#Mahalo!Jemma <33

[brooklynislandgirl]

What are the requirements for your muse to sleep with someone?

Night Moves || Accepting

Some people are a sucker for ‘bedroom’ eyes. Some have a thing for hands, or strong arms, curvy thighs or a certain kind of bosom. Maybe its a voice, or the smell of their hair. Maybe it’s the uniform or the car, the bank account, the zip code.For every person in the world, there’s a very different set of criteria for first attraction, and second the expression of that attraction physically.Unfortunately for Beth, none of those things are easy or even explicable in some cases.  What matters, what really has to be a very solid thing for her to even notice she might be attracted to someone, is an emotional connection. Something that makes her feel safe and secure. Something that makes her feel understood, both in terms of actual speaking, and more importantly, as a person. Because of her learning disabilities, her abusive childhood, her extremely morbid codependency on her sibling and her clinical depression {not to mention her abilities or powers in certain verses} she feels...distanced from most people.Intellectually speaking she is brilliant but also simple. Children’s jokes, fairy tales, a paralysing fear of the dark, and not catching everything that is said to her makes it hard for her to feel like a ‘normal’ person, which is what she is told she has to be if she ever has any hopes of ‘getting anywhere’.

But Beth is also a deep romantic at heart. She isn’t in a rush to ‘get somewhere’ with anyone, and especially not at the expense of emotional stability. She wants... actually needs to be swept away. That doesn’t mean huge and weird demonstrations of love but...little things.Being able to unwind with someone at the end of the day, talking about everything or being able to say nothing at all. Not having to second guess every minute of every interaction and wondering if the other person is gathering information, waiting for the key moment to use that information as a weapon to make fun of her, to put her down, to destroy what little sense of self she might have attained. The profound amount of trust that would allow her to relax, to accept that what she might feel is natural, welcome, something she wants, is something she doesn’t experience in her every day life. She is more than half in love with certain fictional characters than she has ever felt for a real life human being. She honestly doesn’t even know if she’s capable of feeling those things for some other real person.In short, dude, your guess is as good as mine.

[brooklynislandgirl]

X

Uhm, Eww || -

She doesn’t really want to answer Jemma’s question because she knows it’s stupid for a grown woman, who happens to be a nurse-practitioner and part alien, to be afraid and bothered by something so childish. But Jemma can’t know what it’s like. To know there’s things that live in it that no one can see, living writhing shadows always waiting for your guard to be let down.It would be easier to admit to her fear of heights. Her fear of flying. Her fear and actual hate of her own father. A thousand of her little insecurities that lie quietly below her surface. But of them all…

“…Da dark. I’ve always been afraid of da dark. Jus’ t’inkin’ about it makes me…I dunno.”She lilts one delicate shoulder and wraps her arms around her. “I know is irrational but I guess dere some t’ings no can help, right?”

[brooklynislandgirl]

I want to help you

Want in One Hand || -

“Help me….wha?”There’s a hint of nerves in her voice, because she isn’t sure what she’s done wrong. She doesn’t know if the other woman means it on a work level, which could be disastrous if she’s made a mistake although her ability…makes the chances slim to none, she’s very careful about it. Or it could be on a personal level which Beth doesn’t have firm footing on. She knows she’s a mess, that she’s got a laundry-list of issues that are complicated. Has she done something to upset someone? Has she disappointed Uncle Phil? Has she inadvertently hurt Fitz’s feelings?A hundred little fears scurry back and forth in the back of her mind, all of them screaming different kinds of warnings, pointing out her particular flaws and her temerity and she looks up from where she’d been sitting, reading an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, wanting to shrink on the spot.“Did I make a mistake?”

[brooklynislandgirl]

About Sex... it's probably going to be bad the first time. It's like the first pancake. If it's terrible you don't have to throw out the whole batch of batter, or decide you don't like pancakes, just make some corrections for what went wrong and try again. If you hate the 2nd one and the 3rd and the 4th maybe you do hate pancakes, or maybe you should be having buttermilk when you were making whole grain or- that was supposed to be a metaphor for being a lesbian but- I think it got too awkward...

Through the Grape Vine || Accepting

Jemma had her at bad the first time.Beth could still remember down to the very detail the first time she’d walked in on her brother and his girlfriend at the time. She remembers the Talk they’d had after said girlfriend got her clothes and left because apparently her brother stopped in the middle of the process to explain things to her. But the more her friend talked the more lost Beth got because she couldn’t see the connection between sex and food.

Beth was a terrible cook. There was nothing on earth that she couldn’t burn beyond recognition, even water. So if she did make pancakes, they’d be atrocious. Too wet to actually cook. Too salty. Too dry. Too black with char. So many things that could go wrong.And her brows furrowed deeper.“I…I don’ t’ink I’m a lesbian. I mean…I like girls as friends. And as teachers. But…I dunno. I jus’….”

Beth doesn’t think she’s sexually attracted to gender. She doesn’t think she’s sexually attracted to anyone or anything, as a matter of fact.“But what if ya wan’ whole grain an’ buttermilk? I hear dat’s a t’ing. An’ wha’ if I don’ want pancakes? Wha’ if I only wan waffles? What if I only wan bacon an’ eggs? I mean…dere’s every possibility dat…I don’ like breakfast at all, an’ would prefer nice salad for lunch, right?”

[brooklynislandgirl]

🍍

Fruit Basket || Accepting

Pineapple: How does my muse handle long-term relationships?

The question makes Beth smile, even if it’s short-lived and quiet, a shy thing with no more substance than a spring breeze.

Truth be told, her longest term relationship has been with her brother, and he’d been stuck with her from birth, when he’d been five years old. She was not the kind of person that ran off with a bad boy at the age of sixteen. Instead, she’d gone to college. Premed didn’t leave a lot of time for socialising outside of her sibling and his peer group, most of whom were Air Force para-jumpers or other military men. But Jemma must know what that was like.And after college, she was putting in twelve hour days back to back to back to back. There was waiting for odd hours just to catch a phone call from half-way across the world. There was obligations that came with having been born a Riley and she couldn’t get out of those.And there was the fact that, at any given point in time, Beth had never met someone who allowed to get close to them emotionally, and without that ~her shrink swears by this~ the chances of her being physically attracted to someone were pretty non-existent.

But Beth wants to believe she’d be really good at it. She’s patient. Kind. Caring. Physically affectionate. A great dancer. She’s intelligent and competitive and has a wide range of hobbies. She’s used to putting in effort and not expecting much back.

“Uhm. I dunno, really. What dat means, without more context, ya know? But personally I t’ink I’m amazing.”