on his nightstand and left it lying, still in its wrapper, on Elliott’s pillow, in case he felt like replacing some iron. He looked at it for a second and put it away in the box again, realising he didn’t know how Elliott’s body would react to the sucrose.

He wrung his hands after that and sat back down on the bed, unable to think of anything else to do. He started off kneeling, eventually letting his legs slide out to the side, trying not to look towards the bathroom door.

Trying not to picture Elliott gagging over the toilet, all by himself. Trying not to picture this exact same scenario occurring more and more frequently from now on, as Elliott’s body inched closer and closer to being undead, instead of simply off-human. Felix’s hand flew to his mouth to stifle a sob, and he closed his eyes, willing them to absorb the tears that threatened to fall. He wished he could bundle all the tears up and tie a string around them and tuck them away in his heart somewhere.

He jumped as the handle of the bathroom door slammed down, and the door opened a crack. It sat like that without any further movement.

“El?” Felix scrambled off the bed again. He went into the ensuite to find Elliott shivering on his knees in front of the toilet, though it didn’t seem like he’d thrown anything up yet.

He looked up at Felix, that glassy look still in his deep yellow eyes. “Fee, can – can you hold me? Just for a minute?”

Felix shuddered with a sob, his resolve crumbling. He tackled Elliott into a hug and put hand out against the side of the bath to stop both of them from toppling over.

“Oh, don’t cry, beautiful,” Elliott begged in his ear. “Please.”

“I know, I know I’m just making it worse, Elli, I’m sorry.”

“No, I am. I’m so incredibly sorry. This wasn’t part of – of the – of the plan we–”

Elliott lurched forward, and Felix sank back, stroking a hand across his boyfriend’s shoulders as he retched over the toilet. His skin was practically on fire, his body fighting against what it now considered to be foreign substance, a potential threat. Toxins, as Ryan had put it.

A few hours ago, it had just been fried chicken and rice. Nothing toxic at all. The fact that Felix had made it was probably part of the reason Elliott had been holding back from throwing up all this time. Like he thought it would be a direct insult.

“Let it up, darling, it’s okay,” Felix stammered, just in case that was what was happening. He lightened his touch on his back, surprised he hadn’t already been whined at or shaken away. Not wanting to leave, but afraid of making his boyfriend feel too crowded, Felix edged around him and climbed into the bath. He it would make Elliott feel like they were separated enough.

Elliott threw him a quick, grateful glance, then choked on another unproductive gag. “Fee, we – we never… Rome, and – and Japan…”

“Darling,” Felix whimpered, folding his arms on the edge of the bath and resting his chin on top of his hands. “We can still see the world together. I know I talk like all I care about is food tourism, but there’s so much more I want to do. With you, Elli.”

Elliott gasped, trying to choke out more words through the nausea. “What – wh-what if –?”

His breath hitched, a shallow belch echoing against the toilet bowl. He sat forward a little more, back muscles contracting visibly under his skin. He made a noise like something had clawed at his throat before letting waves of vomit splash into the water. Felix wished he could scoop his arms around his waist.

He eventually took his hand away, in case his boyfriend was just cooperating with the touch so as not to upset Felix. He wouldn’t put it past him.

“God,” Elliott rasped finally, dropping his weight to the side and sliding his legs out so that his back was against the bath. His face contorted as he pressed a hand to his belly, letting out a couple of short, wet burps.

“Are you okay?” Felix sighed, crawling down the bath. “Can I touch you now?”

As soon as Elliott gave a weak nod, Felix sat up on his knees, reaching one hand down to rest on his boyfriend’s chest. The other, he placed gently on his cheek. “You’re still just like a furnace.”

Elliott tilted his head to show Felix the weak grin pulling at one edge of his mouth. “Give it a minute, boo. My stomach’s still halfway up my throat.”

Felix pressed his lips to Elliott’s damp, salty cheek. “Did you know the food was going to make you sick?”

“I… hoped it wouldn’t,” Elliott muttered. “I hoped yesterday’s stomach ache would turn out to be just that, not… not this. I didn’t want this, Fee...”

Tears looming in his eyes, Felix kissed the back of Elliott’s neck. “I know.”

Elliott lifted a shaky hand to hold onto Felix’s. Felix wondered if he was pressing so that his heartbeat would be a little more obvious against his palm, its pace slower than a human’s, but still ticking. The thought of it stopping for good, of him becoming truly undead, was clearly on his mind. His hand slumped away from Felix’s after a few seconds, arm resting heavily in his lap.

“Oh, darling,” Felix said, his voice echoing slightly in the empty bath. “Are you ready to go to bed?”

Elliott grunted. “That sounds wonderful. Sooner or later, it’ll be a silk-lined coffin for me.”

“Elli, I love you,” Felix whispered against the side of Elliott’s head. “But even if that were true, we’d be keeping the bed, because there’s no way I’m being spooned in a coffin.”

#swallow the world #emeto #emeto sickfic #tw emeto #tw fever #vampire emeto #supernatural emeto #sickfics #elliott and felix #angst #emeto and angst #i still don't know how to tag properly someone help me lol

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rosequartzakapinkdiamond · 4 years

Text

Everything’s Fine

you know what got me the most about ‘Everything’s Fine’? this scene:

‘I’m a fraud.’

on god, i felt that

when you’re mentally ill, abused, neuro-divergent, or have had anything different in the way you think, you CONSTANTLY feel like you’re masking, like you have to wear this facade to stay included, or loved, or safe, until you’re so far down that hole you don't know how to get out, so you deny its even happening, and you work yourself up inside with all this self-hatred, after all you’re lying to people, and you begin to believe deep down that you’re not good anymore. that you polluted yourself. and so everything in you wants to pretend its not real, and the cyclical facade continues.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about! I’m fine, awesome in fact! Ah- c’mon, you’ve seen me when I wasn’t doing well. Nothing’s wrong, and besides, I don't want you to worry.’

Steven is deflecting, trying to draw attention away from his problems so the others won’t fret about him, because worry leads to scrutiny, which leads to concern, and then he could burst, everything he’s tried to prove, tried to show as true, is all going to shatter. he’s so, so used to being the one who catches the other in a trust fall, he doesn’t know how to lean back himself, so when faking doesn’t work, he immediately tries to remove himself from the situation.

‘It’s not that easy! You know what, I don’t have to deal with this!’

if he’s not in the room, the atmosphere can’t follow, he can find somewhere safe and far, and calm down, but this doesn't work. its another attempt at deflecting, and neither Pearl, Amethyst or Connie allow it, they know he needs to talk it out before they can help

and so now, the lies begin to come out, and oh god it hurt to watch. ive been exactly where Steven is and hoo boy sucks, because you instantly try to dumb it down as a protection measure, despite how it feels to lie further. throughout the show we’ve seen how much Steven values the Gems’ opinions of him, Connie and Greg too, as early on as ‘Laser Light Cannon’ he’s desperate to show he isn’t a liability. he’s taught himself to not be a problem, to not cause problems, so he can stay included and helpful, and help them get better instead. its just so much easier to focus on other people over yourself. its distracting, it’s comfortable.

‘Hahaa... It wasn’t that important you guys! You’re making a big deal out of nothing! Have I done some thing wrong? Sure! I trashed the house today, I broke an anvil, but what teenager hasn’t? Dad and I had a little disagreement, but that’s practically a rite of passage! I mean, it would be weird if we didn’t, right?’

he’s still looking for their approval, their assurance that it’s not a problem, repercussions can go away, and everything can just go back to normal, but you can see in their faces, they’re angry, and this only spurs on his deflecting, because now he’s faced with rejection, again. so he tries to assure himself that it’s just the everyday teen problems, nothing to make an issue out of, because that’s too raw to think about, I mean, Connie's had disagreements with her parents right, that’s the same?? right?

‘And maybe I’ve had a not-so-nice thought or two, about, like, slamming White Diamond’s head through a pillar, but, but, it’s not like I actually went through with it! Ha, I-- I only actually shattered Jasper!’

and what’s horrible is it’s almost a satisfying feeling at first, technically he succeeded!! he got away with it, and doesn’t that make him smart, or capable of coping, or maybe he’s getting better!!! he could’ve done those horrible things, but its okay! he fixed them, or they weren’t as bad as they sound, or, or, or--

ive done plenty of damaging impulse things thanks to my mental illness and neuro-divergency, and ive had exactly the same script. you try so hard to make it seem like the problem isn't as large because really, you know what you did was bad, or stupid, or dark. but you still did it, you couldn’t just stop yourself. you still made the mistake and now you want to move past it as quick and as painlessly as possible, but doing so puts other things in jeopardy and means telling other people, and that’s scary. you can’t avoid letting people know about your problems, but what Steven’s struggling with is that he’s on a completely different page to the Gems, Connie and Greg. he’s had all this time dwelling on these thoughts-- he’s several chapters in, but they’ve only just picked up the book, so no wonder they’re shocked and horrified to read the blurb. these thoughts of inflicting harm, whether it be or others or otherwise, are dark, so who wouldn’t be shocked?

so Steven immediately deflects again. he pushes himself to sound positive, so desperate for the facade of normality, that it borders on unstable, as he overcompensates for this fear of criticism

‘Oh! Don’t worry, I fixed that too! I can fix anything! I can just keep messing up and fixing things forever and you’ll never have to think or know about any of it!’

it’s because they had no idea there was anything wrong that cemented this idea in Steven that he had to keep hiding, because what they didn't know couldn’t hurt them, right, and he’s Steven! he fixes things! if you’re always deemed as perfect, any flaw can’t be shown, right? any fall and you’re out, you’re not a crystal gem anymore and you can’t go on missions or hang out with Connie or protect anymore, protect the town, protect the earth, so you hide, and you can go on, self-sabotaging and hiding and stressing, without anyone knowing a thing.

but you know. you know well, too well, and eventually everything crumbles whether Steven wanted to ever acknowledge it or not. it just became too much for one person to hold.

‘How messed up is that? That I’ve gotten away with this for so long? You have no idea how bad I am!’

what strikes me about this too is ‘gotten away with this’ and ‘you have no idea how bad I am’. cannot tell you how many times ive said these phrases word for word in therapy and i almost screamed at my computer when I heard him say it, because that’s EXACTLY how it feels. you’re acting. the whole time you’re acting in self-preservation because of this all consuming anxiety of failure, and its always in your head and hey, you know its BAD-bad, even if they don’t notice, or ask, because you’re absolutely not going to tell. he already tried, remember, and they brushed him off, so nope, no, their fault.

so now Steven’s faced with actually looking at what exactly he’s done and how no one noticed. how not one of them thought to have this conversation with him before, did they not care? did they not see him? did not one of them wonder why Jasper just appeared suddenly out of their bathroom, at the least? could they not bother to try to reach him?

but it’s not a matter of them not loving him, or seeing him. it’s that they didn’t listen in the right way to understand him. Connie’s speech in the following episode sets it out perfectly

‘Yes, you hurt him, but this isn’t the time to make this all about you! That is not helping! Maybe Steven would care about how sad you are, because he always puts everyone else’s feelings first, but he can’t do that for you right now, because he needs us this time!’

she acknowledges that they needed to hear Steven, especially when he wasn’t laying out exactly what was wrong, because he didn’t know what was up either (the dude has only been to the doctor once, he doesn’t know what c-ptsd is, let alone anxiety or depression), and because they should, as adults, realise that while their actions and feelings do matter, it cannot be at Steven’s detriment. his venting to Garnet, and to Greg, in ‘Together Forever’ and ‘Mr Universe’ wasn't an opportunity for them to give him advice or lay their own experiences on top, it was a chance for them to really listen to, and really hear, what Steven was telling them he was feeling and then see that as his truth. no ‘you had it better’, no ‘it was inevitable’, all he needed was ‘I hear you, I love you, let’s fix this together’.

‘We all had Steven when we needed him, but the only person who’s never had Steven, is Steven! So, how can we be there for him now?’

which makes what Steven says next all the more painful, as he’s been holding this role on his shoulders like atlas holds the sky and its breaking him.

‘You think I’m so great, I’m so mature, and I always know what to do, but that's not true! I haven’t learned a thing from my problems. They’ve all just made me worse!’

thus far, Steven’s been taught that every experience is a chance to learn, like in ‘The Test’ (which was another ep that made me go FERAL when i saw it). he’s searching for meaning in all the horrible things that happened to him but sometimes, there is no moral. sometimes things are just that. they’re bad and they hurt you.

‘You think of me as some angel, but I’m not that kid anymore! I’m a fraud. I’m a fraud. I’m a monster!’

when you believe so deeply in yourself that you’re not a good person, it really hurts, especially when the people around you keep reminding you of who you used to be, see the whole of ‘Snow Day’. you feel like a fake, because who exactly are you? who are you without that mask? who is Steven Universe if not the boy who helps? yes, he’s not that kid anymore, but he doesn't want to be this ball of pain either, so what’s left after but to think he’s just ruined? he’s not an angel, he’s not helping anymore, he’s just angry, hurt and lost.

what’s left but a monster?

#can i get an f and a therapist in the chat?#meta #*mine #steven universe #steven universe future #su spoilers #suf spoilers #greg universe #connie maheswaran #garnet #amethyst #pearl #lion #everything's fine #i am my monster #fr tho I felt seen in a sad way #because man alive that shit hurted #I only got semi-diagnosed this year and all they have so far is 'either ADD or somewhere else on the spectrum' which is a good step #but its not far

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lumaejin · 3 years

Text

ten | zehn | 十

Bad Luck. New company. New luck. You’re getting a new manager. Finally. Your experiences with your last were... let’s say anything but pleasant, so you’re excited to have a new one. Well... only to find that good luck really doesn’t seem to like you.

➳ pairing: manager!seokjin x singer!reader

➳ genre: idol au, sm au, a tiny bit of angst?

➳ warnings: minor swearing, will be handling mental illnesses and triggering events from now on

➳ word count: 1885

The car ride to the restaurant was like always, silent. Over the past two days, you had quickly realised that the only thing you two managed to have a normal conversation about was work. How the hell the two of you had managed to talk for hours non-stop on the plane was lost on you. Even though you had somehow silently come to the conclusion that you could spend time with him without throwing up, you still had no idea how to start conversations. You were officially friends, but it was plainly awkward (though of course, it was better than before). You wanted to be comfortable around him, but memories of the end kept coming up whenever you looked him in the eye. You wanted to let your barriers down, but your mind and brain were warning you to not get too close. It was like your body was fighting an inner battle. A part of you hoped for nothing more than to talk with him like you would have before, another part of you wanted you to stay as far away from him as humanly possible. Currently, the first part was winning… you hadn’t run back to Korea yet. That was something, right?

Staring out of the window at the beautiful cityscape, you tried to keep your mind off of the person sitting in front of you. It was mostly dark, but the yellowish street lights gave the buildings an elegant feel. Stars competed with each other, trying to shine brightly enough to be seen, accompanied by the sound of the low rumbles of the car.

It was so peaceful. No traffic jams, no continuous honking, no hurried people with briefcases trying to make it to work on time. London was sleeping, softly breathing almost like a small baby.

It was beautiful.

You wished that your inner thoughts could be just as placid, but honestly, it was just an empty wish. Wishes were nothing if you didn’t do anything about them and they would never come true if you didn’t work for them. And honestly, something inside you (probably the second party in your emotional battle) was preventing you from pursuing that wish.

“We’re here,” Minju said about 10 minutes later, making you turn to look at the back of Jin’s head. He was texting someone on his phone, probably one of his friends. When he heard the driver’s words, however, he immediately put the phone back into his pocket.

“I’ve already reserved,” he said, getting out of the car and opening the door for you like a true gentleman.

You took his hand as he helped you get out, trying to ignore the warmth of his hand and the tingling feeling which was left in its place. You sculptured your face into one of nonchalance, waiting for Minju to get out too.

“He wanted to go and eat with some of his friends in London and I let him have the rest of the night off. Someone else will be coming to pick us up,” Jin said, tugging your sleeve in the direction of the entrance. You heard the engine of the car rumble and waved to Minju one last time, before the car backed out of the driveway and disappeared.

“He deserves it,” you said, putting on your face mask. It was unlikely that you were going to be recognised, but ‘better safe than sorry’ right?

As both of you entered the restaurant, Jin exchanged a few words with the manager while you looked around silently. The whole place was dimly lit, the lights tinted slightly red. There were multiple wooden tables placed around the room, and a few families were still eating their dinner. Some of them were korean and asian, some english. The smell of the food filled your nose and it immediately reminded you of your hometown. You felt Jin tap your arm as the man bowed and smiled, leading the two of you to a table slightly separated from the others. Another precaution to make sure you were safe from prying eyes.

A waitress came by with your menus moments later and as you opened it, your mouth watered at the sight of the korean dishes. You didn’t think that western food was terrible, but whatever it was that you had ordered yesterday, it had been a nightmare. Stale. Tasteless. Ew.

“Never thought I’d be so happy to see rice again,” Jin said as both of you looked through the list.

“Me too. To think that mum used to have to force me to eat just a tiny bit more of it,” you said.

“I remember,” he said, “You used to complain about it all day.”

Immediately, his eyes widened in surprise, “Oh my god, sorry. I wasn’t thinking. It just came out of my mouth.”

“It’s okay,” you said, just as the waitress came to get your orders.

After she walked back to the kitchen, the two of you were left in silence again. You turned your head to examine the paintings, trying to look anywhere but at Jin. Weren’t you past this whole awkward silence thing? You had gotten used to awkward car rides, but sitting next to each other and being like this was something else. A lot worse.

“Look… I know you don’t want to talk about it,” Jin said, breaking the silence. Suddenly, you were wishing he hadn’t. Here comes the serious talk. “But if we’re gonna be around each other as much as we will be, I think it’s not enough to say that we’re just going to ignore the past.”

You had expected it, in all honesty, but had hoped for it to come at a later time or maybe in a place where you could escape. For a moment, you thought about going to the bathroom… that would easily show that you weren’t ready for this conversation. Just as you were about to stand up however, Namjoon’s voice coursed through your head. He was right, the two of you really needed to talk if you were going to work together. He was right…

“I hurt you and I want to apologise for that,” Jin said. He was fidgeting with his hands, something he had always done when he was nervous. Once upon a time, you had found it cute and taken them in yours to try and calm him. Now, you were the reason for his nervousness.

“I’m not gonna lie… at the time, I really did mean what I said to you and I’m sorry for ever thinking about you in the way that I did. I’m sorry for never coming to you earlier to apologise, and I’m sorry that I ever even looked at someone else while I had you. You didn’t deserve what I did to you… you’d always been so good to me and truly, I loved you a lot. The woman… the woman I compared you with was a bitch and I let her words get to my head. I had a hunch that she was playing me, but decided to ignore it and… I’m sorry that I destroyed what we had,” Jin said, his eyes filling with so much regret as he looked at his hands, “I’m sorry for believing her words. I don’t even know why I did it… but I did it. I’m sorry Yn. If I hadn’t been so dumb, maybe… maybe everything would still be okay.”

Was it weird that you were happy that it hadn’t worked out with the woman? Was that being sadistic? You innerly shook your head at the thought. Here he was, apologising, and that was the one thing you decided to focus on.

“Why didn’t you say anything to me after you realised?” You were holding your tears back, using your experience as an idol to sculpture your expression carefully. Your facade was threatening to crack, however, the edges of the mask unstable and frail. You didn’t want to talk about this, but you knew that you needed it. This talk was long overdue, your own fears had prevented you from doing the sensible thing for so long. It was time to listen to Namjoon’s advice.

“I felt… I felt that you’d be better off without me,” Jin answered, his voice dropping to a whisper, “Once I came back to myself, I thought about it for a while and realised how much I hurt you. I just thought that you deserved better than me. I… I was going to apologise and then leave, but when I texted you, you never replied and I- I thought you didn’t want to talk to me anymore, so I decided to at least let you have that. I didn’t know that you had lost your phone… if I’d know I…”

You had always sworn that you wouldn’t let a break up ruin you. It was just a ‘simple’ break up, right? A few days and your heart would be healed. That was what you had thought before getting your heart shattered by the one person you loved most in this world. A break up like that had absolutely destroyed you. No matter how many days you tried to get over him, you were never able to. For many weeks, you watched someone else live your life, a hollowed out version of the real you. You watched as everything fell apart right in front of you. Your debut...pushed back. Your normal life… spent drinking at random bars. Your friends… pushed away whenever they tried to help. If Taehyung hadn’t been so insistent, if Jungkook hadn’t been so kind, if Namjoon had given up on you… you didn’t know what you would have done. They had been your saviours from the catastrophe that was Jin. And they continued to be saviours.

You couldn’t keep the tears back any longer. The thoughts of the times after the end… they hurt as much as thinking about the end itself. It hurt to watch yourself losing to life. It hurt to watch your friends’ desperate attempts to help you. It hurt to see the tears staining your pillows every night. But most of all, it hurt to relive the emotions you had felt during that time.

Before you knew it, he was sitting beside you, putting an arm around you and pulling you into his arms. The scent of his cologne and after-shave filled you and you almost smiled at the fact that he smelled just like he had so many years ago. The warmth of his embrace calmed your racing heart, but the tears continued to fall, wetting the front of his shirt. You could feel how sorry and regretful he was through his hug, how tight he held you, how there was wetness dripping from his eyes too.

And then, something inside of you changed. The barrier which had kept you from him, the barrier telling you that he was an absolute monster and that he was going to hurt you again and again and again if you even got close, disappeared? He had hurt you sure, and maybe you were going to regret this later, but the thing that mattered to you at that moment, was that he had made a mistake. And mistakes are made to be learned from.

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