#Desensitize

[jessicanjpa]

Still thinking about which patients Carlisle has lost and can never forget...

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first

Edward is exasperating Carlisle (as usual) by putting him on a pedestal (as usual). An excerpt from this chapter of 1950, Edward POV. (They're talking about Carlisle's self-control as a newborn.)

"Son, what do you think would have happened if that herd of deer hadn't come when it did? You know I was near the breaking point. What if it had been a human family, instead? With children?"

I winced, unable to imagine it. "You would have fed."

"Yes, I would have. And I don't think I ever would have recovered from that; it would have destroyed me. I can easily see how that desolation would have led to a future similar to the one Alice saw you create."

"But it didn't."

"No, but that was the path I was on. All I'm asking is that you acknowledge that you and I wrestle with the same challenges... the same monster, as you call it. Of course I'm pleased you have found some inspiration because of my own life, but please, Edward, don't put me on a pedestal. I've had centuries to work on my self-control, and it's been just as real a struggle as your own." He paused. I'm going to show you something.

His mind blurred backward through time, past the memory he had recently showed of him struggling briefly with his thirst as he stitched up the girl's arm. Now he was standing in the shadows, trembling with desire as he watched a barber extract a tooth with bloodied hands. Another blur, and he was crouching down in the bushes beside a thatched house that held a woman screaming in labor. Now he was standing frozen in the midst of a crowd, oblivious to the shouts going on around him as he stared, watching two boxers beat each other bloody. Now he was kneeling over the body of a soldier who had just been killed, leaning his face close to the wound and taking deep, painful breaths. I saw that last image repeated dozens of times. I knew I would need to desensitize myself to an extreme degree if I had any hope of practicing medicine. Of course there was no such thing as stored blood back then. I had to go and find it, freshly flowing. I went wherever I thought I might find someone bleeding: saloons, sickrooms, battlefields… I put a lot of people in danger, Edward. I don't know if it was the right thing to do.

"I always thought… why haven't you ever showed me these things before?"

He raised an eyebrow. "I didn't want to give you any ideas."

I nodded sheepishly, watching in fascination as he showed me more of these memories. He really had come close to losing it, several times.

"But the worst time wasn't my doing at all," he said. Now I saw the stone walls of Volterra in his memory.

I grimaced. "Feeding time?"

"No. I was always careful to absent myself during that particular ritual. I was studying in the smaller library one day when I suddenly caught the scent of fresh blood out in the hall. A human man was screaming. I assumed it was just someone having a meal. But the door was thrown open…"

He trailed off, letting the memories speak for themselves. The door opened to reveal Aro standing there, a dripping knife in one hand and a thrashing human in the other. He smiled at Carlisle, tossed the human inside, and shut the door. Carlisle flew backwards away from the man, holding his hand over his nose and mouth.

"The man pleaded for help," Carlisle recalled bitterly. "And I knew enough, from the little training I had already had, to try and save him. But I couldn't touch him. I couldn't even do him the kindness of easing his passing. There was just too much blood, and it was so unexpected, and I was untried… I just couldn't. I was sure that if I moved an inch, toward him or toward the door, my body would betray me. I would feed.

"So I just stood there. I watched him bleed to death on the floor." It was awful. I couldn't even speak one word of comfort to him; I was too afraid to uncover my nose and mouth. He died with his hand stretched out toward me, still hoping I would do something to save him. The accusation in his eyes was terrible.

It took Carlisle a moment to come back to the present. "He was, in a way, my first patient... the first patient I ever lost. And I can never forget his face."

[willowrunes]

Oh yeah there's a part 2 of the horse desensitizing that I love.

🐎: Hey what's with that tiny predator, the one you're hold- WOAH WHAT THE FUCK WHY IS IT UP SO HIGH

[tiger-grace]

Batman frantically trying to explain and defend Robin’s initial existence to the JL must’ve been a whole child endangerment conversation

Superman: so this is. an 11 year old. your sidekick.

Robin: partner actually!!

Wonder Woman: uhhuh… so this is your? ward?

Batman: ok so objectively it was the better decision than NOT making him a vigilante because he would have gone on the streets to kill a guy out of vengeance for his parents murder if I didn’t do this

Robin: yeah I would’ve done that!

Flash: jesus christ

[pangur-and-grim]

disharmony at the watering hole

[frombehindthepen]

Naked Emotions

Naked Emotions #Senses #Sensitivity #Compassion #Feelings

Image Credit: Eman Genatilan “You cannot make yourself feel something you do not feel, but you can make yourself do right in spite of your feelings.”-Pearl S. Buck There is so much that rattles our senses and boggles our spirit, which we may have no control over it. There are moments when you feel emotionally drained and stripped of any outside protection and left on display for the world to…

[deadsetobsessions]

What Do You Have There?

A knife!

Danny plunked the butter knife in its pedestal of importance. The nice thing about having a billionaire vigilante for a... foster is the amount of money Danny was allowed to drop on his hobbies. For example, his extensive collection of souvenirs.

They're not just any old regular souvenirs. No, no, no. That would be so boring! No, these souvenirs, he obtained from the various muggings, knife fights, and various other situations he's been in ever since he was dropped ungraciously into Gotham.

The butter knife? Damian. Precocious, stabby Damian who he had startled into the stab instinct. A point of pride, really. Danny knew Damian was good at fighting! It was practically, in ghost terms, a super enthusiastic hello! Yes, the butter knife would be kept in the well lit part of the wall. Alfred had told him to stay home today to recuperate. He didn't need it, since the wound would heal in an hour or two, but he'd take staying at home any day.

A couple of hours later, well into the afternoon and right before what Danny knew to be their patrol hours, Danny had a visitor.

"Danny."

"Oh, hey, Damian! What's up?" Danny turned around to see Damian hovering awkwardly near the door.

"I am here to... check upon your wound. It is imperative that it gets proper treatment."

Ancients, Damian was exactly like those alley kids. He just ate a thesaurus instead of the drawling accent the alley kids picked up. Which meant Damian endeared himself to Danny pretty quickly. Like a little ghostling.

"Oh, I'm good. See? No blood is leaking out of the wound." Danny held up spotless bandages.

Danny watched Damian step into his haunt- his room- with a pleased hum. Damian inspected the bandages and stepped back with a sharp nod of approval. His eyes flicked to the wall that Danny was rearranging (again) and did a double take at the butter knife in the middle.

"Is that the butter knife I stabbed you with?"

"Why, yes, it is!" Danny beamed.

"Why on earth would you display that?"

"Because you stabbed me with it?"

"That makes absolutely no sense, you simpleton! When someone stabs you, stab them back!"

"That would be mean!"

Damian spluttered. Danny tugged the kid closer to the wall, cheering inwardly as Damian didn't shove him away. It might be because he was exaggeratedly wincing as he moved his "injured arm" but Danny has learned to take a win where he could find them, especially with ghosts. Not that Damian was a ghost, but he sure acted like one.

"Do you want to see my collection?"

"Your collection?"

"Yeah!" Without giving him time to answer, Danny barreled ahead. "So this is the knife you stabbed me with. Which, by the way, was an awesome show of strength and accuracy."

Damian grimaced. Danny continued blithely, secretly memorizing Damian's reactions to laugh at later.

"And this is the knife those guys stabbed me with that one time Cass found me. And this one is a bullet someone shot at me down by the docks. I think I interrupted some kind of meeting?"

Damian's jaw had a slight tick to it that would have been a baffled frown on anyone else.

"And when was this?"

"Oh, like a week ago."

"What? When did you go to the docks?!"

"At night. I couldn't sleep."

"And you went to the docks?! How did you even get there?!"

"Walked," Danny lied, like a lying liar. He floated, obviously, but none of them knew that. "Anyways, this is a law book! Someone threw it at my head!"

"Hey, guys! What're you doing?"

Danny and Damian turned around.

"Richard? Brown? What are you doing here?"

"Oh, Bruce wanted me to come back for the weekend," Dick said. Danny knew it was code for "something's going down and we need back up." Man, he still couldn't believe they didn't know he knew they were crime fighting vigilantes.

"Same!" Stephanie said. Danny was glad to see that her wounds from "cartwheeling in the manor" were healed.

"I see. Danny was showing me his collection of... objects people have used as weapons against him."

"What?!"

"Yeah!" Danny beamed, completely innocent. "Come on! I'll show you!"

With that, Danny continued to ramble. He just knew that the way Dick's and Stephanie's smiles strained would give him a good laugh for weeks to come. "And this is the glass bottle a drunk tried to shank me with in Crime Alley, and this is a knife the Red Hood himself threw at me."

Dick interrupted, face stiff. "Hood threw a knife at you?!"

"Yeah, but that was because my kids broke into his safe house and I was trying to get them to stop looting the place. And he didn't know I was a kid too, so he aimed a gun at my head. He shot at me too, but I couldn't go back to get the bullet, or else it would have joined my collection." Danny grabbed a box and shook it, metal rattling inside.

Dick smiled sweetly, Stephanie and Damian inching away from it.

"Oh, wow, I see!"

----

In his apartment, Jason shuddered. He grabbed his guns.

"Something's wrong. I just know it," he muttered to himself.

----

Danny smiled innocently as he described the horrific, near death events he got his souvenirs from.

"This is my bullet box! Man, Gotham has a lot of gun fights. I got shot so many times!" Danny complained, shaking the box like a rattling toy.

"Did you know Danny snuck out to go to the bay?" Damian snitched immediately, like a snitch.

"The Bay?! Danny! You know that's where people dump bodies, right?!" Stephanie poked him in the arm.

"Yeah, but like... I wouldn't die. And besides! I missed my friends!"

"You mean the minions you made in Crime Alley?" Steph asked. Danny pouted, eyeing the way Dick's gaze roved over his souvenirs and paling the more he realized how often Danny "got hurt."

Damian bumped a shoulder against Dick's arm. Danny returned to the conversation.

"If anything, I'm their minion." He said, remembering the times the Alley kids sent him on food runs.

"Fear Danny, the overlord of street rats."

Danny snorted. And- "Oh! Yeah, there was like a weird owl looking guy? And then they stabbed me with a finger and I kept it because woah, cool talon looking thing, right? And then they threw a bunch of those tiny knives at me? And then they just kind of vanished? Gotham is so weird."

And now, with all of them pale and stressed out of their minds, Danny swung a devastating blow called guilt trip.

"And that's the batarangs!" Three heads swung over to the line of batarangs. "Those vigilantes kept throwing them at me! One of them even hit me in the arm. Those things are sharp, man."

"Uh. Which ones?" Stephanie asked.

"Hm?" Danny hummed obliviously.

"Do you know which vigilantes?"

"Oh, it was like... the purple one. And the sword one? And like the one with the yellow insignia in the middle. And... all of them, I think? Except for signal. That guy's cool."

Stephanie and Damian had matching veiled looks of guilt. Dick shot them a sharp look. Danny decided to deal the last bit of damage to Dick.

"I'm glad you guys are way less stabby than the general Gotham public though, butter knife incident aside. At least I don't have to worry about you guys getting into danger, right? If you guys got hurt like my family did... I don't know..."

Danny smiled-squinted at them, channeling Cujo at his cutest and saddest: when he doesn't get to eat off of Danny's plate. So, pretty sad and pathetic.

"Uh, yeah." Dick said, guilt splayed all over his face. "Alfred said dinner was almost ready."

"Yes," Damian cleared his throat, looking away. "We shall partake in Pennyworth's hard work."

"Ahaha!" Stephanie laughed, nervously. "Welp, let's go bother Tim!"

Falling into step behind them, Danny grinned.

[edwinisms]

not to take away from charles’ well deserved spotlight in ep3, but man. imagining the devlin house from edwin’s perspective is pretty damn rough in its own right. but in a way he doesn’t even seem to realize or process. like specifically, mainly, the fact that he stands there, unfazed, watching this family get cut up with an axe over and over and over. you know who else got cut up and torn apart and killed over and over and over? you know who else was stuck in a seemingly unending cycle feeling the pain of dying every single time? oh yeah

[kurapikaschai]

From Instagram user @storyofstyle.

[Video Description: An Instagram reel by storyofstyle depicting Gaza, before October 7th and the following days after. In the before clips, it shows Gaza's architecture, beaches, food, Palestinians walking on the street, people smiling and happy, and some workers scooping ice cream. In the after clips, it shows the destruction and bombing of buildings, Palestinians wailing, people and children injured, people being pulled from rubble, and people crowded in the aftermath of bombed places. End Video Description.]

[castielsprostate]

i, too, wouldve had a psychotic break like jensen ackles and trauma bond with dean winchester after having been buried alive, having to jump through real glass, be locked in an attic with 60k live bees, accidentally stab my co-star with a real knife prop, get lube thrown on me every other episode and be in a house that's actually on fire just to film a silly little tv show

[shadelorde]

The idea of dark magic creating a void, a darkness inside your soul, paralleled with Aaravos’s star over his heart going hollow after Leola was killed

[whatsloveanyway]

Another family, absolutely anything helps so please donate if you can, it's completely understandable if you can't but please share/reblog. Spread the word.

[v-3-rdure]

no1 character to stylise for me power ily

[high-voltage-rat]

I think it's fascinating that the quotes:

"Have you forgotten sir, we were at war? A fight with an alien race for the very survival of our species. I feel I must remind you that it is an undeniable, and may I say fundamental quality of man, that when faced with extinction, every alternative is preferable."

"When you spend every day fighting a war, you to demonize your attackers. To you, they're evil, they're subhuman. Because if they weren't, what would that make you? What I'm trying to say... is I've been afraid to see you for what you really are. You're our brothers. Our sisters. And the things we've done to one another are unforgivable."

"These guys want to use us, take us away from our families, and send us all over the dad-gum galaxy just to test if their agents are ready for the big fight? Well... guess I'm interested in showin' em exactly what a big fight is all about! So I'm not ordering you to go. I ain't even asking. You do what you gotta do, Private."

came from the same series whose standard fare is lines like:

"What in the hell are you two doing?" / "We're being executed by our own men, sir." / "Cut it out."

"I only drink the blood of my enemies, and the occasional strawberry yoohoo."

"You always said I could sleep when I’m dead, Sarge, and guess what? I am dead. This purgatory is about to become purga-snore-y, yawn!"

...and both categories manage to be a poignant statement about the nature of war and what it does to the people in it.

[heich0e]

wait sukuna and gojo competing for your attention but gojo comes from everything and sukuna comes from nothing. so gojo lavishes you in gifts and attention that you're completely indifferent to, but sukuna gives you something small one time and you never quite bring yourself to forget it because it was so unexpected and out of character

[wistfulwatcher]

#well #one of them was right

[wtftaylr]

look little timmy, it's Mr. and Mrs. New Vegas. Isn't that suit butt fugly