#I literally can barely focus on shit. I’m happy it makes me able to function without pain

[def-ace-ing-it]

Ok so my period started right and I’m super anxious about the election so I took my last super strong pain killer from my appendectomy and I totally forgot how weird they make me feel

[alsaurus-loves-dean]

What Dean Has To Say a destiel fic by alsaurus | rating: T | word count: 3.8k When Cas comes back, he disappears.

He’s supposedly still in the bunker. According to Sam, he doesn’t seem to have left the building at all since he arrived.

Dean wouldn’t know, because Cas is avoiding him.

It’s the only explanation. Why else would it be impossible to find his best friend even though they’re under the same roof 24/7? Not that Dean has really gone looking for him, but still. They haven’t crossed paths once since Cas got back three days ago. This wouldn’t be so weird on its own (yes it would), except Sam sees Cas all the time. So what gives?

Dean knows what gives, but at the same time? He doesn’t really. Cas is obviously reluctant to talk to Dean after what he’d said to trigger his deal with the Empty. He’d said all that under the assumption that he’d never have to face a response. Dean understands. He would definitely feel the same if he were in that position. But Cas? Cas is the bravest, purest, and most sincere person that Dean has ever met. How could someone like that be afraid to talk to someone like Dean?

This isn’t how Dean had expected this to go.

He’d wanted Cas back more than anything he’s ever wanted in his life. He’d never felt joy the way he felt when he saw Cas out of the Empty, back in the bunker where he belonged. Dean knew he needed to be with Cas, that Cas was it for him.

But he’d also kind of assumed that Cas would take the lead, here. Cas, who was so straightforward and free of human insecurities, would be the one to bring it up - if only just to assure Dean that nothing had to change. Then Dean would have the perfect opening to tell him he felt the same. If words failed him in that moment, Dean was also prepared to let his body do some of the talking.

Dean had not imagined that Cas would just straight-up hide from him for days on end. It’s frustrating, but also a little endearing.

Okay, it’s a lot endearing. Very endearing. Some might even say it’s adorable. Not Dean, though. Sure, Cas is so flustered at the idea of talking to Dean about his feelings that he literally won’t show his stupid angel face - so what? What’s even cute about that?

Anyway.

Dean is starting to get antsy about the whole thing. He’s not exactly anxious, but he’s so amped up that his body interprets it as anxiety. He had to cut down on the caffeine because he’d started to feel like he was vibrating out of his skin. For someone Dean never sees, Cas sure does occupy a whole lot of space in Dean’s head most of the time. He finds it difficult to really focus on anything else, so he’s watched a LOT of movies the past few days - just zoning out with only half his attention on the screen.

“Why are you sitting here in the dark by yourself?” Sam asks from the doorway, making Dean jolt in surprise.

Dean hadn’t realized he’d turned the TV off after Dirty Dancing had ended. He really is just sitting in the Dean Cave, in the dark, by himself. Awesome.

“What‘s it to you? And who am I supposed to be sitting with, anyway? Not like Cas wants anything to do with me,” Dean grumbles. Laying it on just a little thick, since he knows better than Sam why Cas isn’t here.

“What is up with you two, anyway?” Sam asks, and it’s obvious that he’s been waiting for the opportunity to do so. He flips the light switch and comes to sit in the other chair. He’s perched on the edge of it, leaning towards Dean as if to signify how very important he finds this conversation. How he’s not going to let Dean out of it.

Fine.

“Cas is just being a baby. He thinks he can just confess his undying love for me and peace out, and then once I rescue his ass he can just avoid dealing with the whole thing,” Dean starts. Then he finds he doesn’t want to stop, despite Sam’s eyes going wide in shock. “Seriously, man, I don’t know how much longer I can take this. Like how long am I supposed to wait? We should have spent these whole three days in bed doing all kinds of freaky shit - but look at me, Sam! I’m sitting alone in the dark without even realizing it because the dude lives rent free in my freakin’ head!”

“Umm,” Sam says.

“I get that he’s nervous, but so am I! I mean, he’s the one whose cards are already on the table. I’m the one who has shit to say! I don’t even know if I’ll be able to say it, but I’ll never find out if I never even see the guy!”

“Okay, hold on. Just a minute. You’re saying that Cas told you...?”

“Yeah.”

“That he - “

“Yep.”

“And you want to say it back.”

“Sure. If you wanna call it that.”

“Come on, Dean.”

“I mean yeah, Sam, what do you want me to say? I have no idea how it’ll go down. I still haven’t seen him since we got him back.”

Sam starts to smile, and Dean doesn’t like the look of that.

“So what, he’s avoiding you because he’s scared of what you’ll say?” Sam asks.

Dean shrugs.

“I guess. Why else would he avoid me and not you?”

Sam’s smile grows as he sits back in the chair, settling in. He watches Dean for a few moments, eyes twinkling like he’s about to say something really stupid. Why did Dean think that opening up about this would be a good idea?

“That’s actually kind of cute,” Sam says.

Dean rolls his eyes so hard he has to throw his head against the back of the chair.

“Don’t you start with that!” Dean groans. “It’s not cute, it’s annoying. It’s cowardice, is what it is!”

“Have you tried to find him?” Sam asks. The smirk on his face tells Dean he knows the answer but is asking just to be a little bitch.

“Shut up. Why does it have to be me, huh? Why do I have to be the one to bring it up?”

“I didn’t say you had to bring anything up. I just mean have you tried to talk to him at ALL? You say you haven’t seen him, but have you looked for him?”

Dean has not. But -

“I already looked for him, in the Empty! And I pulled him out. It was a whole thing! I think the ball’s in his court now.”

“Dean, think about it. You have a lot more experience with this kind of thing than he does,” Sam reasons.

It’s true. But at the same time -

“I have never experienced anything like this. Ever. Especially not with a dude,” Dean says. He feels out of his element, too. That’s why Cas was supposed to take charge! (Dean knows that doesn’t make sense, and he doesn’t care).

The smile on Sam’s face turns gentler, any trace of teasing disappearing.

“I’m surprised you’re even telling me all this,” Sam says.

“Sam, come on,” Dean protests, because he really doesn’t want to get into it.

���No, really! In the past you’ve been… very adamant about being straight.” Too adamant, is what Sam means. He’s not wrong.

“What’s your point?” Dean asks.

“I’m just glad this is happening, I guess.”

Dean can’t help but melt a little at that sentiment. Inwardly. On the outside, he’s still trying to act put out, but the longer he sits there trying not to confide in Sam, the stronger the pull to do so becomes. Like being caught in a wave, Dean finally lets it pour through him.

“It’s Cas. You know? It’s Cas. I spent too long worrying about all that. I’ve lost him too many times, Sam. I can’t really care about all that stuff anymore. So I just want him to know, you know? I don’t want my crap to keep Cas from getting what he wants. He deserves to get everything he wants. He can have it. I want him to have it. And I want him to know that.” Dean stops. Takes a deep breath, because that was a lot. Then he wraps it up. “And that means you’re gonna have to know at some point anyway, so. There you go.”

Sam looks shocked again, but in a totally different way that Dean doesn’t recognize at all. Which makes sense, considering this is the first time Dean’s ever admitted to having gay feelings for an angel of the Lord. It’s an unusual situation.

“That’s amazing, Dean. Seriously. I’m really, really happy for you,” Sam finally says.

Dean can tell he means it. He’s actually not sure he’s ever seen Sam so sincerely pleased. But Dean frowns at that last sentence.

“I don’t know what you have to be happy about just yet. Dude won’t even talk to me.”

“You said yourself that you haven’t even tried!”

“Yeah but I can take a hint, man. He doesn’t want to see me. Otherwise he’d have seen me.”

And it boils down to that, Dean realizes. Because while he understands that Cas is reluctant because he’s afraid, Dean is also hurt. It’s irrational, but he wants Cas’ love for him to be stronger than that fear. He aches for Cas every moment of every day and every night. He’s barely functioning because he feels like his entire existence is on pause - he hadn’t expected to be in this prolonged state of limbo. He’d been ready for Cas. But it turns out he’d been ready for a different Cas, one he’d thought up in his head - because the real Cas, the Cas he loves, is too afraid to face him and Dean has no idea how long that’ll last. He has no idea when or even if Cas will come to him. Every moment that passes could be the moment before Cas finally talks to him. It’s agony. It’s wonderful.

But he meant it when he said that Cas deserves everything he wants. So why should Cas have to seek it out, when Dean could just give it to him?

“I need to find him, huh,” Dean says, and it’s not a question.

“Yeah, man. You should do that,” Sam agrees. There isn’t an ounce of admonishment in his voice. He’s just supporting Dean, and for once, Dean is grateful.

“Thanks, Sammy,” he says,

Time to find the angel.

concluded in chapter 2. read the rest on ao3.

[overthemoon4themarauders]

“I lied. I’m not okay at all.”

!!TW!! Self-harm tw!!

Remus was acting funny, Sirius realized as he searched for Remus in the library. Remus had been shut off for the last few weeks. He had nearly torn himself apart last full moon because something was bothering him, but being Remus, he wouldn’t tell anyone. Ever since then, Remus had been disappearing left and right until the late hours of the night. None of the Marauders could catch him, until now. Sirius was determined to track Remus down today.

For the first time, Sirius took the Marauders Map before Remus could take it. Sirius walked back to the dorm and opened up the Marauders Map.

“I solemnly swear I am up to no good. Come on Moony, where are you?” Sirius was muttering to himself as he desperately searched for the boy he loved. Finally he found him. He was on the roof of the Astronomy Tower. Without hesitation, Sirius ran off to the Astronomy Tower. He hated seeing his Moony hurt, so he would do anything in his power to make sure he felt better.

Sirius was out of breath by the time he reached the Astronomy Tower. He waited a few seconds to catch his breath and prepare himself, but absolutely nothing could have prepared him for what he saw. In a few seconds Sirius’s world had been turned upside down.

Remus, his Remus, was sprawled out on the tower with freely bleeding wrists out on both sides. It was obvious that Remus was self-harming. What was worse was that Remus seemed to be in a trance. His eyes were blank and unseeing as they seemed to search the sky. He had tearstains all over his face and his shit was covered in blood from the bloody knife resting on his stomach.

“Remus what?” Was all that Sirius was able to say. He was completely and utterly shocked. Remus had literally taken a turn for the worst. Looking closer, Sirius saw that Remus had lost a lot of weight. He was already deathly skinny to begin with, but now he looked even more emaciated. And Remus had eye bags that looked similar to bruises. This shattered Sirius’s heart even more. 

“Remus?” Sirius said in a voice that was barely above a whisper. He wanted to badly to do something, anything for Remus, but he didn’t know what. When he didn’t say anything, he spoke again, “Remus?”

This time, Remus looked over at him. They made eye contact and Sirius could just SEE the pain in his eyes. “Remus what’s going on?” Sirius asked him.

At Sirius’s question, Remus started crying. Sirius cautiously stepped closer and wrapped Remus in his arms as he hugged him tightly. He just sat there and let Remus sob into his chest. After a few minutes of crying, Remus finally spoke. “Sirius?” He sounded so broken.

“Yes, Moony.”

“I’m sorry.”

Now Sirius was even more confused. Remus wasn’t the one who should be sorry. “What do you mean you’re sorry?” He asked cautiously.

Instead of answering, Remus continued to cry and say, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Now Sirius was freaking out. “Remus, why are you sorry?”

Remus just shook his head and closed his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he whispered one last time before he went limp in Sirius’s arms.

“Remus?” Sirius shook him, but he didn’t respond. “Remus?” Again, no response. “Remus, wake up.” No response. Sirius frantically grabbed Remus’s bloody pulse and found that it was really weak. 

“Shit,” Sirius swore. Then he grabbed his mirror and spoke into it. “JAMES POTTER.” He yelled really loudly into his mirror in the hopes that James would hear how frantic he was. 

“What Sirius? I’m trying to-” Sirius cut him off.

“James, meet me in the Hospital Wing now. Tell Madame Pomfrey to prepare a bed immediately. Something's wrong with Moony.”

James looked like he wanted to ask questions, but he said, “OK,” and took off. With that, Sirius picked him up and ran as fast as he could towards the Hospital Wing. As soon as he did, he noticed that his earlier suspicions were correct. Remus had lost a lot of weight. Enough so that he felt like a rag doll to Sirius. Luckily they didn’t run into anyone.

Once Sirius was finally at the Hospital Wing, he was tired, sore, and out of breath, but he didn’t even notice. The only thing he could focus on was his Moony was dying in his arms.

Sirius kicked open the door and yelled for Madame Pomfrey. Luckily, she was right there.

“Oh goodness. Come sit the lad down here.” She said as she motioned to the nearest bed. Sirius set her down and let her work on healing Remus. On any other occasion, he would have fought to stay by Remus’s side. But he understood how dire the situation was. 

Sirius turned to James, and he looked exactly how Sirius felt. James looked confused, shocked, and ashamed all at once. They both just looked at each other. Neither really knew what to say.

After a few seconds, James spoke up, “What happened to Remus?”

Sirius had to swallow the lump in his throat before he responded. “I went to go find him, and I just saw this. He had cut his own wrists. I tried to talk to him, but he kept saying he was sorry, then he collapsed.”

James choked. Then he said, “Remus did this himself?” Sirius nodded. “Why? Why would he do that? Did he think we wouldn’t care? He knows we care right?” James started shooting off questions, but Sirius wasn’t listening. He, too, was asking himself those questions. 

Sirius was saved from trying to speak when Madame Pomfrey turned back to them. “Remus will be okay.” James and Sirius both visibly relaxed at those words. “He lot a lot of blood and he’s exhausted. I gave him some Blood Replenisher and some Dreamless Sleep Potion so his body can rest and heal. I think you boys have also been through a lot. You should go, get some rest, and see him in the morning.” She, too, was crying. Her favorite patient was hurting himself, and she didn’t even know. 

Neither boy argued. They listened to her and started walking.

The next morning, they came back to check on Remus. He was worse than they had ever seen him. His arms were completely wrapped up and his skin looked waxy. Worst of all, he looked completely at peace in his sleep. He looked dead. Remus always looked concentrated, even in his sleep. To see him like this, it was unnerving.

It seemed as if he could sense them, because Remus started to open his eyes. Both James and Sirius rushed to his side. 

When Remus was fully awake, James said, “Remus, are you okay?”

Sirius just looked at him. Remus slit his wrists and James was asking if he was ok? James seemed to realize this was a bad question and said, “sorry, bad question.”

“Yeah, James. I’m okay.” Remus said softly, but 

“James,” Sirius started slowly. “Could you give us a minute. I want to talk to Remus alone.” Sirius sent James a pleading look. 

“Fine. I’ll be back soon.” James said, then he left, giving Sirius a meaningful look as he walked out.

Sirius had so much he wanted to say and so much he wanted to ask but he didn’t know how to start. Luckily, he didn’t have to because Remus started talking. 

“Sirius, I lied. I’m not really okay at all, but I’ll get better. So you don’t have to worry about me.” Remus said sadly.

“Remus, I always worry about you. You’re our friend, my best friend. I want nothing more than for you to be happy. But something’s stopping that happiness. What’s going on. What on Earth was going on to make you slit your wrists?” Sirius was starting to get angry now.

“Nothing you would understand.” Remus said without making eye contact.

“Nothing I would understand?” Sirius raised his voice. “Remus you almost died in my arms. Something was bothering you so much that you decided to hurt yourself. We’ve let it get far enough. Now, I’m asking you again, what’s going on?”

“Sirius, please drop it.” Remus said softly as if he was in pain.

“No Remus. I’m not going to drop it.” He put his hands on Remus’s shoulder and looked him dead in the eye. “I could have lost you. You could have died. You’re some of the only family I have left. I can’t lose you. So please, just tell me what’s going on.”

“I can’t. You wouldn’t know what I’m feeling.” Remus whispered. He had started crying now.

“Remus, please.” Sirius begged. 

“You know what, fine. Though I know you wouldn’t know what it feels like. I’m in love with someone who I know would NEVER love me back. I am so out of their league that I have no chance. Not to mention that there’s nothing special about me. I’m so broken and scarred that nobody could ever love a monster like me. Not to mention I’m a werewolf, so I would never be able to hold down a job and support anyone. So I’m going to live alone.  And I really appreciate what you guys do for me, but there’s just so much happening at once that I’m not sure that I can do this anymore.” Remus finished his rant and looked away as tears slipped down his cheeks.

Sirius was stunned. “Is that what you think? That nobody could love you? Remus that’s where you’re wrong.” Sirius hesitated before speaking again. “Remus, you are the kindest, most thoughtful, smartest, and funniest person I know. And that’s barely scratching the surface. You can never see how amazing you are. And…..I love you.”

Remus just stared.

“I’m in love with you, and I always will. You always put others before yourself. I love how you flinch when someone makes a grammar mistake. I love how you can’t function until you’ve had your daily dose of chocolate. I absolutely love your laugh. There’s so much more to this list, so don’t you ever say that nobody could love you.”

“Sirius,” Remus seemed to have an internal battle. “I love you too.” Remus could barely be heard, but Sirius’s dog hearing still heard it.

 That was all he needed, and he grabbed Remus into a mind-blowing kiss. And the best part was, Remus eagerly responded.

“I love you so much Remus. I hate seeing you like this. I will do whatever I can to help you heal and help you feel happier. Mark my words, whatever it takes.”

Remus smiled and said, “Oh Sirius, because of you I’m already feeling so much better. Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me for loving you.” 

“Well I’m doing it anyways. I don’t deserve you.” Remus said as he pulled Sirius into another kiss.

“We’ll get through this together. I promise.”

Thank you so much for reading!!!

[imaginesandideas]

I’m in love with my funster

a collection of snippets from your life with Roger

I did it! Here’s my gift for all of my lovely 1.3k followers and for sticking with me throughout this hell of a year. Hope you’ll enjoy, cheers! 🥂✨

it’s the last monday of the decade yay!!

writer’s note: read as separate stories or following chapters

~~~~~

“How was it!?” You jumped on the seat beside Roger, successfully scaring him shitless.

“Christ! You want me dead, huh?”

“Oh please. If I wanted you dead I wouldn’t have asked first.” You cheerfully exclaim while making yourself comfortable on a couch next to him. It’s the middle of the week and your dear friend of many years prior has just gotten back from a set-up date. Of course you’ve arranged it since he wouldn’t stop whining about how he longs for something more real than hookups he’s been having on the regular. And now you’re more than keen on hearing all the details.

“So?”

“So?”

“Stop mocking me Taylor! How was the date?!” You jump in your seat excitedly and he just stares at you with that doe-eyed puppy look on his face. If he only looked like that at that girl... she’d be his in a matter of seconds.

“Well, not great you know...”

“Ow.”

“Yeah. I mean, uh, she’s a fine looking lady, not stupid either. ‘S just that, y’know... I didn’t feel anything special.”

You inch closer to pat his back comfortingly. He’s your mate after all, you were really rooting for him.

“I’m sorry Rog. I’m sure-“

“There’s that other one though.” He doesn’t even sound upset and you barely can keep up with his changing spirit.

“Well okay then. Do I know her?”

“Partially. But I’m pretty sure you’ve heard a lot about her. I need to get her to come with me to that Italian spot they just opened around the corner.”

“Yes Roger! You already think like a romantic!” You nod enthusiastically but his eyes are so different. They’re hooded like he’s already planned something evil and you know you won’t be able to stop him if he actually did. 

And he keeps smiling sweetly. His whole aura is so bizarre. Like he’s an angel or a serial killer, that you can’t quite decide yet.

“What’s that look, huh? You need me to help you out with it or something?”

To your own surprise he laughs.

“Actually - yes. I mean, there’s no way a girl like you would agree on a date with me, so... maybe a tip or a trick for forcing her to go out with me would be nice.”

A girl like you. You shake you head and start thinking of ideas. But it’s really hard to focus with those dreamy eyes following your every movement.

And did he just compare a girl of his dreams to you?

“Okay, so maybe- no that’s bad. Hm...” You sit back with your arms crossed over your chest and he replicates it. Only he cannot seem to wash that look off his face. “Maybe tell her to give you that one shot y’know? And promise to fuck off later if she’s still not interested?”

“Would you give me that shot?”

“Yeah I guess? We’re friends anyway, so I couldn’t be mad at you forever if it turned out terrible.”

“Deal.” He sits up suddenly and before you can even react his lips are gently pressed to yours. When he pulls back your face is a mix of shock and perplexity. “See you at 6 tomorrow aye? Just dress nicely love. It’s our first date.”

 And he was gone. Before you could blink he was out the door, happy as a clam. It was adorable. And suddenly you’re left with the realisation that you’ve managed to miss all signs that he’s been sending your way for years, and that you’re set for a date that you don’t have an outfit for.

~~~~~

“Can’t we just cancel it?” Roger pleaded in between kisses he placed adoringly on the exposed skin of your plunging neckline. His hands running down your sides to change direction on your thighs, exploring underneath the material of your dress.

“Roger, they’re... a-already on the way.” You gasped out, encouragingly.

“What was that?”

“Huh?” you opened your eyes to meet his blue ones, so close you could note all the slightest shades of grey in them. And his brash expression.

“You don’t really want them to come now, do ya?”

Rolling your eyes and huffing ever so slightly, you gripped his forearms in attempt to push him away enough to roll off the couch, but he sensed your plans and laid on top of you, trapping your body under his own.

“Rog.”

“Oh don’t get upset on me now! What can I do? You look blinding today love, can’t help but wish they weren’t coming.” He was grinning, lewd gaze wandering down your throat, followed by trace of index finger. You let yourself sink back into comfort of the couch, let his worshipping eyes and fingers work their magic. You were soaked in a matter of seconds and that thin fabric between your legs was not enough to cover it up. Just like your dress was not enough to cover your decency as Roger dived in lifting the material to attack your thighs with his perfect teeth. And you could feel his swift, calloused fingers climbing up, building up the tension that begged to be relieved. So wrong, so inappropriate.

“Oh for fucks sake!”

“Shit! They’re here!” You whisper-yelled sitting up rapidly. The knocking intensifies with each passing second which only made Roger groan in frustration.

“Can we hide? Act like we’re not at home or something?”

“Oh Rogie.” You roll your eyes and gently push him off you and he lands on his back between the pillows, completely resigned. And visibly flustered.

Was it your fault? Yes. But you just couldn’t help the perfect opportunity and now it came around the corner and right to your doormat. Quite literally.

You were at the door in a blink of an eye, passing by a mirror to fix your disheveled hair and adjust the hem of your dress that rode up far too high to be considered presentable. Just mere seconds before, you were having a heated makeout on a couch, hands desperately seeking skin to skin contact. And now?

“Get up blondie! The quicker we wrap this visit up, the quicker we get to finish what we started.” He only responded with another muffled groan.

“I got rid of my panties if that changes anything for you.”

~~~~~

“I don’t understand why would you put so much milk there.” You glance up from your mug frowning.

“Why do you care? It’s my coffee not yours.”

Roger rolls his eyes leaning back in the armchair and folding back that newspaper he’s been passionately reading for the past hour.

“Yeah but what’s the point of espresso when you add so much milk to it?”

You chuckle and place the mug on coffee table that separates his armchair from the comfort of sofa you’re sitting on.

“First - it’s not so much. It’s cappuccino and it’s supposed to have milk in it.” You reach for blanket on the other corner of the sofa and continue your point. “Second - you drink way too much black coffee and I’m pretty sure it affects your moods.”

He sniggers at your exclamation and sits up straight. You know you just struck a nerve.

“I beg you pardon, love? I need it to function alright. Morning coffee, pack of cigarettes and newspaper is a inseparable set. It keeps my mind bright.”

You sigh tucking yourself under the duvet. There is no point in continuing the argument, but you know Roger’s restless nature will make him do that nevertheless. You gaze up to his awaiting your comment expression and even more antsy demeanour. His brows has ridden up ever so slightly, as if to signalise that he’s expecting some sort of snarky remark coming from you. Only you weren’t in the mood to fight so you just shrug instead reaching for the book you brought yourself to catch up on.

“That’s it? You’re not going to fight me on this? Prove your poor excuse for a point?”

“These are your habits not mine, I’m not about to throw a tantrum over your own life choices.”

“Y-you what?” If you’d dare to look up from your book you’d be able to see mouth-agape shock turning quickly into a deep frown topped with his brows and wrinkles forming a combination of waves. “What, now you don’t care about m-my life choices?”

“Not a bit.”

“Wow.”

“What?” Fed up you finally turn your head up and he’s up, arms at sides.

“You have someone else, don’t you?”

“Oh god. Roger Meddows Taylor, you’re really overdosing caffeine...”

~~~~~

“Roger what the fuck!”

“Surprise?” You were supposed to meet him at the airport. Regular welcome-home hugs and all that before you two would head home, eager to finally spend some time together. Yeah. Only Roger didn’t leave for tour this time, and knowing his bandmates you were about to spend the rest of the day hearing stories about all the dumb shit they’ve gotten themselves into.

You weren’t angry at Rog, they were his best friends after all. Only you couldn’t help but get that tingling feeling at the back of your head that one day they’re going to get themselves into some sort trouble. But in your most inventive dreams you did not expect this.

Your hands mindlessly reach out to touch the top of his head, expression depicting various stages of shock you were currently going through.

“You like it?”

“Wha-I, oh god. What were you thinking?!” You cannot help the bugging of your eyes as your fingers could barely hold the strands of hair you once could tug at so deliciously. The smooth, luscious golden waves were gone and instead you were met with much shorter, mullet-like rather irritating haircut. You survived the sideburns, you survived occasional wigs for gigs (and giggles). But this? This was too much. Now he almost looked like every other guy you’d see on the street these days. Almost. “Can you at least explain why?”

He sighs and pulls you closer by your hips, palms coming to rest above the curve of your ass. But you’re more than determined to receive a reasonable explanation, so you build a visible barrier with your arms crossed over your chest and brow raised expectantly.

“Can we discuss it later love? We’re in the middle of the airport.”

“What did you do?”

“_____, love-“

“Rog what was it?”

He sighs, his hands coming up to rub circles around his eye sockets. And you’re waiting. Impatiently waiting and observing how his skin is becoming increasingly red with each passing second. He’s embarrassed and it only makes the rate of your anxiety rise. And now there’s a small smile forming underneath the shadow his hands are providing. You don’t even know if you should be worried or maybe just as red as him.

“Are you going to tell me or-“

“There was a bet.” You’re being immediately shut up with his sudden response, the one you should’ve expected all along. He stretches his arms up and behind himself, and you hate yourself for losing your focus for a moment. Those arms have always been a huge distraction for you. His lips tighten to form a fine line curved around the corners. He’s fucking proud of himself isn’t he.

“And?” You blurt out as nonchalantly as possible, in a way trying to cover your chocked up swallow. You don’t need to let him know what he does to you just yet. Though he probably knows the tiniest details of your non-verbal expressions by now.

“I lost.”

“What a surprise.”

“Yeah.”

Somehow you can’t miss the feeling that you’re playing some sort of game for everyone to see. Cause if one would squint their eyes enough, they could notice the light heaving of your chest, the blush on his collarbone from beneath his shirt, the impatient dancing of his fingers against his thigh as he forces himself not to pull you into him roughly and devour your exasperation then and there.

From afar it looks almost silly, like horny teenagers who have lost their tongues and would rather have them tangled instead. Funny how despite the unexpected haircut you hated so much, he still has you by the collar. As if nothing could ruin him for you.

“Well, what was the bet about then?” You exclaim reaching for one of his bags - the small one, since you know he keeps the heavier stuff in the suitcase. Your eyes are bright as you look at him, the glint quite unmistakable.

His cheeks seem to glow as his grin widens and it’s the kind of smile you only see when he’s nervous or excited. Also when he’s worn out and panting next to you, but that’s a different story and your own cheeks heat up at the thought.

“Well... They teased me a lot about how I get letters and calls from you all the time.”

“Men.” You roll your eyes and he chuckles. His hands find their way back to your waist before he continues with a long intake of air.

“Aaand, umm, there was a bet that: since it’s a mates-only kind of trip, we shouldn’t contact our partners so much. And the rule was that if someone gets a letter, or a telegram, you have to read it out loud-“

“Oh fuck.”

“- or, there would be consequences.” Your mind is sweeping through dozens of things you wrote to him last week and suddenly you remember that one time you were oh so incredibly horny and slid into the envelope not only some not so subtle hints, but also some rather interesting pics you spontaneously took with your polaroid. Putting the two together was relatively easy. You gaze up at him shaking your head but he only clamps his lips and nods.

“I believe you didn’t read them, right? That’s why your hair is shorter?” He inhaled sharply.

“At first I read all of them-“

“Until when?”

“- until you started adding those pictures.”

“Oh thank god.”

“Cause there’s no way I would let them know how filthy my babygirl is.” He exclaims quietly, holding your chin up between his fingers to make you look at him. His lips almost touch your earlobe when he whispers “You can only make me hard like this, and nobody else.”

And maybe, just maybe, you could eventually love that haircut. Because you already love that entire head of passion, talent and wit. And some other things too...

~~~~~

“This is ridiculous. I’m not going out in this.”

“Come on Roger. It’s just for the video, right?”

“I’m not a bloody clown!”

He turned around from the mirror, hands on hips and discontent written all over his features.

If not for his grimace of disapproval he looked almost cute with those puffy sleeves.

White, smoothly folded furbelow reflected the light, slightly illuminating his cheeks. The doublet was beautiful, perfected in every detail, from silvery threads, through patchwork-like design combined with finest materials, to white enlarged cuffs. He looked... amusing to say the least. Not in a bad way, contrary to Roger’s personal opinion.

With perfectly curled, fluffy hair and what seemed like tons of hairspray he looked quite strutting.

“Stop looking me up and down _____.”

“But it suits you!”

“Don’t be silly.”

“I love your hair.” You say as your fingers gently brush the strands of hair above his forehead. Your fingers gently point at his cheek. “And that little pattern you’ve got there. Matches the shirt.”

You’re so focused on fixing the material on his chest that you miss that glint in his eyes.

“Oh, you really like it, don’t you.”

“What?” You look up and he smirks.

“Come on love, you’ve been checking me out all day. Don’t think I didn’t notice.”

Crimson blush creeps up on your cheeks but before you’re able to respond you’re being interrupted by assistant director telling Roger to join the rest on the set.

Once the door is closed again he turns around with a huff.

“I guess you gotta go like this anyway.” You step closer and wrap your arms around his waist, not wanting to ruin the flounce around the neck. “It’ll be over before you even know it.”

“You’re probably right darling. And then I’m taking you, Mrs. Taylor, out for a fancy dinner.” He points out at you before leaning down to plant a quick kiss on your forehead.

“We’re celebrating something?”

You call out after him as he nears the door. He smiles.

“What? Can’t I, the most stupid looking drummer in the world, just randomly celebrate my amazing life with the love of my life?” You roll your eyes playfully but send him a flying kiss nonetheless. “And I’ll need a lot of drinks after this shitshow. I swear, this is going to be the most stupid music video ever made.”

“Okay okay, Mr. Rockstar. Just go! They need you.”

“Not more than I need you.” Roger teases, already standing at the doorstep. And that’s when you spot something that doesn’t feel right.

“Wait!” You call out and he pops his head back around the door.

“Yes love?”

“What about the shoes?”

“The shoes?”

“Your sneakers. Aren’t you supposed to wear something more... matching?”

„Oh fuck that! I’ve already sacrificed my sense of style today. They won’t take my sneakers too!”

taglist: @rogersdrumkit @rogersfalsettos  @cyborgfromthesupermarket @sabbrriiinnaa @wolverinesbeer r @simplyvictoria-93 @laubluered @ceruleanrainblues @shae-is-not-ok @i-am-sarah @imamazzellhoe @shishterfackisback @rockyroadthepastryarchy @tanya-is-dead @twistingrealityagain (and also @jennyggggrrr​ @juliarvra bc they were the ones to motivate me to finish these :’))

[bigskydreaming]

Thank you again and still for all the help and support! I really truly can not imagine making it through the past couple days without it, considering I spent most of it awake and in the bathroom puking from the constant migraines that come with your head not being happy about its bones not being in the right place. Stress aggravates them, or at least my awareness of them, and because of how little work there is currently and how expensive being broke and disabled in LA is, let’s just say, there’s been stress, lol.

I’m feeling a bit better today, or at least I’m making myself pretend that and act like that since I’ve got another appointment at that clinic where I get my juicy and tasty IV bags of nutrients pumped into me since I barely even CAN eat, physically, which combined with the lack of sleep and the nausea, like, also not a great combination.

So, I mean it when I say your donations and support have absolutely been invaluable, everything from a couple dollars to an anonymous message, like, its all amazing and appreciated and invaluable. Yeah. I already said that, whoops, anyway, BUT I DIGRESS.

That’s about all of an update I have there, lol, so in other news, I should be around more today since like I said, I’m feeling a bit better and have possibly plateau-ed on this latest pain level. (My super-annoying superpower....ever since I was a kid I’ve been able to adapt to increases in pain like a pro. As in, being able to manage/function despite it. Course, I still feel it, but give me a day or two to adjust to a new norm in how much my body hates me currently, and then I can power through).

So, like I said, I should be around more today, and I’ll probably be random as hell. Like I’ve mentioned before, my blog is where I spew literally everything from inane thoughts to fandom feels, since its like.....my only social outlet these past couple years and the only way I get to interact with people who aren’t doctors. Expect no pattern in topics until I find whatever sticks and keeps me focused on it enough to serve as a distraction from, y’know, the broke body and broke bank account.

SO! Absolutely feel free to hit me up about anything and everything. ESPECIALLY if you’ve made a donation or sent me something. Like, I know some people who have sent money don’t even follow me or know me at all and are just generous spirits who saw my post somewhere, but for any of you who have sent any kind of support just cuz you like, like me and my rambles, lol, totally feel free to drop into my messages even on anon and say what kind of posts or content from me you really engage with and would love to see more of. I can’t make any promises or guarantees, unfortunately, given I didn’t expect or plan on crashing so hard these last couple days, bleh, and just....literally, like, writing more of the kind of stuff or posts people who have helped me stay alive is pretty much the only way I have of kinda giving at least something back, so I mean, I am happy to pounce on anything in that direction. 

Again, just can’t make any guarantees given how unpredictable my life is and depending on how many people send requests or prompts or messages, etc, but I don’t delete anything of that nature and I usually get back around to stuff EVENTUALLY. For instance, I’m REALLY hoping to finish up two one-shots today, one that’s focused on Duke, Dick and Cass from that prompt you sent me a couple weeks ago, @zee-gee, and the other uh.....that umm, TW/X-Men fusion you commissioned way longer ago than my pride will allow me to admit in public @camelotpark, lol. And like, those posts you see me making to @russianspacegeckosexparty about the changelings project I talk about a lot, like.....Adam basically just sends me random thoughts and prompts about it all the time, and its like a running thread that’s easy for me to pick back up and sink into whenever I see a new one in my inbox and I’ve got enough spoons at the moment to dig in.

Also have a couple other things I want to respond to today while I have the energy and a destined-to-be-longer-than-it-needs-to-be meta about Dick’s positioning in narratives with various other characters and WHY I think it so usually works out that way, and I’m aiming to keep that more like....musing-esque than rant-errific, but uh, let’s see how that actually goes, lmfao.

Anyway, that’s what I have in mind for today, aside from my going to get my IV buffet at ten and emailing and calling people from listings about rooms to rent, but tbh, I might just end up being even more random and sporadic than usual, if I can’t focus on any of those long enough to stay sufficiently distracted today. (Like, my other annoying superpower as long-time followers have heard before, is my ridiculously fast metabolism. I know, “oh no, I’m so skinny, poor me,” but like....its never been about weight gain or loss for me, its about how fast my body processes various medications, meaning pretty much every painkiller I’ve ever tried is largely useless to me, or at most wears off in a couple hours.....whereas my ADHD meds actually provide me MORE relief from the pain than any of them. Basically, they let me actually focus on something OTHER than pain and not get interrupted/distracted by the occasional pain spike that likes to remind me its there and wants my attention......so I mean, I still feel everything that comes with my head being physically out of whack, but for the hours vyvanse is working for me, coupled with some heavy duty pain meds, I can like.....just sorta....not care about it for awhile. Like, it hasn’t gone away but its more shoved to the back of my mind at least. And all of that, I’m happy to stuff in a closet whenever I can, lol).

And that’s enough rambles for this post, I think. LOLOLOL, as if I have a quota. But yeah. Just wanted to express how much your support has meant and continues to mean, and like.....I’m still here and alive and crossing fingers that I’ll hear about an actual surgery date soon, but in the meanwhile like......I’m kinda stuck in a perpetual Limbo, one that’s largely confined to whatever is in hobbling distance from my bed of the day, and as much as donations help me physically, in remaining able to at least stay that way, just, any and all interactions on here help by keeping me engaged with the world on at least some level, and make it so I have stuff to think or talk about beyond my own situation and how I’m not a super huge fan of that.

(Okay, I shouldn’t say any and ALL interactions are appreciated, since I have my fun little runs of anon hate in my inbox, but I mean, all of the above is why they’re not really a big deal to me and never have been. Its like, dude, my own body has been trying to take me out for the past three years, and you think a few insults from an anonymous stranger are gonna do the trick? LOLOL, please. Tbh, the only real negative effect anon hate has on me is that it makes me a bit more snappish and quick to assume the worst than I’d like, when people @ me in a way that I misread as aggressive or in bad faith. I’m aware that my day-to-day temperment is a lot more irritable and open to fights than I usually like to be, as self-control is kinda a big deal to me, and my situation and stress and other shit kinda keep me constantly operating at a level best described as itchy, and none of that is an excuse for any times I read an interaction wrong and go for the throat. I just mean like.....I’m a very blunt and straight-forward person, and I do appreciate when people take a similar approach to me as it really helps keep those misreads to a minimum. Any time someone wants to engage with me in some way, I promise I am SO much easier to talk to if you just....put it out there, whatever it is. Its the games people play online (and in real life) that just frustrate the hell out of me and...yeah. Again, I’m not saying any of that as an excuse or a request for a free pass any time I fuck up an interaction or cross a line, I’m just saying, if anyone’s held back on interacting with me because they think I might snap at them or mistake it for them trying to start a fight, like......just be direct with me. Honestly, thats just....always gonna be more productive when it comes to me.)

But yeah. So that’s the current state of me and all that jazz. Again, I so appreciate everything everyone’s done to support me, not just these past couple days but over the course of these past three years as well. I notice and remember all of it, and its why even though I rant and complain and am critical about so much in society and fandoms and all that.....I really truly am a believer in the idea that there’s more good in people and the world than bad, and the bad just tends to be louder is all. It was especially loud for me the last couple days, the volume got way jacked up, but the goodwill from you guys has been more than enough to drown it out and give me some reprieve.

Alright, shutting up now. All done. The end.

[nostallgias]

        ☆ . * (  kristine  froseth,  cis  female,  she  /  her  )  hey,  look  !!   indigo  ‘indie’  dahl  aka  @nostalgias  is  online  and  ready  to  write  another  anonymous  post  on  the  broken  hearts  club.  rumor  has  it  they’re  here  because  she  ran  away  from  her  hometown  to  escape  her  family  and  ex  lover.  out  in  the  real  world  she  is  a  musician  /  bartender.  the  22  year  old  is  known  for  being  flighty  &  impetuous  but  make  up  for  it  by  being  vivacious  &  determined.  if  they  were  to  describe  themselves  they’d  say  they’re  chipped  nail  polish,  lipstick  stains  on  cigarettes,  driving  with  the  window  down  and  their  favorite  song  is  gold  dust  woman  by  fleetwood  mac.

        hello  everyone,  i’m  so  happy  2  b  in  this  rp   !!!   my  name  is  diana,  i’m  twenty  yrs  old,  a  libra,  and  reside  in  the  est  timezone.  some  quick  facts  abt  me  ...  i  am  a  girl  group  stan  and  lana  del  rey  enthusiast.  i  also  luv  cats.  anyway,  enough  abt  me,  u  can  learn  abt  my  muse  indigo  under  the  cut   !!!   my  discord  is   missing blackpink hours#5522  so  pls  hit  me  up  there  or  in  the  im’s  for  plots   !!   i  cannot  wait  to  get  started  <3   tw:  briefly  mentions  alcoholism  &  drugs

☆ . *   𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒔    !

full  name :  indigo  dahl

nickname(s)  :  indie

zodiac  :  sagittarius  sun,  gemini  moon   (  click  )

sexuality  :  bisexual

alignment  :  chaotic  good

pinterest  :  click

☆ . *   𝒃𝒂𝒄𝒌𝒈𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅    !

indie  grew  up  in  a  small  town  where  everyone  knows  everyone.  she  was  restless  and  curious,  but  there  wasn’t  much  to  do  in  a  town  that  small

her  parents  were  really  big  on  music,  so  there  was  always  something  playing  in  the  household.  it’s  safe  to  say  music  took  over  her  life.  she  started  to  learn  guitar,  then  later  bass

but  sadly  her  dad  left  them  when  she  was  still  young.  she  wanted  him  to  take  her  with  him,  so  she  could  finally  get  out  of  that  stupid  town,  but  he  left  her  with  her  mother  and  never  looked  back  :/

indie  and  her  mom  didn’t  get  along  too  well.  she  basically  planned  indie’s  entire  life  out,  down  to  who  she  should  marry.  after  her  father  left  them,  her  mom  wasn’t  rly  able  to  cope  with  it  too  well  and  she  kinda  turned  to  drinking,  and  the  music  that  was  always  playing  stopped  :(

indie  spent  her  middle  and  high  school  years  taking  care  of  her  mom,  who  was  too  drunk  to  function  at  all  times.  she  couldn’t  keep  a  job,  which,  was  fine  at  first  because  indie’s  grandparents  (  her  mother’s  parents  )  were  fairly  well  off,  and  they  could  live  off  of  them

that  was  until  her  grandparent’s  cut  them  off  after  finally noticing  their  daughter  was  an  alcoholic.  so,  they  were  pretty  much  left  with  no  source  of  income

indie  started  working  as  soon  as  she  was  old  enough.  she  worked  two  jobs  in  high school,  which  didn’t  leave  her  much  time  to  focus  on  school.  she  never  cared  for  school  anyway,  her  focus  was  always  music,  but  she  didn’t  even  have  much  time  for  that  anymore

her  mother  seemed  to  have  a  new  boyfriend  every  week,  men  who  always  acted  like  they  were  here  to  say.  all  of  them  tried  to  control  indie,  but  she  resented  every  single  one  of  them.  she  could  see through  the  lies

she  spent  most  of  her  time  away  from  home,  she  didn’t  even  like  sleeping  there.  it  didn’t  feel  like  home  anymore,  and  it  hadn’t  for  a  long  time

one  day,  one  of  her  mother’s  boyfriends  actually  stuck  around.  indie  just  kept  waiting  and  waiting  for  the  day  he’d  leave,  but  he  never  did.  her  mother  remarried

after  remarrying,  her  mother  kinda  got  her  life  back  on  track  again.  she  immediately  went  back  to  trying  to  control  indie  again.  indie  absolutely  hated  it,  but  she  was  happy  to  see  her  mother  in  a  good  place  again,  so  she  tried  to  fit  the  mold  

indie  barely  graduated  high  school  and  never  went  to  college.  she  continued  working  for  the  next  few  years,  saving  up  money  and  working  on  music

she  started  dating  the  guy  her  mother  chose  for  her.  it  was  okay  at  first,  but  the  spark  was  always  missing.  the  longer  she  was  with  him  though,  she  began  to  realize  that  he  wanted  to  stay  in  that  stupid  little  town  forever,  and  the  idea  of  spending  the  rest  of  her  life  there  terrified  her  so  much  she  decided  to  runaway

so,  she  packed  all  her  things  and  ran  away  in  the  middle  of  the  night.  she  drove  through  the  night  to  find  her  father,  but  when  she  found  him,  she  learned  he  had  remarried  and  started  a  new  family

deep  down,  she  always  knew  he  didn’t  want  her,  otherwise  he  would’ve  made  an  effort  over  the  years.  but  she  really  had  to  see  it  to  believe  it

and  that’s  how  she  found  her  way  to  chicago.  she  never  told  her  mother  where  she  went,  but  she  knew  she  was  looking  for  her  and  so  was  her  ex

her  grandparent’s  send  her  money  every  once  in  a  while,  and  although  they  aren’t  close,  they  understand  why  she  ran  away  and  want  her  to  have  the  chance  to  start  fresh

she  stumbled  across  the  forum  one  day  and  decided  to  join  it,  because  she  was  starting  to  feel  a  little  lost  and  it  has  helped  her  a  lot

☆ . *   𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒚    !

indie  is  extremely  extroverted.  she  is  a  social  butterfly  and  will  befriend  literally  anyone.  the  tricky  part  is  getting  close  to  her,  though.  she  tends  to  keep  her  emotions  to  herself.  she  presents  a  version  of  herself  to  the  world,  one  who  is  always  happy  and  alive  because  she  thinks  that’s  the  only  version  of  her  that  people  will  like

she  has  such  a  curious  soul  !!  all  she  wants  to  do  is  explore  and  experience  new  things,  so  she’s  always  down  for  an  adventure.  she  loves  a  good  party  because  she  loves  to  be  around  people.  she’s  a  social  drinker  and  drug  user  (  except  for  weed,  which  she  smokes  a  lot  )

indie  doesn’t  have  any  idea  about  what  love  is,  but  she  knows  she  wants  it.  she  wants  a  great,  interesting,  devoted  love,  but  is  having  trouble  finding  it.  so  she  tends  to  have  a  lot  of  lovers,  but  they  mostly  end  up  being  casual.  she  gets  bored  easily,  so  if  it  isn’t  exciting  at  all  times,  she  kinda  dips  akjsdhsdjhk  it’s  her  fear  of  abandonment  

she  is  obsessed  with  the  70′s,  from  the  music  to  the  aesthetics.  stevie  nicks  is  her  inspiration.  she  loves  music  of  all  eras,  though.  she  loves  thrifting,  and  her  style  is  heavily  influenced  by  70′s  fashion

she  can  be  pretty  spontaneous,  but  also  reckless.  she  wants  everything  in  life  to  be  an  adventure,  so  it  has  gotten  her  into  trouble  in  the  past

hates  authority  figures,  literally  she  has  so  much  trouble  with  respecting  authority  now  because  she  feels  like  she  wasted  her  entire  life  doing  that  for  people  who  didn’t  respect  her

has  a  hard  time  taking  things  seriously,  except  for  music  because  that  is  her  entire  life

☆ . *   𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒅  𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒏𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔    !

party  buddies  -  they  always  go  to  parties  together.  maybe  they  don’t  see  each  other  outside  of  parties,  maybe  they  met  at  a  party  and  became  close  friends  afterwards

drinking  /  smoking  buddies  -  someone  she  can  drink  or  smoke  with.  maybe  they  have  a  more  casual  friendship,  but  anytime  they  hang  out,  they  share  some  interesting  conversations

confidant  - someone  who  confides  in  her  or  someone  she  confides  in,  or  they  confide  in  each  other.  they  don’t  necessarily  have  to  be  the  closest  friends  ever,  but  they  get  along,  trust  each  other,  and  maybe  they  talk  more  in  private

frenemies  - they’re  friends,  but  maybe  they’re  always  trying  to  one  up  each  other.  they  might  gossip  behind  each  other’s  backs.  sometimes  they  get  along  perfectly  well,  but  maybe  sometimes  they  get  into  stupid  fights

protective  friends  - friends  who  feel  extremely  protective  over  one  another.  indie  will  literally  fight  anyone  who  hurts  them

sibling-like  friendship  - indie  is  an  only  child,  so  i  would  love  for  her  to  have  someone  she  sees  like  a  sibling.  they’re  there  for  each  other,  look  out  for  one  another  and  always  have  each  other’s  backs

dynamic  duo  /  best  friend  - ride  or  dies.  platonic  soulmates   !! this  person  is  probably  the  closest  friend  she  has  and  actually  knows  her  well  !   a  power  duo

partner  in  crime  -  someone  who  always  goes   along  with  her  antics.  someone  who  she  bounces  off  of  and  they  do  dumb  /  fun  shit  together   !!!   her  adventure  buddy

online  friends  -  her  favorite  person  on  the  forum.  she  is  always  interacting  with  them  and  is  literally  always  the  first  to  comment  on  their  posts  or  something.  maybe  they  confide  in  each  other

bandmates  -  if  your  muse  sings,  plays  guitar,  bass,  drums  or  keyboard,  they  can  be  in  a  band !!!  indie  plays  guitar,  bass,  and  also  sings  so  she  can  do whichever  of  these  is  needed  !!  she  also  likes  to  compose  music,  but  with  bandmates  they  will  collaborate  and  make  stuff  together  of  course

groupie  love  -  i  didn’t  know  what  to  call  this  plot  so  pls  ignore  the  name,  i  went  for  a  lana  del  rey  song  title aksdhsdjkh  but  basically  maybe  ur  muse  was  there  at  one  of  the  little  gigs  she  played  and  they  became  acquainted  after  that  !!!  this  can  be  romantic  or  platonic,  we  can  plot  it  however.  but  maybe  they  keep  going  to  her  shows  and  she’s  always  happy  to  see  them

flirtationship  - they  flirt  constantly,  but  nothing  serious  has  come  out  of  their  flirting.  maybe  they  have  good  chemistry,  but  haven’t  really  tried  to  explore  it  further

ex-fling  - maybe  they  ended  things  more  recently,  or  maybe  they  ended  things a  few  months  or  a  year  ago.  they  could  have  ended  on  good  or  bad  terms.  maybe  someone  or  both  of  them  still  have  feelings,  or  maybe  they’re  just  friends  or  don’t  talk  now

current fling  /  friends  w  benefits  - someone  she  is  currently  seeing.  could  be  no  strings  attached,  or  there  could  b  some  feelings  there.  maybe  they  don’t  want  to  make  it  anything  serious,  or  maybe  they’re  ready  to  take  it  to  the  next  level.  maybe  one  person  is  ready  to  go  further,  and  the  other  isn’t

requited  /  unrequited  crush  - maybe  she  has  a  crush  on  ur  muse,  whether  it’s  a  deep  crush  or  a  more  surface  level  crush.  OR  ur  muse  could  have  a  crush  on  her  and  maybe  she’s  oblivious  to  it  !!!   maybe  our  muses  have  crushes  on  each  other   !!!  maybe  it  isn’t  super  serious,  or  maybe  it  is

will  they,  won’t  they  - there’s  feelings  between  them,  but  they  haven’t  made  the  plunge  to  pursue  whatever  they  have.  longing,  yearning,  lingering  glances

take  care  -  someone  who  looks  after  her  when  she  parties  a  little  too  hard   !!!   someone  she  trusts  who  keeps  her  out  of  trouble  when  she’s  under  the  influence  and  feeling  too  reckless  for  her  own  good

enemies  w/  benefits  -  there  was  always  underlying  tension  between  them,  even though  they  couldn’t  really  stand  each  other.  maybe  they  hooked  up  at  a  party  and  now,  despite  their  personal  feelings  towards  each  other,  they  still  continue  to  hook  up

cyber  sex  -  once  again,  i  didnt  kno  what  to  title  this  so  i  went  for  a  doja  cat  song AJKSDSJKH  but  basically  someone  on  the  forum  she  has  a  crush  on.  i  think  it’s  funny  because  she  has  noooo  idea  who  they  are  irl  but  maybe  they connect  super  well  online

ex-friends  - someone  she  used  to  consider  a  best  /  close  friend,  but  they  had  a  falling  out  for  whatever  reason  n  maybe  they  strongly  dislike  each  other  now.  maybe  they  want  to  re-kindle  their  friendship  but  don’t  know  how

dealer  -  someone  she  buys  drugs  from,  they  could  be  friends  or  it’s  strictly  business

bad  influence  -  someone  indie  is  a  bad  influence  on.  she  maybe  influences  them  to  party,  drink  or  do  drugs,  or  do  stupid  reckless  things  with  her

good  influence  -  someone  that  is  a  good  influence  on  her  and  gets  her  to  keep  her  act  together.  she  has  trouble  caring  about  anything  that  isn’t  music  related,  so  this  person  can  keep  her  on  track

roommates  -  one  to  two  people  that  she  lives  with  !!!  they  can  get  along,  or  maybe  they  don’t  vibe  super  well.  but  if  they  do  get  along  they  can  do  cute  stuff like  bake  and  watch  movies  together

coworkers  -  indie  is  a  bartender,  so  she  can  work  at  the  bar  or  restaurant  that  your  muse  works  at

meet  me  at  the  bar  -  someone  who  frequents  her  job  a  lot.  maybe  they’re  her  favorite  customer  and  she  loves  whenever  they  come.  we  can  plot  this  out  however !!!

congratulations  !!!  you  have  finally  reached  the  end  of  my  unnecessarily  long  intro  aksdjhsdjhk  i  would  like  to  thank  u  for  reading  and  apologize  for  all  the  rambling  i  did  <3  anyway  i  would  luv  to  plot,  so  i’ll  send  message  u  asap  if  u  like  this  post   !!!  we  can  definitely  plot  over  im’s,  but  i  am  partial  to  discord  if  u  wanna  add  me  there:    missing blackpink hours#5522

[jawnjendes]

no medicine is strong enough | shawn mendes

university au, shawn x goth gf

AN: a continuation of it came back for more. a bit angsty. a bit real for me. enjoy.

masterlist | series playlist

“I told you not to go to class!” Stella snapped at me.

I had only taken one step inside my dorm, and I was composing myself. The pain in my abdomen hadn’t subsided in the last few days, even with the help of antibiotics. I had been hoping to keep this little health issue from Stella until finals were over, but Shawn took the liberty of texting her what had happened last weekend after the movie. That prompted Stella to put me on strict bedrest, but I didn’t listen. There were other things to worry about, like my job that was ending soon and, as I said before, finals.

“It’s exam season, dude,” I justified, slowly settling myself on the couch. I was winded after walking across campus, struggling to catch my breath. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t lean against the wall in the hallway on the way here.

“You can make up for those!” she told me as she reached over to feel my forehead. “You’re really warm! You have a fever! Again!”

So it wasn’t just pain. It was fatigue I had never felt before, a fever every so often, and a severe lack of appetite. On the TMI side, it was vomiting (though there was hardly anything in my stomach) and odd bowel movements. Oh, and I got chills from the walk back from my stats final.

Stella grabbed me a blanket and made me some chamomile tea. I couldn’t hold it down.

Don’t get me wrong, when this started happening, I went to the doctor. But I only went because when I met Shawn’s mother, Karen, she insisted and all but threatened to drag me out the door by my ankles. Anyway, I had a case of diverticulitis, an infection in my large intestine. The doctor prescribed some antibiotics to kill the infection and sent me home. Simple as that.

Let me just say, those antibiotics did fuck all. It was a miracle I was able to function, although yesterday Stacy sent me home about thirty minutes into my shift. I also missed the classes leading up to finals, and I almost opted out of taking my finals altogether. To say I wasn’t worried would be a lie.

I stayed in the bathroom for the remainder of the day. I was on the floor in front of the toilet, wrapped up in a fluffy grey blanket, shivering so much my jaw was chattering. My phone had been going off since I got home, and I could only assume it was Shawn. Stella probably told him I went to class and now he was lecturing me over text. I felt too tired to grab the stupid device and read tiny words on the stupid screen.

Out in the living room, Stella was on the phone. She was speaking clearly, but I couldn’t process any of her words. This stuff wasn’t new for me, apart from some of the symptoms, there wasn’t need for panic. I could sleep on the floor again, it’s fine…

“She’s literally sleeping in the bathroom!” Stella’s frantic voice said. “She still has a fever and she can’t hold down liquids! I don’t know what to do anymore!”

I tried to stand so I could reassure her that it was just another bad flare up, but the sharp pain in my stomach caused me to hunch over and cry out. “Ow! Fuck!”

Stella was at the doorway in a flash, phone still pressed to her ear. “What is it? What hurts?”

My arm went across my middle, and I focused on the pain. It was the left side of my abdomen, that’s where the doctor said this kind of pain occurs. I tried shifting my position, just as a last minute attempt to see if it was a nasty cramp. The pain remained constant, and it was really starting to annoy me. I wanted to puke and shit myself all over again.

The only noises I could hear were my own agonizing groans and Stella babbling on the phone. She was still at the doorway, watching me lean over the toilet. Finally, she hung up and went to my side.

“Shawn is coming over,” she said, “he’s gonna take you to the hospital.”

~

I’ve gone to the doctor way too many times for someone my age. I’ve sat in LabCorp waiting rooms at the asscrack of dawn to get my blood drawn at least five times in a month. I knew the paperwork that was required for a CT scan or MRI like the back of my hand; The receptionist at the imaging place back home in California knew me by name. I have never been admitted to the hospital, ever. I was never so sick that it required a visit to the emergency room, where Shawn had driven me today.

He had to carry me into the ER. It’s not that I couldn’t walk, he just didn’t want me to. I didn’t argue, I felt weak enough as it is.

A nurse approached us while I was still in his arms, but I couldn’t make out any words being said. The pain wasn’t a sound, but it was all I could focus on, I just wanted to be free of it already.

Shawn was instructed to place me on a gurney that came out of nowhere, and then I was surrounded by two nurses in green scrubs and a doctor in red. My eyes searched around for my boyfriend, who seemed to disappear as soon as I was let go. The medics were talking to one another, shooting hospital lingo I couldn’t understand even though I watched way too much Grey’s Anatomy.

The doctor in red touched my stomach with firm fingers, and it made me cry out and sob.

“I’m sorry dear, I know it hurts,” he said. He was an older man. I tried to connect him to one of the doctors on Grey’s for my own sanity. My mind was blank. “We’re going to help you, alright?”

“You!” one of the nurses, a tall blonde lady, pointed to Shawn, who had backed up against the wall. “What other symptoms has she had?”

I turned my head to properly look at him; He looked just as scared, but he spoke to the nurse. I decided to close my eyes and not let anyone else see my fear. I listened to the footsteps surrounding me, but it only made my heart pound and more tears pricked the corners of my eyes. I tried whispering my calming mantras but instead, some stupid song lyrics came out of my mouth.

“When everything you know has come and gone… you’re at your lowest, I am rising higher…”

My hand balled into a fist as a needle was inserted into my arm. An IV, probably. I could barely hear Shawn’s voice over the commotion in the ER. Must have been a busy day.

“Only scars remain of who I was… what I find in the ashes, you lose in the fire…” I whispered, my voice shaking.

The gurney moved in a certain direction, hitting a bump on the floor, and I cried out again. The nurses profusely apologized and then informed me that I was going to get a CT scan. But first, morphine.

By the time I was lying outside the giant scanning machine, my dark clothes swapped for a grey hospital gown, my veins were filled with the happy shit. The pain was gone, and I was feeling too good. I never had a scan like this. Usually, I was told to drink some gross contrast and then they would inject me with more of it. I always had an anxiety attack in the middle of CT scans, but this one was different.

“I know how this works, Susan,” I said to the technician, who was changing the IV bag I was hooked up to. “Arms up, pics without contrast, and pics after you hook me up with contrast. Then I go radioactive for like ten seconds and I feel like I’ve wet myself. Am I right, Susan?”

“This isn’t your first rodeo, I take it,” the tech replied. “And my name is Chad.”

After the scan, I was sent to a bed in the emergency room. The same tall, blonde nurse brought Shawn back to me and informed us both that my scan results would be back within the hour. Then she closed the curtain around the bed to give us privacy.

Shawn had a clipboard in his hand, which I figured was for me. However, he just stood at the foot of my bed and stared at me. I usually would internally cringe at his gaze, but instead I smiled and waved.

He returned the smile weakly and went to the chair next to me. Then he handed me the clipboard. “I tried to fill out what I could, but… I realized I don’t even know your birthday, much less your medical history. Here.”

“Thank you, my angel,” I told him.

“They gave you something for the pain, eh?” he guessed.

I scribbled on the board, answering all the questions and putting down my information. I wasn’t completely out of it, I was just talking more than necessary. More than I normally would.

“Oh, I’m feeling good,” I said. “Nothing hurts, and that took away my fear. I was afraid I was gonna die. Like, I’m really afraid of dying.” I chuckled.

Shawn didn’t have anything to say to that. He had his eyebrows raised in shock, but he stayed quiet.

“Just don’t tell anyone,” I warned, signing my name on the forms with a loud scribble, “I have a reputation to keep up.”

I put the clipboard aside and looked at my boyfriend. Worry lines were on his forehead, and I just wanted to kiss them away.

“You’re so pretty it’s unreal,” I said in a dreamy tone.

“Aw, thank you honey.” He smiled, but there was still concern in his eyes. “You’re pretty too.”

“I know, thank you. Can you hand me my wallet, sweet boy?”

“Keep giving me cute nicknames and I’ll do whatever you want.”

My unusual affection seemed to cheer him up. Over the next hour, I gave Shawn just about every cheesy pet name in the book. Baby boy, my love, my dear, darling, sweetheart. He savoured every moment of my drugged up ass.

“Let me hold you bubby!” I whined. “Lay on top of me!”

“I can’t do that, baby,” he told me. “Just tell me how much you love me instead.”

I clumsily patted his big tattooed hand. “I can’t do that. The universe will hear about my happiness and take it away from me.”

“The universe will never know,” he reassured, taking my hand in both of his.

“It already does. When we wrote the prettiest song in the world, I let myself be happy. Now, I’m in the ER with some real gnarly abdominal pain.”

Shawn had a thoughtful look on his face. I noticed his eyes fall a little, like he was sad. “Those two things are unrelated, baby.”

“Mm, but the timing was suspeeshy. I overcome my craziness, and I let someone love me, and boom. We’re in a large room full of the sick and injured.”

“Hey, you just have some tummy pain. They’re probably gonna give you more antibiotics and we’ll be on our way.”

I quickly shushed him. “The universe will hear you!”

And it did. The man doctor in red scrubs opened my curtain a few minutes later.

“Hi, Dr. Susan!” I greeted.

“It’s Dr. Buchanan,” he corrected with a smile. He quickly turned serious. “So, your case of diverticulitis has worsened compared to your last scan. We have to go in and remove the infected portion of your bowel.”

“Fun!” I sarcastically replied.

Shawn squeezed my hand so tightly that I gave him a look. He was staring at Dr. Susan, wide eyed. He was never this quiet.

“It’ll be a minimally invasive surgery,” the doctor continued. “It’s only a small part of your large intestine that has to be taken out. You’ll be in and out of the OR between one and four hours. But you will be admitted for at least a week. We are going to move you to a room, so I would suggest calling whoever else you need to call. Work, I’m assuming?”

“Just be real with me, Doctor Susan,” I said, leaning forward, “because I’m scared, and my sexy ass boyfriend is too. Am I gonna mcfreakin die?”

He chuckled. “You will not mcfreakin die. You’re in good hands here.”

I nodded and did the surfer dude sign with my free hand. “Awesome.” Then I looked at my eerily silent but gorgeous mans. “Babey, I need you to call Stella for me. I want my Switch.”

Shawn blinked a few times, and then he kissed my hand. “Okay, honey.”

~

After referring to every nurse as “Susan,” singing Evanescence in the elevator, and yelling “Whee!” as I was pushed to my room, I was finally processing the gravity of the situation. My bowel hates me so much that some of it needs to be removed. I was going to be in the hospital for a week, and I was going to recover for at least four more. I couldn’t eat for the next twenty four hours. I was going to be on a liquid diet. I was going to be open on a table.

Not to mention, Stella was practically in hysterics by the time she got to the hospital. She packed a bag of my bathroom necessities, my medications, my laptop, and my Switch. She also reminded me that we had to be moved out of our dorm by the end of next week. The semester was rapidly drawing to a close, and I was looking at homelessness.

“That’s not true,” Shawn told me before I could panic. “You’re staying at my place. We’ll move all your stuff there.”

I couldn’t argue because I had no other option.

Anyway, I had to email two of my professors and ask to take my finals on a different day. “Dear Professor, please change my final day because I’m having a bowel resection at the ripe age of 21.” Okay, I didn’t type it like that, but I wanted to.

After that, I had to call Stacy and let her know I would not be going into work today, although it was well over an hour after my shift would have started. I explained the situation to her and told her I would be out for at least two weeks. Then she reminded me that my contract with the dealership was almost up… because I was supposed to be going home to California very soon. I had to beg her to keep me hired. Why? Insurance. I hate being an adult.

Shawn eventually stepped out of the room to call his work, and then his parents. I hadn’t met his father or sister, but now I probably had to in this condition. Everything felt really, really messed up.

“What about your parents?” Stella asked me. “Have you called them?”

“I will,” I replied, scrolling through my contacts on my phone. “After I’m discharged.”

Stella placed her tiny hand on my arm, making me look at her. “Look, I don’t know what kinda beef you got going on with your folks, but they have to know about this.”

“They will know about this.”

“I mean right now. You should call them.”

I sighed. “I hear you. I know it’s important. But I met Shawn’s mother while I was recovering from a sick day. Instead of getting to know her and trying to make a good impression, she was taking my temperature and making me go to the doctor. And now I’m gonna meet the rest of his family while I’m high on morphine. I can’t control that because it’s his family, but I can control when he meets mine. And it’s not gonna be like this.”

Stella nodded as she listened. Then, she snapped, “Call your fucking parents.”

“I’m going to!” I shot back. “At a later time!”

We would have argued more, but Shawn entered the room. He didn’t say anything at first, which was odd. He sat at the foot of my bed, flipping his phone over in his hands.

“My mom is on her way,” he said at last.

“Cool,” I replied, keeping the reluctance out of my voice. Then I grabbed my Switch from the side table and occupied myself with Tetris 99.

“Your girlfriend is refusing to call her parents,” Stella told him. “Don’t you think they should know about this?”

I rolled my eyes, but I stayed quiet.

“Uh, yeah,” Shawn agreed. “Babe, why won’t you call them?”

“I’ll do it after I’m discharged,” I said, getting even more annoyed. “They’re my parents, I decide when to tell them.”

Stella scoffed and got up from her chair. She was very personally offended about what I do with my family, and I wasn’t sure why. Maybe she has parents who don’t question everything she does, so it was easy to talk about things. Must be nice.

“Y’know,” Shawn said after a while, “if this was happening to me, I would want both my parents here with me.”

He wasn’t wrong. It’s not that I wasn’t scared. He already knew I was scared.

“Look, I know it’s bad, but at least I’m here,” I told him, keeping my eyes on the game I was playing. “I’m getting treated, and I’m getting surgery. I made an adult decision-”

“I did. I’m the one who brought you here. Two hours ago, you said you were afraid of dying. I’m here for you through all of this, but you need your parents here.”

Morphine clearly wasn’t my friend anymore. It was that fake friend you thought you could open up to, but they just betray you and expose all your secrets. I wanted to take back everything I said in the middle of my high. Every secret, every term of endearment. He knew too much.

Finally, I put down my Switch and picked up my phone. I dialed my father’s cell, my heart pounding and my throat burning. None of this was supposed to happen this way.

Voicemail.

“Hi, leave me a message, I’ll call you back… in two weeks, because my wife and I are currently cruising the Caribbean! Bye!”

I scoffed. “Of course. They don’t have their phones on them.”

“Good excuse for now,” Stella said with a snark in her tone.

For once, I didn’t feel like talking back. I stared at the beige blanket covering my lap. I looked at the paper bracelets around my wrist and the IV stuck in my arm. Why did this happen to me?

Stella was so fed up she actually left. She grabbed her purse and left, but not before saying she would be back tomorrow for my surgery. That left me, Shawn, and the mess of emotions I was struggling to keep in.

“Hey,” Shawn said gently, scooting closer to me. “What is it?”

Tears were building up inside of me. The morphine was threatening to expose even more things I didn’t want to say out loud.

I cleared my throat. “Nothing. Things could be worse, right?”

“That doesn’t change what’s happening to you. Whatever you’re feeling, it’s okay. Here, scoot over.”

I moved to the side so Shawn could sit next to me. He put his arm around me and pulled me into his side. Part of me wanted to push him away, because I was very close to letting myself wallow, and affection would only make it worse. But also… I wanted someone to hold me and tell me everything was going to be okay. That was all I wanted every time I spent the night alone in the bathroom. I pushed everyone away because I didn’t want anyone to see me like that. But Shawn remained persistent. He let me stay with him when all this started, and he was willing to let me stay with him when I recover.

“When I get sick,” I told him, my voice soft and shaky, “I get a lot of anxiety. I wonder what I ate, what I didn’t eat, what I should have ate…” I paused, attempting to hold it together.

Shawn squeezed my shoulders. “I got you, it’s okay.”

My voice started to break. “I changed… I changed so much of my life so it worked around this sickness. I changed my diet, I didn’t go to college right away, I stayed home because I didn’t want to be sick anywhere else. I was so afraid of eating the wrong thing that just eating gave me anxiety. My mind and my body became my worst enemy.” Heavy tears spilled out of my eyes and I suppressed a sob.

He rubbed my back and stayed quiet. I couldn’t look at him.

“I’ve taken every tea, every vitamin, every medicine. Nothing is strong enough. I do everything I can to stay healthy and… here I a-a-am…” I hunched over and lost control of my sobbing. My mind was spiraling quickly, but I couldn’t form another coherent sentence if I tried. I just wanted to jump out of my skin, I just wanted this to be over. I wanted to be okay again.

“I know, I know it’s hard,” Shawn soothed, scooping me into his arms. His head lied on mine, and he rubbed my back, slowly rocking me from side to side. “It’s okay, honey. You’ll be okay.”

“I’m too young to be like this,” I whispered through my ugly cries. “I-I-I keep thinking I’ll die in my sleep.”

“Hey, no. You’re not dying. But you’re right, you’re so young, and it’s not fair that this is happening. But you’ll be okay. You’ll survive this. You’re a strong lady, remember?”

My chest ached. I never thought Shawn heard my calming mantras. I sniffed and wiped my nose with the back of my hand. “I-I’m a strong lady…”

I’m a strong lady.

[shookethbrooketh]

seven days (i’ll find you in any world)

day six

summary: dan is stuck in the wrong timeline. one day, he kisses phil goodnight. the next morning, he’s completely alone. he doesn’t even recognize where he wakes up, and little details in the world around him have changed. he has no clue what’s happening or where to go next in an effort to fix it; all he knows is that he has to find phil.

genre: sci-fi, a lil bit of angst, happy ending

warnings: just some swearing!

fic word count: 16.0k chapter word count: 2.4k

a/n: yes, i am back with the second to last chapter of this fic! i haven’t updated this fic in months, but i wanted to come back and finish it for you guys now that i’ve got some free time. i hope you all enjoy!! 

written for the @phandomreversebang ! inspired by the awesome moodboard/edits by @maybeformepersonally ! beta’d (beginning to end) by @i-might-just-leave-soon !

out of the corner of his eye, he caught phil being thrusted violently into a blue and purple void, but he didn’t have much time to focus on his counterpart, as he was being pulled backwards into his own void. his limbs were thrashing uncontrollably, and it took all he had not to open his mouth and let the bag escape him. as he fell farther away from phil’s flat and the universe he had come to know for a day, the edges of his vision began to go black, and all faded away into the darkness. 

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“The paper!” Dan whispered to himself with a sense of urgency; unlike days past, today Dan hadn’t managed a few seconds of blissful ignorance upon waking up. He stared at his open hands, and even his sleep-blurred vision could tell that there was no paper waiting for him. He jumped out of bed, barely taking notice of the fairly nice bed he’d woken up in, and began immediately tearing it apart in search of the paper. He must have dropped it in his sleep, he kept telling himself, although he knew it wasn’t true. A frenzy later, the room was in shambles, and the paper was nowhere to be found. 

“Fuck,” was all Dan could say as he slumped back onto the bed and put his head in his hands. At that point, he couldn’t help but take a few moments to simply cry. That moment was one of the ones where he’d missed Phil the most; he wanted nothing more than to call Phil and cry to him, explaining to him how overwhelming the past week had been for him, but even his support system had left him, and he had nothing left to do but sob out the occasional ranting phrase to himself.

About half an hour later, he’d tired himself out, and his greatest desire had become going back to sleep, but he knew that wasn’t what the day had planned for him. Overcoming his serotonin deficiency was almost as hard if not harder for him than overcoming the fact that he was literally ten years in the past, but he had to do it. He could feel how close he was to Phil, HIS Phil, and that alone was keeping him going. 

“I remember seeing a phone around here somewhere when I was destroying everything in a five foot radius of the bed,” Dan muttered to himself, all of a sudden realizing the possibility that there was someone else in the residence. He paused for a moment, poking his head out of the bedroom door. “Holy shit,” he said. The apartment he was in was even nicer than the one he and Phil had, and they had a pretty expensive flat. “Who the hell am I?” he asked no one in particular, and he was lucky to find that no one answered. “A rich loser, apparently,” he noted. 

He found the phone, which was, unsurprisingly, an iPhone 3GS. To Dan, it appeared archaic, but he remembered getting it shortly after his eighteenth birthday when it was brand new, and it was the absolute top of the line at the time. “This must be the timeline where I have ridiculously rich parents,” he quipped as he dressed himself. His clothes were nearly as fancy as the flat, but luckily what society found snobby in 2009 was nowhere near as atrocious to his 2019 brain. 

It also didn’t take Dan long to find an excess of cash lying around, and it took him even less time to figure out what he was going to do with it. He opened Google Maps and immediately found a Starbucks within a mile, and there was no doubting that he needed something to perk him up after such a devastating morning. 

Dan made his way down to the street and started following the map to the energy boost. The walk only took him about fifteen minutes, but he was already exhausted by the time he got there, and he needed that coffee almost as much as he needed to find Phil. As soon as he opened the door, though, he found he could kill two birds with one stone. 

“What can I get you?” a 2009 Phil asked the person in the front of the line. Dan couldn’t help but lock onto him; it felt a bit odd, as if his brain had shouted, “target acquired”, but he was just naturally and immediately attracted to Phil. 

The few moments standing in line waiting were agony for Dan, but he finally reached the front of the line and ordered a Pumpkin Spice Latte. “Y’know,” Phil said as he made the drink, “I’ve never tried one of these before. Is it good?” he asked, turning to face Dan and looking him up and down. “Or is it just one of those rich boy tastes?” 

Dan felt a shiver run down his spine; this Phil was aggressive. “It’s pretty good; it’ll be real big in a few years.” 

“Come again?” 

Dan’s eyes went wide as he realized what he’d said. “Nothing.” 

Phil raised an eyebrow before turning back to the drink machine. He finished the drink and pulled out a sharpie to write Dan’s name on the cup. As he did, he looked up at Dan, making eye contact with him, and seemed to make a deeply analyzed decision before adding something else on the cup. 

“Dan!” he shouted, although he really didn’t need to, and handed him the cup. Dan read it; there seemed to be a phone number and the time “4:00” printed sloppily below his name. ‘Call me after I get off,’ Phil mouthed to him from across the counter. Dan took a deep breath before finding a place to sit and sip his coffee. The day had begun. 

A few hours later, Dan was sitting back in his flat of the day, staring at Phil’s phone number. After ten years and multiple universes, Dan would have thought he’d be able to call Phil without becoming extremely anxious, but still he couldn’t seem to pick up the phone. “Bullshit,” he muttered as he frantically typed the number into the keypad, rushing to push the call button before he changed his mind. 

“Hello?” Phil responded through the phone. 

“Hey, uhm, it’s Dan. The bo-” 

“Boy from the coffee shop, yeah,” Phil interrupted and finished the phrase for him. “You should come over to mine. Like, now.” 

Dan was right--this Phil was definitely quite aggressive. 

“Oh, sure. What’s your address?” 

Dan scrambled to find somewhere to write down the address and listened intently as Phil recited the numbers for the third time. Thankfully, his idiocy didn’t seem to put Phil off at all. 

“Great, I’ll be there in a few minutes,” he said once he’d gotten the address written down correctly. They said their goodbyes, and Dan was on his way. 

Dan couldn’t help but get inside his own head as he walked down the sidewalk. “He was really intent on getting me to come over, wasn’t he?” he mumbled to himself. “If I hadn't known him for ten years, I might have been a bit creeped out.” He stared at his feet as he walked. “I suppose I really haven’t known him for ten years. Not this him, at least.” 

He walked in silence the rest of the way; anxiety was beginning to eat away at him. He was starting to get an instinctual feeling in his stomach that something was wrong, but he couldn’t turn back. He had to go meet Phil; it was his only way of getting home. 

Finally, he reached Phil’s flat, and he was sweating profusely by the time he knocked on the door. Phil opened it almost immediately, with a huge smile on his face. “Dan! Come in.” 

He followed Phil into the flat and was immediately taken aback. The entire space was filled with makeshift scientific machines that Dan couldn’t even begin to imagine the function of. It was like the garage in Rick and Morty, but these contraptions looked like they’d all been shakily built in the last few hours. 

“So, Dan,” he said, sitting on a couch in the back of the room that seemed to be the only functional space in the flat. “You’re a time traveler?” 

He liked to cut to the chase, apparently. 

“Uh, y-” 

“You’re here from 2019.” 

“Yeah, I am,” Dan said cautiously, fear coursing through him. 

Phil strode up to him, close enough that Dan could feel his breath on his face. “Me too. And I think you’re the reason why.” 

“I haven’t done anything to cause this!” Dan shouted, suddenly defensive. He was having by far the worst six days of his life, and he wasn’t exactly happy to have the blame put on him for it. 

“You’re the anomaly, Dan,” Phil said, putting an edge on his name that sent shivers down his spine. “Now tell me exactly what you’re doing here.” Phil poked him directly in the chest, and Dan jumped back. 

“This is fucking insane. I don’t want to be here! I just woke up in a different universe a few days back, and now I’m stuck here.” 

Phil’s face softened a bit. “Hmm.” He frantically searched for something to write on, and Dan couldn’t help but wonder if he was on some sort of stimulant. “Tell me everything.” 

Phil was serious when he asked Dan to tell him everything. They talked about their recent experiences for hours and hours, continuing even as darkness began to enclose Phil’s flat.

“I think it’s clear what’s going on here,” Phil said after a rare moment of silence. 

“How is anything about this clear?” Dan asked, exasperated after dealing with Phil’s cokehead rambling for hours. 

“The Phil you talked to a few days ago had it explained perfectly. Another Phil tested on you, and he screwed up your timeline. Then your Phil went after you. That’s why I’m here.” 

“How do you know that?”

“Just sounds like the kind of thing he’d do, from what I’ve heard.” Dan rolled his eyes. “Even if it isn’t him, some Phil went after his Dan. There’s certainly piles and piles of parallel universes where you’re together, so it makes sense. And this is my first day stuck here, so he must have left yesterday.” 

“So now all the Phils are screwed up too?” Dan asked, a pit growing in his stomach. He didn’t have a scientific understanding of the situation like Phil did, but he knew that both of them being lost in parallel universes was not the best situation for Dan finding his Phil. 

“Sort of. But that could be very dangerous. When two anomalies take place at once, they could collide.” 

Dan’s eyes popped out of his head. “What the hell does that mean?” 

“See, this is the one thing that the other Phil you talked to was wrong about. Not all Dans and all Phils are screwed up quite yet. Anomalies are a ripple effect,” Phil responded, starting to draw on a chalkboard he somehow had in the flat. “They start in one universe, and then spread to all of its parallel universes,” he said, providing a visual involving way too many circles for Dan to follow. “Then they spread to the next layer of universes, and so on and so forth. If two anomalies collide,” he started, writing up a formula that confused Dan even more, “the timeline splits beyond repair after 24 hours. That’s when every Dan and every Phil will be affected, and that’s when neither of us will ever be able to get our timelines back.” 

“Wait,” Dan tried to interject, but Phil vocalized his concern before he could even think it through fully.” 

“And judging by the fact that I’m pretty confident that a Phil tried to time travel to get back to a Dan affected by the anomaly, they’ve definitely already intersected.” 

“What are you saying?”

“If we can’t fix this by tomorrow, we never will.” 

Dan sat in silent awe for a moment. He looked up at Phil, and just for a moment he saw the 22-year-old boy he’d fallen in love with. He blinked, and that Phil was gone. All that was left was a form who met him just that morning. “One more day,” was all he said. One more day, and he’d never see his Phil again. 

“One more day,” Phil confirmed. 

Dan took a deep breath before standing up. “Let’s get to work.” 

Dan spent the next few hours acting as Phil’s secretary as he calculated every possible formula and attempted every possible test to repair a timeline. 

By the time the night was up, Dan had made multiple runs for coffee and office supplies, and the entire floor of Phil’s flat was littered with crumpled papers. Finally, Phil looked up at Dan with desperation in his eyes. “This is it,” he said, holding up a paper. “This is the only thing I think could work.” 

Dan stared expectantly back at him. “Then try it!” 

“It’s only five minutes until midnight. There’s no time.” 

Dan could feel his body beginning to shut down. “But you have to do something!” he shouted, shaking as his heart beat out of his chest. 

“There’s nothing I can do!” Phil shouted back. “You have to take this to your next timeline,” he said, holding out the paper he’d written his solution on.” 

“Me? Why me?” he asked. “You’re the one who understands it!” 

“I can’t,” he said. “You remember that Phil telling you that we can feel the rights and wrongs of the timeline?” 

Dan nodded, his breathing suddenly slowing.

“Trust me. You’re the one who needs this.”

Dan reached out and took the paper, a wave of calm coming over him. “What do I do with this? The last time I tried to take something from one day to another, I lost it.” 

“Put it in your mouth,” Phil said almost too quickly. 

“That’s disgusting,” Dan responded. 

“Just do it! It’s a basic of time travel,” Phil snapped.

“Can you at least put it in a bag so the ink doesn’t run?” Dan asked, visibly annoyed. Phil found a Ziploc and handed it over, allowing Dan to put the paper inside. Dan put the bag in his mouth, and only a few seconds later he felt the ground come out from under him. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Phil being thrusted violently into a blue and purple void, but he didn’t have much time to focus on his counterpart, as he was being pulled backwards into his own void. His limbs were thrashing uncontrollably, and it took all he had not to open his mouth and let the bag escape him. As he fell farther away from Phil’s flat and the universe he had come to know for a day, the edges of his vision began to go black, and all faded away into the darkness. 

[toaarcan]

Sonic X, Sonic Heroes, and IDW, or: How a bad anime from 2004 spoiled a comic from 2019.

Now, I haven’t been following IDW Sonic all that closely. I get regular updates from Nemesis via Discord, and additional info from some of the Tumblrs I follow that are invested in it, but I don’t really have a desire to touch it myself. Here’s why.

There’s a multitude of reasons for this. Starting with the background of Sonic Forces wasn’t really a good place to begin from, and being based on present-day game lore in general was always going to hurt it, mainly because SEGASonic canon is currently a confusing mess of retcons brought on by Iizuka taking the J.K. Rowling approach.

Wait, no, he’s just saying stupid shit that contradicts previous canon, not trying to score woke points and hoping nobody notices the frankly terrible stereotypes and TERF tweets. Iizuka is taking the Greg Farshtey approach.

Added, as anyone that’s had experience with my opinions will tell you, I started falling out of love with Ian Flynn’s writing somewhere around Issue 200, and moved to outright dislike during Mecha Sally, and to make matters worse I started noticing that some of the flaws in the 200-247 era were also present in the 160-199 era, retroactively making those harder to go back to.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: I kept up with Archie for the SatAM cast. SatAM reruns back in 2004 were my Sonic, moreso than anything else, and even now I still have way more attachment to those two seasons of animation than I do to most other aspects of the franchise, warts and all. So Archie providing me with additional content for said characters was a major draw for me. I’d generally put up with a lot just to get myself more SatAM content.

That in itself is a large part of why I fell off the Archie train during Mecha Sally. The entirety of the SatAM cast were removed from the regular lineup, just leaving three SEGA characters with their personalities stunted, even if that didn’t make sense in-universe. But that’s a discussion for another day.

So being written by someone whom I no longer enjoyed the writing of, set in a mess of a canon with a thoroughly shite game as the main basis, without the cast I read the previous comics for gave me little reason to invest in IDW Sonic. It wasn’t for me, I’d just keep reading Transformers and move on.

Then MTMTE/LL ended with a heart-twister and Ex-RID ended with a giant Unicron-shaped fart, and the new comic is dull as fucking dishwater and started by killing off one of my favourites, who was also one of the franchise’s confirmed LGBT characters. So now IDW is getting none of my money. Which is good because I’m broke.

Tangents aside, my lack of interest wasn’t something set in stone. If it turned out that the comic was actually really good, then sure, I’d try it. I was up for being proven wrong. But so far, I haven’t felt compelled by the responses from the internet. If anything I’ve been more turned off.

I could talk about how zombies are really fucking boring. I could talk about how SEGA’s recent confusion over what to do with Amy has combined with Ian’s need to include a Sally-esque character to make IDW Amy into Sally Lite. I could talk about how Ian seemingly fundamentally misunderstood everything that was cool about Neo Metal Sonic and somehow managed to reduce him to a boring Eggman minion in an arc where Eggman was out of action due to amnesia… But I won’t.

Instead I’m going to talk about how the comic has done something that would legitimately make me think twice about picking it up even if the FF were to debut tomorrow.

Yeah, I would pass up a SatAM fix because of this, that’s how much this ticks me off.

Now, I presume that if you’re reading this, you have a favourite Sonic character. And you probably feel pretty strongly about how your favourite character is portrayed. If they get a bad run in a game or two then you probably get a little salty about that. Tails and Knuckles fans in particular, as of late, seem to be the ones getting the short end.

Well, my favourite character in the entire franchise is Emerl the Gizoid. I will take Gemerl as a worthy substitute, they’re basically the same character. And the comics have been doing them dirty since the Archie reboot.

(Sidenote: I will be referring to Emerl with male pronouns from this point on. The Maria-soul thing isn’t as widely known as I’d like it to be, so I’m going to compromise for the sake of keeping the focus on the actual point)

However, not everything about this can be laid at the feet of Ian Flynn. Arguably his portrayal of said character is merely a symptom of a long-running issue that has plagued Sonic storytelling for roughly 15-16 years now.

But before we get into that, let’s get into something important: Why Emerl is my favourite Sonic character.

Part 1: Emerl in Sonic Battle, or “How I learned to stop worrying and love the Gizoid”.

This game doesn’t get enough love.

Now, I totally understand why it doesn’t get enough love. There are game design choices, like the grinding and the repetitiveness of the story mode that really drag it down, and because of that, Battle can become a slow-going and tedious experience, and that’s a real shame, because the story that’s hidden in this game is a thing of beauty.

Like most Sonic games from the 2000s, this game introduces a new character to join Sonic’s list of friends. Unlike the games that aren’t SA2 and Sonic Rush, this new character is actually good (This is hyperbole, Omega, Silver, and Shade were fine too).

Emerl enters the story as a mute, barely-functional robot that doesn’t do much of anything for a while, and only seems to come to life when Sonic locates it and attacks it. However, as the robot absorbs more Chaos Emeralds, slowly a personality starts to form, largely pieced together from other characters’ traits.

Emerl, as he is dubbed, is initially childlike and naive, but as he grows he develops a sassy streak, and his speech becomes a lot more developed. Maturity sets in, as Emerl grapples with his own nature, particularly the legacy he carries from the ARK, and Shadow’s ongoing turmoil with regards to the whole “Living Weapon” deal. Ultimately he becomes a hero, following in the footsteps of his mentor, parental figure, and closest friend, Sonic.

That’s right, Sonic, not Cream, is Emerl’s closest friend. We’ll get to that.

But this heart-warming story of Sonic becoming a dad for a robot doesn’t have a happy ending. Despite Shadow and Rouge finding a way to neutralise Emerl’s destructive Gizoid programming, Eggman has a way to reactivate it anyway, driving Emerl into a berserk rampage. This is kind of the one sticking point I have with the game’s plot, Eggman shouldn’t have been able to do this after Shadow and Rouge neutralised Emerl.

Additionally, while Emerl was on the ARK getting Maria’s soul crammed into him, Gerald also added a self-destruct mechanism that would trigger if he ever went Ultimate again.

So with Emerl quite literally exploding with all the power of the Chaos Emeralds, but his destructive programming forcing him to turn Eggman’s latest Death Star knockoff on Mobius/Earth/Sonic’s World, Sonic races up to confront his mecha-child, and things take a turn for the Old Robot Yeller.

In a moment that really deserves more attention, Sonic confronts his own child on the bridge of a space station, while Emerl is running on the power of the Chaos Emeralds and outputting more energy than he can physically take, and they fight. In the space of thirty seconds, they have a ten-round knock-down, drag-out brawl, and at the end, Sonic stands triumphant. Without using a single transformation. Yeah, that’s how powerful this guy is, that’s not travel speed, that’s combat speed. Looking at you, Death Battle.

It’s not really clear whether Sonic outright defeats Ultimate Emerl, or just survives long enough for his opponent to reach his limit and self-destruct, but the end result is the same. Sonic cradles a robot that became his own child over the course of the past few weeks, someone he raised from a baby-like state into a mature and heroic individual, and Emerl looks up at him and asks “Sonic… am I going to die?” And despite Sonic desperately trying to get him to keep it together, Not only does Emerl die, but he’s aware that the end is coming, and bids farewell to all of his friends as Sonic pleads with him to hold on. Shadow is equally distraught, his only friend with a connection to the ARK, someone he can call a brother, someone who carries the soul of his deceased sister within him, is dead.

Emerl: “Sonic I don’t feel so good.”

Like it’s canon that Eggman basically murdered Sonic’s kid.

And goddamnit this ending hits me hard. It frustrates me that Eggman was able to pull a means to drive Emerl into his Ultimate freakout mode out of his arse, but other than that, it’s so gutwrenching, I love it.

Gamma’s story from SA1 gets a lot of praise on the Internet, but for me, this is even better. It’s like Gamma’s story, but if Gamma was actually central to the plot of the game and the characters other than Amy gave a shit about him, and gave a shit about him for longer than a single cutscene, after which they are never mentioned again. Hell, due to Chaos Gamma being a thing, Gamma gets more love from the other characters in Battle than he does in SA1.

But, unfortunately, it doesn’t end there.

Part 2: (Sonic) Anime was a Mistake, or: “Sonic X ruins everything.”

I’ve made my dislike of this anime quite clear in the past. The characters are flanderized, Sonic is a B-lister in his own damn show, the villains are weaksauce or boring or both, the plot is only remotely close to good when its cribbing from two videogames which told the stories in question better, and for the first two seasons the entire show actually revolves around not Sonic, but the least relatable audience surrogate ever made. The third season would continue to include him, but shove him (And everyone else) to the side in favour of a Pokemon whose only move was “Flashback”, making audiences the world over question why he was even there in the first place.

Oh, and it also near-singlehandedly destroyed the thin shreds of character development that Tails, Knuckles, Amy, and Eggman had received in Sonic Adventure 2.

All four of these characters had been significantly enriched by the then most recent console game. Eggman had been revealed to be motivated by an admiration for his grandfather, Gerald Robotnik, but in the same game learned that Gerald had lost his marbles and programmed the ARK to smash into the planet and kill everyone on it, probably including his surviving family, i.e. little baby Ivo Robotnik. Gerald betrayed Eggman posthumously, and it’s clear from Eggman’s interactions with Tails during the credits of the game that this is giving him a lot to think about.

Knuckles is a weird case because most of his characterisation in SA2 is conveyed via… the lyrics to his rap music. Yes, really. He gets minor growth through the cutscenes, most notably in his decision to shatter the Master Emerald early on. Having already reassembled it once after it was broken in SA1, he’s now confident that he can do it again, so is willing to break it to prevent Eggman or Rouge stealing it. Via the rap lyrics, however (Yes I just wrote that), we also learn that Knuckles is slowly warming up to Sonic, gaining a greater respect for him, that he is more in-touch with his history and ancestors after SA1 (Though fortunately not in a Ken Penders way), and that he’s also struggling with feelings for Rouge, a plot element that went completely out of the window after this game.

Tails and Amy, however, get it the worst, as both went through arcs in SA1 that are followed up on and expanded in SA2. Amy had come to the conclusion that she didn’t need to rely on Sonic for everything, and that she would make him respect her as a hero in her own right. And while Amy is clearly in way over her head throughout the events of SA2, she still makes a significant difference, not only freeing Sonic from his cell on Prison Island, allowing Tails’ invasion to be a distraction and stealing a keycard to facilitate it, but of course, she later saves the world by motivating Shadow to join the fight to stop the ARK drop.

Tails had a similar plot, about learning to believe in himself as a hero, without having to rely on Sonic, and in SA2 he gets to prove it, not only partaking in the same rescue operation as Amy and fighting Eggman on even footing, but effectively taking command of the heroes and becoming their new leader, and for the first time, Sonic defers to him.

And then Sonic X came along and fucked it all up.

Eggman became a clownish antagonist with no semblance of nuance, and he actually got off the easiest.

Knuckles became a loud, dimwitted loner who got tricked by Eggman constantly, which would go on to be his personality for the rest of the franchise, ultimately culminating in the travesty against all sense that was Boom Knuckles.

Tails was reduced to a wimpy taxi driver, incapable of doing anything without his giant mecha plane to sit in. This was largely exacerbated by the presence of Donut Steele, who usurped his role as Sonic’s best friend and sidekick for two seasons, a problem which only got worse in the third season when Donut Steele suddenly became a genius inventor too, encroaching even more into Tails’ territory. Tails did get himself some more focus in S3, but only to make googly eyes at the Pokemon, a role which frankly could’ve gone to literally anyone else and would have made no difference on the plot. I would say that Tails being involved in a romance story at all is weird, but given the comics and Boom the weirdest thing about this latest tragic love story for the kid is that the Pokemon was actually close to his own age, because outside of this it really does seem like Tails goes for older ladies. Though she did turn into an adult at the end so I guess that counts?

But Amy arguably got the worst of it. Not only was her crowning moment in SA2 taken away from her and given to Donut Steele, but the poor girl had her promising character arc cut short and replaced with an obsessive, unhealthy fixation on Sonic, combined with a violent temper and an eagerness to smash anything that displeased her, Sonic included, with a giant hammer. Her admiration and crush on Sonic were warped into her being a possessive, mean-spirited stalker, whom only got away with it because she was an anime girl and therefore it was cute rather than creepy.

I want to take the time at this point to stress that stalking is not okay, under any circumstances. A girl obsessively following an older guy and threatening him and everyone around him with violent assault if they ever so much as imply that he isn’t interested in her is not cute, it means it’s time for a restraining order. Sonamy is not cute.

Now that I’ve swatted that particular hornet’s nest with a cricket bat, let’s move on!

I’ve always found it ironic that, despite being the adaptation with the most oversight from SEGA and Sonic Team, and the most endorsement from them too, Sonic X had easily the worst characterisation of any of the shows at the time. But, for all its faults, I can’t blame everything that went down in the aftermath on it. It had a comrade-in-arms. Mediocrely-written arms.

Part 3: Partner in Crime, or “Sonic Heroes also ruins everything.”

Sonic Heroes has a lot to answer for. And I mean a lot. It was the beginning of the franchise’s obsession with references to the classic games, it codified the really awkward ages for certain characters, and it seemed to be dedicated to completely unpicking everything established in the Adventure duology.

Shadow’s sudden resurrection is one thing, at least they had the graces to include a means to preserve his sacrifice via having him be an android, the blame for that not taking should be laid at the feet of his own game.

But the rest of the cast? Ohhh boy. Sonic’s still fine, he didn’t change much in the Adventure games, but then there’s Tails. Despite all the development he went through in SA1, in this game he needs to turn to Sonic when Eggman returns, and honestly this whole setup could’ve been fixed if Tails sought Sonic out not for the sake of having him lead the charge, but rather simply to recruit him into the counterattack he was already planning. Nevertheless, throughout the rest of the game Tails is almost as wimpy as his X counterpart, not helped by the voicework he’s given. No offense to William Corkery, who was probably like six when he recorded his lines, but this what you get when you choose actors via nepotism, rather than talent. But at least he does something.

How about Knuckles? As the other side of his derailment, Knuckles just turns up in this game, buddy-buddy with the characters he was only just starting to warm up to before, and blatantly not caring about the Master Emerald until Rouge mentions she’s going to steal it at the end. This will combine with his becoming a dumbass in Sonic X and become basically his entire character for… ever. Even in Forces, where he’s supposed to be doing slightly better as the leader of the resistance… but he’s a dumbass, and even Ian Flynn, who kept Knuckles as competent and intelligent in the Archie comics (Making the best version of Knuckles we’ve had in forever), kept this ongoing in the IDW comic. The Forces prequel portrays him as deciding to become leader of the Resistance (To an empire that hasn’t actually formed yet) purely to be a glory hound, and then goes on to establish that he was basically a figurehead while the real work was done by Amy, of all people.

And speaking of Amy…

Yeah, poor Amy is basically her Sonic X counterpart. But worse. I didn’t think that was possible, but at least X’s Amy seems to care about her friends. In Heroes, we’re treated to an equally violent and stalkerish Amy, who ostensibly starts searching out Sonic because he’s implicated in the abduction of Cream and Big’s pets, but when they actually catch up to him, Amy clean forgets why she is looking for him in the first place and tries to force him to marry her. Despite being twelve.

Y’know when Amy said she wanted to marry Sonic in SA2, she was joking, right?

This is why I find the idea of Amy being the real leader of the Resistance frankly absurd: Because the only time she led anything, it was a team that consisted of herself, a small child, and a man less intelligent and aware of reality than said small child, and she completely forgot their actual objective the moment she set her eyes on Sonic. Add in an unfortunate stint of very poor eyesight that got less and less understandable with every instance, and we got Amy’s rough personality for the next decade.

While Knuckles mostly stagnated at the same level of stupidity during that time, Tails got worse and worse, losing all of his badass traits with every game, a factor only increased by the “Sonic only” mentality costing him playable status, until he reached his nadir in Forces, cowering in terror from Chaos 0, and crying out to Sonic to save him, despite knowing full-well that Sonic was captured already.  Amy, meanwhile, limped along at the same level until about 2014, where it seemed someone at SEGA finally realised that A) Having the only female character you regularly use be a pink-coloured gender-bent version of your male hero whose only function is lusting after said hero doesn’t and shouldn’t fly in this day and age, and B) violent stalkers aren’t cute, and dropped this trait. Unfortunately, this has been more of a lateral move than a fix, as, much like Antoine in the comics, they forgot to give her anything substantial or fitting after she lost her negative traits, leaving her a bland and dull character, and when you’ve had a character be consistent for ten years, even if they were consistently bad, then changing it without cause or warning is still going to be jarring and awkward.

Part 4: Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right, or “Why the fuck did this happen?”

As I said in Part 2, Sonic X was made under heavy oversight from Sonic Team, and was heavily endorsed by them at the same time. There were promos for the show inserted into Sonic Adventure DX, a few episodes were released on GBA cartridges, and it received a long-running comic from Archie that ran alongside the main book, even after the show had ended. Additionally, characters that debuted in games from 2002-2004 were restricted from appearing in Archie’s main book for years afterwards (Which will become relevant later). The third season was commissioned solely off of the response to the first two, and primarily overseas response, hence why the original sub was never aired in Japan.

Sonic X was huge. And with that in mind, it’s plain to see that the portrayals of the characters in Sonic X were intended by SEGA. Yeah, all that horrible characterisation was intended as the vision for the franchise going forwards, and subsequent games were adjusted to match it.

And unfortunately, not only did this have a serious impact on the main cast of the games, but it had an even worse effect on Emerl.

Part 5: Emerl in Sonic X, or “Emerl vs. ‘Emel’”

Sonic X’s original mission statement was to adapt Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2, and Sonic Battle. Why they skipped Sonic Heroes, despite Shadow being a major player in Battle’s story, I don’t know.

For whatever reason, the show took a full season to actually get to the first game adaptation, SA1, and instead spent the first 26 episodes on bland episodic “adventures”, in some kind of strange reverse-Isekai series. However, once it got there, the adaptation work was fairly faithful to the source material, which the exception of Donut Steele’s being crammed in to the plot. However, he mostly followed Big around, and since Big was the least involved in the game’s plot, he didn’t disrupt too much.

Sidenote, after 26 episodes of filler, the actual SA1 adaptation only lasted six episodes.

SA2 was likewise only six episodes, but with the exception of Amy’s big scene, it likewise wasn’t too bad. Tails suffered this time around too, which is somewhat surprising since he was mech-dependent in the anime anyway.  

After some more filler, which introduced the Chaotix and then did nothing with them, Emerl finally made an appearance, albeit they got his name wrong.

‘Emel’ looks like Emerl, and somewhat works like Emerl, but might as well be completely  different. ‘Emel’ stays completely mute for the entire time he’s around, never advancing much beyond Emerl’s initial silent, pre-first Emerald persona. He does get better at fighting, but he’s limited to only absorbing a single skill at once (Except for when he isn’t).

Dispensing with Battle’s interesting, rich, and heart-twisting plot, Sonic X instead has ‘Emel’ linger in ensemble for three episodes, before condensing the entire game’s premise into a two episodes of really bland tournament arc, where Sonic himself doesn’t actually fight and we get two rounds of Donut Steele being a dick to his friend and his father.

‘Emel’ wins the tournament, and is given a Chaos Emerald, and just when you think it might kickstart him becoming an actual character, instead it just drives him insane and he immediately becomes a pathetically weak version of Ultimate Emerl. After kicking the crap out of the entire cast, he is defeated by Cream and Cheese, because even though he can take on Sonic, Knuckles, and Rouge at the same time and win, along with Tails, Amy, Donut Steele and everyone else, he… can’t handle two opponents at once.

This is stupid.

You’ll notice that I haven’t talked about Sonic’s relationship with ‘Emel’, and that’s because he doesn’t have one. The wonderfully-written parental bond that these two characters share in the games is completely excised, and instead the focus is put on Cream. Bare in mind, Cream is so inconsequential to the actual game that she doesn’t even get mentioned individually in Emerl’s dying speech like Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Shadow do. Instead she’s just grouped in with Amy.

This is also stupid.

And as a result of this, it means that what is arguable base form Sonic’s most impressive feat just doesn’t happen in the anime, instead Emerl dies because he is lightly kicked a bit by Cream. Yeah, unlike the Advance games, Sonic X’s Cream is not an unstoppable engine of destruction, she’s basically just a small child who can sometimes fly.

Instead of Emerl’s tragic speech and Sonic’s desperate attempts to keep his son alive, we get treated to a prolonged scene of Cream crying over the death of her “friend”, something that is probably meant to tug at heartstrings but doesn’t because Cream’s voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard.

And Shadow isn’t even there! He doesn’t come back until a third of the way through Season 3, and never meets ‘Emel.’

This is really stupid. And, for those keeping track, that means of Sonic X’s originally commissioned 52 episodes, and the full series run of 78 episodes, a stunning total of seventeen of them were actually adaptations of the games that the series was supposed to focus on, leaving us with 61 episodes of what might as well be filler.

And, unfortunately, that franchise-wide initiative had damning consequences for Emerl.

Part 6: Gemerl and Sonic Advance 3, or: “An incomplete resurrection.”

So, Gemerl. I know his name is apparently G-Merl now but fuck that I’m calling him Gemerl. If the comics can do it then so will I.

Gemerl is the worst thing Eggman has ever done to Sonic. Like, there is no contest. Some of his other schemes might be more destructive and generally evil, but in terms of personal pain inflicted, nothing has topped this.

Eggman salvaged Emerl’s corpse, and brought him back to life as a mindless murderbot under his control. So not only did he kill Sonic’s robo-son, but he also brought him back as a weapon.

Come the conclusion of the game, Gemerl predictably betrays Eggman, steals the Chaos Emeralds from Sonic, and goes on another rampage. I have… headcanons about this fight, but that’s something to worry about later. What’s important is that, once again, Sonic is victorious, and Gemerl’s defeated body plunges into the atmosphere.

Fortunately, Tails is able to bring Emerl back properly this time, presumably using the Chaos shard that was left over at the end of Battle’s finale. So, it’s all a happy ending, right? Sonic has his child back, Shadow has his connection to his history restored, and Emerl is alive and well, right?

Wrong.

See, the vile spectre of Sonic X rears its ugly head once more, and sabotages this conclusion. Gemerl doesn’t return to Sonic, in fact we never see him reunite with his father. Instead, Sonic X’s version has enough clout now to take precedence, so Gemerl is now Cream’s playmate.

Bear in mind that Emerl’s idea of a fun game is all-out combat against his friends, and Cream doesn’t like fighting (Even if she’s really good at it in Advance 2 and 3).

And then he never shows up again. Even when Cream is part of the game’s plot, like in Rush or Generations, he’s not there, and most egregiously, in Sonic Chronicles, where Cream is not only an active player in the plot, but so are Gizoids, the creators of said Gizoids are the main antagonists, and Emerl himself is mentioned… Gemerl is not there.

But he did make it into the comics, for better or worse. Mostly worse.

Part 7: Embargos, knock-offs, and misused tropes, or: “Ian Flynn dun goofed.”

For a long while, Emerl/Gemerl was barred from the Archie comics, due to the Sonic X embargo, and when it was lifted, he didn’t appear until the reboot. We did, however, get a suspiciously similar substitute in the form of Shard.

Shard was the original Metal Sonic, but when he was brought back and rebuilt for the Secret Freedom arc, he was given a colour scheme ostensibly derived from Metal Sonic 3.0, but one shared with Gemerl, and a personality that was a lot like a watered-down version of Emerl’s own.

On some level I can understand Ian’s decision to bring back Metal Sonic v2.5, rather than use the character that seems to have been an inspiration for this new incarnation in some way. He’d need a fully-formed Emerl, necessitating a skip over the whole story, since there wasn’t room for an adaptation during the Mecha Sally arc that the Secret Freedom story was framed within. Heck, for all we know, the similarities between them may simply be a pretty sizeable coincidence.

But then the reboot happened and Gemerl finally joined the comic cast. And to say it was underwhelming would be an understatement.

You’ll notice that I said “Gemerl” rather than “Emerl”, because his entire story was indeed skipped. The events of Sonic Battle and Sonic Advance 3 had both happened already. This wasn’t Ian’s decision, as far as we know, his intention was for the comic to start over from the beginning. However, due to the interference of Paul Kaminski, who wanted a softer reboot, Ian was forced to fill the characters’ active histories with a large chunk of the games’ stories. Battle and Advance 3 were among those that had already happened, so Emerl made cameos in both incarnations via flashback… which unfortunately led to a plot hole.

See, Advance 3 and Sonic Unleashed are rather difficult to keep in the same continuity, because both share a common plot element: The world breaking into seven pieces.

For a long while, it was generally assumed that the handheld games and console titles were only semi-canon to each other. This avoided the awkward question of “If the Gaias were already there, why didn’t they emerge when Eggman broke the planet in Advance 3?”

Ian shoved them blatantly into the same continuity, and gave no attempt to explain what was different about the Advance 3 world-break compared to the Gaia incident, which served as the backbone to the reboot’s three year long Shattered World Arc. Why didn't the Gaias wake up during Advance 3? Because that's now a question we have to ask of the comics' world.

When Gemerl finally showed up doing something other than yard work for Vanilla (Despite allegedly being Cream’s friend, Cream spends all her time with the rest of the cast, and Gemerl is basically Vanilla’s maid), it was to get effortlessly dispatched by a brainwashed Mega Man with a terrible name in the extremely lacklustre Worlds Unite event.

This one was more than a little bit of a slap in the face, considering that Emerl and Mega Man are very similar in concept- robots that can copy the abilities of other characters- but Emerl is demonstrably more powerful. Now, if Ian had established that Gemerl had been nerfed when he was rebuilt, either by Eggman or by Tails, that would be fine. But he didn’t. In fact, Gemerl is given the title bubble “Super Gizoid”, implying that he’s stronger than a regular Gizoid.

Worlds Unite is generally pretty bad for having its corrupted heroes easily curbstomp every other character around, to the point that the only thing that can stop them is each other, but in Gemerl’s case it really serves no purpose.

This is the only thing that he actually does in Worlds Unite. He shows up to get beaten up and make Mega Man look stronger. That’s it.

This is something that TV Tropes refers to as “The Worf Effect”, a trope wherein an established powerful character is defeated easily by a new character, in order to demonstrate the latter’s power. Now, there’s nothing wrong with using this trope, but please note that I said establishedpowerful character, which Gemerl wasn’t.

At the point that this comic released, Gemerl’s last appearance in any Sonic media was over ten years prior. None of the comic’s intended target audience would remember him, and they wouldn’t know why defeating him was impressive. And this was, in addition, a terrible way to introduce him to new fans. Though the worst part is easily that this was unnecessary. Mega Man had already defeated everyone else, and had established his power pretty well just on them, and he was about to get removed from play permanently in the next issue. There was really no reason to throw Gemerl under the bus for this.

He made one more appearance in the event, getting controlled by the Zeti along with every other robot, and after that he got bopped on the head and just flew away.

Later, he’d make another appearance in the Panic in the Sky arc, and while his portrayal was far from the worst thing about Panic in the Sky, it only adds to the issues caused by the previous showing.

Gemerl makes one appearance, and promptly gets pinned down by the Witchcarters and Team Hooligan. Bear in that one of those groups are the joke villains who nobody takes seriously, and the other are a gang that was defeated by Tails before he met Sonic.

Archie Gemerl was a character who only existed to lose to villains in a vain attempt to make them look better, and that’s legitimately all Ian ever did with him, which makes me wonder whether he disliked the character. And it didn’t even make the villains look good, when you think about it. For anybody that was actually the intended audience for this book, Gemerl had no significance. He was just a robot that got beat up all the time. But for anyone like me, who does remember the games he appeared in, it stands out, not as good writing, but as a blatant narrative device and misused trope.

In this situation, I would simply rather Gemerl never appeared in Archie. At all. If Ian wasn’t going to give him time to shine, or at the very least be an adequate member of the supporting cast, he shouldn’t have used him at all.

Part 8: A Fresh False Start, or: “Wait, how did this get worse?!”

And now we arrive at IDW.

The one nice thing I can say about Archie Gemerl is that at least his personality was mostly on point. He read like a generally accurate take on the character that Emerl was at the end of Battle, which is what he’s supposed to be.

The same cannot be said for IDW.

In the pages of IDW, Gemerl acts like the most generic robot. He speaks in emotionless, stilted sentences with little in the way of actual grammar, leaving him to read like a poor man’s Soundwave, or Soundwave in one of those comics where the writer can’t decide whether they want him to speak normally or adopt his speech pattern from the G1 cartoon, so they just sort of do both.

Emerl pretty much never talked like this, as far as I can recall. His speech development is much more reminiscent of a child learning words, and the only time when he did adopt a more robotic speech pattern, it was a clue that he was slipping back into his destructive programming. He only spoke like a generic robot when he was in mindless destroyer mode.

He gets thrown for a loop by a simple logic flaw, unable to reconcile “Protect Cream and Vanilla” with “Don’t kill the zombots”, and has to be talked out of killing everything around him, when the entire point of Gerald’s modifications to the Gizoid was to make him a bringer of hope rather than destruction, and give him a compassionate heart.

The part of Battle’s story where Cream imparts a pacifistic mindset doesn’t frame her as being right. In that part of the game, they are cornered and under attack by hostile but ultimately mindless drones, and when she convinces Emerl to stop fighting, he almost dies. It’s Cream that learns the lesson there, that sometimes fighting is okay.

This character is already compassionate, he shouldn’t need to be talked into not killing the zombots by a small child, nor should he need her to point out that they’re innocent people who have been made this way by Eggman, because he was made into a killing machine by Eggman twice, and the first time he did die because of it. The character that lay dying in Sonic’s arms, scared and bidding his last goodbyes to his loved ones shouldn’t be the one experiencing this struggle when Omega is also in this arc.

That’s it, really. He’s not Gemerl. He’s a second, less goofy Omega. And it boggles my mind that, despite getting Gemerl’s character, if not his combat abilities, down almost perfectly in Archie, Ian is now subjecting us to this travesty.  

Like with the Archie example above, therein lies the crux of why the steady decline of Emerl/Gemerl that began with Sonic X is pushing me away from IDW: I don’t want to read Ian’s take on this character, because, to me, No Gemerl is better than Badly-Written Gemerl,

This isn’t the first time I’ve said this, either.  Way back in 2016, when I complained about Ian’s portrayal of Gemerl in Panic in the Sky, I said that the way he handled characters that I liked tended to make them the least likeable parts of the stories he wrote. As well as stating my dislike for his handling of Gemerl, I also stated that I used to really like Fiona Fox, moreso in concept than in execution, but under Ian’s pen she was largely an insufferable antagonist, little more than a trophy to make his pet recolour look better, and almost every story she was in only added to the “List of reasons she needs to stop lying to herself and just start the redemption arc already”. Additionally, I said that I didn’t want to see him bring back Neo Metal Sonic or Mephiles in any context, and we got the former, and it was exactly as bad as I thought it would be.

So, that’s basically why I don’t want to read IDW. That’s why, even if the aspect that was a big sticking point for me back when the comic launched was to be undone soon, I still probably wouldn’t pick it up. Because I don’t want to see my favourite Sonic character continue to be written badly by a guy that should know better, and has done better in the past.

If he were simply screwing up Gemerl’s personality the first time he wrote him, I would file it away under the same category as “Emel”, but the fact that he’s done better before, in a book where he had greater restrictions on what he could do with the characters, really settles this as an interest-killer for me.

Well done, Mr. Flynn. I legitimately didn’t think you could make me actually miss SEGA’s tighter control, but you somehow managed it. I would be impressed if it weren’t so sad.

[peachdoxie]

Could you maybe explain what executive dysfunction is and how one might be able to tell if they have it?

Tonight on “So You Think You Might Have Executive Dysfunction: How to tell if this is what’s ruining your life right now.”

Have you ever woken up, starting scrolling aimlessly through things on your phone, and just continued doing that for three hours despite knowing you have errands to run, food to eat, bathrooms to use, and materials to study?

Have you ever sat in a chair and stared at the carpet for hours instead of starting that new book you bought, all the while thinking “I want to start that new book I bought”?

Have you ever wanted or needed to do something but instead didn’t for absolutely no discernible reason?

If you said yes to any of these questions and deal with this shit on a regular basis, then you might have executive dysfunction!

Executive dysfunction describes the case where there are problems regulating the executive functions, which are the brain processes that control behavior. Essentially, it’s when you have problems planning, starting, and finishing tasks and goals. In my experience as someone with executive functioning problems, it’s pretty much when you just can’t get yourself to do something you know you need/want to do.

I’ve heard it described before as being constantly “stuck”, or that you’re waiting for something so you can start doing what you need to do, but you don’t know what you’re waiting for or when it will happen, so you just do nothing instead. (I can’t find the post that talks about being “stuck”, but here’s the one about waiting for something to happen.) If you want some more expressions of what executive dysfunction feels like, here are some posts I’ve reblogged that talk about it: 

one two donald duck executive dysfunction meals. 

Executive dysfunction comes often with anxiety, depression, ADD/ADHD, autism, and a variety of other mental or physical health problems, since all of them impact your ability to moderate your behavior and get things done. Though I’ve dealt with anxiety and depression issues for most of my life, I didn’t have problems with executive dysfunction until about two years ago between my sophomore and junior years of college when I developed fibromyalgia, which is a chronic fatigue and pain disorder. However, it’s not a prerequisite that you have to have any mental or physical health issues in order to struggle with executive dysfunction.

Personally, a lot of times when I say I’m having executive dysfunction issues, it’s because I’m struggling to get things done even when I’m not feeling the effects of fibromyalgia, anxiety, or depression. For example, on days I have off from school or work but still have things to do, I’ll often wake up feeling okay, but just play on my phone for like four hours (not an exaggeration) without getting out of bed, even though I’m hungry, have to use the bathroom, need to charge my phone, and have other things to do that require more steps, like go run errands or work on grad school applications.

People with executive dysfunction also often have memory and concentration issues. My reading speed for non-fiction slowed down by a lot when executive dysfunction hit me because it takes that much more mental energy to focus on what I’m reading and not forget the preceding sentence. In my last two years of college, I had to take really good notes because otherwise I’d barely remember what we talked about. It impacted my grades in class because I’d often lose out on participation points because I’d have to focus really hard on taking notes and what people literally just said or else I’ll forget. It takes me longer now to formulate thoughts and speak well without preparation because my brain feels slower. It’s not just in a class or work setting, either, that these things cause problems, but in most parts of my life as well.

In the process of writing this post, I kept stopping and staring at the wall or the fork on my table or the piece of link on my sock or something and thinking about what I wanted to write. I had the words in my head, already planned out, but just...couldn’t type them. Thought about it, but just didn’t. There was nothing stopping me. Talking about this stuff doesn’t give me anxiety, and I’m not depressed at the moment (I actually got a lot of stuff done today so I’m in a good mood). My head is relatively clear and I’m not dealing with fatigue or extreme sleepiness. Continuing with the post was just not something I could do at those moments until I was able to break myself out of it. (Also, don’t feel like it’s a burden asking me about executive dysfunction. I’m more than happy to talk about it and help someone. That has nothing to do with me having problems writing it.)

I haven’t paid my rent yet and it’s overdue. I didn’t clean most of my dishes for over a week and so they just sat in the bathroom sink until this afternoon when I finally had the mental capacity to do it. It’s often too much to open the closet door and toss my dirty clothes where they should go, so there’s a pile of them sitting right outside the closet door. I need to fix a problem with my Amazon account so that my orders stop being cancelled, but I haven’t done that yet. I’m supposed to take a variety of supplements and medications for my multitude of health issues, but most nights I can only manage to make myself take the prescription ones (aka the ones where if I don’t take them, I will have a VERY crappy next day.) My leg has been in pain for about half an hour and even though the ibuprofen bottle is within reach, I still haven’t taken some to make the pain lessen.

Though this post is long, I hope it’s given you a bit of a look into what life with executive dysfunction is like. My experiences are, of course, not universal, but from my understanding, I have fairly standard executive dysfunction problems. If you want to know more, I recommend reading through the Wikipedia page, though that’s fairly dense and full of jargon. This page talks about executive dysfunction as the result of a traumatic brain injury, which is one way but not the only way that executive dysfunction can arise, but I found it a good overview of what the symptoms and effects are. 

Of course, if you or anyone else has any further questions for me, I’m more than happy to give a go at answering them.

[wordsinwinters]

Then Again, P14  Peter Parker x Reader

Author’s Note:

Hello, everyone! It’s been such a busy week I can’t think of much that I need to add here except my eternal thanks you’s. Thank you guys so, so, so much for your comments, messages, asks, favorites, and reblogs! I’m always so geeked to see what you guys have to say, it really means the world :)

Technically this weekend is a double update! Although, admittedly, the next part is going to be crazy short, like between 300-400 words. :(

Also, there will be another note at the end of this to ask for some music recommendations (I’ll explain it further), so if anyone takes me up on that, thank you again!

***Warnings: Penis. (I feel like there’s a better way to phrase this yet here we are  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 15

Without further ado,

Then Again, Part 14:

(Words: 1,234)

POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE “CUDDLE SITUATION” OF LAST NIGHT (ALSO KNOWN AS REASONS I SHOULD NEVER LISTEN TO MYSELF AGAIN):

I wake up with half of my body clinging to Peter’s shirtless self.

I ruin - irrefutably demolish - my commitment to get over my crush, like I’m some sort of Peter Parker addict and this is an enormous relapse.

I wake up before my alarm because his boner is digging into my left leg.

My practical, analytical side is punching my who cares anymore? side into oblivion because all of those things are really, absolutely happening right now. And I’m kind of freaking out since I’m the sole person to blame.

On his back, Peter sleeps with his entire right hand wound within my hair. My head rests on his chest, my arm hugging his middle, my leg still between his. His... um, Penis Parker is way too... prevalent. God, the last thing I need to think about right now is Flash.

I’ve gone too quickly from dead asleep to wide awake. It’s dizzying. I can feel the blood rushing in waves through my ears.

The alarm clock on the nightstand says 5:38 a.m., its glow just barely illuminating the room enough to make out shadows. I move my head slowly to look up. Peter’s face is the only thing I can really see in any detail, yet even though his expression is calm and still, it’s sending my stomach into somersaults, given our positions. Focus. Today is about the competition, not Peter. You need to be prepared.

I need to get up and take a shower, even if I go back to sleep. (And I really should, if I want my brain to function even slightly.)

I shift my arm slowly, retracting it like a chameleon from a National Geographic episode of Life. It takes a minute. Once it’s safely back on me and not on him, I try my leg next. I can’t believe I let any of this happen. Penis Parker. Oh my god. If things go back to normal, when is too soon to joke about this? Would he be awkward about it if I told Michelle and Ned? Of course he would. It’s Peter. He’d be mortified. A thousand other thoughts sprinting through my brain, this particular effort takes more time. Not to mention, the further I move my leg, the more off balanced I’m becoming. At least his trunks are dry now; their dampness had been uncomfortable last night.

As my leg slips off of his, he grunts, twitching slightly. My eyes flash up. Still sleeping. I let out a silent sigh.

All I need to do is slide his hand out of my hair and sneak my head off of his chest. It might be easier if all of my weight wasn’t balanced on one side of my body. Nevertheless, it can’t be that hard. God, I won’t be able to say “hard” with a straight face for weeks.

I reach just behind my ear to find his hand. Gingerly, I lift it while I ease my head out from underneath. My hair catches some, but I shift my fingers until it falls from his. Perfect. I set his hand back down, on his chest.

Before I can roll over to exit the bed, my vision of the alarm clock is obstructed by a sudden, heavy shadow.

“Wait,” Peter says, voice thick with sleep as he rolls on top of me, arms latched with an iron grip around my middle. “I can’t figure out the code ‘cause it’s just, like, so ughhh, you know? It’s the sleep. Jus-just makes sense. Promotion for the... the, uh, future of Parker Industries. Right.”

As he slurs nonsense into the crook of my neck and shoulder, he moves the rest of his body like a child trying to get comfy in their blankets, his torso squirming against mine frozen beneath him. His words half-pressed into the skin of my collarbone send shivers through my spine and I fight an almost-squeak rising in my throat. I might have more time to process this, how absurdly good it might feel, but his weight is literally crushing the air from my lungs and I don’t even want to explain where certain parts of him are on me.

I try to wiggle out from under him to catch my breath, my hands pulling at the bedsheets as I struggle.

But I can’t move. He’s too heavy. Anxiety floods and washes through my bones.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I really can’t breathe.

Images of Ross Geller and Chandler Bing pop into my head, blaring like panic alarms.

Hug and Roll. Hug and Roll. Hug and Roll.

I mirror Peter’s embrace and wrap my arms around him as tightly as possible. I squeeze and roll.

Not enough.

I don’t get more than halfway, a half gasp of air, before my back hits the bed again, his weight shoving each of my ribs downward into each other. Peter merely tightens his grip and nuzzles his face into my hair, muttering something about Happy Hogan and shampoo.

Come on, come on. Do it. Get yourself out. Hug and Roll. Just do it.

This time, I put all my strength into it.

Fuck. Almost.

The fall backward hits even harder this time. Peter clings tighter still and my lungs might as well be deflated plastic bags. Shit, I might actually pass out in another ten seconds. My vision is darkening. I can’t see the alarm clock anymore.

I jam my foot hard into the mattress and roll our bodies to the right before using the momentum to roll sharply left, scrambling so both of my feet dig into the bed, one nearly tripping over the other.

Yes!

I gasp, nearly choking and almost not caring if the sound wakes him up.

We’re on the other side of the bed - thank God - and I’m on top of Peter.

Relief melts my posture, the former strain in my neck and back fading out. I rest my forehead against his shoulder, eyes closed tight.

After a dozen full, deep breaths, I move to get up.

I can’t.

Peter’s arms are still locked around me. The grip is looser at least, and I can breathe perfectly fine, but I know my chances of breaking his super grip are slimmer than slim.

Shit.

The jabbing in my hip is growing more and more frustrating each moment. If he wakes up like this… we may never speak again, even if we forgive each other for last night. I can already picture it: Peter would drown himself in embarrassment, sputtering apologies as his face turns a thousand shades of red. I’d like to spare both of us from that. If possible, I’d like to avoid any more unnecessary stress between us. I need things to be normal with Peter… and this is not normal for us.

“Nah, man,” Peter’s mumbling next to my ear. “Mr. S is chill, no worries. Like a dad. Keep it on the D.L. and no problema, partner.”

If we were on stabler terms, I might try to reach my phone to record this. His retainers are making him sound like a drunk college boy. His skin is so warm. His breath is tingling the side of my neck, my toes curling in reponse.

Maybe… maybe I’ll just rest my eyes for a couple minutes.

Part 15

Next update: Tomorrow, Nov. 25

I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Let me know what you think :)

*As for the music that I mentioned earlier, I don’t want to spoil anything, but there’s going to be a scene where Peter will need a playlist of music.

I’ve been scouting songs that would fit his music taste from the movie, but I haven’t had much time. If you guys have any suggestions, I would really, really, really appreciate them! I’ll probably use a bunch of songs from the movie soundtrack, so those are the kind I’m looking for, though modern songs are great too! They’ll need to be upbeat, in the theme of Prom, but also a couple slower ones are needed as well. Oh dear, I’ve said too much :)

But please, if you have any in mind, I would love to hear them! (So far, my list is super short.) Additionally, I might make this into a real playlist on Spotify or 8Tracks if you guys are interested, so if you are, let me know!

- Jane

Tag List: If you’d like to be tagged, send me a(n) ask/message or repy to this post!

If I missed anyone in the tags or if yours isn’t working, let me know :)

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[natasha-cole]

Ready Steady 3: Oh, Baby

A Ready Steady Oneshot

Summary: Reader tells Rob the big news! Will he react in true Rob fashion?

Word Count: 2732

Warnings: fluff and a grumpy reader

Note: I feel like this is turning back into a chapter fic instead of a series of oneshots. Help! I don’t know how to structure this!

Rob did not have a great history with reacting well to major life changes. Then again, you didn't have a great history with breaking the news to him gently.

You weren't sure what you were expecting when you asked him how he felt about having another baby, but you figured he'd at least realize you were asking because it was already very much real.

��Why are you thinking about more kids? He asked. “We can barely keep up with the one we have. Not to mention we are both so busy, there's no way I'm on board with this.”

“Really? So having more kids is one hundred percent not even a thought in your mind?” The fact that he was even saying this sort of caught you off-guard.

“No. I'm perfectly happy with you and Jackson. Our family is complete right now. Don't you think so?”

“I mean, I thought we'd have more kids eventually. I thought you wanted more.”

“Honey, you and our son are all I need,” he said. He moved in closer to you, letting his arm drape over your body. “Where is this coming from anyway? You have baby fever or something?”

“No, I just… I wasn't asking if you wanted to have more children…” you stopped short, turning your head to look directly at him. “I asked how you felt about the fact that we are having another baby.”

“What?”

“I'm pregnant, Rob.” You felt your chest tighten as you broke the news to him. You honestly never considered that it would be such a big deal. You had talked about more kids in the future, maybe not this soon, but it was never something that seemed to be completely off the table with the two of you. Right now, you wondered if you had thought wrong. Maybe Rob really didn’t want more kids. Maybe you would just continue to disappoint him.

“Shut up. That's not funny,” he smiled awkwardly at you, obviously trying to determine if you were joking or not.

“It's not,” you replied, “and it's also not a joke.”

“You're messing with me. You were on birth control because we both decided to not let this happen again.”

“I may have forgotten my birth control a few times,” you whispered.

He moved away from you now, lying on his back as he ran his hands through his hair, sighing heavily the same way he always did when you managed to frustrate him. You watched him, waiting for the inevitable blow up, the argument that always came along with your history of dropping bombshells on him.

You gave him a moment to take it in, noticing that he wasn’t losing his cool just yet. Instead; he seemed to be carefully choosing his words now before he spoke.

“Okay,” he breathed out finally. He removed his hands from his hair, turning to look at you again. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure,” you responded. “I’ve been ignoring the way I’ve been feeling, but I took a test and it was positive.”

“Alright, have you made an appointment to see the doctor yet?”

“No, I just found out earlier tonight.”

“Okay,” he said again, “we’ll call your doctor tomorrow and make an appointment, just to be sure.”

“Yeah,” you mumbled, “you’re not yelling at me.”

“Why would I yell at you?”

“You literally went on this tangent about how we couldn’t have another baby and then I just dropped this on you. The last time I told you I was pregnant, I thought for sure we were done. I thought you were going to leave me and never look back.”

“That was different, Y/N. We were a mess back then.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“Of course I’m not. Things have been busy, I don’t blame you for maybe having forgotten to take your pill every day.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“I know you didn’t,” he laughed. “Honey, it’s okay. I’m not mad at you. Freakin out… maybe a little. But I’m not angry.”

You nuzzled against him. “I wasn't expecting this either, and thank you for not being mad at me.”

“Shit,” he mumbled, “I can’t believe we’re having another baby.”

You glanced up at him, still not convinced that he wasn’t mad. “I wouldn’t blame you for being pissed, you know?”

“I’m not,” he promised, “all I’m thinking about is what it’s going to be like having two kids so close in age. We will literally have a baby and a toddler at the same time.”

“It’s going to get a little crazy around here, isn’t it?”

“More so than usual,” he laughed.

“We’ll be okay, right?”

“Of course we will,” he looked down to meet your gaze, “we always are. Hey, we’ll figure it out okay. We did talk about more kids at some point, it’s just happening a lot sooner rather than later.”

“You’re pretty great,” you said.

“Husband of the year I guess.”

“You should probably get on calling your doctor,” Rob pointed out when you walked into the kitchen the next morning. You grumpily ignored him, immediately going for the coffee that had lured you from bed. You poured a cup, adding cream and sugar as you looked over to him. He was in the middle of feeding Jackson and he had stopped to give you a look, his eyebrow raised in protest over what you were doing.

“What?” You mumbled.

“Coffee?” He asked as he returned his focus to Jackson.

“Oh god,” you muttered. You stared down at your coffee, heartbroken now that you realized you couldn’t enjoy it now that you for sure knew you were pregnant. “Nice knowing you,” you said softly as you poured it down the sink.

Rob chuckled from his spot, “I’ll make you breakfast,” he said as he got up. You trudged over to Jackson, not sure how you would be able to function now that coffee was out the door for you. You took over feeding the baby, Rob moving to get breakfast started in the kitchen. You felt a little queasiness, realizing that you were starving.

“No bacon, please,” you said out loud.

“Trust me,” Rob scoffed, “I’m not going down that road again.”

You smiled, now trying to encourage Jackson to eat some of the fruit that Rob had put out for him. He mostly laughed as he tossed pieces of his food to the ground, entertained at the way you bent down to retrieve it all.

“How are you feeling anyway?” Rob asked, looking sort of concerned. He obviously started thinking back to your pregnancy with Jackson. It had been terrible. You were constantly sick, almost dangerously sick.

“I’m feeling okay,” you said, “a little nauseated, but I’m not throwing my guts up yet.”

“Really, you need to call your doctor.”

“I’ll do it later,” you replied. You smiled at Jackson, still handing him food that he only threw onto the floor. “Someone’s done eating.”

You quickly scooped him up, giving him kisses as he laughed at you. You placed him down, watching as he started to walk around. He was busy, that’s for sure. He hated sitting still, and he hated being held for too long. You frowned when you considered the idea of having two little one with all of this energy and personality. You were tired most of the time as it was, you really couldn’t imagine what it was going to be like with another baby.

“I’m just saying, Y/N. Maybe if you catch it soon enough, we can avoid all of that again.”

“Okay, okay,” you replied. You kept your eyes on Jackson as he headed for the living room, now finding toys to play with and bang against the floor. You grabbed your phone, searching for the number to  your doctor’s office. You spoke loudly to the receptionist, trying to be heard over all the noise Jackson was making. You let the woman know that you took a test that came back positive and just wanted to get confirmation. She asked you to hold for a moment and you listened to the music on the other end of the phone. You kept your eyes on Jackson, laughing as he moved on to the remote which went directly into his mouth. Rob was still busy in the kitchen, and before long, the woman was back on the phone with you. She told you there had been a cancellation today and she fit you in this afternoon. You gladly accepted, pleased that you were able to be seen so quickly.

When you hung up, you grabbed Jackson to carry him with you back into the kitchen, not daring to leave him unattended for even a second.

“I’ve got an appointment this afternoon,” you told Rob. Jackson was already trying to push himself out of your arms, whining as he tried to get back to what he was doing.

“Good. At least we’ll get an idea of how far along you are and hopefully your doc has some ideas on how to prevent you from getting so sick this time.”

“Hmm, whatever you say babe.”

“Want us to tag along?” Rob asked, talking about him and Jackson.

“Oh god no,” you muttered. “No offense, I’d love to have you there, but I don’t think Jack would enjoy it very much.”

“Fair enough,” he replied.

After breakfast, you took your time getting ready for the day. It seemed as if your symptoms had gotten worse once you saw that positive pregnancy test. You weren’t throwing up yet, and you were grateful for that. But you felt exhausted and grumpy. Rob had brought you in for a kiss at one point this morning, holding you for a bit. It would have been fairly romantic, except the feeling of him breathing on your neck seemed to annoy you. You knew your hormones were already acting up. Just the idea of bacon in the morning had your stomach turning and everything that Rob did seemed to annoy you. You sort of felt relief that you would be seeing your doctor alone today, maybe now you’d avoid letting everything bother you.

As your appointment time drew closer, you finally decided to actually dress for the day. Rob joined you in the bedroom, getting dressed as well.

“Where are you going?” You joked. Today was supposed to be a lazy day. You didn’t originally have plans, you just meant to hang out as a family at home, which didn’t require anyone to get too presentable.

“With you, of course,” Rob said, giving you a confused look.

“I really don’t want to bring Jack to the doctors with us,” you protested, feeling slightly annoyed. Just then, there was a knock at the door. Rob pulled his shirt over his head and made his way out to answer the door.

“That’s the sitter,” he said.

“Really? A sitter?”

“Relax, it’s my sister.”

He disappeared from the room and you rolled your eyes over his insistence on joining you. It shouldn’t have been so annoying, after all, it was his baby too. You were sure that he wanted to be there when you found out how far along you were. He probably even hoped there’d be an ultrasound so you could get a glimpse at your new little one. You should be grateful to have a husband who wanted to be involved, even if this was all unplanned as usual. You hoped your hormones would fix themselves and maybe you’d stop being so irritated with him over stupid things.

Your doctor had you take a pretty basic pregnancy test; one that came back just as positive as the little stick on Halloween.

“Well, you are pregnant,” she stated cheerily when she returned with the results, “congrats you two.”

Rob grinned at you, and you couldn’t help but chuckle at how he suddenly seemed pretty thrilled at the idea of a new baby.

“If you’re certain about the information you gave me, I think you’re about three weeks along. We’ll schedule you for another a prenatal next month, you’ll be about eight weeks by then.”

“We don’t got to see or hear anything this time?” Rob asked.

“There’s not much to see yet,” she laughed, “we won’t hear a heartbeat until your next appointment.”

“Oh,” he mumbled.

“You already have a kid, right?” She asked sarcastically, looking at you both as if you hadn’t ever been pregnant before.

“Yeah, we do. Poor Robbie here missed out on all the stuff at the beginning of that one.”

“Okay, that’s okay. This will be exciting for you to be involved through the entire pregnancy then.”

Rob nodded, still smiling as he gripped your hand.

“I’ll tell you what, I promise at your appointment next month; we’ll do the whole thing. We’ll listen to the heartbeat, do an ultrasound, everything. It’s still a bit too early right now though.”

“Alright, I can wait I guess,” Rob replied.

“When I saw you during your last pregnancy, you were having some trouble with morning sickness,” she began, “are you experiencing it now.”

“Just a little,” you replied, “I’m a little queasy often, no vomiting though. I’m mostly tired a lot and really moody.”

“Should we do anything to prevent her from getting sick like that again?” Rob cut in.

“I’d recommend just sticking to a simple diet. Make sure you eat as soon as you wake up and eat often. Basically stick to what was recommended last time, but I don’t think we need to be too cautious yet. Every pregnancy is different, and maybe you’ll just have normal morning sickness for this one. Just keep an eye on it.”

“Thank you,” you replied.

“I’m gonna let you go. Make sure to set up an appointment before you leave and I’ll see you soon.”

She left you and Rob alone; both of you looking at each other as if to try to gauge the other’s thoughts over all of this.

“I guess it’s official then,” you said.

“Yeah,” he chuckled.

“You okay?”

“I’m good, Y/N. Honestly. We’ll be okay.”

“What are you thinking right now?”

“I’m actually sort of excited,” he laughed, “I know I reacted as if I didn’t want this, but I think now that it’s for sure, I’m okay with it.”

“Me too. I was a little pissed when I realized it at first, but I’m kinda excited too.”

“I love you,” he said as he leaned in for a kiss. “I love you and our little family.”

“You’re the best husband, and our kids are so lucky to have you as their dad.”

When you returned home, you watched as Rob nervously thanked his sister for hanging out with Jackson. You could tell that he so badly wanted to let her in on the news, but you had managed to convince him to wait.

Things between the two of you during your pregnancy with Jackson had been so difficult. Everything was a mess; that fortunately, had worked out in the end. This time, you wanted to really take your time with everything. You explained how you wanted to just wait until you were a bit further along, maybe after you actually got to see your new baby and hear its heartbeat first. Right now, you had Rob in your life and there was no need to be stressed and panicked during this. You weren’t on your own during any of this.

You had told him that you wanted to do a proper announcement later on. He had smiled at the ideas you threw out there. You considered doing a photo announcement on social media. Maybe you could announce it at one of the conventions. You discussed whether it would be best to tell close friends and family first before letting fans in on the news; or if it would be more fun tell everyone all at once.

You had both laughed and talked the entire way home, feeling pretty good about the idea of having another baby. For once, you realized that despite everything that had happened in the past between you; he really was here for the long haul. Things that may have blown up in your face before were no longer huge issues now that you were married and happy. No matter what life threw at you, you really were in it together.

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[garmrr-blog1]

a small notice.

i’m going to be taking some time off from this blog. i appreciate all of your patience and support, and if you wish, you may read below the cut for an explanation. for now, i’ll just mention i’ll have LIMITED ACTIVITY UNTIL FRIDAY / SATURDAY. if you wish to reach me, you’re very much welcome to do so via messenger, or discord ( arkenscone#2221 ) and i’ll be happy to talk about writing & etc., there, i just want to take a little bit of time away from the pressures of my dashboard. i may log in and do a few replies here or there, but i will not be doing as much or spending as much time online. thank you for understanding <3 

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO CONTINUE WRITING WITH ME DURING THIS PERIOD, I WOULD ABSOLUTELY LOVE THAT, BUT MY WRITING WILL BE LIMITED TO MESSENGER & DISCORD. please contact me if you’re interested.

i don’t often post about real life things so i hope i can count on your empathy and understanding that it’s quite difficult for me to talk about these things, but i really want to at least say this once.

as you might have noticed, my insomnia has gotten terrible to the point where i can barely function in school. i’m taking a week off for reading week, and heading back to city 2 out of 3 that i live between, and while i’m there i’m planning to at least see a doctor, and my mom’s trying to help me find a psychologist to speak to in regards to my anxiety issues because they’ve become a very paralyzing force in my life. i’ve had a very difficult time since i was 16 handling stress, and it’s led to some very awful situations, and my way of coping with my mental health has thus far been ‘bury it and shut up about it’ but since i’ve stopped sleeping, my mom’s really forced me to face what’s going on. 

this has also been difficult for me to deal with because my mom has an anxiety disorder that she didn’t face while my sister and i were young, basically until we were out of the house, and that caused a lot of turbulence in our household, and in my relationship with her, that really still hasn’t been sorted out. going through this has kind of meant a bit of a rehashing of some of our relationship, which is an additional stressor currently. not to mention i have two roommates who take no accountability in our household, and we’re dealing with a rodent infestation, and that’s been another thing setting me on edge. and then i had a pretty bad panic attack because i think i just failed an exam, and if i fail a course i basically don’t graduate in june, and that means everything is thrown off for me. not to mention i go to a very difficult school and i’ve pushed myself so hard for so long, and the thought of having to spend another semester here makes me violently ill. literally, i threw up on the way home from the exam. 

basically right now everything’s kind of at a tipping point, and i’m having multiple bad bouts of anxiety a day, and the less i sleep and the worse my anxiety gets, the worse my dyslexia also gets, which is causing me to lose a lot of marks, and also just makes me feel incredibly insecure about how i’m presenting myself, as i’m a very introverted person who has a hard time speaking in a way that properly represents how i actually think or feel about things. writing is the one outlet i have to more honestly articulate myself, and so when that goes to shit, i basically feel very trapped in my own body. 

on friday, i’m officially on my week off, and i’ll be heading out to the airport that day. that’ll be eating up a lot of my time, but i’ll be able to focus a little more on this blog without feeling that i’m shirking responsibilities. 

thank you for your understanding. should you have any questions or concerns, i welcome you to contact me. thank you <3

[runjakkrun]

"I Don't Care What We Have For Dinner...." : The raw truth about mental illness and addiction.

“I have anxiety, depression, OCD, PTSD, ADD, mild aspergers, motor tics, severe insomnia, and an outrageous propensity for addiction. This isn’t something I normally share, because everyone and their mother thinks it’s cool to claim to have mental disorders this day and time. And honestly, it pisses me off…. Get comfortable and buckle up, because shit’s about to get ugly and real…. You think it’s cool and romanticize PTSD, talking with your buddies over a few beers at the bbq. It’s not cool or romantic when you wake up screaming and shaking and sweating so many times a night that you can’t sleep in the same bed with your wife, or that you stay absolutely exhausted, or that you’re legitimately afraid to go to sleep because you know what you’re going to see when you close your eyes. It’s not cool or romantic to do threat assessments every time you walk into a room, or see every stranger you pass on the street as dangerous. To not be able to stand sitting in a restaurant with your back to the room or door, or panic when you find yourself in a crowd. It’s not cool or romantic to be completely relaxed and laughing one minute, then have a full blown PTSD meltdown out of nowhere, leading to a severe flashback, leading to you taking a swing at your best friend or pulling your sidearm on the woman you love because your mind told you they were a threat and you think you’re fighting for your life. It’s not cool or romantic to have no idea where you’re at, or what’s real. When it takes two people who mean the world to you two hours to get you through it. When you keep broken knuckles from outbursts of anger. When you physiologically react to something that happened years ago- sweating, shaking, nausea, headache, fever, heart pounding out of your chest, jumping every time you hear a loud noise. When the one closest to you feels the need to do a quick sweep for the gun they know you carry, disarm you, drop your mag, eject the chambered .40 hollow point, and put it all in a different room because you’ve completely lost touch with reality and they’re afraid of what you might do- to someone else or to yourself. It’s not cool or romantic when you’re having an episode and your first instinct isn’t to reach for your loved ones for comfort, but to get as far away from them as possible because you’re terrified of how badly you could hurt them if you lost it and they got too close. It’s not cool or romantic to have a panic attack and worry about flashbacks or shutting down every time you hear someone scream, or you smell blood or bleach, or someone walks past you wearing a certain cologne. Especially when you work in a high stress, high risk field where screaming and blood and bleach and strangers having the worst days of their lives aren’t only a part of but make up the entirety of your job description. When people’s lives depend on your ability to think clearly and hold it together when everything goes to hell. It’s not cool or romantic to overreact and have a complete breakdown every time your hands get dirty, or something gets screwed up/ doesn’t go exactly as planned, or you hear/ see someone filing their fingernails. It’s not cool to literally physically HURT when you feel certain textures like denim or wool or concrete. It’s not cool or romantic to have to take Adderall and Prozac and Seroquel and benzos like candy just so you can function, so you can focus on one train of thought instead of being mentally exhausted all the time because you’re hyperfocused on every little sight, smell, sound, thought, or detail. When it feels like every nerve is on fire and you can’t make it stop. It’s not cool to be so deeply depressed over absolutely NOTHING that you don’t want to go to work or go kayaking with your best friend or out to a movie you’ve been waiting to see for months, or even make love to your wife. It’s not cool or romantic to spend your days in a haze of amphetamines, opiates, muscle relaxers, and cocaine, and your nights under the heavy sedation of marijuana and benzos, at the bottom of a fifth of whiskey, with no idea how you let it get to that point or how to fix it. To have to choose between going to rehab or losing everything. To go through withdrawals so bad that you spend a week shaking and violently vomiting, with headaches, unbearable muscle aches, no appetite or energy, too weak and exhausted to even get out of bed. To see the pain and the panic and the terror on your wife and your best friend and your partner’s faces, wondering if this is the last time they’ll be able to hug you or kiss you or tell you they love you, the last time they’ll see you alive, when they go to bed every night wondering if this will be the time they wake up to the phone call that changes their lives forever. The one where some strange, apologetic but professional voice is on the other end of the line telling them you’ve overdosed or eaten your gun or wrecked your truck driving drunk and, "I’m sorry, but one of the people you love and rely on most is dead.” It’s NOT cool! These are some of the most miserable experiences in existence. Things that those who suffer from them would do anything to make stop. Who wish like hell they didn’t know what any of it was like. Who, when the pain gets to be too much, often end up taking their own lives because they can’t bare standing another single moment feeling what they feel…..And if people actually understood what they were saying and implying when they tell everyone they have anxiety or PTSD or suffer from addiction because they think it makes them “cool,” they’d stop…. Because anyone who has truly been through it knows that there is absolutely nothing even remotely cool or romantic about it.

Allow me to walk you through a day in my life….

My beautiful, smart, sweet, amazing wife, who I love more than anything, is getting on my last nerve. She’s constantly chattering about everything, happy to have me home and be able to spend time with me. Just babbling about random bullshit like a dog she saw once or what she’s planning to cook for dinner, or what we need to get at the grocery store, and I’m both physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted, inserting appropriate one or two word responses- just enough to keep her off my back, from asking me what’s wrong or why I’m so crabby- and all I can think is, “I really don’t fucking care….” It’s even worse when I get off of a rough shift and somebody is wanting to talk about stupid, petty shit, and all I can do is think about how people would have a really hard time being so concerned and preoccupied with celebrity gossip and what’s for dinner if they were out there and had to see and do shit that really matters. If they’d ever tortured or killed someone, or worked a horrific stabbing or shooting, then had to turn around and scrape some innocent, sweet, too young toddler’s brains off the pavement because their shitty parents were too high to put them in a car seat. If they had ever had to look some guy’s wife of 60 years in the face after he kissed her and told her he loved her…. After they’d looked her in the eyes, smiled, and told her they’d take care of him, and he’d be fine, and they’d see her at the hospital….. Only, approximately eight minutes out, he suffered a massive subarachnoid bleed and coded and his wife was in her car right behind their ambulance when they hollered at their partner to light it up. When she stood in the ambulance bay, watching them unload the love of her life who she lay in bed beside not an hour ago, and now he is completely unresponsive with a tube down his throat, unable to breathe on his own, hearing sternum and ribs crack and break as a stranger tried their best to get his heart to beat….. If they’d had to look her in the face and tell her they were wrong, and that he would never wake up…. If they had ever seen pain and grief and brokenness like that…. They’d have a hard time coming home and pretending they still give a fuck about all that shit, too…. Even walking through the grocery store, it’s all I can think about and none of this every day, dulled, muted bullshit matters…. My wife told me on the way home that I seemed like I either wasn’t listening or didn’t care, and it all finally came pouring out. I don’t fucking CARE what brand of ketchup or what color apples we get, I don’t fucking CARE how hot it is outside or whether it’s gonna rain or not, I don’t care that the electric bill is $10 less than last month’s. I just. don’t. fucking. CARE…. I feel horrible for feeling like this, even as it’s coming out of my mouth. Ever since I told her that, she’s been quiet and won’t look at me, and that just makes me feel worse. But I can’t fucking help it. It’s no failure on her part, it’s no dissatisfaction with my marriage or my home life or anything else. It just IS. In an attempt to comfort me and relate, she told me, “I understand…. I’m the same way with my job sometimes. With the adrenaline and tech work.” And I didn’t say anything. I was too tired to explain to her that it’s not even remotely the same and that she has no clue, and that lighting or props or sound quality not being perfect is absolutely nothing compared to pulling out every trick in your bag trying to make a real live person- a full grown, tatted up, tough man- stay that way, while they cry and beg you not to let them die. But you can’t fucking get the bleeding to stop or their pressure to come back up, no matter how much gauze or how much pressure you apply, or how many bags of fluid you dump into them. It’s just not the fucking same. But how can I tell her that? So I just stare out the window and don’t say a word. I’ve found myself having an extraordinarily difficult time even sitting at the dinner table with my wife and my mother, who I barely see any more, finding it in me to give a damn about any of the petty bullshit they’re so concerned over. Their biggest worries are my eight week old PTSD dog in training biting my wife’s ankles and peeing on the comforter, my sister not graduating on time, and how expensive car insurance is. Who fucking cares? I catch myself thinking that it must be nice to have that type of shit be your biggest stressors…. Wondering how anyone can expect me to give two fucks whether we get name brand or store brand cereal, when not twelve hours ago, I was getting my ass kicked trying to help some drunk asshole who didn’t want anything to do with me. When not twelve hours ago, my only concern was whether or not the ungodly amount of someone else’s blood I had all over me was infected with anything. With what I could’ve done differently to have kept my last patient from dying. With just making sure that my partner and I got to go home to our families at the end of our shift….. It’s hard sometimes when what you consider important is so much different than what most other people consider important. For most people, their life is being home, spending time with their spouse and kids, relaxing…. That’s what feels real and important and makes them feel alive. Work is a necessary evil and something that has to be done in between. It’s just a filler. But for us, it’s the other way around. In my case, this is how it has been since I graduated high school and immediately shipped to my unit with the Army. For me, being at work- on the truck- is what makes me feel alive…. That’s what feels real and vivid and important to me. “It’s like it puts lightening in your bones and makes it hard to hold on to anything else….” The adrenaline and split second life and death decisions, bringing a beautiful, healthy, perfect baby boy into the world in some run down ghetto parking lot, then turning around and pronouncing someone dead from two gunshot wounds to the chest twenty minutes later. The feeling like you’re doing something that matters. That’s life to me. It’s all I’ve ever known. Being off duty is the filler. Being home and having down time and worrying about a busted pipe or laundry or date night is what fills the space in between…. It’s like going from a top of the line 70" plasma screen HDTV with 1500 pixels per square inch, voice control, a perfect picture, and surround sound to an old 10" black and white box tv, where the volume doesn’t always work, and if the jerryrigged, tin foil bunny ears aren’t perfect, the picture goes in and out…. That’s the only way I can begin to describe it. It takes so much more to make you feel anything, when you’ve truly seen the world. I was discharged from the Army in 2011. I got home, and it was as if somebody had put everything on mute and the color was dull and I felt like I was on the outside looking in to my own life. The shoes I had traded for combat boots just didn’t quite fit any more…. The worst thing in the world is watching the people you love go on with their lives, expecting you to go back to being the same person you were before. Except, no matter how hard you try, you can’t figure out how to pick back up with the life you left. You have no idea how to talk to or relax around the people who were so easy to be around before. People look at you weird when you don’t laugh at something you would’ve before, or are more quiet and introspective instead of loud and energetic and mischievous like you used to be. Realizing that everyone else’s world kept turning while yours was turned upside down, shaken, completely changed, and you were left spinning…. Eventually, old friends stop calling and texting and wanting to hang out. Family stops inviting you to baseball games and lunch after church and holiday get togethers. People stop popping in to say hi and ask how you’re doing. And it sucks, but it’s hard to care or do anything about it, because by this point, you’re too busy just trying to remember how to breathe…. Even now, five years later, I have a hard time. There are some times when I enjoy being off and feel like I’m in the moment and I’m relaxed. But nearly every friend I’ve got or care to be around is either EMS, FD, or PD, because I can’t stand being around people who don’t get it or look at me weird or think they know what stress is. Who have no idea what TRUE loyalty or bravery or brotherhood is. Who think PTSD is a stylish trend. People who haven’t REALLY lived and died a few times. I have no patience for any of it…. I’m closer to and more trusting of and feel as if I belong better with my public safety family and my partner than I do my own flesh and blood. It’s just a heavy burden…. Sometimes I can’t help but feel like I’m on my knees, screaming at the top of my lungs, and nobody can hear me.

So next time you think mental illness or addiction or PTSD is cool or romantic, know that you have no fucking clue. Don’t look at me or my brothers like we’re weak or there’s something wrong with us when we are a little too jumpy or overreact or do something you think is strange. We’ve walked through hell and back, and we earned these scars. You didn’t.“

-KBW, 2016

[thisurlsucksaswell]

I don’t know what to do anymore My psychologist said to just focus on meeting my basic needs and going from there to see if I could contribute more in the house/ to others, but to just focus on meeting my foundation first I have been struggling to meet my needs, and it’s come at the cost of not doing things that benefit others in regards to the household chores I just kinda feel like a burden, it’s repeatedly rubbed in that I don’t contribute financially, that my best isn’t enough. I just don’t know what to do anymore, because I AM doing my best, I’m struggling with very basic tasks, and I don’t know what to do, I just don’t know what to do. It’s one thing to go to psych appointment and have your psychologist tell you not to worry about doing more than you are able to and that your needs come first, it’s another to come back home and have people say that they can’t handle the amount of work on them as well as finances, and it’s like ???????? I just can’t see what to do, because it seems like the only way of appeasing his mum is if I start to replace time and energy towards a basic need of my own with a beneficial chore, which is not a good idea at all. I just can’t help feeling like things would run smoother if i wasn’t around, I just don’t see how I can make this work, I just don’t think I can do this. I just don’t know what to do anymore, I feel like I’m being pushed back into this fucking house as if my dreams don’t matter, like on the lowkey I’m supposed to be some stay-at-home 60s house-wife, but like, if I actually manage to get things going for me and my life, I won’t be around here enough to be doing shit anyway, and if we’re keeping it real, shit only becomes an issue when she’s here, like me and bf are able to work out stuff that works for us, so it’s actually catered to what we can do rather than feeling like it’s constantly never enough. One of the toughest things about being mentally ill is how struggling to take very basic care of yourself turns into being about others and what you don’t do for them, and if you literally can’t do stuff for yourself it’s just this sense of ‘too bad cause that doesn’t work for me so just figure it out’. I just feel like people aren’t actually allowed to be bared by their mental illness once it starts effecting others; like if you struggle to eat, shower, exercise, sleep, etc., people are like “Aww that sucks, just take care of yourself the best you can”, if you’re living under someone else’s roof and are an adult it’s, “This isn’t working for me so you need to just figure out how to do more, I just can’t live like this anymore with you not lifting your weight” Like if you’re literally not able to do more it just kinda translates to, well, die. Like if you’re being told you have to do something you can’t or a person just isn’t going to be able to take it anymore, and you can’t do what they’re asking you too and sustainably, it’s basically just asking them to stop existing in all manners that they are, because none of them are meeting their preferred criteria. I don’t know what to do, like I’m doing my best that I can, like I’ve really been struggling with depression and anxiety, I barely have a life, basically just get up, struggle, eat, struggle, try to cope, try to not feel like shit, not be able to do much but manage to get through the day, have more energy at night when everyone else is on wind down so you can’t be going about shit now plus you need to fix your body clock, struggle to sleep at night, wake up tired, and repeat. I just think it’s interesting that depression, anxiety, trauma, mental illnesses in general, and struggling is all understandable, until it’s longterm shit and it inconveniences you, like people are sympathetic until it effects them, it just kinda makes you feel like it’d all just be so much easier and better and less of a hassle if you weren’t around, I know it would hurt bf at first and he’d take it hard, maybe family and a few friends, but then people could get on with their shit, I won’t be a dead weight and relying to much on others, I won’t be burdening people.  I just don’t know what to do, suicide isn’t a great idea, but I can’t really think of anything else, and I don’t know what tf would happen if I straight up said, I can’t actually do more and what you’d like me to, and what I am doing is all I can, it just feels like my existence just puts his mum in a bad way, and like I just don’t know what to do??? Like I do the best I can but what the fuck are you meant to do when that isn’t enough? What do you do when you can’t do what is needed from you by others? What the fuck do you do when all that you can just doesn’t cut it and you’re just making things bad for others?  What she wants from me, I can’t do? I can’t do what she’d like, and I don’t know what that means, other than me not being able to flip a switch and turn off my depression or anxiety, not even for myself, so when I can’t make myself a meal, or get up or clean myself etc., that’s not time that I could be doing x,y,z  instead. How the fuck do mentally ill people live when they have to do x,y,z to make people that support their living facilities happy but can’t even function and take care of themselves or properly? Do you just have to start burning yourself out and making cost weigh ups between making a meal, exercising, getting enough sleep, showering, etc., and doing a chore or something? Like I’ve tried that and it just didn’t work, because I was just able to do less due to lethargy from not meeting my needs and burning out. I don’t know what to fucking do, I just feel like me existing is just to burdensome, I feel like a burden to pretty much everyone in my life, I don’t feel like I can do enough which makes me feel like I don’t deserve to live if I can’t live whilst contributing back enough, and if I just can’t then what’s the point, idk

[dragons-in-bowties-blog]

How I learned to travel alone despite my struggles with anxiety

How I learned to travel alone despite my struggles with anxiety

I haven't always had major anxiety. In fact, it's a (relatively) new development in my life. After surviving a severe reaction to medication, I was left riddled with panic attacks, anxiety, and borderline agoraphobia for years to come. It's something I've accepted as my new normal, and I've had to relearn how to function as a semi-healthy adult. Anxiety changes things in your life. It nearly destroyed my relationship, successfully ended friendships, and left me feeling like a shell of my former self. Instead of being the adventurous and outgoing ENFJ that I knew myself to be, I was terrified to even step outside my front door.

I used to love traveling solo. I've been on countless trips by myself over the years, and I even moved abroad with nothing but two suitcases and a heck of a lot of courage. People would ask me if I was scared and I'd laugh it off. Adventure was a huge part of my personal identity, and - as a result - I became a champion of solo travel. We've all heard about how wonderful the experience can be. And it's something I firmly believe everyone should try in their 20s (or later) if able, because traveling solo can teach you a lot about yourself.

Personally, I learned how to be self-sufficient and independent after years as the quiet, bookish kid who rarely spoke up in school. I became fearless and passionate in the pursuit of whatever the hell I wanted. I explored Istanbul by myself, spent two days on a ferry in the Adriatic Sea from Greece to Italy, and fell in love with Venice all on my own.

But anxiety stole that feeling from me.

Instead of being the girl who would try almost anything once, I became the girl who could barely go outside. My worst panic attack lasted almost a full day, and my anxiety impacted everything - my relationships, my career, my health. I spent years trying every remedy I could think of - medication, therapy, yoga, diet changes, mindfulness - because I was desperate to return to the person I once was. Eventually, I found a weird mix of things that sort of worked, but I still felt like a mere shadow of the adventurous girl I once was.

PhotoAlto/Frederic Cirou/Getty Images

I still wanted to travel even though it scared the shit out of me. I still wanted to be bold, adventurous, and exciting because I felt like I needed to be those things. I wanted to be fearless in the face of my anxiety. I wanted to tell it, “Ha! You don't own me.”

Because it should never own me.  I spent years letting anxiety define my identity before I realized that I could still be that adventurous girl…with a little more caution. It didn't have to be a bad thing (in fact, it was probably a good thing considering that, while traveling abroad, I got into an unmarked vehicle with strangers once. Okay, twice.)

Instead of wishing it would go away, I learned that I needed to accept my anxiety as part of me.

It took a lot of practice and a heck of a lot of stress. As my agoraphobic tendencies reared their ugly head, it took coaching, hand holding, and time. I would spend four hours preparing myself to leave the house to get groceries only to sit in my car for 45 minutes, sobbing, because I was too afraid to leave. But I did it. Eventually.

And, eventually, I was able to go on my first solo trip again so I could attend a conference in Toronto.

Emma Kim/Getty Images

It terrified me. I spent a lot of time going back and forth on whether or not I should even go on the trip, but I was determined. While the trip didn't go exactly as planned (I maybe chickened out and flew home a full day early), I still learned a few valuable lessons on how to travel alone with anxiety. Plus, those lessons have helped me better manage anxiety in my daily life as well. Perhaps they can help you, too, if you're dealing with similar issues.

I need to do my research.

If I'm brutally honest, I'm a Hermione Granger-type character. I'm a know-it-all, I find solace in books and research, and I like being in control. Traveling solo with anxiety, I knew I needed to give in to this tendency - at least to a certain extent. Nothing ever goes as planned, but if I wanted to convince myself to get on an airplane (aka, a rattling death trap in my mind), then I needed to know that everything was taken care of.

I'm not just talking about lodging. I spent time poring over Google Maps so I was familiar with the area between my hotel and the conference. I took screenshots of information on my phone in case I didn't have cell service, and I kept a charger with me pretty much 24/7. Even more? I read every single review of my Airbnb, and I picked a female host who had hosted other single female travelers - even though it wasn't the cheapest or the nicest accommodation available.

I looked up transportation, restaurants, things to do, and even contacted other conference attendees about potentially meeting up during off-hours. I don't like having an itinerary while traveling, but I needed to give myself options. I needed to feel prepared.

I made friends whenever I could.

I was lucky enough to be attending a conference that had a social media presence. I followed people on Twitter who said they'd be attending months before the event, and struck up tentative social media friendships. Making friends when you have anxiety can be incredibly hard, but doing this before my trip made it easier. I knew I wouldn't have to talk to people if I didn't want to, but I also wouldn't have to feel incredibly alone in a brand new city.

If you can't make friends, try to put yourself in situations where you can be friendly(ish) without extra effort. Staying in an Airbnb is a great way to do this with minimal effort: my host chatted with me and gave me recommendations on things to do in the city. This made me relax a bit; I knew I had a real person I could connect with if I felt incredibly unsafe - but it was also nice knowing that spending time with this person was optional. In fact, I spent most of my time outside the Airbnb, knowing that another person was aware of my existence helped me conquer the anxiety I felt as someone who was totally alone in a new city.

Zen Rial/Getty Images

I didn't pressure myself.

Look, traveling solo is hard enough even when you don't have anxiety. If you're not ready to step outside your comfort zone for your entire trip, then don't do it. Focus on doing what makes you happy above all else. I spent one night in my Airbnb reading while eating red velvet cake from the grocery store across the street. Was it super glamorous or adventurous? No. Did it help me keep my sanity in check? Hell yes.

There's joy in the unknown and going off the beaten path. You should definitely try new things - but it's important to know your limits.

But I learned how to challenge myself.

Know your limits, yes, but test them whenever possible. If I only did things that made me feel safe, I would literally never leave my house. I like to set bribes for myself when it comes to my anxiety. “If I do [blank], then I can go home and get in bed.”

I spent one night bar hopping in Toronto with a bunch of people I'd never met, and I honestly had the best time imaginable. It was way outside of my comfort zone, but I told myself that I needed to try it. So I did, and guess what? I left early, went back to my Airbnb, and cuddled up with my book. I found balance in pushing past my limits and ended up enjoying myself more than I would normally would have. However, that doesn't mean I ignored my anxiety completely.

I've learned the art of compromise.

Theerawat Kaiphanlert/Getty Images

In the end, I don't know if I'll ever be the girl I once was, but that's okay too. I've learned to accept myself - and my anxiety - because it's easier to work with it than against it. I've learned that I don't have to let my anxiety stop me from enjoying life. It takes effort and, okay, a lot of crying. But it's totally worth it, especially because traveling solo actually helped me conquer my anxiety in the long run.

Because that's the thing about anxiety. It might not get easier with time, but I get better at dealing with it.

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