#also no amount of therapy speak in the world can cover up the fact that this is a relationship with untenable power differences

[chaoxfix]

god i need the algorithm to stop recommending lore olympus to me.

reframing a kidnapping of a woman as romance, and painting her mother as an overbearing shrew rather than rightfully worried and protective, and portraying the kidnapper as sympathetic ... what about my overtly feminist ass makes anyone or any algorithm think i'd enjoy ANY hades/persephone romance retellings.

at this point the only hades and persephone retelling i'm interested in is a retelling that focuses on demeter's love for her daughter. one where persephone's abduction and transition from kore, the maiden, to persephone, goddess of the dead and queen of the underworld, was one where she carries out a revenge fantasy against her abductor... She cannot fully escape the underworld, no; she is death, doomed by the narrative. Underground she will stay for half the year. But she will not subject herself to be trapped with him.

hades dies at dawn; hades dies in the spring light, by persephone's power, and a knife garnished with evergreen thistles. demeter holds him down, and persephone cuts the head. judith slaying holofernes; persephone slaying hades.

[watatsumiis]

I must request a rant about Pierro or Capitano, I love your headcanons with them!

Ohh man you've got no idea what you've just done aha, I'm very much fixated on these two specifically right now so prepare for not just a rant but a full blown ramble below the cut for both of them

Some minor angst for Pierro's section, be warned

Ok, so in a general kind of sense, I can see Pierro being a very volatile and unpredictable individual, especially when he's in a space where it's safe for him to do so. He can be extremely strict and bossy (especially towards the other harbingers) and kind of detaches himself emotionally from those around him and staunchly refuses to allow himself to get attached because he's just so tired of losing everyone and everything he loves time after time.

I could definitely see him having some form of PTSD, but his outbursts get brushed off as being because of him being in a very highly stressful position as opposed to the fact that he's mentally fucked from so many times of him losing everything he cares about. He really just needs a friend (and maybe some therapy).

I also headcanon him as having arthritis, which gets aggravated a lot by the cold, so he tends to rug up a lot, but he's still very much more on edge than usual - he hates the cold, which makes it kind of suck that he lives in Snezhnaya, in the palace of the Cryo Archon. I could also see him having some back issues (maybe scoliosis or something like that?) so he spends a lot of time cooped up in his chambers, huddled by the fireplace as he curses the cold and dreams of somewhere more temperate.

He's very much the 'grumpy old grandpa' trope, he reads his morning newspaper and drinks his black coffee at the dining table (and in modern AUs scolds people for touching the thermostat). For someone who loathes the cold so much, he sure does have quite the cold personality.

That's not to say his stony facade never falls, however, he does have his moments where he can be something that borders on sweet, especially to the younger members of the Fatui - he exercises an extra bout of patience and will try to the best of his ability to make sure those in his squadrons all come home safe. Despite his anger at the Archons, and the world in general, he doesn't want others to have to go through the same pain that he has.

Capitano... I feel like my interpretation of him differs depending on whether or not it's a modern/real world au. I really like the idea of him being an empty/haunted husk of armour, but now that I've found an appearance headcanon I like for him I've really warmed up to the idea of him being a human.

I headcanon him to look a bit like the rugby player Ma'a Nonu, who has Samoan descent (and is very nice looking imo). I know MHY is gonna disappoint if Cap ever gets a face reveal so I'm just going ham on my headcanons here.

Capitano is very big and broad, his head almost looks a little too small for his body (though his helmet covers it just fine). He has a decent amount of scarring that he's kind of insecure about (and perhaps a touch of vilitigo?), which is a large part of why he wears the clothing he does (in modern AUs, the knight's helmet is replaced with a baseball cap, sunglasses and face mask). He also has dreads, sorry not sorry.

On the surface (and to all of those around him) he's a quiet and intimidating individual, he doesn't speak much (if at all), and when he does it's straight to the point, he doesn't mince his words. His canon voice is... fine, but I feel like I have a different one floating around in my head when I write about him. He also knows a good amount of sign language too, but it doesn't really come in handy unless the people around him know it as well.

He comes off as cold and detached at first, but once he finds someone that he feels needs his protection (whether that be a self insert, canon character, or OC, depends on the day <3 (spoiler: in my case its usually a self insert akjfhkdjsf)), he turns into a big mama bear and takes them under his wing.

He's very protective over his chosen charge, despite how much the others may tease him for it. Capitano has a very strong sense of loyalty and ideals and once he's put his mind to protecting someone, he'd sooner die than let something happen to them. He firmly believes that actions speak louder than words, so instead of reassuring the ones he cares about, he just lets his actions do the talking, wordlessly looking after them in his own signature way (which could entail him physically protecting them from harm, or doing small things to keep them safe such as lending his coat, cooking food, or making sure there's always somewhere safe for them to hide away if things get too much).

Despite all of this, he struggles a bit to empathise consistently with those around him if he hasn't connected to them in his signature way, especially if he sees them as a lower rank than himself. In some AUs at least, he sees the other Harbingers as a kind of family, and subtly does things to help them out (though he's careful not to get caught), but if it's someone he doesn't spend much time around on a daily basis, he just sort of... disregards them.

Sorry this turned into a bit of an incoherent rant, I just got VERY excited seeing these two names in my inbox, I love these two so so much. Thanks so so much for the ask, I really do appreciate it :D!!

Please don't steal/copy/repost my work!

[mrsbakashi]

Kakashi, Y & Z

first of all, i'm sorry it took me soooooo long, and second of all i can't remember if this was for the dirty a-z headcanon or for the fluff alphabet, so i did both. i hope you don't mind 🙃 (i checked and it was probably for the smut prompt but i don't know, i may be wrong, in which case have both of them) (oh, and thank tou for requesting!)

KAKASHI

⚠️ cw: fluff, mentions of sex, low-key angsty. nsfw under the cut.

↦ FLUFF

y - you (what you are to them):

you are his whole world! 😩 the only person he loves and allows to be close to him, with whom he makes plans, the reason he gives his best to survive every mission, looking forward to when he gets to see you again. a reason to come back home. he tried to run from you at the beginning, but you ended up growing in him, and ever since his life got so much better. there's happiness and love for him after all.

z - zebra (what pet they want to have)

obviously dogs lol, but he also found out he's very fond of cats - you had two cats and when you moved in together he had to learn how to deal with them, since they're so different from dogs. and he ended up liking cats a lot - the introverted personality, the quietness. nothing better than to just relax a little with a cat purring in your lap.

↦ SMUT

y - yes, master (what kinds of names are used during sex? do they like being called master / mistress, daddy, etc…? what names do they call their partner?)

so, i don't think kakashi is really into this master/daddy thing - only if you use it to annoy him, in which case he secretly loves it. but it's only because he doesn't like the idea of controlling you whatsoever, he's not your master, he won't tell you what to do. he's more on the sweet side - calling you baby, and sweetheart, and love, and other cute pet names (and also the occasional degrading because he's not above it and neither are you). but the man is really into dirty talk so he'll be calling you babe while saying the most nasty things. good luck.

z - zones (what are their erogenous zones? what spots on their body should be touched, bitten, kissed, when someone wants to get them in the mood?) 

ok, hear me out: kakashi is not comfortable with physical touch when it comes to most people, he's not comfortable showing his skin and the idea of someone touching his actual skin is enough to make him go crazy - he covers everything for his life! but when it comes to you he doesn't bother at all, in fact he's pretty much into it, it's some sort of therapy. so his whole skin is pretty sensitive and he secretly loves being kissed and loved all over, specially his chest-shoulders-neck-jaw (throw in some love bites as well, he'll go feral).

speaking of which, he spent a huge amount of time seeing blood on his hands and hating and blaming himself, so now he's completely in love with the wonders that hand can do to you and how sweetly you moan his name when he's touching you. some sort of therapy.

[swampyswan]

Theory: Season 2 will show that Brett is a sleeper agent planted by JR

I’ve heard people theorize that Brett is a secret agent, but I personally think he’s a sleeper agent, aka, he’s an agent whose been brainwashed into being unaware that he’s a spy.

(Keep in mind: I don know for sure if this is true. These are mostly just interesting things I noticed when rewatching the show and seeing a lot of weird coincidences).

For one thing, the show makes it clear that Brett, for all intents and purposes, would make a good spy. Not in the same way as Rafe Masters, whose really more of a really showy operative than an actual spy (Reagan even points this out when he breaks through a glass ceiling very loudly and attracts a bunch of attention). Actual spies in real life are meant to be normal looking, boringly mundane, and good at staying out of trouble for fear of blowing their covers.

The show early on points out that Brett is always below suspicion, and the show even goes out of its way to do that to the audience as well. Still, there is a big amount of foreshadowing that Brett is some kind of agent. For example;

His face is “so generic that it can’t be traced by sattelites” and he can literally infiltrate the White House just by bullshitting the guards, which isn't an easy task even if you are a generic white dude in a suit. Alpha-Beta also proves this when he gets Brett’s name and identity wrong (despite being a super intelligent AI, and Brett coming from what seems to be an incredibly wealthy family, so his information seems to be completely wiped from whatever database AB was using).

Reagan, in episode one, is immediately suspicious of him and thinks he’s too good to be true, and everyone else brushes off her concerns because they think she’s being crazy. The audience might have even been suspicious of him, too, at least before he turned out to be genuinely sweet and her “evidence” was shown to be quite flimsy. There were even some viewers who were genuinely surprised Brett turned out to have nothing up his sleeve, mostly because, when this cliche happens in other shows, the "perfect" person turns out to be actually villainous, while in Inside Job, Reagan seemingly turns out to be in the wrong.

In episode nine, Reagan throws the accusation that Brett is a “sleeper agent planted by Abercrombie and Fitch” and the gang only backs off when he mentions his therapy appointments. It doesn't really matter too much, but it's VERY weird that Reagan makes the same accusation in both the beginning and end of a season to the same character, especially since they're best friends. So, I'm led to believe that, in season two, she's gonna accuse him again and it'll be much more dramatic.

JR also has Brett go undercover as a rich guy to trick Bezos into buying the yacht. And Brett somehow SUCCEEDS at it, even though he looks like an idiot doing it. JR also notably pulls Brett to speak in private A LOT, and perhaps only really does it to Reagan as well. It's possible that it's because Brett is new, but it's something that has happened quite a few times.

Brett mentions always wanting to be a spy, even as a child.

Also, as an aside, we know sleeper agents exist in this world, since Jimmy Fallon is one apparently, and references are made to others.

The reason why I think JR is the one who planted Brett as a sleeper agent is for a few reasons:

For one, JR is the one who apparently hired Brett. Even though he already had Reagan in line to get promoted to leader, and he knows she can do it, he still hires an unpaid, inexperienced intern who doesn’t even seem to know how anything in the company works? To LEAD the team on his first day, and not just start at the bottom and work his way up? I get that this is meant to be a joke about the fact that Brett, a cis white guy, gets the same job position as Reagan, a half Asian woman whose put in far more work and obviously deserves the promotion more. But, like, Brett didn’t even APPLY for a job, since he supposedly met JR at a barbecue. It’s pretty funny he got hired despite having 0 qualifications, but it’s also suspicious.

This almost seems like JR is just being shallow by hiring him; but we’ve also seen JR be genuinely intelligent, ruthless, and manipulative when it comes to running Cognito. He’s not really someone to hire some random shithead off the street, but he is the type to deliberately plant a sleeper agent among the gang for later use.

Compared to everyone else, Brett almost feels TOO normal for his job. I understand that that’s part of the joke, that he’s just a regular guy at an insane workplace, but it also seems a bit jarring because he’s just so normal. Almost too normal, as if it’s on purpose.

So why? What goal could there be for JR to put in a sleeper agent? Well, perhaps it’s just a fail safe for if he were to be knocked from his position. Maybe activating Brett’s sleeper agent status is a worse-case scenario; if JR managed to achieve his goal of getting a black robe, then he could leave the company in the care of Reagan and Brett, and no one would ever know Brett’s true nature. If someone happened to get in his way of getting his promotion (*cough* Rand *cough*) than he has another option open...

So, why do I think. Brett is a sleeper agent, and not just a regular spy? Well, the thing is, a sleeper agent is different from a spy in that they are completely unaware of the fact that they are undercover. While a normal spy is essentially putting on an act, a fake persona to make them seem friendly, boring and harmless, a sleeper agent is basically just a regular person with no malicious intent until they are “activated”. In other words, Brett would have no idea that he’s undercover, which would mean his sweet personality would be completely genuine, not just a trick to garner trust.

This would also explain why Myc wouldn’t know he’s a mole; if Brett were a spy, and his nice personality was just an act to trick people, Myc would have figured it out on day one when he read Brett's mind. This would fill in any plot holes about his mind getting read and explain why he wasn't outed sooner.

[my-darling-boy]

Genuinely asking, isn't self-diagnose with a condition kind of dangerous? Because legitimizing self-diagnosing opens a door to many malicious people who would want to exploit the fact they can self-diagnose? And in turn, make the space of autistic people worse?

Was going to skip this, but I’m writing a LONG response because I’m VERY exhausted with the amount of misinformation I see on this “self dx is dangerous” take, so buckle up and allow me to info dump.

Recently, authentic_autism_advocacy, an Instagram account run by a supposed medically diagnosed autistic woman was discovered to be a non-autistic woman, Connie Manning, posing as a medically diagnosed autistic person to spread hate and anti-self diagnosing speech. In reality, she is a neurotypical mother who regularly uses her autistic son for clout; she also turned out to have a hand behind CalmWear, a brand of sensory compression products designed for disabled people. Not only had she been spewing hatred towards other autistic people, she had been accusing well known AFAB autistic tiktokers like beckspectrum of faking being autistic and threatening self diagnosed autistics and saying they are a danger to the community, and engaging in other incredibly discriminating behaviour. Yes, she herself was a neurotypical person posing as a medically diagnosed autistic to perpetuate hateful rhetoric about self diagnosed people and used her voice to speak OVER autistic folk for financial gain and exploitation of autistic people, including her own son. If you want to read this roller coaster of a story, an autistic person wrote an entire article on it with tons of screenshots and sources.

So let me make one thing clear to you.

The purpose of actually, genuinely self diagnosing is not done to attract attention or to parade around and exploit other autistic people. Self diagnosed autistic individuals have recognised due to difficult life circumstances, financial hardship, bigotry and stigma within the medical/legal world, being a minor, lack of insurance, lack of proper access to safe care facilities, being denied assessment due to incompetent or biased practitioners, and/or any other obstacle that they may temporarily or permanently be barred from diagnosis. Self diagnosis does NOT instantly mean a person is posing for clout, nor does it indicate a person is trying to wring money from assistance services or exploit other autistics. And nts who use self diagnose with intentions of harming the community? That’s NOT self diagnosis, that’s abuse of something meant to aid people blocked from medical care or financial means to that care. All we can do for autistic people, no matter who we perceive them to be, is treat them the same way we would any other autistic person. Because the moment you start deciding by your own book who deserves respect and who doesn’t, you’ll be on a slippery slope to locking out thousands of autistic people from the community. If it’s discovered a person like Connie is literally abusing the system of self dx to intentionally mislead the community, by all means, we must hold them accountable. But you cannot simply go about granting and revoking access from people just because someone lacks a diagnosis or doesn’t fit your idea of what being autistic looks like, especially if it’s based on stereotypes.

Moral of the story? Isn’t it ironic how anti-self dx people will 100% believe a user who claims to be medically diagnosed but shows no “written proof” of it, yet always demand written proof from a self dx person? It’s almost like even anti-self dx people can’t tell the difference between someone who is medically diagnosed autistic and someone who isn’t. Well, that’s because they can’t. While there might be common traits, autism has no set model, it is a spectrum, no autistic person is alike; Policing self diagnosed people about their self diagnosis isn’t a form of protecting the community. It’s a form of gatekeeping. If you find yourself granting instant acceptance, without asking for proof, to a person insisting they are medically diagnosed like this neurotyical mother, but then prohibit self dx people from entry entirely on the grounds of not showing proof of medical assessment, you are upholding a double standard. This is why policing autistic people’s diagnosis, self or not, is inherently useless.

So here’s the thing... instead of asking people to stop self diagnosing, what you should instead be asking yourself is, “Why do people self diagnose? What kind of medical system could possibly be in place where people feel they need to resort to self diagnosis rather than get an actual diagnosis?”

Well, it’s mainly common knowledge among most of the autistic community that diagnosis is NOT easy to come by.

One of the main reasons why people cannot get a diagnosis is due to financial/insurance reasons. It’s reasonable to estimate that by the end of 2020 almost 30 million Americans alone were without health insurance. I’ve heard costs out of pocket for an autism diagnosis are between $500-$6000. If a person or a family cannot afford health insurance—which by the way on average is around $5,400 a year for a single person and $13,800 for a family here—where are they supposed to pull out $6,000 to get screened?

You might be asking, “Well aren’t insurances supposed to cover disability?” Sure, there are options for disability care through health insurance—not even going to get into that—but like a lot of things in the US, this is a severely flawed system. A lot of private health insurance will stop or limit coverage for an autism diagnosis or assistance services once a person reaches 18 to 21 years old. In most states, coverage has a higher chance of being denied to autistic adults coming with the added age cap or ONLY covering ABA, an abusive, manipulative “therapy” used to force social compliance and trait suppression on autistic people. The fact that ABA, a conversion therapy, is covered, but little else, shows exactly what insurance companies think of autistic people: they’ll only cover us if we want to learn to be “normal”. This can leave many undiagnosed autistic adults who cannot afford analysis, insurance, or safe assistance services with nowhere to turn. If I was not on my parents’ insurance, there is NO WAY I would EVER be able to afford a diagnosis. I don’t have $2,000 lying around. The MONEY ALONE would prohibit me from getting a diagnosis, no matter how many autistic traits I presented.

When I was going through this system years ago to start a diagnosis, I was shocked to find no therapist within three hours of me was accepting adult patients. “Up to 18 only” their websites would say. And in the event I had found one (1) that accepted me as a then 20 year old with X insurance, and that person refused me diagnosis, I would be out of options unless I planned a 5 hour drive which may have also led me to another biased screener. A person seeking self financed assessment can waste thousands of dollars therapist hopping.

People will say, “Well I live in X place, and where I come from, it’s covered!” Well the reality is that everyone in the world does not live where you live. It’s not realistic to assume everyone is in the same position as you or your family to afford care or access the same resources as you. When you say, “Just go out and get a diagnosis! It’s not that hard!”, understand you are speaking from your personal vantage point where screening may be easily accessed or easily covered/is free OR you have no personal knowledge of what that process is like yourself.

The second thing that bars a ton of people from being diagnosed is the fact that when autism was first discovered, its research was HEAVILY centered on white, cis, heterosexual men. The idea that autistic people are ONLY cis, white, heterosexual men carries on to this day. If you are an outlier to this stereotype, your chances of being misdiagnosed with something else or refused diagnosis skyrocket because so-called “professionals” don’t know how to observe traits in any other person besides a cis, white, heterosexual man, and refuse/fail to recognise the endless ways in which a person can be autistic. ALL the time I hear how AFAB people will go in to get screened only to find out their screener does not believe AFAB people can be autistic, because yes, sexism and anti-lgbtq+ ideas play a huge role in the incredibly outdated diagnostic process, because autism is still believed to be an “AMAB only” thing. People report going into a therapists office and being asked questions like, “Do you like going outside? Do you like having friends?” and being told that if you agree with either of these, you cannot be autistic because criteria at some places is so backwards, you can’t even say you enjoy conversation without failing the test. Other things commonly heard during the analysis are screeners telling someone they are too smart/articulate to be autistic, gas lighting them by saying they are mistaking their symptoms for something else/making them up, telling a person they seem normal, dismissing clear autistic traits by saying they’re unique “superpowers”, or intentionally misdiagnosing a person as ADHD INSTEAD of autistic. People on social media have also pointed out what influences racism has on the diagnostic process as well and how lack of research and understanding of autistic POC contributes to under-diagnosis and stigma has only contributed to refusal of care and under-representation of POC in the disabled community, as one autistic Black woman points out on Instagram, “I found excellent articles that support and validate my feelings and experiences, but I could find no research on autistic Black people.” Additionally, because research has primarily been done on young men, this means anyone who is not a cis man and is over the age of 18 and is seeking a diagnosis has a much higher chance of not receiving one because screeners don’t understand how autistic traits may present differently in adults, especially since adults are very likely to mask. Some autism screeners are so against autism they have told clients they would only diagnosis a person autistic if it was their last resort to avoid “placing a burden on their shoulders”. These reasons are largely responsible for why autism is incredibly mis/under-diagnosed. This ask would be the length of a novel if I included every single type of discrimination and mistreatment during the evaluation process alone, but understand it can be incredibly biased, sexist, transphobic, racist, or just flat out ableist. And guess what? Though this process can take as little as a month to get sorted, that is rare. The assessment SHOULD be very short. But a lot of autistic people have reported their diagnosis took more than 2-4 years because of having to waste time, energy, and money hopping from therapist to therapist looking for someone to take them seriously, as many autistic people compiled on the actuallyautistictiktoks page on Instagram point out.

The last thing I want to touch on is this idea that people have that self diagnosing is dangerous. “What if someone self diagnoses and they take advantage of services that are meant for autistic people?” ...The Big Things you think I am going to take advantage of as a self diagnosed autistic person, like scholarship money for instance or SSDI, I do not have legal access to without a formal diagnosis. I cannot waltz into a law firm and ask for a $5,000 scholarship for autistic people without a diagnosis, because they WILL NOT give it to me!

Let me tell you some of things I’ve “cruelly taken advantage of” as a self diagnosed autistic person. I bought glasses with blue light protection, because screen and fluorescent lighting at work and even natural blue toned light from the sky lowers my threshold for some sensory input like noise and social interaction; wearing them to work everyday has improved my sensory thresholds incredibly. I’ve talked to my manager and told him I’m autistic and that I have a hard time understanding vague direction and may need to step away briefly on occasion to tend to a shutdown before a meltdown comes on at work; he had no problem with this. I use subtitles; sometimes I have trouble processing audio or reading facial expressions and tone, and being able to see the words displayed on the screen gives me a significantly better understanding of what I watch. All my life, I have been having meltdowns which I had mistaken for mental breakdowns or panic attacks and having access to resources that walked me through preventative methods and tips on what to do if I have one has been ENORMOUSLY helpful to me. All my life, I was trying to deal with them thinking they were something else; becoming aware of this and accepting that they are in fact autistic meltdowns has helped me not only go through them, but has helped me redirect stims which at their worst previously had me hitting and clawing my arms, slapping my face, and even hitting my head. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to wait 4 years for a diagnosis to use resources I could be using to make my life more accessible right now!

People will say, “Oh well yeah, I don’t mean You are one of Those Types of self diagnosed autistic people, you clearly sound/look autistic, I’m talking about other people.” The thing is, there is no broad “sounding/looking autistic”, that’s stereotyping, and you can’t demand everyone who interacts with you show you their Autistic Card, because again, not everyone is able to be diagnosed, especially given the mistreatment and stigma present towards autistic people in the medical field! And what made you ask for their diagnosis? Because they “don’t seem autistic” to you? Why didn’t you ask for their diagnosis? Because they “seemed autistic” to you? By denying anyone who doesn’t have a diagnosis resources they may very well need, you are denying assistance to thousands of people who are without means to be diagnosed. And I am SO tired of seeing comments online on self diagnosis posts that “people don’t know what they’re taking about” as if they know us personally, like are you me? Are you my doctor I’ve consulted? Did you watch me academically research and consult with other autistic people about being autistic for over 3 years? I’m tired of “well, one time a self diagnosed person laughed at my actually autistic diagnosed friend...so all self dx people are evil” because there is ZERO correlation between a person being self assessed and their behavior towards a non self assessed person. The fact both those arguments are in use whenever self dx comes up is yet another form of gatekeeping.

Self diagnosing autism is not begging for attention or Evil Criminal Money Funneling Schemes. It is a result of a deeply flawed medical and insurance system that has failed to give proper attention and care to those who need it, it is a result of resources not made available, of safe support systems not there for kids and adults alike. You want to talk about what’s truly dangerous? How the hate group Autism Speaks has been parading itself around since 2005 as an advocacy group for autistic people and has been misusing millions of dollars worth of donation money and promoting stigma and hatred around autistic people; no autistic members are present on their board. How Sia and her new film Music was nominated for 2 Golden Globes despite it replacing the original autistic actor with a neurotypical actor, using offensive stereotypes, and using the main autistic character as a prop, and featured an extremely dangerous bodily restraint scene on an autistic person having a meltdown in public and featured very insensitive content due to Sia’s lack of consulting with autistic people to make the film (spoilers in that article).

Instead of policing autistic people, whether they fit your idea of what an autistic person is or not, redirect your efforts and your energy to dismantling systems and holding others accountable for perpetuating harmful stereotypes about autistic people that are legitimately dangerous on such a scale that they have created insurmountable damage to the autistic community. But I guarantee you, worrying over whether your classmate is “faking it” will not do any justice to the decades worth of discrimination autistic people face still today.

I understand. You care about the community, you don’t want autistic people to be exploited or taken advantage of. I don’t want to be exploited and taken advantage of as an autistic person, and I don’t want that for others! But I also understand that when we self proclaim ourselves as judges of random autistic strangers on the internet or start accusing people of faking or demanding to see medical paperwork from people when the basis of our suspicions is “this person doesn’t look like my stereotyped view on how I think an autistic person should act”, THAT is when you really run into trouble. Because if you are allowed to deny self dx people entrance into the autistic community, what’s stopping you from thinking you have the power to deny ANYONE entrance into that community?

And there is power in self diagnosis for many autistic people. When the evaluation system is literally rigged to set you up for failure and put you through unnecessary hardship, self dx is a self affirming, empowering tool to take back control from a process designed to gaslight and crush you. The evaluation process was NOT formulated by an autistic person, nor was it made to be inclusive of all autistic people. Until the evaluation system in place for autistic people is safe, accessible, and free to ALL, you have EVERY right to self diagnose.

[kyun-toast]

[MONSTA X] Changkyun - Happy Without Me

word count: 3.8k warnings: alcohol, suggestions of smoking, swearing, suggestions of sex summary: I don't think about you sometimes 'Cause I think about you all the time a/n: I’ve been listening to the All About Luv album a lot recently and Happy Without Me hit a little different the other day. I hope you don’t notice how I slacked off near the end 💜

“Yerim what are you wearing for tonight? I wanna look cute but not like ‘I’ve put effort in’ kinda cute, you know? Like I’m always this cute.”

Yerim laughed as she replied, “You’d look hot wearing a bin bag so shut up and let me know what drinks you want. It’s ‘bring your own booze’ so I was gonna run to the store for extra before we go.”

“Umm, vodka? Tequila? Maybe rum? I’m getting smashed tonight and you’re all going to carry me home, just letting you know.” Soobin winked and blew kisses at the both of you with a coy smile on her face, as some form of ‘thank you in advance’ for the troubles that you would be going through later that night. As much pain she put the both of you through, it was hard not to love her.

“Yeah, you say that as if that’s not what happens every week, you psycho.”

You smiled from the comfort of your sofa as you witnessed the two of your best friends bicker. You were never really one for parties, but you decided to let yourself go after an unfortunate night maybe five? six months ago. You thought that you could vent your frustrations into your notes app and be done with it, but your friends took pity and introduced you to another option. One where you could numb your mind with alcohol and crashing bass, and you figured that it was somewhat more enjoyable than cry-writing shitty poetry on a Friday night. Notes app therapy was now a thing of the past.

Changkyun had become such an integral part of your life that you couldn’t help yourself from unconsciously replaying memories that you had attempted to bury. A simple look at the most irrelevant objects would have him running through your mind before you could even stop yourself. Oh, we bought this mug together. You were surprised he hadn’t taken it with him when he left. It was his favourite mug to drink whiskey out of. Speaking of whiskey, you needed a drink. It had only taken days for him to make himself at home at the forefront of your thoughts but how long was it going to take to rid of him?

As much as you tried to keep those thoughts at bay, no amount of alcohol could ever stop them from crashing back over you whenever you saw that little smiley face appear at the top of your Instagram feed.

imnameim. When had he posted a story? You hadn’t seen the pink circle earlier. Would it be too early to look at it now? You couldn’t risk tapping on it only to see that it had been posted 12 seconds ago, just like you had done the other day. And the day before. And the day before that. Should you just make a burner account? No, that’s too far, we’re not going there today, bitch... Maybe tomorrow.

You hated how much power that tattoo face held over you, looking straight into your eyes - almost mockingly. Oh, did I look like a smiley face to you six months ago? Well, I’m a sad face now and that’s all you’re ever going to see.

“Y/N! Hey! You’re going to stare a hole into your phone.” Soobin clapped in your face, trying to get your attention. You looked up, softening your expression to meet Yerim’s eyes.

“Soobin was asking what you’re going to wear tonight.” Yerim said.

“I don’t know, probably that top I got yesterday?” you shrugged, unbothered by your friends’ question. You weren’t going to parties to impress anyone; you were going to drink the last of your braincells away.

“Y/N, ‘that top’ you got yesterday is a free t-shirt you got from the Domino’s pop-up stall on campus. I’m not letting you do this again.” Yerim dead panned.

“OK and...?” You met both of their concerned faces only to have them grab each of your arms.

“Come on. Up. That’s it.” You made unintelligible noises as they dragged you up off the sofa and into your closet. The thoughts about Changkyun’s story were left on the sofa as your mind was now filling with an excited buzz. “You act like you hate this, but I know you love getting trashed with us, Y/N.” Yerim laughed and you knew it too.

-

Changkyun lay in Jae-in’s bed, with her nestled in his chest as he looked up at the ceiling and sighed. Being careful not to wake her, he slowly squeezed his arm out from under her head to lay on his stomach to scroll through Instagram.

He had posted a story over an hour ago, half hoping that you’d see it – a cover of Dean’s Instagram. How ironic.

He shook his head at how pathetic his efforts seemed, whispering to himself, “What the hell are you doing?” He refreshed his feed for the last time to see that you had posted a video of the three of you dancing to a song in your walk-in closet. Probably drunk. Upon re-watching the video on loop for the third time, he concluded that you were most definitely drunk.

Seeing you having fun like this had him torn between being happy for you, moving on with your life and probably on to other men too. Being attractive plus the endless number of parties you went to now was just the perfect recipe. You were bound to have found someone.

And this is where the hatred washed over him. He despised it. Hated seeing you have fun without him, moving on as if he had never existed. Was it that easy for you to just forget? It seemed unfair that he was still struggling to keep you off his mind while you were out having the time of your life, letting your followers know of that fact too.

Deep down, he knew that he wasn’t happy for you at all. He was just trying to kid himself into thinking that he was. Be mature and everything. That was what both of you had agreed to be when your relationship came to an end. After days of what could probably be called a verbal equivalent of a nuclear war, the two of you had given up.

Crying, shouting, complete silence, you had done it all and there was no end in sight. On day three of radio silence, you felt as if you could do without speaking to Changkyun at all. When you brought it up, he admitted he felt the same. Exhaustion making both of you devoid of any emotion, you agreed to disagree and act like the fight had never happened. You were tired and wanted nothing more to do with it. Or each other. Thinking of yourselves as somewhat grown, you decided to be civil since you were in the same circle of friends, not wanting to burden them with any of your problems.

With so many things left unsaid and ties still loose, there was no way that you could just cut clean. But you never so much as bumped into each other since.

You hadn’t blocked each other though, as you both felt that it was some sign of weakness. Yeah, I’m tough enough to keep them on my socials. They don’t bother me. Not at all. But in the small hours of the morning, you were on each other’s profiles, hoping for a glimpse of what they were up to. Wondering if he had finished that song he was working on. If you were eating well. If he was really seeing Jae-in seriously. If you were well and truly happy.

“Hey, how are you doing?”

Y/N’s doing just fine for themselves, everyone can see that.

“Did you finish that essay?”

No, that’s too random.

“I think about you all the time.”

Shut up Changkyun.

Though you had both agreed to be ‘friends’, there was no easy way in going about messaging one another when you had fought so explosively. Changkyun also felt that he had missed the right timeframe for him to salvage whatever there was left of the relationship. Whether it be platonic or romantic. No matter how much he wanted to message you, his pride falsely masked as maturity stopped him from ever doing more than wish for you to call him and say that everything was going to be ok. That you can start over.

“Do you wanna go to Minhyuk’s house party?” Jae-in’s voice was heavy with sleep, squinting her eyes at the bright screen of her phone. Changkyun was startled from his thoughts, not realising that she had been woken up by a text.

“House party…?” Changkyun was dubious.

“It’s ok if you don’t want to, it’s just that we don’t ever do anything besides fuck, and I thought we could do with a change of scenery.”

“I mean yeah it’s just that we’ve never hung out with other people before. Like together.”

He had met Jae-in at a bar a few months ago. Holed up in his studio after the breakup, Changkyun got to channelling his anger into working on his music until his course mate Minhyuk persuaded him out for drinks. Minhyuk had flirted with the girls from the table over to get them to join in on the pity party. Jae-in had seated herself next to Changkyun and a few drinks later, they had quickly bonded over their childhood obsession with Death Note to which she followed up with an invitation to watch it at her place. Who was Kyun to reject? With all this pent-up energy to spare, music wasn’t quite cutting it.  

“I doubt anyone will care that we arrived together.” Jae-in shrugged. “Let’s go.”

-

“Yeah, I invited Jae-in and I think Changkyun might come with her too.” Minhyuk stated nonchalantly over the phone. You choked on your wine and thanked God that the music in your room was loud enough to cover the unnatural sound you had just made. “Y/N, is that ok? I should have asked you befo-”

“No, I don’t care.” You replied a little too quickly, “It’s been months and we broke up on good terms anyway, remember?”

“MINNIE! I MISS YOU!” Soobin drunkenly shouted across the room as Yerim held her back from throwing herself at the phone.

“I MISS YOUR FACE TOO, BINNIE! I’LL SEE YOU LATER!” Minhyuk chuckled as he didn’t hesitate to match her volume through the phone.

“Ugh, you two make me sick”, Yerim rolled her eyes, “You literally saw each other this morning. Just get together already.”

As Soobin and Minhyuk continued to chat, engulfed in their own little world, you reached to grab another drink. If Minhyuk’s predictions were right, you were going to need something stronger than wine to get you through the night.

-

Stepping into Minhyuk’s apartment, Changkyun could feel the bass rumble underneath his feet already.

“Hey! You made it! I thought you guys weren’t going to come, it’s so late! But we have drinks and snacks in the kitchen. Oh, and Jae-in, the bathrooms just through the hallway on the right…” Minhyuk’s voice trailed off into the loud music. Changkyun followed behind Jae-in as his friend gave the newcomer a guided tour of his place.

Though he was familiar with the apartment, it felt a little weird for him to walk through it with someone else by his side. A pack of cards strewn over the floor jogged his memory back to a particularly warm night in June. With the sun just beginning to rise, you both stood below Minhyuk’s balcony at 4am. You shouted,

“HEY MINHYUK, WE’RE GOING TO PLAY UNO AT YOUR PLACE, D’YOU WANNA JOIN?”

“THOUGHT WE’D ASK IN CASE YOU’D FEEL LEFT OUT.” Changkyun added. You both snickered as Minhyuk opened his window to shout back at you, regretting that he had ever given you two the spare keys to his apartment.

“ARE YOU REALLY INVITING ME TO PLAY CARDS MY OWN HOUSE RIGHT NOW?!” Birds fluttered away startled, as a neighbouring window flashed on a light in annoyance. Your shouting combined could never top the sheer volume of Minhyuk’s voice. Changkyun grabbed your hand as you ran into the building laughing before the neighbour could join in on the screaming match.

With classes finished for the year, you had what felt like an infinite amount of time on your hands. Kyun smiled to himself as he was reminded of those summer nights that he had spent with you. Stargazing, pillow talking, daydreaming on repeat.

“Yeah, so you can get to the outdoor space through the living room but I’m giving you special access to my little balcony through my room because you’re uh, Changkyun’s friend.” Minhyuk grinned as he ended his tour.

Upon entering the actual party in the lounge, Changkyun stopped in his tracks at the sight of you on the other side of the room. For a moment, the smoke in the room seemed to clear as his eyes trained on you throw your head back in laughter at Yerim’s animated storytelling. Hearing your voice so crystal clear made his heart swell with something that he couldn’t quite put into words. Half a year had passed since he had last seen you, sat broken on the floor of your apartment, explaining that it would be best to part ways. You had looked so drained of emotion then; it was such a stark contrast to what he was seeing now. He stood frozen, heart beating hard against his chest like a hammer.

“Kyun! Why are you so late?” Wonho, another friend of Kyun’s appeared out of nowhere with a bottle of tequila in his hand. “You gotta catch up on the drinks now, come on, open your mouth.” Wonho went to grab his face with one hand as he proceeded to try and pour some alcohol into his mouth jokingly. Changkyun chuckled as he play-fought with Wonho only to stop midway when he noticed Jae-in smiling at the sight.

“Oh, this is my friend Jae-in.” Kyun straightened up and brushed off his clothes.

Wonho went to shake her hand as Minhyuk snuck up behind him.

"Yeah, friend.” He giggled as he raised his brows suggestively and left as quickly as he appeared shouting, “Binnie! Where are you? We gotta go make those s’mores you wanted!”

Changkyun rolled his eyes and smiled as he guided Jae-in to the nearest table of drinks and set to introducing her to the rest of his friends, hoping that you wouldn’t notice him.

-

At this point, the three of you were beyond gone. Soobin had already passed out with a s’more in her hand as Minhyuk hauled her over his shoulder to put her to sleep in the guest room.

“And she.. she was telling me to sythensi.. she was telling me thynsenise, no, synsi.. she wanted me to synthesise, there we go, snythi…” Yerim tripped over words, dead set on getting her pronunciation right while Hyungwon sat and nodded with his signature painful smile on his face. She was determined, hand on his shoulder with a grip that let him know he wasn’t going anywhere until she had finished her story.

As for you? You were sat next to Yerim, a vacant smile on your face as you struggled to keep your eyes open. Day drinking followed up with a house party in the evening really wasn’t the best idea for the lightweights that you are but there you were, listening to your friend repeat the same sentence over and over again. An urgent voice in your head piped up, letting you know that you should probably go for a breath of fresh air.

“Yerim, hey, Yerim, I’m.. going for some air… stay with Hyungwon okay? Hyungwon, call me if anything happens?” You stood up, struggling to find your balance and teetered across the room to get to Minhyuk’s balcony.

The thing about you is that you are one of those blessed people that can sober up as quickly as they get smashed. You felt refreshed, taking in a deep breath as if to cleanse your alcohol ridden bloodstreams with the cool evening air. Your head still spun a little but as long as you kept your eyes anchored on the moon, you’d be fine in no time.

As much as your body needed a break from the party, it wasn’t the greatest timing for your mental state. Once you had assumed that Changkyun wasn’t coming to the party, you let go of the anxiety holding you back from enjoying yourself. You had been overstimulated from the alcohol, music, and people, not giving yourself a chance to think about anything else. But once those factors were gone, it was just you, alone with your drunken thoughts on a balcony looking up at the moon. And just like that, those suppressed memories regarding a certain boy couldn’t help but unpack themselves from your unconscious. Oh man, this was going to be such a good cry.

-

Changkyun was beginning to feel a little too tipsy for his liking. Though he was having a great time, it felt as if he wasn’t entirely present at the scene, like he was watching and laughing along through a TV screen. He slipped away from the kitchen island to get a breather.

“Oh shit, sorry, I didn’t realise anyone was here.” He apologised, going to close the door of Minhyuk’s balcony to a figure hunched over the railing. You looked up from your hands at him and tried to focus on the blurry face.

His movements faltered when your eyes met, door still open. Just one look at you was enough for that knock back into reality Changkyun had needed. God were you a sight for sore eyes. He drank up the way your cheeks and nose were flushed pink, how your eyes were glossy in the moonlight, eyelashes thick with tears, and the way the softly coloured city lights behind you framed your face. With the night air stained with your perfume and the sounds of muted traffic perfecting the scene, he had never felt so in the present until now. He wanted this moment to last a lifetime.

“Changkyun?” You replied, as you wiped your eyes clear of the tears blurring your vision. You could tell that voice apart anywhere, you only questioned in the slight chance that you were just hallucinating, going insane.

“Are you ok? I can leave if you want, I-” He began hurriedly, knowing that you hated having anyone see you cry.

“I’m fine.” You sniffed.

“Bad day?” He asked softly, bringing himself to stand next to you, looking over at the cityscape.

“Yeah, something like that.” You replied, letting out a small laugh as you wiped the last of the tears from your face. 

Tension hung so thick in the air you could feel it weigh down on your shoulders. Changkyun hated that you, the person he had once shared the deepest parts of his mind with, was someone he was now so uncomfortable with.

You both stood there awhile, looking out at the blinking lights of the cityscape. As quiet as it was, you could almost hear the sound of your brains whirring, going back and forth over whether or not you should say something to break the silence. Changkyun had spent months thinking of questions he wanted to ask you for when this moment came, but the alcohol and nerves fogged up his mind. All he could think of doing was holding you in his arms, hoping for you to be able to feel his apologies, sincerity and promises through the beating of his chest.

A heavy pressing in your lungs only intensified, as you thought about how the present situation had become the outcome of those few perfect years. You regulated your breathing, trying to break down the lump from coming up in your throat, on the verge of tears again. Thinking back, you realised that you probably could have been a little more understanding, could have softened your sharp words, could have opened your heart up some more to allow for Changkyun to do so in return. These thoughts and emotions bubbled up inside your chest to spill out of your mouth before you even knew what you wanted to say.

“Changkyun, I-”

“I found a really nice place for nights like this. Y/N.” he cut across with an anxious tremble in his voice. He could feel the apology ready to tumble from your lips, he had to stop you from apologising for things that you really didn’t need to. He hated that your heart was so big and so loving that you were willing to start trying to mend this relationship first. But he hated himself more for not having the courage to try to be even half as loving as you are.

He continued, still looking out over the balcony, worried that he’d start to tear up if he met your eyes again, “you can see the stars so clearly, it’s insane.”

You turned to him, tears welling in your eyes again. Despite having cut each other from your lives for what felt like a lifetime, it broke you how he could still read you like his favourite book.

“Can we go? Y/N? I’ve waited so long to show you.”

Hot tears fell down your cheeks again as Changkyun noticed and turned to you, pulling you into his chest as you cried out the mess of emotions you had amassed. 

The person you had wanted to talk about your breakup with Changkyun the most, was so ironically Changkyun. He’d know how to calm you down, how to sort out your problems with ice cream in bed like any other issue you were facing. But what were you supposed to do when you had cut the one who understood you the most so bluntly from your life? Who were you supposed to turn to when you wanted to talk about that?

Your cries pierced into his heart deeper with every second that passed, feeling the hurt in your voice in the deepest parts of his soul. He replied by holding you tighter, and you could feel all those things he left unsaid that day you left in the warmth of his chest.

“We don’t have to rush,” He whispered into your hair, “I have all the time in the world for you. Let it out.”

He brought a hand up from your shoulders hesitantly, feeling almost undeserving of comforting you after the pain he had caused you. But to you, his hand stroking your hair was where you found your solace.

So, there you stood, in each other’s arms having poured out your hearts to one another without having said a single word. But you both knew that you felt every single one.

[ladykissingfish]

A Date with an Angel // Part Two // Hidan and Obito

Hidan

“Order whatever you want; I swiped the old fuck’s credit card so dinner’s on him!” Konan panics at this, and refuses to pick up her menu until Hidan takes out his wallet and proves that he was just kidding. Today was Hidan’s turn at entertaining the lovely little lady, and he had originally intended to take her to a heavy metal performance at bar downtown (he was friends with the lead guitarist so they would have gotten in free). However, after he informed Nagato of his plans, he was met with a disappointing “Konan hates heavy metal.”, so he decided to take her to dinner instead. She seemed entirely suspicious when he approached her earlier (wearing a dress shirt and tie instead of his usual dirty muscle tank and ripped sweatpants), but nonetheless agreed to go with him to a quiet little cafe a few blocks down from the house. Konan has never really known what to make of Hidan. He was just slightly older than Deidara, but (in Konan’s opinion) ranking much higher on the “immaturity” wheel. He’s been nicknamed by the rest of the group as “Mr. Never-Dies”, because no matter what happens, what job he takes on, how badly he’s hurt ... he just keeps getting back up. One time he came home with blood running from the crown of his head and flowing into his boots, but rather than let anyone take him to a hospital, Hidan took out a needle and made Kakuzu stitch the gash on his forehead. No painkillers, no alcohol, not even any flinching. Anyone else would have been substantially messed up after such a heavy blood loss ... but Hidan was just fine, in fact laughing and talking like nothing was amiss. He’s extremely foul-mouthed and has a thing for telling dirty jokes, but today, on his date with Konan, he’s making a great effort to restrain himself. Hidan wants very badly to put his arm around her waist as he walks along beside her, but resists as he knows Nagato will tear him a new asshole if he makes her in anyway uncomfortable. He’s at a loss for what to talk to her about, so he simply asks her how she’s feeling. There’s a pause, and she goes “I’m not really sure. I lost my mood ring yesterday.” He bursts out laughing, so hard that she blushes. “That’s pretty damn funny, lady.”Konan tilts her head in surprise; nobody had ever complimented her humor before. In fact she’s usually told that the few jokes she does make are very flat, or somewhat dark. Fast forward to the cafe, where Konan is surprised again that Hidan asks for a table that’s “quiet”, and pulls out her chair for her. The waiter comes back and Konan is amused by the amount of food that Hidan is ordering. When it’s her turn, her mind is a blank, so she just orders the last thing he said (which was spaghetti and meatballs). “That’s all?” he asks, as the waiter collects their menus and leaves. “No wonder you’re so slender.” She asks him how in the world HE’S so skinny when he eats so much, and he explains he has a fast metabolism, like his mother. Konan is interested; she’s never heard him mention his family before. As if reading her mind, he says, “Me and those guys just don’t get along. They wrote me off as a brain-dead bastard when I said I wasn’t goin’ to college.” “College isn’t everything, you know. People have to do what’s right for them.” Hidan agrees, and begins telling her his much he enjoys working for Nagato, and the type of jobs they do. It’s interesting; when you got him away from the others and in a calm, quiet setting, Hidan was ... normal. Normal and actually very charming. And although he never says it out-loud, Konan gets the strong impression that Hidan has come to consider the rest of the group as being a surrogate family. Then the food comes out and Hidan turns into a different creature altogether. He eats much like an animal, viciously and indiscriminately. But instead of being disgusted by this, Konan ... feels relaxed. There’s an unspoken feeling here, that with Hidan, she can let go and be herself. She doesn’t have to worry about looking pretty, or eating daintily, or acting “like a lady”. In fact Hidan orders them ice cream sundaes for dessert,

then challenges her to see who can eat theirs the fastest. Hidan ends up winning, but they end up with a horrible case of brain-freeze that leaves them both paralyzed for several moments ... yet laughing pretty hard. Even though Konan ate far less than Hidan, she feels quite stuffed nonetheless and mentions this to Hidan, who immediately offers to give her a piggy back ride home. She hesitates to accept; it’s a ways home and Konan feels she’s not the lightest woman in the world (especially after a big meal). But he insists, and she lets him hoist her into his back and trot back to the house with her. They laugh and joke the entire way, with Hidan making numerous comments about how light she is and how good she smells. “That’s one thing about living in a house full of guys for so long; I got so used to the smell of ass and dirty socks and Doritos that I forgot there’s people in the world who know what the fuck deodorant and shampoo are!” Konan laughs so hard at this that she slips off Hidan’s back and lands on her knees in the grass, holding her stomach and howling. Seeing that she likely won’t calm down anytime soon to grab onto his back again, Hidan picks her up and carries her in his arms the last two blocks home. He sets her down gently outside the front door, telling her how much fun she is to be with, when she throws her arms around his shoulders, squeezing him. “I can’t remember the last time I laughed this hard,” she says as she lets him go, wiping tears from her eyes. “Thank you.” He hesitates, then leans down and very gently kisses her cheek, before telling her that she’s welcome to hang out with him anytime, because “I’ve got a million more jokes, doll, and I’ll gladly tell ‘em all to you.” He walks her to her room and chances giving her another kiss, this one on the forehead, before bidding her Goodnight.

Obito

“Can I ask you a question?” “Yeah?” “When we’re at home, when we’re around the others, why do you wear that thing?” It’s the next day, and Konan is at a bar (ironically, the same one that Hidan wanted to take her to the previous day) with Obito. Out of everyone in the house, Obito is the one that strikes Konan as being the most mysterious. To begin with, the day she met him he was wearing a unique orange half-mask over his face ... and never took it off. She questioned Nagato about it but he seemed reluctant to speak on Obito’s unique fashion choice, and none of the others acted as though there was anything strange about it. He joined he others for dinner each night but seemed to prefer sweets to actual food, and he was quiet. Nagato told Konan that Obito was more or less his right hand man within the organization, and had helped him recruit the other members. Obito never spoke to her unless she spoke first ... so naturally she had been surprised when he approached her as she was coming out of her room, and asked if she minded joining him for “a quick drink”. The bar, like everything else, was in walking distance of the house; but Obito took her on the back of his motorcycle. It was a short ride but an exhilarating one ... and it got even more exciting when, upon entering the bar, Obito glanced around, saw there weren’t many people, and took off his mask. He found them a seat at a table near the back, and ordered them both a glass of wine. Konan had tried her hardest not to stare at his face ((which was difficult; aside from a few jagged scars on the left side and what looked like a damaged eye, he was quite handsome)) but eventually he caught her looking, hence giving her the bravery to pose her question. Obito paused for several moments, as if contemplating what to say. “Why do women wear makeup? Why do people dye their hair or get piercings or tattoos or wear crazy clothes? It’s because they have something about themselves that they don’t like, so they try to cover it up. I don’t like my face. I haven’t since my accident.” Konan blinks, genuinely surprised at Obito’s answer. She chances it to ask “Accident?” He gave her a wry smile and ordered himself a shot of whiskey (and her an ice tea) saying he needed something stronger to tell her about it. “When I was a kid, my parents liked to go rock climbing. Took me with to National parks every summer. One year my dad got drunk and took me and my mom up a dangerous path. He pulled on a rock the wrong way, and it came out of the mountain, along with a bunch more, and crashed down on us. Really long fall; mom and dad killed right away. But me ... I guess the devil decided he wasn’t done with me. A boulder crushed this entire side of my body, and my face got fucked ... but I lived. Had to go to a lot of physical therapy. Also had to go live with my uncle Madara — that guy’s a piece of work. But anyway I lived and here we are, right?” Konan is quiet for a long while, watching the ice cubes float around in her glass. “I like you like this,” she finally says, and this time she’s looking him directly in the face. “I understand if you want to be someone different, or like, if you feel like your mask makes you different, but, if you ever want to be THIS Obito ... please come to my room. We can talk, we can listen to music and eat junk and watch movies and talk about books and —“ Obito interrupts her by putting both arms around her, squeezing her warmly. “Thank you, Konan.” They stay for another few hours, and Konan is pleasantly surprised to find that Obito without the mask, Obito away from the house ... is fantastic. He teaches her how to play pool, he keeps her laughing with countless stories about growing up with his “crazy uncle”. At one point in the night he convinces her to join him at the karaoke machine on the stage, and the two sing duets of Disney songs (to the thunderous applause of the few people at the bar).The ride back home is mostly quiet, him driving slower this time and her holding on to him, each filled with their own thoughts. Before they get to the front

door, Konan lifts Obito’s mask just the slightest bit, and kisses his cheek. “This is the best night I’ve had in a long, long time. I appreciate you letting me get to know you.” He smiles and blushes, then slides the mask back into place before opening the front door. Some of the others are in the living room, and Obito quietly greets them before heading to his room. Konan was awed by how effortless the switch from animated and somewhat goofy to reserved and calm seemed to be for him ... and found herself wondering if any of the others were putting on a facade as well. She takes her shower and goes to her room, intending to go to sleep early, but after about an hour of restlessly tossing back and forth, she gives it up. She turns her light back on and picks up the remote to her tv, thinking that maybe a good, boring show will put her to sleep. But before she can find anything, a knock comes on the door. She goes to open it, and is surprised to find Obito standing there. “I saw the light underneath your door. Can I come in?” She takes him by the arm and pulls him inside. Once inside, he slides off his mask and, looking around, finds a seat for himself on one of Konan’s chairs. He opens up his jacket to reveal a small book, worn and obviously read many times. “I saw you reading this last week. I remember you telling Sasori that you finished it. I was wondering; what did you think in Chapter seven, when —“

[stitch-n-time]

Can you explain how the US housing laws work? You have me interested

Short answer: they don’t.

Longer answer (because I have to work tonight and truly don’t have like 8 hours to write the thesis, because you bet your ass I could):

There is actually an internal structure that the low income housing system has been built around that makes it nearly impossible to navigate, difficult to get into, and specifically works against the people that it was supposedly built to help.

I’m actually not quite sure where to start with this, so it’s going to be all over the place and bouncing back and forth, but that’s also kind of on brand for the low income housing system.

The system as we know it is very much a post WWII thing, so the info here will be from after that point. A lot of this will be in kind of broad, sweeping terms. But since the US is like 60 different states in a trenchcoat trying to sneak into an R-rated movie, very little of it actually covers the entirety of the country. There are also state and city levels of bullshit that people have to wade through. Most people don’t make it.

I’m going to use my own experiences as an example. But know that my experiences are NOT typical. When I started down this rabbit hole, I was a 30-ish year old white woman, a part time student, presented as a professional female on a daily basis, had a fairly stable income from a job I had held for years, and a vehicle (though making payments). All of this put together meant I had it pretty easy.

Some of that caused problems, though. The vehicle was a problem. It was a newer model gently used vehicle. According to the dealership, the previous owner had traded it in because it was a manual transmission and they wanted an automatic. When I bought it, it had less than 60k miles on it and was in excellent condition. In the eyes of the people who approve the paperwork and rubber stamp applicants for low income housing, I could get rid of that vehicle, and the moneys spent on the payments and insurance could go toward housing. Which would be reasonable, except most of the US doesn’t have public transportation at all. What public transport does exist is sketchy, rarely runs on schedule, and often does not go into residential areas. I COULD have gotten rid of the car, but that would have meant a 2 mile hike to the nearest bus station, 4 hours on a bus to get to class and 5 hours on the return trip twice a week, then a 2 mile hike home OR a 2 mile hike to the nearest bus station, 4.5 hours on a bus, another 2 mile hike to get to work, and the same on the return. At that point, I would have been spending more time on the bus than either at work or school, and might as well just live on the damned thing, since all I would have time to do at home is shower and MAYBE eat a sandwich?

But that’s also typical. Part of the laws as they are written specifically state that a person or household can not own physical properties that are over a certain value, because those properties could be sold in order to elevate the person/family’s lifestyle. That also makes household absolutely reliant on public transportation, which is simply not available in many poor areas.

Which goes into redlining, and systemic racism, which is a huge part of this, but is a whole ‘nother essay.

The fact that I was a student also worked against me. If a person can afford to go to school, they can afford housing. So why would you want/need help from the government? I’m just thankful that I was a part time student when the need for low income housing arose… If you’re a full time student, you are automatically denied on any application for low income housing. There are different legal designations for “low income housing” and “student housing”. They can not exist in the same housing complex for legal reasons. So if I had been taking one more class that semester, I would have been denied, and would have been homeless.

That in itself doesn’t sound terrible. And there’s reasons for the legal differences. But think about it… What if I had been in the last semester of school and something had happened? What about the people who are both enrolled in school and are working, trying to make ends meet, trying to be able to do something better, and either their lease is up or they get evicted or… I don’t know… their house burns down or a tornado hits or suddenly medical bills? If a person fills out that paperwork while still a student, even if they say “I’m graduating next month and want to move in the month after that” they still count as a full time student and would get denied. Which means leaving school and being spit out into the post graduate world probably without a job, while being denied help with keeping a roof over their head, when it’s absolutely necessary to have a physical address while searching for a job.

Which goes into the anti-homeless way of thinking, which is a huge part of this, but is a whole ‘nother essay.

I’m going to lump the “fairly stable income from a job I had held for years” and “presented as a professional female on a daily basis” into one, because they are directly related. I had worked my way through a trade school, and had been working in the medical field for nearly 4 years. The practice was open 4 days a week. I was there 2 days, the male counterpoint was there the other 2 days. If a client preferred one of us over the other, either they scheduled appropriately, or the doctor asked us to come in for that client’s appointment time. Because a large portion of the clientele were middle aged and older, as well as conservative, the dress code reflected accordingly. Since I actually REALLY liked the job, and the doctor and his family were pretty awesome people, I dressed and styled accordingly, on a daily basis. But because the number of hours on the clock varied with the number of clients scheduled for therapy appointments, there were times when those paychecks got mighty thin. There were absolutely trends of busy seasons and light seasons. Sometimes during that light season there were days when I would go to work for a couple of hours, go home until about 3PM, then go back for 2 or 3 hours. It was hard to pin that down.

Having to explain that I could not pinpoint an amount of annual income with any accuracy while filling out the application worked against me. And just about anybody who works in retail, food service, etc. - all the jobs that people with low incomes tend to have – will tell you that they suffer the same thing. Go  into work, put in a couple of hours, and have the manager come tell you to go home because it’s not busy enough to justify having people on the clock. But without having an accurate estimation of annual income (that could be verified by their calling your employer) means that the application is denied. The general consensus is that if you can’t pinpoint your annual income, then you’re lieing on the application, which means you’re untrustworthy, and therefore don’t deserve to get the help you need to keep a roof over your head.

That conservative professional look helped me here, though. I went into the office dressed well, in khakis and a nice blouse, to fill out the application and speak to the people. While I was there, another lady came in to fill out an application. This is somebody who I happened to know personally. She was also a professional, who was arguably in a slightly better place than I was because her income did not fluctuate (though it was low, as she was recovering from a divorce and most of the family income had come from her ex husband), but she was “dressed down” in shorts and a t shirt. We made the same arguments. I ended up in an apartment, and she did not.

Honestly, I was actually lucky to get into an apartment. A lot of people don’t realize it, but even with things being classified as low income housing, it takes a LOT of money to get into places. Just like every other rental in the US, before you move in, you have to pay the first month’s rent. And a deposit. And if you have pets, another deposit. And the cost of having the electricity and water turned on. And depending on the specific details of the contract you have to sign, possibly trash pickup. And if you want internet, either you pay for that and get a modem through the ISP, or you pay extra on signing the lease. And if you want to do your laundry in your home (if there’s even a hookup), there’s an extra rental fee for a washer and dryer, unless you bring your own.

I got lucky. When I applied and was approved, this particular housing development was running a “special” - if you sign a lease, you get one month rent free to use within 12 months of signing. I had to use it immediately. With all the extra fees and everything else, I could either pay for the rent OR the deposit, but not both – so I paid the deposit and laughingly told them I’d like to use that free month on the first month, immediately, right now, please and thank you, now where’s my key? They almost turned me away at that point.

I honestly believe that if it hadn’t been for my professional clothing and the fact that I could point to a couple of scabs on my face, that I would have been denied at that point. (The scabs were from a dog. I had been renting a room from a “friend” who is no longer a friend. Her dog bit my face, and instead of punishing the dog, she decided I needed to move out that weekend. Note: this is literally the ONLY time I’ve had a dog bite me, despite having been around them most of my life, and this particular dog had snapped at multiple people before.)

Which goes into classism, which is a huge part of this, but is a whole ‘nother essay.

Now the thing that has been on my last nerve for a few years now is a good one. The laws state that if your household changes in any way, you have to fill out the application again. Doesn’t matter if you literally got approved the day before: you fill it out again. Because there have been household changes. It doesn’t sound terrible at all, but I know somebody who got evicted from low income housing and ended up homeless because his wife left. Suddenly the household size was smaller, but had the same income, and it was over the limit for the household size. Sorry not sorry you have to go. I know somebody who was evicted for “falsified paperwork” because she had a baby and was in the hospital for 2 weeks, so didn’t get the paperwork in on time. They ended up in a homeless shelter (in this city, homeless shelters are more expensive than a lot of low income housing). Now she’s in debt that she’ll probably never get out of, due to that.

What’s more is that the eligibility requirements to be able to pass those income thresholds change constantly. Out of curiosity, I tracked the changes over the course of a year. Just checking on the first of the month. In a single year, the income requirements changed 10 times. It’s not easy to keep track of, and there’s not much reason to track it unless it’s literally part of your job, in order to keep in compliance with the laws.

My own personal gripe is much less severe than that. I can’t get married. Technically, my fiance can’t live with me. On paper, he lives with his parents, miles away. But he spends most of his time in my apartment, which is under my name only, because I’m disabled (but ineligible for disability) and need his help. We’ve been together for a decade. We’ve been engaged for over 5 years. But if we get married, then the household changes, and we have to fill out the paperwork and get approved again. The thing is: if we put together our incomes into one “household” income, we would never be eligible for low income housing. Which means we would have to move out.

Moving out comes with it’s own difficulties. Because of the paperwork you have to sign to lease low income housing – and depending on where you are because 60 states in a trenchcoat – there are hoops to jump through. The lease in this particular development,  you get a choice. If you break the lease you either a) pay the full amount of rent on the apartment through the end of the lease term or b) pay two months’ rent on the apartment after termination of the lease. So not only would we have to find other housing that we could afford (with all of the move in fees, deposits, transfer of service fees for utilities, bla bla bla), we would also have to pay 2 months’ rent on top of everything else. Which means either borrowing literally thousands of dollars from an individual – banks won’t do loans for this – or having to decide which bills get paid and which don’t while surviving off of ramen noodles for months at a time. Which… uh… would not work well with the man-thing’s diabetes.

Which all goes into respectability politics, and deciding whether or not poor people deserve to have stability and emotional fulfillment, which is a huge part of this, but is a whole ‘nother essay.

Now this may sound like a whole lot of personal whining. And it kind of is. But I can’t speak for anybody else. This is my personal interactions with these people and with the laws behind their behavior. But it’s the laws themselves that are written to be exclusive of the people that need help the most.

Homeless people can not apply, because they don’t have a current address.

Unemployed people can not apply, because they don’t have an income.

Full time students can not apply, because of the legal definitions of the different types of housing.

People with “disposable” property (such as cars) are often denied because they could turn those assets into monies.

People who rely on that “disposable” property for work are unable to take advantage of low income housing due to the above.

People of color who have been relegated to specific neighborhoods where public transportation is not available due to the redlining of the last century are unable to take advantage of low income housing due to the above.

People who do not have thousands of dollars readily available are denied because they can not pay both the deposit and rent.

People who face employment discrimination (even though it’s illegal) are denied because they can not provide proof of steady income.

People who have bounced from employer to employer are often denied for the same reason.

People who have successfully gained low income housing are often unable to change anything about their household.

People who have successfully gained low income housing are often unable to get out of it if their situation improves.

All of it is written into the laws surrounding the housing itself.

So…. Yeah. It doesn’t work. But if you want me to actually get into the nitty gritty, I can start actually researching. But somebody’s gotta pay me for it.

[bode-leone]

andy + booker, gen, 1,924 words. 

--

K̂ormon means weasel, ermine or stoat in Proto-Indo-European.

The gif referenced is this one.

--

Andy shows up at his Paris apartment, sporting her usual black backpack and sunglasses, nearly two years into the exile. He hasn’t done much but he’s taken to speaking to other people online, through messaging boards and forums, and has even worked up the courage to begin talking to someone more psychologically trained. He’s still in his single digits amount of appointments, and it takes a lot to work through the issues he has when he has to use subterfuge for most of them. It’s from one of these appointments that he unlocks his door, unthinking and not realising that someone is in there until he hears a shift and his hand flies to the gun he doesn’t have on him. 

“You’re not going to shoot little old me are you? Hmm?”

Andy’s voice. It was Andy. He can barely get his eyes up to look at her before tears are running down his face, to both his shock and hers. His appointment had been dealing with a lot of heavy stuff, that is, mainly about Jean-Pierre and his feelings about outliving his family. So Andy showing up for the first time since he’d been left on the river Thames was like a tsunami running through him. He brings his hands up to rub at the tears. 

“I’m sorry,” he says watery, sniffling. “I promise I’m doing better, really.”

Andy looks him up and down and comes to a decision, he can see the cogs in her head turning from where he’s standing in the middle of the rundown apartments living room and kitchen. She soon opens her arms wide, inviting him in to hug her. 

“Come here, Book,” she murmurs and he does, but he drags his feet giving her enough time to back out if she wants to. 

He sees her roll her eyes and she crosses the last few meters herself, throwing her arms around him and seemingly holding him up as his knees nearly buckles, despite the height difference between them. She rubs his back, humming a little, and he clings to her, his face shoved in the junction of her shoulder and neck. He thought he’d never see her again, never again get to talk about translations of classics, never again get to listen to her repeated stories about fighting with the real Achilles, with the real Alexander. But here she is, in the flesh. 

She still smells the same, he notes when his crying has subsided and his body has worked itself into a tired slump, hinting at exhaustion. 

She pulls back and her almost doesn’t want to; wants to hold her in his arms until she knows instinctively that he’s sorry and that he’d never do anything stupid or selfish as what he had done ever again. Looking at her, though, he thinks she knows. He looks at her carefully and she doesn’t look any more older than she had when he had last seen her, maybe a frown line more. 

“I want to go out, Book, know any good places?” She says as she lowers and then removes her sunglasses. 

Her eyes still spark at him and leaves him a little dimwitted.

“Um...ah, I go to a club that plays old stuff, stuff from the forties and fifties. Or do you want to go somewhere more modern?” He says quietly, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. He didn’t really go out much and when he did it was more for the ambience than the dancing, really.

“No, that’s great. It’s getting close to six now, we should head out.”

--

He calls an uber to take them to the 11th Arrondissement and to the club that he goes to. He pays for their entry fees and takes her to where he usually sits. They sit there for an hour, him buying her drinks and listening to anything she’d give him about herself, the others. She purses her lips when he first asks her about the others, obviously running through the risk of her telling him anything anyways, before deciding that some will not bring them to ruin. Again. 

“We’re doing fine. Nile is learning quickly, quicker than you did,” he laughs into his drink to cover the subtle sharp pang at that, “but we’re all different. You were different. She’s different. Differences aren’t bad Sebastien, however much you’re thinking you were never good.” 

He looks at his drink, the beer suddenly souring in his mouth. Yet again his deficits are so easily seen despite the amount of effort he had put in the last two years to fix what was wrong with him. The use of his name further cements this as a failing. 

“I’m sorry,” he says truthfully, looking at her out from under his mop of hair that he really needed to get cut. “I’m in therapy, I have been for the last few years. I know it doesn’t make up for anything but I am trying to be better.”

She looks at him in the eye, taking a mouthful of her horrifying liquor mix as she does so. She sighs when she swallows. 

“Are you doing this for you? Or are you doing this as an attempt to lower your sentence?”

He thinks, for a moment, on the questions. 

“Both. I’m doing it for me because I can’t live with my brain telling me things like that but I also can’t help but hope it’s enough to reduce my sentence,” he says and winces. “Sorry, I guess I’m not really very far in being better. Sorry.”

He looks out into the small crowd of people dancing already, some slowly and some fast. It’s nice to see something kept and saved, even if it’s just a dance. It feels like the more he looks, the more there’s little to recognise. He cannot imagine what it’s like for Andy, with all her thousands of years. 

“Wanting something isn’t necessarily bad, Sebastien,” she says quietly and draws his gaze back to herself. “It’s not bad that you want to come back, I’d be suspicious if you didn’t, but the fact that you can recognise that you need help is the most important thing here. Now, I want to dance and you’re going to dance with me.”

She holds a hand out to him over the booth table and he takes it and tells himself the butterflies he feels are simply the emotions of having contact with his family. 

They dance for hours, both swing and slow, and he blushes involuntarily when his hands are on her hips like he’s a teenage boy, stuttering and nervous. She leads more than he does, considering the last time he had been dancing like this was when the dances were originally from. He finds he has a good time, able to let go of himself for just a little while and pretend he truly was the forty two year old man his body portrays him to be. 

They leave, with Andy’s arm hooked through his, in an uber the same way they arrived. Upon arriving home, he realises he has not planned for a single major obstacle: his apartment only has one bed. He tells Andy that he can sleep on the floor and she can take the bed and her eyes roll upward. 

“Book, it’s fine. Stop acting like everything that happens is the end of the world, we’ll be fine.”

He tries not to stare at the reddish-pink scar on her abdomen when her singlet rides up as she gets ready for bed. Tries to not let its existence feel like the reaffirmation of the thousands of pounds of guilt on his shoulders, rising to his ears instinctively. She huffs at him after brushing her teeth. 

“What you did, it’s shit and horrifying, but it’s been done. It does nobody any good to keep reminiscing on it.”

She lifts her shirt over the scar and motions to it.

“This? This isn’t going to go away no matter how much we both wish it would. Stop looking like you did,” she motions with her neck and shoulders, “you look like a k̂ormon.”

His face must show his confusion over the last word because she rolls her eyes, drags him to the bed, pushes him down into it and turns out the light, plunging the room into darkness. He gets himself situated under the sheets and blankets, not knowing which way to face. Andy checks her phone once before locking it and putting it on the side table. 

“So-”

“It means weasel, Book. You look like a weasel when you do that.”

He bursts out laughing involuntarily, wiping his eyes. 

“K̂ormon, k̂ormon, k̂ormon,” he murmurs, knowing instinctively that it’s from her original language. “I like it.”

--

He wakes up and feels someone’s arms around him. 

It takes a moment for his brain to work and place whose arms they are. Her face is pressed into the back of his neck. He sighs, relaxing out of his tensed position. He looks out the window to the dreary, grey light. It musnt be very late, he can continue to sleep. It’s the first time in a long time that he hadn’t had a Quynh dream, hadn’t woken gasping and thrashing, without the use of alcohol or narcotics. He yawns and buries his face back into his pillow, distantly feeling her arms tighten around him before he slips back under. 

He wakes again to the rustling of fabric and his eyes slip open, blinking slowly. The light is bright and a warmer colour. He turns to where the rustling is coming from, seeing Andy zipping up her backpack. 

“What time is it?” He murmurs muzzily, rubbing his eyes. 

“It’s seven thirty,” she says as she puts her sunglasses on her head. “Know anywhere good to eat?”

He does so he gets up and showers and makes himself presentable to be seen in public. As they walk down the arrondissement towards the café, she slings an arm around his shoulders and leans close.

“The others are waiting for me to make a decision about whether or not you can come back,” she murmurs before pulling away.

He keeps moving, in shock, until he motions for her to stop and they walk into the café. He gets a black coffee and croissant with Andy getting a café crème and croissant. He doesn’t know how to respond to the revelation and eats his croissant and drinks his coffee. Once he’s done and he’s had enough of watching Andy’s self satisfied smile, they get up to leave. He lets her wander out and he pays for their meals. 

He wanders out to her and she swings her pack onto her back using both shoulders. She reaches out and kisses his cheeks, quickly, rubbing her thumbs over his cheekbones.

Slipping her sunglasses onto her face, she smiles at him. 

“It’ll be all good, k̂ormon, you’ll see,” she says, “just wait for my signal.” 

She then walks off in the direction of the metro. 

He rubs his hand over his mouth and then walks in the opposite direction, back to his apartment. 

--

The signal comes in the form of a gif in a text message at 2:45 AM that wakes him up as the tone goes off near his head. 

The gif is of an ermine, a white one, and it looks like it’s talking, saying “we shouldn’t change just so we can fit in here.”

There’s a short message, too. 

It’s time to come home, k̂ormon.

[shoyodon]

𝟓𝟎𝟎 𝐅𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧!

Hi! oh my gosh It feels like my blog grew really fast? I’m really grateful to every one of you and I’m so glad that I get to do what I love while also making you guys happy! My 500 follower celebration may not be the most exciting or original but I wanted to do something different for the occasion! Im putting my WIPS on pause and opening up prompt requests! 

Send an ask with a number w/ 2 characters max and I’ll write a short fic or HC (depending on prompt) about it!  Both HAIKYUU! and BNHA characters are available!

*depending on amount of requests, I will cap the amount of requests I take on, sorry 🥺

Requests closed!!

The prompt requests will be open until tomorrow at 6pm CST so send them in! below is the prompt list, all credit for this list goes to @marauder-exe​ !

Angst

“I love you ! Is that what you wanted to hear ?”

“I love him/her, and I know that I shouldn’t.”

“Can you just shut your mouth ?”

“wHY DO YOU KEEP LYING TO ME ?”

“We both know that I should walk away, but I can’t.”

“Wait, he/she has a girlfriend/boyfriend ?"

“I lo—-” “No, please… Don’t say that. You love her/him, not me.”

"Could you just take this pain away ? It hurts, so much… Help me.”

“You’re safe here, I got you.”

“Don’t ask her out again, please… You’re killing me, every single time you ask that.”

“Look, he/she wants you, just make him/her happy.”

“If you go, I’ll know that you never loved me.”

“We never were just friends, and you know it.” “I know it, but you deserve someone better than me.”

“SHE WAS CRYING BECAUSE OF YOU!!!”

“You love me like I’m the person who actually deserves your love.” “But you are the only one who deserves it.”

“I know for a fact that you’re not “fine”.”

“You’re looking at me like.. you’re disgusted. What did I do? Just tell me what I did, please!”

“What happened between us?”

“Nothing has changed!” “Yes it has, and you know it.”

“Love isn’t supposed to hurt this badly.”

“You said you needed space. You were 5,000 miles away for a year, and you’re still unsure. I’m starting to think that an entire universe apart wouldn’t be enough space for you.”

“I remember when he/she/they used to look at me that way”

“I want you to list every lie you ever told me. Then I’ll forgive you.”

“I don’t hate you. I hate that after all of this, you’re still trying to lie to me”

“I can’t keep this secret for you anymore.”

“I’m sorry I’m not what you signed up for.”

“Why she/her/them? It could have been anybody, and you chose to betray me with her/him/them.”

“This will be the last time you lie to me.”

“You never loved me, did you?”

“You made me miserable and I still loved you.”

“Everytime something goes well, I momentarily forget how much I despise you.”

“We’re never going to have a happy ending, just remember that.”

“Don’t pretend like you’re not happy to see me like this.”

“Your mind must be a horrible place.”

“Hand me the gun and I’ll kill him myself.”

“And I thought you loved me."

" And I thought I loved you."

" Aren't you even going to cry?"

“I didn’t expect you to wait forever. I just hoped…”

“Did you always know that you were going to leave?”

“If you cry, I’ll stay, and if I stay that will just give you another reason to hate me.”

“I’m addicted and at this point I don’t think anything could make me stop.”

”If you wanna know, then ask.”

“You never asked because you knew I wouldn’t tell you what you wanted to hear.”

“We grew apart, and at this point I’m glad.”

“Find somebody else to kiss your ass.”

“When are you going to stop clawing for something that’s never going to happen?”

“What you’re doing is going to kill you one day.”

“It was easier to believe that the you I knew was dead than deal with the fact that I still have to see you every day.”

“What you’re doing is going to kill you one day.”

Fluff

51. “You’re hair is really soft after you wash it.”

52. “Ssh. Stop fussing. I’m just braiding your hair.”

53. “You smell really nice.”

54. “Would it be all right if I borrowed your sweater? It smells like you.”

55. “I might have slept with your robe when you were gone.”

56. “If you steal the blankets, I am going to put my cold feet on you.”

57. “Here, let’s share the blanket.”

58. “You’re comfy.”

59.“You are very endearing when you are half-asleep.”

60.“But I want to hear you sing.”

61.“Don’t get up - I’ll do it.”

62.“Care to give me a back scratch?”

63.“I think I love you.”

64.“Your bed head is really cute.”

65.“How about a kiss?”

66.“You made this for me?”

67.Aw, you’re blushing.”

68. Uh oh, I know that look. What do you want?”

69. “Let me help you with that.”

70. “I don’t want to forget this moment.”

71.“Are you really flirting with me right now?”

72.“I like the way your hand fits in mine.”

73.“You have something in your hair, umm… Do you want me to get it out?”

74.“It’s nice that your voice was the first thing I heard today.”

75.“This movie is really scary, but you’re into it so I’m trying not to cover my face the whole time, but- WHAT IS THAT?”

76.“Wait, don’t pull away… Not yet.”

77.“Half the time I get too embarrassed to say anything”

78.“No, it’s fine.  I can wait until you’re done talking to them.”

79.“No, like…. It’s just, I can’t believe you’re actually wearing my clothes.”

80.“You’re a big piece of inspiration for this, honestly.”

81.“I’ve been trying to get ready for like an hour and a half, because I know you’re going to look so good and I need to try and match up.”

82.“I wanted to say “I love you” for the first time without stuttering, but that failed.”

83.“My friends get so annoyed by how much I talk about how sometimes.”

84.“No, mom, don’t tell him/her I said that about him/her!”

85.“I can’t get over how a few months ago I wanted to learn your name and now you’re having breakfast with me in my sweater.”

86.“ You are so beautiful — So fucking beautiful. “

87.“And just WHERE do you think you’re putting your hands?”

88.“Wow, you look even better in the daylight.”

89.“I don’t remember ever having this many hickeys. But I don’t mind.”

90.“We could order pizza and just stay like this all day.”

91.“It was always you.”

92.I love you in every possible way.”

93.“I didn’t mean to love you so much.”

94.“Don’t you hurt a single hair on his/her/their head.”

95.“Duck, you idiot!”

96.“Hey. Pal. I’ve got a wand and I’m not afraid to use it.”

97.“Shh, you’re safe. I won’t let you go.”

98.“It’s not a double date. We’re just third and fourth wheeling.”

99.“Look, I know we don’t know each other that well, but I’m still worried about you. No one deserves to be alone.”

100.“I remember practicing how to ask you out in the mirror..”

Sarcasm

101.“Define normal.”

102.“Do I get bonus points if I act like I care?”

103.“Just remember if we get caught, you’re deaf and I don’t speak English.”

104.“Don’t look for any redeeming qualities. I don’t have any.”

105.“It’s amazing how fast the world can go from bad to total shit storm.”

106.“I love you. You enormously stubborn pain in the ass.”

107.“And you wonder why you’re still single.”

108.“Remind me to kill you. Please.”

109.“That’s a little melodramatic, don’t you think?”

110.“She’s crazy. And just when you think you’ve reached the bottom of her craziness, there’s a crazy underground garage.”

111.“She may seem like lollipops and rainbows but I bet behind close doors she’s latex and whips.”

112.“If my day gets any worse, I’m asking hell if they’re having an exchange program.”

113.“Sorry. I don’t speak skank.”

114.“My middle finger salutes you.”

115.“I don’t have enough middle fingers to let you know how I feel.”

116.Somebody’s cranky.” “Somebody needs to shut up.”

117.“Oh darling. Go buy a brain.”

118.“Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

119.“All due respect, but that’s a bunch of crap.”

120.“I am one of the few people in the world who can murder you and leave no forensic evidence behind.”

121.“Excuse me. I have to go make a scene.”

122.“What did I tell you about calling her/him the devil?” “That it’s offensive to the devil?”

123.“I heard that!” “You were supposed to!”

124.“I need therapy after this.”

125.“You didn’t get in trouble for lying. You got in trouble for lying badly.”

126.“I turned out liking you a lot more that I originally planned.”

127.“I think you’re weird.” “I think you’re boring.”

128.“I’m afraid I’ve been thinking…” “A dangerous pastime.”

129.“Wow, there’s a big surprise. I think I’m going to have a heart attack and die from surprise.”

130.“I’m gonna hit you so hard, it’ll make you ancestors dizzy.”

131.“Sarcasm is the body’s natural reaction to stupidity.”

132.“Well, excuse me, psychic wonder!”

133.“Don’t look in her eyes, she might steal your soul.”

134.“She’s hot, but she’s evil.”

135.“Do I regret it? Yes. Would I do it again? Probably.”

136.“I already know that I’m going to hell. At this point it’s really go big or go home.”

137.“I’m not a damsel in distress. I’m a damsel doing damage.”

138.“So stick that in your juice box and suck it.”

139.“Never take life seriously. No one ever comes out alive anyway.”

140.“Sometimes I question my sanity. Occasionally it replies.”

141.“Why should we date?” “Because we are attracted to each other.” “I am attracted to pie, but I do not feel the need to date pie.”

142.“Neither one us is drunk enough for this conversation.”

143.“You’re questioning my methods.” “I’m not questioning it, I’m saying it’s stupid.”

144.“Wow, somebody needs a Happy Meal.”

145.“I didn’t do it!” “Then why are you laughing?” “Because whoever did it is a freaking genius.”

146.“Idiots. I’m surrounded by idiots.”

147.“You couldn’t handle me even if I came with instructions.

148.“Obviously you have mistaken me for somebody who gives a shit.”

149.“Rule number one: don’t bother sucking up. I already hate you, that’s not going to change.”

150.“You make no sense to me.” “Welcome to my life.”

Drama

151.“Can you stop thinking about yourself for once?”

152.“Can you stop thinking about yourself for once?”

153.“Don’t think I forgot about what you did last time.”

154.“I know you lied to me.”

155.“I’m not even sorry.”

156.“You backstabber!” 157.“I never want to see you again.” 158.“You never mattered to me.”

159.“I knew this was a bad idea.”

160.“Rot in hell.”

161.“It was supposed to be a secret!”

162.“No one loves me.” 163.“He/she/they is/are so petty…” 164.“You made me cry.” 165.“I don’t know who you are anymore.” 166.“How DARE you?!” 167.“I know you’re not talking to me…” 168.“I SAW you with him/her/them!”

169.“Just leave me alone.”

170.“What did you do?!” 171.“I told everyone that I didn’t want to talk but I’m actually dying for attention.”

172. “Just admit that was extra…”

173.“I forgive, but I don’t forget.” 174.“Did you see what he/she/they was/were wearing?” 175.“So what if I had sex with your ex?” 176.“There’s something I have to tell you…” 177.“I can’t do this anymore.” 178.“You weren’t there for me when I needed you the most.” 179.“I never loved you.” 180.“It’s too late.”

181.“Quit ignoring me.”

182. “Don’t you get it? It’s because I love you!”

183.“I love you. I’m sorry.”

184.“I don’t want to be friends.”

185.“Can we please pretend I never said that?”

186.“Friendzoned again.”

187.“You should’ve loved me when you had the chance.”

188.“Fuck you for toying with my emotions like that.”

189.“I was there for you when no one else was!”

190.“Alright – I can tell a ‘no’ when I hear it.”

191.“I’m sorry I acted so creepy.”

192.“Fuck. It’s like what they say – nice guys finish last…”

193.“I’m tired of keeping this secret. Even if you don’t love me back.”

194. “I knew that’d be your answer. That’s why I never told you before.”

195.“When I said I loved you, I meant it.”

196.“Is there any part of you, deep down, that might love me back?”

197.“You were the one that left all those notes for me?”

198.“You’re in a relationship with another person – you know this can’t end well.”

199.“We agreed this was just physical!”

200.“I love you. I know you don’t love me, so don’t say it back.”

[batwynn]

Quarantine Positive Mental and Physical Health Checklist:

Note: Not everything works for everyone and not every service is provided by your local services, so please always take advice with consideration of that fact. ALWAYS check with your doctor or informed professionals about anything that requires medical treatment, etc. 

(American) National Suicide Hotline:

1-800-273-8255

List of international hotlines:

http://www.suicide.org/international-suicide-hotlines.html

(WARNING! Some of these are no longer operational. Double check in your country for a line if one of these does not work.)

*IF  YOU HAVE/THINK YOU HAVE COVID19 AND ARE SELF ISOLATING TO HEAL AT HOME:

*If you have asthma or any other chronic lung conditions, heart conditions, or kidney conditions please be sure to call either your doctor’s office or the ER if you are experiencing any symptoms of the virus. (Fever, dry cough, trouble breathing.)

*If you are trans and bind or bind your chest for any reason, DO NOT WEAR A BINDER IF YOU HAVE ANY OF THE SYMPTOMS! This virus attacks the lungs! You could cause serious complications and end up hospitalized or worse. I understand the need to bind, and I understand the dangers of not binding. But please, please DO NOT BIND when sick or symptomatic. 

WHO does not recommend people use Ibuprofen, but to use Tylenol for fever and pain reduction.  

Please remember to keep up your intake of fluids!

Checklist: 

Have you taken your medication(s)? — with the stress levels at high right now, now might be a good time to make up a schedule somewhere for your daily medications and their times. If you need reminders, you can use your phone’s calendar function (with an alert set at ‘at the time of the event’) or the ‘reminders’ application (iPhone). If you can’t use these, or don’t have them on your phone, consider asking someone who is available and able to send you a message/text/call to alert you to take your medication(s). If you don’t have a phone, try to place the schedule somewhere you will see it often during the day. (Possibly on the fridge, by your desk, by your bed, etc.) Multiple copies of the schedule might also help.  

Have you been drinking your water, or other fluids? —Hydration is important whether you’re sick or not! If you have trouble drinking water, good alternatives would be coconut water or low-added-sugar juices. (100% juices are best) Sipping soups like broth can also hydrate, but be careful of salt content! Many fruits and veggies also have a high water content. Try: celery, cauliflower, spinach, broccoli, dark leafy greens, tomatoes, watermelon, cantaloupe, strawberries, kiwis or oranges.

Have you spoken today? If not, try to read a few lines of something out loud just to stretch out your jaw and vocal cords a bit. A lot of tension can be held in your jaw, and it’s good to loosen it up a bit every so often. 

Have you had enough sleep? Your mood/health can be seriously affected by lack of sleep. If you’re having trouble going to sleep: Consider reading something familiar and comforting before bed, or consider putting your phone away an hour or so before going to bed, and try to keep it just out of reach. With everything that’s going on, the temptation to check the news all the time or scroll for hours to try to de-stress is understandable. Try to limit yourself to certain times of the day, and avoid doing it late into the night. *There are medications of all sorts from over the counter Melatonin to prescription medications that can help with falling asleep, staying asleep, nightmares, and more. Please reach out to your doctor/therapist/psychologist if you think you need help with sleep. 

Dealing with chronic illnesses or pain and aren’t allowed to go in for your usual appointments or PT(Physical therapy)? Check in with your doctor/specialist’s office by phone and see if they are allowing phone/video appointments. A lot of offices are doing this, and some are willing to refill medications/start new medications via these appointments. MOST Pharmacies will now deliver your medications to your home, some even for free. If you don’t already have a print out of home PT exercises for your specific pain areas, call and ask for them to either mail one to you, or direct you to one online. It’s important to keep up with your PT!

If you’re low on food due to money/stores being empty and you need to keep your blood sugar up, you can try to even things out with Glucose Tablets.  These are not a replacement for a meal, though! Please check all your local food pantries, churches, and even school food programs.

A lot of schools are offering a meals-on-wheels-like program for people with children in need. 

And if you’re elderly, Meals on Wheels is working extra hard to make sure everyone has food, including doubling up the amount you get per week for a lot of people.*  (Please also consider donating to them if you have the funds!) 

If none of these options work, please call 211 to speak to a member of the United Way call center who can help connect you to resources in your area. (This is not just for food.)

Stuck inside with family/roommates/partners and need some alone time?—If you have a private room, stick a sign on the door requesting to be left alone. Adding a period of time can help give them an idea of how long before knocking. For example: ‘Leave me alone for 40 minutes unless emergency please!’ If you do not have a room to yourself, if possible make up a plan with your roommates/family/partners to designate alone time in a room. Each member of the household can have 1 hour time alone in the bedroom/living room/bathroom/etc. Try to keep communication open, even when you really need to be alone. Make sure the others know you need this time, and that it might be good for them, too.

Did you eat today?

• If you feel like you’re dissociating, try counting your fingers or looking at your finger whorls. Remember that they are unique to you, that you are real. If this doesn’t work, you can also try counting things of one shape or color in the room to try to ground yourself in your surroundings. Fidgeting or chewing gum can also help stimulate your senses, which can help keep you grounded.

• If you are having a panic attack:

1: Ground yourself to reality with something familiar like a keychain or even pictures of something on your phone. [Cats and dogs are good.] Also, do not trust everything your mind/body is telling you right now. Thoughts like, ‘i’m going to die’, ‘everyone is leaving me’, ‘everyone hates me’, are a part of the panic, try not to linger on them, because they will only make it worse. A good trick is to try to replace these thoughts with a mental image of something either calming or silly. Like a Sloth, or a unicorn fighting a giant jelly bean.

2: Find a space that feels the safest for you, and stay there.

3: Take slow, deep breaths. After breathing in for four seconds, hold it for a few seconds before breathing out for another four seconds.

4: Stimulate your mind with something simple, and not stressful. Tap your fingers, re-read nice messages from someone, play a game one your phone that doesn’t require any thought or is timed.

5: You are doing a really good job. You don’t have to feel embarrassed. You are not alone. You are strong, and awesome.

Try not to feel guilty for feeling overwhelmed, upset, angry, sad, etc. This is a really rough time, and you’re allowed to feel how you feel.

Did you brush your teeth today?

Don’t be afraid, you’re not alone!-Reach out to someone you know, if you need it. If you can’t find someone, feel free to reach out to me and we can talk, or I can direct you to someone else who might be more equipped to help. 

Have you hurt yourself recently? Please take the time to clean and cover it. I know it’s hard to take care of yourself right now, but it’s not good to get an infection especially with the hospitals and doctors possibly turning you away due to the influx if COVID19 patients. 

It’s okay to take time to get going, and no, you do NOT have to write that book right now. 

You don’t have to talk about it if you aren’t ready. Being stuck inside with people does not mean they get to pressure you to open up about anything you’re not ready to open up about. 

You CAN talk about it, if you’re ready. Your problems are real, even if they might seem small or insignificant in the face of huge, global issues. 

If you are stuck in a home with an abusive person and cannot get out because of the current situation, please remember there are many applications, chats, text lines, phone lines available depending on where you are and who you are. 

Have you stretched in the past hour? 

Here are some online/phone options for AA/substance abuse groups. 

Pet a cute animal today! If you can’t, there’s loads of livestreams from all over the world with cute animals on display! 

10 relaxing online games

Try making one of these comfort foods: 

American Comfort Foods

Canadian Comfort Foods Indian Comfort Foods Japanese Comfort Foods German Comfort Foods Mexican Comfort Foods [sorry, a lot of Tex-mex in there.]

Remember: You matter. Your feelings matter. Your life matters. 

[himbeaux-on-ice]

Sorry! Lehner had around a 10 minute rant today about how he feels like the NHL lied to the players about loosening up the restrictions placed on teams and forced teams to get the Covid Vaccine. ESPN and the New York Post released an article about it today.

(this is a follow-up on this ask)

Ah okay, I found a TSN article about it, which covers the fact that he also apologized for some of his remarks (mainly comparing the restrictions to being “like prison” which is a bit cringe when you’re a millionaire in a free hotel, yeah), and also significantly clarified some of the intent behind what he was trying to say at the presser:

I’m gonna put my full thoughts this under a cut because it’s ended up running pretty long and rambly, but tl;dr: after considering his more precisely clarified points here and with the perspective I know he’s coming from, I can honestly see and empathize with what Lehner seems to be expressing here about how the NHL has chosen to handle player vaccinations and informing them about what that means for the restrictions on their lives, and I actually don’t disagree with his criticisms overall. Some of the phrasing could have been better, but he’s acknowledged that too.

All in all, it sounds like the NHL may have done a poor job of honestly managing expectations around what vaccine rollout would mean for the extra restrictions placed on the players and their families with each team, and that they’re also up to some version of their usual NHL schtick of prioritizing some platonic ideal of Competitive Parity (remember “the Vancouver Canucks will play a 56 game season”, anyone?) above all else, even when that is no longer realistic and/or comes at the expense of the short-term and long-term mental and physical wellbeing of the players. Classic NHL.

Right, so, long thoughts are down here. Also gonna copy the majority of his comments directly because I think it’s worthwhile for people to read exactly what he said:

"As I’m frustrated like a lot of people in the world right now everything didn’t come out of today’s press in the right way," Lehner wrote. "Main point is that we need to start take the mental health important as well In this situation. It has a huge impact on everyone in society right now. To put competitive edge before well being of people's lives is wrong. As I said, people are struggling with many different things mentally and we need to consider that, as well. Then, being lied to makes it worse."

I love hockey and the league has done a lot of good things," Lehner continued. "But this missed the mark. My bad to say it’s like prison and I apologize, but with mental health issues that are developing in the world, it develops problems mentally. We will see exactly how this affects everything with time. I don’t mean to offend anyone. I hope we can all work together to help people that suffer through mental help from this going forward. I’ve heard how a lot of people are doing through this as people talk to me about it."

During his briefing, Lehner said that the league has misled the players about how vaccination will lead to the loosening of restrictions.

"They told me yesterday that they're surveying all of the teams to see who has taken the vaccine and who has not taken the vaccine and they're not going to change the rules for us as players until all of the teams have a fair [amount] of [vaccinated players] at the same time, so there's not a competitive edge," Lehner said. "And that made me go crazy, to be honest."

Lehner said the league is failing to look at its players as people first and lied to them about taking the vaccine.

"These are human lives and people are struggling with this stuff a lot in society and we are humans just as everyone else," Lehner said. "So there's a twofold problem for me here - the first one is we got promised something to take something that not necessarily everyone wanted. So that was lie - a blatant lie. Second, to put competitive edge over human lives in terms of going back - and I'm not saying we're going out to a party or whatever, but we had a meeting when the season started, at the beginning of camp, that pretty much told us we can't go outside of our house, can't do anything, can't go to the grocery store, can do nothing on the road. You can take a meal out of the meal room and go sit up in your room, don't be with your teammates, don't do this, don't do that. Nobody thinks about the mental impact."

The Gothenburg, Sweden native says his peers are struggling through this pandemic season.

"I know people will say, 'Oh, you're millionaires' and this and that or 'What about these guys?' but we care about that, too, man," Lehner said. "No matter what people think, this is a society problem. But when government, corporations, NHL, whoever are taking decisions in terms of irrelevant things like competitive edge over the human being? It's not okay."

It seems pretty clear to me from this article that his main issue isn’t really with getting the vaccine or being required to do so (my understanding is that it is still opt-in for all players, not mandatory. It’s that he doesn’t view the League as having provided players with a realistic expectation ahead of time for how being vaccinated would or would not change their daily reality. That they were led to believe that getting vaccinated would lead to things that didn’t end up happening, and therefore weren’t empowered to make an informed choice about when to get vaccinated.

The way he describes it, the League was not clear enough ahead of time about the fact that individual players being vaccinated would not make them individually exempt from league-wide restrictions, and this created a feeling of false hope about what getting vaccinated would mean in terms of not just having to stay in your house or hotel room literally all the time. If you were looking forward to getting vaccinated because you were led to believe it would mean finally not having to live in that isolated, mentally draining environment all the time, and then only found out at the last minute or after the fact that no, you actually still have to keep following all these rules that are making your life so isolated and difficult, that’s gotta be pretty emotionally jarring. If you were a player who was a little unsure about getting vaccinated quite yet (for whatever reason, including possibly being in a risk group for side-effects or just not wanting to get waylaid for a week with the smile symptoms it induces during a crucial stretch of games), but decided it was worth it for the tradeoff of getting back to a life that was less of a strain on your mental health, and then got told AFTER you made that decision and got the shot that no, that tradeoff isn’t happening the way you were made to expect it to, I think it would understandably piss you off.

It also sounds like part of what he has taken issue with is that, from the sounds of it rather than ease internal restrictions on a team-by-team basis as determined by each team’s vaccination rates (which would mean that if for example the Wild had 95% of their team vaccinated, the Wild only the Wild would get to start living a life with slightly less restrictions), the League is instead opting to say “no, we’re only going to ease the rules for EVERYONE at the same time once all teams have reached similar numbers of vaccinated players and staff to ea other, because we would see having different rules for different teams as giving some of them an unfair competitive edge”.

Lehner takes umbrage with this approach, because he thinks that focusing solely on “competitive edge” by making more-vaccinated teams keep having to live incredibly isolated lives (even isolated from vaccinated teammates) is a case of the League prioritizing parity over the toll that barely being able to interact with other people or leave their houses is taking on players’ mental health. And I can really really understand his point here. We have all seen what quarantine has done to our individual mental health, and even if they are millionaires, those impacts also exist for the players.

I actually just recently re-read the Athletic piece about the intense mental health and addiction struggles Lehner has gone through and done the incredibly difficult work of getting help for in the last five years. This man has fought incredibly hard and done a massive amount of therapy and other work to sort out his head, deal with his demons, and get himself to a place where he can cope and wants to be alive. That kind of recovery journey is a battle which will continue for the rest of your life and requires constant maintenance practices (again, speaking from experience). He also spent most of this season not even getting to be around the team at all, stuck at home recovering from a concussion (which usually involves doing frustratingly little and waiting around impatiently in dimly lit rooms for your brain to heal). And now, upon returning to the team, road games mean more time spent sitting in a room trying not to be bored out of your skull, while possibly also having to have some limits on things like screen time as a post-concussion precaution.

Imagine being somebody like him, who has spent a lot of time working very hard to build up a lifestyle and a system of coping mechanisms in recent years which have allowed him to live a healthier and happier life, to then be thrown back into an isolated and highly restricted new lifestyle where probably at least half of all those habits and norms and support systems are taken out of reach, that has to be incredibly difficult (I’ve experienced something similar myself this year). Especially when you haven’t been able to even go and be with the team in the dressing room, or probably even do anything with your family that classes above “mildly strenuous”, because you’re out for six weeks recovering from a concussion, which is its own mental and physical health battle. And then, you are apparently given the impression from the League that “hey, if you’re willing to get vaccinated, that will lead to you being able to return to some semblance of a life that is less taxing on your psyche”, and you agreed to do so even if you were perhaps cautious about getting the vaccine before, because you’d rather accept whatever risk comes with the shot than gamble on keeping your sanity together for however much longer this isolation drags on, only to then find out that “actually no, even if your team and staff is entirely vaccinated you still have to spend most of your time sitting alone in rooms trying not to sink into a spiral of dangerous depression until other teams in other states with different vaccination programs are also immunized to similar levels, and our only real reasoning for holding that mental relief out of reach is mostly based on ‘competitive parity’”.

Yeah, I absolutely understand why he would feel very frustrated and even betrayed by that course of action! For Lehner, it’s not about competitive edges or the game on the ice, it’s about having made the decision to get vaccinated at this time with the understanding that it would allow access to an at least slightly less mentally taxing lifestyle, only to find out later that the League seemingly never intended to follow through on providing that despite you holding up your end of the deal. And it sounds like he is speaking for a number of other players beyond just himself who are also struggling with their mental health in these conditions. Even if he himself is managing to cope because of what he’s learned in his recovery, he would certainly be well-positioned to recognize signs in the people around him that they are struggling in ways that may be similar to what he went though before, and know how dire that can spiral into being.

Look, I don’t think Robin Lehner ever expected to be allowed to go out and lick people’s eyeballs or wander the supermarket maskless once vaccinated, but you heard the description of how intensely restrictive the NHL’s rules for players off-ice lives during COVID are. They are far more intense than the rules being enforced for non-NHL individuals in many of the same cities and states, because the NHL is trying to bring risk as close to zero as possible. And if you were a player told that being vaccinated was going to reduce contagion risks enough to mean that right away the NHL would finally let you and your teammates from “can’t go anywhere or see anyone, eat your dinner in your hotel room and try not to be depressed about it” to “you can go to the store with a mask on. you can eat meals with your also-vaccinated teammates. you can visit your parents or siblings while social-distancing/masking. you can spend free time around other people and/or in more public spaces without being chaperoned constantly by team staff. you can sit next to your also-vaccinated teammates on the plane/bus. you can hang out with them in their room”, and THEN later were told “sorry, we’re not actually going to let you do that yet. not for COVID reasons but rather because we worry not being totally miserable shut-ins will give you a competitive edge over that team in another state who aren’t getting vaccinated as quickly”. That has to feel like a slap in the face in terms of how much the league actually cares about your well-being or about being honest in its role in your personal medical decisions. Perhaps when he says “forced” he is expressing a feeling of being stuck between choosing “either get vaccinated or let your mental health keep degrading in isolation”, only to find out that making the deal doesn’t get you the relief you were promised.

Idk I feel like I’m repeating myself a lot here trying to circle in on my precise point bc my brain is a little scrambled today, but like. If the players made their decisions to consent to vaccination (at this time, with whatever version of the shot was offered, under whatever circumstances they may have going on personally or medically) based on one understanding of the situation, and then NHL really said “lol NOPE actually that was a false premise” and changed things after the fact, that’s kinda an informed consent issue and I think he’s right to call it fucked up! And everything he says about how mentally taxing such a super-isolated lifestyle is honestly only repeats worries I myself had right from the moment the “stay in your hotel room alone” rule was announced — that the League may be underestimating the toll (especially with some of the long road trips this season) that forcing players to live in total isolation like that was going to have on individual wellbeing and team morale.

Robin’s comments this morning could have been put better, but as somebody who has ADHD and who knows about bipolar disorder, I know emotions for folks with brains like ours can run fast and intense and sometimes lead to not always planning out every word as precisely and you might later have liked to once that moment has passed. The fact that he apologized for the less tactful part of the comment and sought to clarify his words tells me he’s thought a lot about this and wasn’t happy with how he expressed his thoughts initially. Also, while his English is very good, you can sometimes forget it isn’t his first language, Swedish is — some thoughts don’t translate exactly as they sounded in your head. That said, also Robin Lehner one of the more outspoken NHL players about mental health issues in recent years, and he also doesn’t seem like the type of guy to mince his words or tiptoe around a point — I’m not surprised he’s the person expressing these concerns about mental health, and I’m not surprised he was a bit blunt about it either lol.

All in all, it sounds like the NHL did a poor job of managing expectations around what vaccine rollout would mean for the players and their families, and that they’re also up to their usual NHL schtick of prioritizing some platonic ideal of Competitive Parity (remember “the Vancouver Canucks will play a 56 game season”, anyone?) above all else, even when that is no longer realistic and/or comes at the expense of the short-term and long-term mental and physical wellbeing of the players. Classic NHL.

(also: the New York Post is a right-leaning sensationalist rag 90% of the time. take all spin it puts on things with a grain of salt)

[let-it-raines]

Catch Me If You Can (35/40)

298 days. That’s how long Killian Jones was away from a baseball field. It’s less than a year, only part of a season for him, but it might as well have lasted a decade as he alternated between physical therapy and spending an excessive amount of time sitting on his couch.

But then he came back and won the World Series.

It’s something no one saw coming, and it’s certainly not something anyone who knows about his arm would predict. Now it’s a new season with new possibilities, and anything could happen. On-field reporter Emma Swan will be there to cover it all even if she is not his biggest fan right now.

Asking her out live on-air will do that.

Rating: Mature

a/n: I’ve exercised, showered and blow-dried my hair, cleaned the house, and have both girls asleep. So that means, you know, that the rest of the afternoon will probably be some kind of disaster. At least I’m getting this chapter up for you guys now! 

An absolutely GIGANTIC thank you to @imagnifika​ for making this cover. I mean, seriously. Look at Emma! And look at number 29! And all of it really ahhhhh ❤️ And thanks to @resident-of-storybrooke​ for helping me bring this story to life! Also, there’s a line in here specifically for @captainsjedi​ and any other botb fans 😘

Found on AO3: Beginning | Current

Tumblr: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 |

-/-

Emma types a big, fat “L” into the stat sheet on her phone for the beginning of the Championship series, and she is undeniably bitter about it.

Like, seriously so bitter that she couldn’t have typed it in last night when it happened and saved it for this morning.

Damn the Red Sox.

How many times a season does she say that? It’s probably far too many times, but it’s something that needs to be said over and over again until it’s tattooed on her forehead so that everyone knows that she hates the Red Sox.

The games are simply different than against anyone else. Tension runs through everyone’s veins, and mistakes that aren’t usually made are made with frequency. The volume of the crowd is this constant rumble with a persistent murmur of excitement, and depending on if they’re in New York or in Boston, that crowd noise completely and totally changes how the players feel out there.

It changes how she feels simply watching from whatever seat the network has given her that day.

So the fact that they lost by one run yesterday afternoon on home turf has left a bitter taste in Emma’s mouth.

She’s not even a player, and she’s never been this nervous. There’s obviously time to make up for the loss. It’s best of seven games here, and a loss doesn’t mean anything. Except that, well, it can mean everything. It’s hard to come from behind if they get too far behind, and dammit, Emma wants the Yankees to play in the World Series again.

She wants to cover it and come up with those obnoxious think pieces about a team’s legacy and a player’s legacy. She wants to hype the team up and talk about the match-up with who they’re playing and everything that Killian hates about commentators and reporters.

Seriously. He hates it a lot. And yet he watches all of the shows like some kind of glutton for punishment.

He kind of is.

He’s also playing his first game in forty days today, and Emma’s nerves are nearly frayed as she has to keep her leg from bouncing up and down and her fingers from fidgeting against every single surface that she can find.

Killian is playing again.

Killian is playing again.

Killian is playing again.  

It never sounds quite real no matter how many times she thinks it, so obviously Emma is going to think it over and over again until the words don’t have any meaning.

Except they have every meaning.

“Why are you working right now?” Killian mumbles into her stomach before shifting up her body so that his cheek rests on her breast. He totally shifted that way on purpose. Such a man.

“Because I was awake, you were asleep, and I felt like you would wake up if I shifted away.”

“Probably.” His lips wrap around the peak of her nipple through the thin material of her camisole, and Emma sighs contently as she puts her phone down on her bedside table and reaches forward to gentle run her hands through Killian’s hair so that she can feel the soft strands slipping through her fingers. “You’re a very good pillow.”

“And you were extremely tired. What time did you fall asleep last night?”

His tongue runs in a circle, and she nearly melts right then and there. Then Killian is looking up at her through those long, thick lashes of his, and she nearly melts for an entirely different reason. Along the same guidelines, though. “Late. Or early depending on how you want to look at things. I wouldn’t check your closet if I were you. It may be organized.”

“Killian – ”

He grunts and moves back to paying attention to her breasts, his nose nudging away her shirt until warm breath is making direct contact with skin and even warmer lips are wrapping around her and making her hips arch in the air looking for friction they absolutely will not be getting this morning. They don’t have the time or the privacy.

But Killian’s lips feel really, really good, little sparks of fire flickering across her skin as heat pools between her thighs, and maybe, just maybe they can…

“Emma,” Ruby yells through the bedroom door as her knuckles collide with it, “I am leaving in ten minutes. Do you want to come with?”

“No,” Emma shouts back, but Ruby doesn’t know the definition of privacy and opens the door anyways before Emma can pulls her shirt back up or Killian can even move away. The bastard doesn’t even try. He just bites down on her in the way that he knows she likes and smiles into her skin all the while Ruby stands there with an arched brow. “Oh my God, Rubes. Privacy.”

“What? It’s nothing I haven’t seen before. There’s usually not a man attached to it, though. Hi, Killian. Nice to see you here. I’m glad you guys remembered that Emma has an apartment.”

Killian chuckles, and Emma swears it makes her entire body vibrate, before he’s grabbing the covers and pulling it up over her so that he can move away from her boob and look at Ruby in all of his ruffled glory.

“Hello, love,” he smiles, reaching up to stretch his arms behind his head as he winks. She swears he is the cockiest man alive. “We do stay here on occasion. It’s just at my place nobody walks in when I’m trying to tell my girlfriend good morning.”

“I think your mouth was in the wrong place to be telling her good morning.”

“Depends on the good morning I was thinking on giving her.”

Emma reaches down to grab a pillow before smacking Killian in the back of the head with it and then throwing it at Ruby who simply catches it and cradles it to her chest. “I hate that I brought the two of you together. There’s too many dirty jokes in your heads for you guys to share the same air.”

“These are thin walls, Emma dear,” Ruby teases as her knuckles rap on the walls. “I know for a fact that you’ve got some dirty jokes too.”

“Oh my God,” she groans again as she sinks further into the mattress and pulls her comforter up over her head. Her cheeks have to be as red as tomatoes right now, and Emma is going to hide under here until they calm down. She is not easily embarrassed, but the thought of Ruby hearing her the way that she’s heard Ruby and Graham before is too much.

Maybe moving out is beginning to sound like a good idea.

“I think we’ve embarrassed her, Lucas.”

“I think we have, Jones. To think, seeing your foreplay in action wasn’t enough to send her under the covers but making a joke about her bedroom humor was.”

Emma throws the covers down and peeks up at Ruby, completely ignoring Killian. “Go to work. I will see you when I get there and maybe I won’t ignore you as you talk into my ear.”

“Love you too,” Ruby teases before blowing Emma a kiss and walking away, her heels clicking down the hallway.

“Ugh.”

“What?” Killian asks, turning over to his side and reaching over to her to toy with her ring as it rests on her stomach.

“For one,” she starts, “I’m now super sexually frustrated, but we don’t have time to do anything about it. And, also, I seriously regret letting you guys become friends. You’re far too chummy with each other.”

“That’s how I feel about you and Elsa and Anna. I’m attacked every time the three of you get together.”

“Oh, speaking of Elsa, I need to text her back and tell her that I can come up to the suite today at the beginning of the game. I’m only going on to interview you when you’re finished and to do post-game stuff.”

Killian grumbles something she can’t here before he’s wrapping his fingers around her waist and pulling her closer to him so that he can pepper his lips across her jaw and ghost them over her mouth.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Seriously.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Killian.”

“Well, you see, my darling, love of my life, sweet Emma,” he overdramatically sighs as he kisses her, “I’m just a little worried that you won’t be able to handle interviewing me now that we’re dating. I’ve found that women are incapable of keeping a professional workspace, and I’m afraid that things might get a little murky for us.”

“I have never hated you more than I hate you right now.”

“It’s funny because I swear you just told me you’d never loved me more than you had right then.”

“Right. And now I hate you as much as I’ve ever hated you, and I used to actually hate you.”

“Yeah,” he sighs, the tone in his voice quickly switching from playful to melancholy, “you did.”

“You okay?”

He shifts against her until his cheek is resting on her breast again, and Emma runs her hands through his hair to soothe both him and her. “I’m fine, love. Simply a little nervous. I haven’t played a game in a good bit, and this is an important one. I can’t believe Al is trusting me with it.”

“It’s to get you back in the rotation. They may only keep you in for an inning depending on how you do.”

“I hope I bloody well do better than one inning.”

“You’re going to kick ass today, okay? Like you always do.”

“I do not always kick ass,” he grumbles, twisting his head to look back up at her. “In fact, I often don’t kick ass. I don’t know how I’m going to handle today.”

Emma brushes his hair back, and not for the first time she notices how boyish he can look in the mornings when the day’s stress hasn’t gotten to him. The stress is starting to creep in, however, and she wishes that she could take it all away from him.

“One pitch at a time, twenty-nine. They’re not going to be perfect, and you’re going to struggle. But it’s one pitch at a time. You’ve been doing this for a long time. You know how to be a baseball player.”

“What if we lose?”

“You’re not going to.”

“But what if we do? I’ve already let so many people down. I can’t…I don’t want to do it again.”

Her heart breaks the tiniest bit, and Emma simply keeps brushing his hair back as his eyes flutter closed. “You’re not letting anyone down. You try so hard for this team, and they know that. If you lose, it’s not your fault. You know that. You guys are a team, and you’re not standing up on that mound alone.”

“I literally am.”

“Figuratively, you are not.”

A slow smile curves from one side of his lips to the next even if his eyes stay closed. Killian’s hand searches for hers and in his hair, and he squeezes her wrist. “Thank you, Swan. I love you.”

“I love you too,” she sighs. “We’ve got to get out of bed. It might take me a little while to find something to wear since you apparently organized my closet last night.”

“It was messy.”

“But I knew where everything was.”

Killian grins before sitting up. “I know where everything is now. I’ll help. Team work makes the dream work.”

Emma hits his head with a pillow. “I take back saying that’s the most I’d ever hated you because this is the most I’ve ever hated you.”

“That’s because you haven’t seen your closet yet.”

-/-

When Emma wraps up her pre-game filming, talking back and forth with Isaac and James who miraculously only make two mentions to her dating Killian when talking about his return to the game today and only one mention of Arthur getting a pretty hefty fine for his treatment of an “anonymous” reporter in the locker room, she quickly walks back into the tunnel behind the dugout and down the hallways until she’s getting in the elevator that takes her up to the suites. Emma doesn’t have that long to be up there, only an inning or two depending on how the game goes, and she’s supposed to keep her earpiece in so she can be contacted no matter where she is. So she’s hurrying to meet Elsa and Liam in the suite like she said she would.

Her life was a lot less hectic when fewer people liked her.

She wouldn’t change it for a thing.

Except maybe she’d give herself some more time to accomplish more things. And possibly also speed up time a little bit so that she can stop worrying about Killian and Killian can stop worrying altogether.

Those two things are contradictory, but it works.

Kind of. She guesses. She really has no idea, and all she can really focus on his how much she absolutely feels like she’s going to vomit with all of the nerves that are ferociously swirling through her stomach.

Killian is going to make her sick.

Why is love so painful? Literally and figuratively.

Emma flashes her ID when she gets up to the suites, and after she’s let in, she walks through the door. Everyone is standing out on the little balcony, so she takes the chance to grab a glass of lemon water and take a deep breath.

She really needs a deep breath. Or five.

Why has she never been this nervous before? Why is this different now?

Because everything is different now.

Everything.

Elsa turns around and sees her, reaching up her hand to wave, and it calms down Emma’s nerves as she walks out the sliding glass door and takes back in the sound of the stadium as people still filter in and all of the players begin to take their spots out on the field.

“Hey,” Elsa greets her, wrapping her arm around Emma’s waist in a half hug. “How are you?”

“Nervous as hell.”

“You’re telling me,” she sighs, not letting go of Emma’s waist. “I swear I wore down the wood floor in our kitchen pacing.”

“If Killian hadn’t been with me this morning, I would have done the same thing too.” Emma leans over to look at Liam, Kris, and Anna. “Hey guys.”

They all wave back at her with bright smiles on their faces that quickly fade back into frowns. Nerves are very obviously a present factor for everyone this afternoon.

“Where are the girls?” Emma asks.

“They are with my parents today. I’m sure Addy has the TV turned on and is watching the game. That girl is serious about her baseball.”

“Well, she does have a pretty cool uncle who plays.”

“This is true. How is he doing? I tried texting him earlier, but I didn’t get a text back.”

“He’s anxious. Like, hardcore Killian level anxious. In the locker room, I’m sure he was fine, you know? He always puts up the façade for the guys, but this morning he was really nervous. I don’t know if me talking to him did any good or if he just faked it for me.”

“Men have a harder time faking it than women, but it is possible,” Liam adds in with a cheeky smile before going back to paying attention to what Kris is saying and what’s going on down at the field as music booms out of the speakers.

Elsa playfully rolls her eyes at her husband before releasing Emma’s waist and sitting down in her chair. Emma follows suit while static moves through her earpiece.

“Ignore him,” she insists, still smiling at his bad joke. “I’m sure your talk helped. If anyone can calm him down, it’s one of the people sitting out here.”

“I hope so. I’m just…he wants this so badly, you know? And I want him to have it.”

“I know,” Elsa whispers as Killian takes his place on the mound and the murmur of the crowd quiets down. “I know.”

And then Killian is winding up and releasing a ball from his hand and Emma intakes a sharp breath.

It’s a ball. Not the best pitch in the world but not the worst. At least it wasn’t a homerun hit off of Killian’s first pitch back. That would have been demoralizing.

One pitch at a time. That’s what she told him earlier, and she’s going to stand by that.

Emma hopes that Killian can too.

Another wind-up, another pitch, and then there’s the thwack of a woodenmetal bat against the ball as it flies into the outfield and curves far enough left that it ends up being a foul.

One pitch at a time.

The next pitch flies right inside of the batter’s strike zone, and he smacks a line drive down past third, and he manages to get on first base.

Dammit.

Emma’s hand clutches for the ring around her neck, and she bunches up the chain, holding tightly onto it while she watches the video of Killian on the jumbotron and tries to see if there’s any inclination as to how he’s feeling.

There’s not. Killian looks like he always does out there, and not being able to tell what’s going on in his mind is driving her crazy.

Suddenly, there’s a slight pressure on her left hand, and Emma looks down to see Elsa’s hand covering hers while Elsa’s gaze stays out on the field.

“You’re going to give yourself a heart attack worrying like that.”

“You’re one to talk.”

Elsa looks over at her and smiles. “I have been with Liam for as long as Killian has had a professional career, and it does get easier, most of the time at least. There have been times when he has done things to make me nearly throw up, but I never have. No matter what happens, he’s going to be okay. That’s what we told him when he came back from injury last time, and he knows it even if he has trouble remembering it.”

“He may know it, but I certainly don’t.”

Elsa squeezes her hand again. “You’re in love with him. It makes sense. As much as we all love him, it’s not the same for you.”

Emma huffs. “So, can I have my heart attack in peace?”

“Not a chance in hell,” Liam scoffs before leaning over so she can see his face. “We have our heart attacks together up here. It’s a team effort.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense,” Anna teases.

“It makes perfect sense.”

“Why would we all have a heart attack instead of just one of us?”

“Solidarity.”

“That sounds like a great way for all of us to end up dead, and then I promise you that Killian will not care what happens on the field.”

“Exactly. It’s going to keep his mind off of things.”

“It’s his job to stay focused on things.”

“You’ll get used to their bickering too,” Elsa laughs, and Emma swears that she is the very definition of an ice queen with how calm that she is. “It’s all part of the process. Kris will pipe in about three sentences too late since he focuses on the game better than anyone.”

“Wait,” Kris starts, “why are we having heart attacks?”

Elsa raises her brow as if to say “I told you so”, and all Emma can do is laugh as Killian throws his first strike of the day to the appreciation of the crowd.

Good. He’s getting there.

It’s a slow start, undoubtedly, and while Killian isn’t at his best, everyone else on the team is. Where he falls short, they pick up the slack, and Emma knows that while Killian will feel guilty about it, he’ll also be appreciative of the fact that he’s not out there ruining everything for everyone.

If there’s anyone who knows who to place guilt on himself when there’s no reason to, it’s Killian Jones.

By the time the bottom of the third rolls around, the Yankees are up three runs to one, and while it’s not the most convincing lead, it’s still a lead. And there’s a lot of game to go.

Not for Killian, though. Al pulls him when the third inning is over, and Emma and Jeff wait for him in the tunnels behind the locker room so that she can give him an interview without disrupting any part of the game.

His brows are furrowed when he first walks into the tunnel, but then he sees her and forces a smile onto his face. It’s fake and far too forced, and all she wants is to hug him and tell him that it’s okay. She can’t do that, though. Not right now. They’ve talked about this, and they’re going to be professional when on camera. It’s how it has to work.

“Hey, Swan,” Killian sighs as he steps into space.

“Hey, you did good, Killian.”

He shrugs his shoulders and then nods at the camera. Jeff motions to them that they’re about to roll, and Emma forces her own smile before beginning the introduction to her interview by talking about Killian’s stats for the game and reminding everybody that he’s coming back after forty days away.

As if they don’t know.

“How does it feel to be back?” she finally asks Killian as he lifts his hat from his head and pushes his sweaty hair back before placing it back down and scratching behind his ear.

Why is he nervous? 

“Fantastic,” he answers with a cocky grin that shows all of his perfectly white teeth. “There’s nothing that can replicate being out there. Absolutely nothing. I’m so thankful to be back and to feel that crowd support. We’re in a critical part of our season if we want to make it all the way to that final game, and I’m glad to be a part of it once more. You can only be a benchwarmer for so long before you go a little stir crazy.”

The smile he flashes there is a bit more genuine, and that relaxes her the slightest bit. “Are you nervous about the future when it comes to your arm?”

His hand reaches up to rub at his right shoulder, and Emma wonders if he even knows that he does it. But then he’s tilting his head and smiling at her like he does with every interview he’s ever been in before something changeschanges, and his lips become a little less curved and his eyes the little bit softer.

“The future’s nothing to be afraid of, love. Not when you’re happy with your life regardless of if things don’t always work out the way that you hope. My arm may mess up again. It may not. I can’t know. But I have to be okay with whatever happens and know that my life is pretty damn great no matter what happens on that field. Even if I damn well want to win.”

Emma’s breath hitches, and her brain has suddenly forgotten words.

Like, all words except for the actual word “word.”

Shit.

“Wrap it up, Emma,” Ruby speaks into the earpiece. “You’re staring at him like he just told you that he loves you for the first time. Wrap it up.”

So she does, mumbling something that she’s sure makes no sense, but then Jeff is turning off the camera and lowering it from his shoulder so that Emma can take a deep breath and try to compose herself. She doesn’t really get a chance to before Killian is wrapping his arms around her shoulders and pulling her into him while he buries his face into her neck, the sweat from his body and his uniform clinging to her clothes. It takes her by surprise at first, honestly and truly, but then she’s wrapping her arms around him too and simply breathing him in, sweat and all.

There are probably twenty people in this tunnel right now who can see the two of them, but Emma doesn’t care. The world knows, and everyone can think what they want about she and Killian’s relationship. None of their opinions matter when the two of them know the truth behind the smokescreen of lies the world is putting in front of them.

She may not be ready for them to hug or kiss on National television, but she can do this.

People have tried to tell her who she is her entire life, and she’s punching back and saying no. She is who she wants to be.

“You did it,” she whispers to him. “You’re back.”

“I would not have gotten off of my couch and back out onto that field without you, Swan.”

“You would have.”

“No,” he murmurs, his scruff scratching at her neck. “I wouldn’t have. You don’t know how much you’ve changed things for me. When I was out there and felt like I was about to pass out on the mound, I thought of you and how I knew that you were cheering me on. It’s a hell of a lot better than thinking about thousands of people I don’t know cheering me on when the only person who really matters is you.”

“What about your family?” Emma teases, the words rolling off of her tongue immediately. There are still times when she’s not good with affection, when she can’t take a compliment like that without freaking out, and sometimes words escape her before she can stop them.

Killian pulls back from the hug then, just a little bit, and rests his forehead against hers, his hat long since toppled to the ground, while his hands run up and down her biceps. “They obviously matter, love. Don’t go telling them what I said because they will give me shit about it, but you know that it’s different between you and me.”

“I would hope so. I don’t want to be treated in the same way as Liam.”

Killian laughs and softly pecks her lips. “Am I freaking you out making big declarations like this?”

“Not at all.”

“You’re a liar.”

“Only a little bit.”

He smiles, and her heart settles back in its regular spot while there’s the sound of cheers outside. “You’ve got a game to cover, and I best let you back to it. Pull them through.”

“Sounds like a plan, Stan.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing,” Emma laughs as she pulls back from him. “It’s just a little phrase I heard. I thought I’d try it out, but I don’t think it quite works for us.”

“Maybe it’ll catch on.”

“Or we’ll have to come up with a better phrase.”

“What about ‘you’re looking fine, twenty-nine?’”

“A little egotistical for my taste, darling, but I think it’s got potential.”

Emma pushes at his shoulder and shakes her head. “Go get that shoulder massaged and take a shower. You smell horrible.”

“All for you, my love.”

An absolute dork.

-/-

They win that night, and Killian’s spirits are at what has to be an all-time high.

The fact that they lose two nights later when they’re in Boston only tampers those spirits the slightest bit.

They’re behind two games to one, but there’s still time to come back from it and survive this series.

And if Emma knows anything, Killian Jones is a hell of a survivor.

-/-

-/-

Tag list: @authorarsinoe​ @stunningswan​ @eala-captian @galaxyzxstark @xellewoods @mariakov81 @ultraluckycatnd @royalswan @shey-starsfury​ @superchocovian​ @sals86 @iam2307 @ashley-knightingale @karenfrommisthaven @scientificapricot @captswanis4vr @ultimiflos @jamif @idristardis @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @tiganasummertree @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @captainsjedi @teamhook @notoriouscs @kmomof4 @ekr032-blog-blog​ @cs-forlife @andiirivera @jonirobinson64 @qualitycoffeethings​ @carpedzem​ @tornadoamy​

[ziamhaze]

Hi, I hope you're well! I just want to start off by thanking you for all the wonderful fics you have blessed me with!

I just finished Red vs. Black and was hoping you wouldn't mind answering some questions I have. As someone who risks his own life to save others, how does Liam justify being with someone he knows has killed innocent people? It'd be one thing if Zayn had only killed those directly involved with what happened to his family, but he's killed innocent civilians over minor inconveniences (such as the teenagers in the convertible). Does Zayn still think he is justified in doing so? Does he ever feel guilty about it? If not, how would Liam and Zayn be compatible if their moral compasses are so different?

Also, did Zayn's father ever make his way to the UK? Or was that just a lie he told Zayn to comfort him? Does Zayn ever find his family, especially his younger sister?

I know it's a lot, but I'd really love to hear your answers if you want to give them! Again thank you for all of your wonderful works!

So sorry it’s taken me this long to reply, but I didn’t forget!

To start I’d like to thank you for clicking, and finishing, Red vs. Black.  It isn’t the shortest of fics, nor is it the most delicate - to put it lightly.  For the latter alone, thank you.

These are such poignant, important questions.  Ones that are nearly word for word what I asked myself while planning the ending.

                         SPOILERS FOR ALL OF RED VS. BLACK

1)  How does Liam stay with Zayn after learning of all his senseless killings?

Honestly, I questioned this the most when feeling out the concept.  As a fic writer it’s expected of me to write not only a romance, but also a happy ending.  Of course fics exist that do neither, but they’re very rare and not exactly well-loved.  And truthfully, a massive point that I wanted to get across - and which in effect answers this question - is that despite people’s pasts, they cannot overcome them without being given the opportunity.  100%.  No ands, ifs, or buts.  For a prisoner to assimilate back into society and not go back to their old ways, they need to be trusted with a job.  With a salary (no matter how small), they need to trust themselves to be able to not buy anything that may contribute to poor habits: drugs, alcohol, weapons, gambling, a means of transport that will give them the ability to visit bad influences (more of a psychological thing, but still).  A lot of prisoners are never given this opportunity (especially in the United States), and therefore fall back into their old ways, which are more often than not coping mechanisms to deal with the fact that they can’t fit into society as easily as privileged people to begin with; it’s a terrible cycle.  However, there are plenty of success stories of those that truly wish to change and are lucky enough to stumble upon an employer or mentor or sponsor of some sort that hands them an inkling of hope/trust that they use to fight their way back up.  The fic is fantasy, and while Zayn’s story is rooted in real world PTSD, I think the prisoner analogy is easy for us to envision and therefore, understand why Liam acts the way he does.  I also made it a point in the last scene when they’re talking things out to have Liam voice his contingency: if Zayn so much as spits at anyone, he’s done for.  That’s to say, he’s not wiping his slate clean just yet.

2)  Does Zayn still feel his useless killings were justified?

I’m going to answer assuming that you’re referring to the time after the fic ends.

Looking back at his actions is something that would be inevitable when he starts therapy, and this is a perfect example of one of the questions his therapist would ask.  You may not like my answer, but as an author I find it imperative that I speak of my characters realistically and to keep them true, not how I want them to act.  That said, yes, Zayn would still find justification in why he’s done what he’s done.

There are a few instances in the story where this is actually explained.  Take the scene in the bar with fancy mixologists.  Zayn begins to get aggravated over the people in the room simply because they’re ignorant to the feeling of significant pain.  There’s also the scene where he’s back home in Cheshire and Harry straight out tells him, he may be furious at the unfairness of the world, but he needs to learn how to come to terms with it.  It’s not going to change.  This right here is what a therapist would work with him to do, and also why I had Harry be the one to bring this up in the story - he is one.

I know it sounds incredibly foreign to the average person, but trust me when I say that people struggling with anger problems founded in (un)fairness, exist.  I’ve spoken with professionals about it.  Add on crippling childhood PTSD and a villain like Zayn can definitely be born.  It’s why treatment is needed, and why the answer is ‘yes’ in the beginning of Zayn’s journey to peace.  When his answer switches over to ‘no’, that’s when it’ll be outwardly apparent that he’s beating his ailment.  Unfortunately, for many, the inner battle with mental health is lifelong; the answer ‘no’ will never turn solid.

3)  Does Zayn feel guilty about the above?

Again, there are a couple times when I write Zayn to literally mention how he feels zero guilt.  However, if you really really pay attention you’ll notice that these instances aren’t villain related.

For example, meeting Liam’s parents:

After handing his father and Zayn each their tea, Liam looks between them suspiciously. "Leaving the two of you in a room together was a bad idea."

"Don't know what you're on about," Geoff replies innocently. "We were just talking about cars, weren't we Zayn?" Even with all eyes on him, the pressure of lying doesn't get to Zayn. It never does.

"Yeah," he agrees, bringing his drink up to his lips carefully, "cars."

Or, after Zayn walks out from the comedy club:

"It takes a lot of courage to get up there and do something like that, don't you think?"

"Not really."

Liam looks to the side, hoping that he can interpret more from Zayn's answers by seeing the expressions that go with their frankness. "So if I signed you up, you would do it?"

"Why would I want to make a room full of strangers laugh?" Zayn retorts, his right eye scrunching up in distaste, like it's a mannerism of his provoked by moronic questions. "I don't have a superiority complex." Liam thinks he might, but. "I know I'm better than those people, no mediocracy to cover up here."

So we’ve got those, but then we’ve also got this massive character point:

Right as the last of the snake's body emerges, Zayn snaps his fingers, triggering heavy hip-hop music to flow through his headphones and drown out the man's blood curdling cry.

If he could permanently damage people who deserved it, not always because they did something to Zayn, but because he liked to play god and throw them a massive curveball like life had done to him, then why shouldn't he? So long as he pulls his soundproof headphones off the little robot on the inside of his right arm to avoid listening to the pain his choice brutality caused, there's no valid reason he shouldn't take advantage of the gift he was given.

From where he's sitting, he probably won't be able to hear anything, but he fastens the equipment over his ears just in case.

All at once, the atmospheric sounds of central London, mixed with the terrified screams of those in the burning building beneath them, hit Zayn at full force. The sensory overload alone would normally be enough to piss him off, but tack on his protection from audible trauma being taken and being spoken to while in villain mode, and he's seeing red as deep as the pits of hell he knows he's destined for.

I wrote Zayn’s headphone usage as a way to alert that the reader that he does, in fact, feel villain-related guilt.  He can’t act on his anger without them on.  He’ll have his victims screams stuck in his head, and he’d never be able to handle that a.k.a. there’s zero satisfaction from their literal pain.  Think about that and it’ll answer your follow-up question.

4)  What happened to Zayn’s family?

Zayn’s father meant what he said - he’d do whatever he needed to reunite his family.  That wasn’t a falsity at all.  The problem is money.  And politics, but let’s start with the issue of money.  It took Yaser nine years to save up the amount he paid to have Zayn and Waliyha smuggled across the border.  The whole concept of smuggling is that it’s a cheaper option than the legal one.  So if we look at this, you can see how long it would take him to save for three adult visa fees, three adult plane tickets, and enough to stay afloat for a month or so when they get to England.  Now add in the politics of the early 2000s and the Afghanistan/Pakistan region.  We know that Yaser fixed air conditioners for a living.  No person with that average of a background is going to have an easy time immigrating anywhere.  Even so, would it really take him over 18 years?  While it’s plausible, perhaps a man with such determination would find another way.  Or...was that unnecessary because he was fed lies?

Think about it.  After several weeks and no word from his children, don’t you think he’d cause a riot?  He’s the type to drive over to Badar’s house and demand his relatives get in contact with him to find out what’s going on.  But, given the flashback Zayn has, it’s obvious that Badar never planned on accompanying any of the children to the UK, and if that’s the case, he clearly couldn’t return to Quetta.  I imagine a fully rehearsed story was told to all of the children’s parents about how they were killed somewhere along the way.

As for Waliyha, her whereabouts were told to my gang over on Patreon a while ago.  In short, yes, she’s still alive and I plan on pitching the book’s sequel to publishers as a graphic novel series revolved around her location.  Louis’ dark web bot finally found a hint as to where that might be, so Zayn and Liam go on a journey across Europe to find her.  Each issue would (probably) take place in a new city and involve both fighting a single bad guy.

Just a quick reminder to anyone who reads this, Red vs. Black and all involved characters are my intellectual property and cannot be replicated, manipulated, or stolen.

Again, thank you for your question and time!  I know my fics aren’t short and take a huge time commitment to finish.  If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to send them my way!  I’m super busy writing the next story and doing critical work, but I promise I’ll get around to it.

[alexeiadrae]

Thoughts on Evil

I finished watching Evil. For reference, I am an atheist and was raised in a secular household and I am a skeptic who loves folklore and scary stories and who also loves debunking paranormal claims. My husband is Catholic and believes in demonic possession and the end of days stuff, and somehow we work, just like Kristen and David somehow work. I am also a counselor so I am familiar with the mental health aspects that Kristen deals with, and since she was the skeptic and the atheist related to her on those levels, as well as balancing motherhood with a professional career even though I have a private practice and do not testify in court, and my husband is not an adventurer in any sense of the word and has been in the trenches with me for years.

That said, I wasn’t sure if I would finish it. One thing I have noticed about atheists who were raised in secular homes is that we tend to not find the demonic possession end of day stuff scary, and if anything we find it overacted to the point of ludicrousness if it isn’t boring as hell (can’t speak for all of us, but the overwhelming majority that I have talked to about it feel that way). My parents were both raised Methodist and found The Exorcist scary even though they had been atheists for years, so I think if you are raised Christian it is still scary even if you leave the faith, but if you are never raised to believe in it then it’s silly. Both my sister and I found it silly, even though other people our age who were Christian thought it was terrifying. And it extends to other movies and shows that feature demon possession and end of day stuff. While I love horror, it’s not a subset of horror that works for me.

So I don’t know if people raised in other belief systems like Islam or Buddhism find it scary (but would be interested in finding out!), but lifelong atheists tend not to. So for those reasons I wasn’t sure if I would finish it, and for the first few episodes I still wasn’t sure because, bluntly, the demon possession stuff just has me rolling my eyes with how over the top it is if I wasn’t laughing at how preposterous it was. So those elements definitely dragged it down for me. Yet there were elements that I really appreciated, and it did have one episode that terrified and disturbed me. So I finished it. Do I want to watch the second season? Not sure. Spoilery thoughts below.

-I did appreciate how at the beginning it illustrated how someone like Kristen would have a massive amounts of student loan debt and would be working her ass off to pay it. They sort of drifted from this. But at the beginning there was the sense of how it is hard juggling career and kids and paying the bills.

-While I did like some of the psychological aspects, there was some stuff that fell victim to me knowing the ins and outs of Kristen’s profession. Most counselors and psychologists, or the good ones at least, do see a therapist of their own to work on their own issues, get what they need to off their chest and ensure that they are in a good emotional state to practice, so I am glad that they showed Kristen going to therapy and working on her issues. That said, if someone stole a therapist’s client files, that would be a BFD, for both the practitioner and the thief. A practitioner could lose their license if they were shown to be negligent in handling the files. They could have also filed a lawsuit against Leland for stealing the files. And if I was a practitioner, I would want to know how the files were stolen. 

-Which is one of the weak points of the show. Why did Kristen feel like she had to take on Leland and LeRoux on her own? She hardly exhausted her options. She didn’t even tell her mother that Leland had threatened to kill her daughters, much less document the threat and work to get a restraining order against him (yes, I know, those don’t always work well but they give her a legal recourse). Ditto with LeRoux. One of my specialties is domestic violence and harassment so I am very familiar with the steps you would take to document all of that and get help before abandoning the idea, but Kristen didn’t try any of those. And while domestic violence and the like doesn’t appear to be her specialty it pops up frequently enough that it would be alarming if she didn’t know that. It took away a bit from me. Also, if someone had threatened my children, I would tell my children. Yes, I get you wouldn’t want your kids to be anxious, but in a case like that they would need to know. I would tell my husband. I would tell the police. In fact, as a mandatory reporter, Kristen would be legally obligated to call the police if someone made threats on someone else’s life, especially a child’s life. It blew my mind that she just kept it to herself. Especially as Leland did it in a public courthouse surrounded by people. I would find someone to corroborate.

Now a problem in these cases is someone making threats to harm or kill someone, being reported, and then denying it to the police and leaving them unable to do much. They could have written that in, but they didn’t, and it did not reflect well on Kristen IMO.

-Another counselor nitpick, a good counselor/psychologist would not start out by challenging a client’s beliefs but take time exploring them and mapping out how they think. This is two fold, helping the client to trust the counselor and feel validated by them while it helps the psychologist understand how they see the world and build a map of their thoughts process and belief system and give them clues to how to utilize it to help them get better. Basically if someone came into my office and said they were possessed by a demon I would go with it even though I don’t believe them because understanding how they think is more important than challenging everything right off the bat. 

-There were a few episodes that were very effective. The Halloween episode with the masked girl was chilling. The episode that really did it for me was when David was in the hospital and subjected to the whims of a sadistic, racist nurse. And what is interesting is what made is so chilling is that none of it was supernatural. But that thought of being held captive, drugged to the point of being unable to advocate for yourself and ask for help and at the mercy of someone who wants to hurt you was terrifying (and not to mention hard to watch). I also have a history of sleep paralysis, and the thing that would terrify me most when I was paralyzed was the thought that someone was in the room or outside my home wanting to hurt me and I couldn’t defend myself or even call 911. So David being medically paralyzed captured that feeling. I also hate IVs, absolutely hate them and have this fear that they will tear my veins out, so there were several scenes I could not watch. Finally, this happens. There have been nurses who have tormented and killed patients and they got away with it for years because they were able to cover it up. And my husband, who is mixed Pacific Islander, Asian and European but appears a racially ambiguous brown, is nervous about hospitals for that same reasons and because of mistreatment his father received when he was treated for lung cancer (they broke a mercury thermometer in his lungs) that likely contributed to his death. So that episode chilled me to the core for a number of reasons.

-That said, Kristen’s sleep paralysis stuff was not an accurate depiction of how it works at all. You can’t even talk when you have sleep paralysis. I was usually laughing at the scenes with George. George. I mean, how the fuck can you take a demon named George seriously? I laughed my head off when he said his name was George and wondered if I was suddenly watching a comedy. If I had sleep paralysis and a demon came in and said his name was George I would laugh myself out of it. 

-The episode with the boy who tried to drown his baby sister in the pool brought back memories of working in a children’s mental hospital. I saw something similar with a kid who was even younger. And that kid suffered abuse so horrific that it gave me and one of the other therapists working with them nightmares, and with the knowledge that we don’t have good treatment options for someone who exhibits the symptoms that kid did it was a horrible case. If I wake up one morning and see on the news that they were arrested for a string of murders or killing their kids I will not be surprised. You don’t need possession to explain this stuff. The truth, that someone would be so sadistically abusive to their own child, and that despite all of the red flags that this child’s parents were allowed to raise and abuse them for as long as they did and to the extent that they did, is far more terrifying. I guess that’s another reason I don’t like the demonic possession stuff. It gives abusers a way out. 

-So there were things I liked about it, and there were things I hated about it. I think I’ll see what the plot synopsis and reviews of the second season are like before committing.

[rimmers-swimming-certificate]

Red Dwarf fanfic - Comatose (6/?)

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5

Lister was halfway through a movie when Kryten entered his quarters with an empty laundry basket tucked under one arm. His other hand clutched a full-looking teapot with steam rising slowly fro the spout. The mechanoid stopped completely still in the doorway and stared at Lister.

Lister, laying in his bunk, head propped up on one hand, smiled at him. “Alright, Kryten?”

Kryten didn’t reply. He remained where he was, staring at Lister as though transfixed.

Lister’s smile turned into a confused frown. He glanced behind him, checking there was nothing there that might have captured the mechanoid’s interest. Finding just the usual wall, he turned back. “Uh, Kryten?”

His hand moved self consciously to the large letter ‘H’ on his forehead. It was the only thing in the whole situation that was different, and it had taken him a while to get used to seeing it on Rimmer, so it stood to reason that the others would find it strange on him.

“Kryten, what’s going on? Is something wrong?”

Finally, Kryten blinked. “No sir. Stare mode cancel. I’m sorry, it’s just so good to have you back, Mr Lister. For the past six months, I’ve been trapped on the ship alone, with only Mr Rimmer and Mr Cat for company.”

Lister shrugged unsympathetically. “Yeah, been there,” he said.

Kryten walked busily across the room, placed the teapot on the table and the laundry basket on the floor next to it. “So, sir, I trust you’re well? How are you adjusting to your hologramatic status?

Lister gave the question serious consideration as he took a swig of his hologramatic lager. The drink was nothing like lager, not really. It wasn’t even like having a drink. There was no feeling of quenching his thirst, because he had no thirst to quench. The drink didn’t feel cold, but it didn’t feel warm either. It was somehow completely without temperature. There was no fizz either, and he was reasonably certain that the taste he was detecting was constructed entirely from his own memory and expectation of the flavour, rather than from the drink itself.

“Sir?” Kryten asked

Lister shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so. I mean, it’s…” he shrugged again, struggling to put it into words. “It’s not been very long,” he said. I’ve done nearly this long before, when me and Rimmer swapped bodies.”

Of course that had been different. There had been a time limit on that arrangement. They had agreed to swap for two weeks, although in fact it had lasted much less time. This was completely open ended; he had no idea how long it might last, or when it might be over.

Kryten nodded. “I imagine this is a little different to that, sir.”

“Well, yeah. For a start I’ve got you looking after my body instead of Rimmer, so that’s definitely better.”

“But sir, you’re in a coma.”

Lister nodded. “Even so. The whole thing’s not great though. I think it’d be easier to put up with if I knew how long it was going to be for.”

“Of course.” Kryten opened one of Lister’s clothes drawers as he spoke. “And I wish I could give you that information sir. I really do.”

He knew Kryten didn’t know. He took another sip of pointless lager, just for something to occupy his hands. Vaguely, he wondered whether Holly would be capable of simulating a pack of cigarettes for him.

“I’d forgotten what a pain in the arse it is to not be able to do anything for yourself. You want to pick something up? Nope, gotta ask the skutters to do it for you. Want to push that button? Too bad, ask the Cat. And this stuff?” He raised the can of holographic lager in the air. “It’s like vaguely beer flavoured nothingness. I don’t even know why I keep drinking it.”

He took one final swig, then tossed the half-empty can across the room in the direction of the bin. It spun through the air for a second, then disappeared just before it hit its target.

“I see,” said Kryten. “Sir, I don’t know whether you’re aware of this, but historically, new holograms were given a minimum six weeks of weekly therapy sessions by the Space Corps, as well as company mandated rehabilitation.”

Lister frowned. “Why?”

“Well, sir, it was found that holograms were prone to depression and bouts of existential crisis. Of course, much of that was linked to the knowledge that they -- the person that they were -- was dead. That is not the case for you, of course. Still, I would expect there to be a certain adjustment period. A significant portion of the rehabilitation involved learning ways of doing things without the ability to touch, as well as coping with the emotional impact of that.”

Now that Lister thought about it, that all made perfect sense. “I don’t suppose you have any of those therapy sessions built into your programming, do you?” he asked.

Kryten shook his head. “Me, sir? No, I’m afraid not. You might find some relevant literature in the ship’s databanks, but, as loathe as I am to say it, most likely the best person for you to speak to would be Mr. Rimmer.”

“I don’t think so,” Lister said, immediately.

“No. Honestly, even thinking that suggestion felt ridiculous,” Kryten admitted. “But unfortunately, he is the closest thing we have to an expert on the subject.”

“He’s also a complete smeg head,” Lister countered. Rimmer would probably love it if he went to him for help. After all, Lister hadn’t exactly gone out of his way to make things easy for Rimmer when he had first been switched on.

“Granted, sir,” Kryten agreed. “He did, however, visit you almost every day when you were in the medi-bay. He does appear to care. Although honestly I doubt he would make an effective therapist.”

No kidding. Literally anybody that had ever been born would make a better therapist. With the possible exception of Cat.

“Although, frankly, given the circumstances, it’s a miracle that Mr. Rimmer is still sane.”

Lister scoffed. “Kryten, Rimmer was never sane to begin with.” He had been teetering on the edge long before he had even died. Although, maybe that only proved Kryten’s point. “So how’d he do it then? How’d he manage to not go any crazier?”

Kryten appeared to think about the question as he reached into Lister’s drawer, pulled out a handful of neatly folded t-shirts, screwed them up, and dumped them in the laundry basket.

“I suppose the only way to be certain would be to ask him. I do have my own theories though. Perhaps Mr Rimmer’s personality, deficient though it is, is actually suited to being a hologram. I mean, he is stand-offish to the extreme and cowardly to the point where not being able to be touched, and therefore not be hurt, may actually be considered beneficial. Also, while admittedly I didn’t know him in life, I don’t imagine him to be the kind to be touchy-feely with his friends.”

“What friends?” Lister asked, then sighed. “I didn’t know any of this stuff.”

“No reason you should, sir.”

But there was. He had been bunking with a hologram for five years, and what had he done? Nothing useful, that was for sure. He had repeatedly told Rimmer to stop whinging about being dead; actually point blank told him that he wouldn’t touch things for him, because he’d seen what Rimmer liked to touch; and occasionally threatened to switch him off in favour of someone better.

Honestly, if Rimmer did want to gloat about Lister’s current situation, he would probably be justified.

From another cupboard, Kryten removed a packet of biscuits, took one out, crushed it between his hands and dropped the pile of crumbs into the laundry basket with the clothes.

Lister watched him, bemused. The mechanoid picked up the teapot he had brought into the room and tilted it, ready to pour the contents into the basket. “Kryten,” Lister asked. “What the smeg are you doing?”

Kryten looked from the basket of screwed up, crumb-covered clothes, to the teapot in his hand, and finally back to Lister. He appeared to consider the question carefully. “Laundry,” he said.

Lister frowned. “I’m no expert or anything, but even I know that’s not how you do laundry. Not unless we’ve landed in the backwards world again.”

“I...I...I…” Kryten opened and closed his mouth in a compulsive way that made Lister think he was about to have a serious malfunction.

“Kryten…”

“You just don’t understand what it’s been like, sir. You were unconscious, you didn’t need me to do your washing because you simply weren’t generating the same amount of mess that you usually did. Add to that, I only had half the number of dishes to wash, and absolutely no detritus to pick up after you, and I was quite literally going out of my head with boredom!”

Lister frowned. “So why didn’t you just find something else to do?”

“I didn’t want to do anything else! It was laundry day and I had nothing to launder, so I went into your quarters one day, emptied out your drawer and… well, it was such a relief to get back a bit of normality. Since then, I’ve been doing two loads a week.”

“Right,” Lister shook his head in bafflement. “But couldn’t you just do the Cat’s laundry instead?”

“He wouldn’t let me. He said he didn’t trust me with his suits.”

“Look, why don’t you just put those back, and watch the end of the film with me?” Lister suggested. “Or I can get Holly to rewind it to the start, I don’t mind watching it again.”

Kryten shook his head, still brandishing the teapot above the basket. “I can’t, sir. I need to get these clothes dirty so that I can get them nice and clean for you.”

Lister sighed. “Whatever makes you happy, I guess,” he said, but as he spoke he noticed a yellow t-shirt among the biscuit crumb-covered pile. His eyes widened in panic and he leapt down from the bunk to grab the basket out of Kryten’s hands.

He remembered at the last moment that he couldn’t. Instead, he waved a hand at the yellow t-shirt in the middle of the pile. “Hang on a minute, what’s that?”

“A pile of laundry, sir. We just discussed it, remember? Perhaps I need to do some additional tests to ensure you didn’t sustain brain damage in the accident.”

“No, what’s that,” Lister tried to clarify. He pointed at the yellow t-shirt again, knowing that he only owned two t-shirts of that particular colour and hoping that this one wasn’t the one he thought it was.

Kryten put down the teapot to free up his hand, then pulled the shirt out from the centre of the pile and held it up for Lister to see. “A t-shirt, sir.”

Lister looked at it, and his heart sank. “Smeg,” he said.

You could barely see the stain anymore. He moved his head a little closer and squinted. He could just about make out the mark where the blob of vindaloo had dripped from an overloaded piece of naan three million years ago, but it had faded almost to the point of disappearing.

“Kryten, how many times have you washed this t-shirt?” he asked.

The mechanoid looked at it, doing a quick calculation. “Between the beginning of your coma and now? Approximately twenty times.”

“You’ve nearly got the stain out,” Lister told him.

Kryten looked at it. “Which one, sir?”

“That one,” Lister pointed at a barely-there stain on the left side of the t-shirt. “There was a stain there from where I dropped curry on it. It was the first time Kochanski spoke to me, and I was so surprised I dropped curry and it made a stain in the shape of a heart. That was the first time I knew that we were meant to be together.” And now it was gone.

Kryten looked at the t-shirt again, a guilty look appearing on his face. “Oh sir, I’m sorry! I had no idea that stain had sentimental value. I didn’t rotate the wash, I just kept taking the clothing from the top of your drawer. If I’d dug down a little deeper, maybe this wouldn’t have happened! Although, frankly, I was a little afraid of what I might find in there.”

Lister sighed. “Forget it. Just, don’t wash that one anymore, okay? Leave it alone, it’s clean enough.”

The mechanoid put down the basket of ‘dirty’ washing, shook off the crumbs and carefully folded the yellow t-shirt and put it back in the drawer where he had found it, then picked up the remaining t-shirts and left quietly.

Lister watched him go, and sighed to himself, then turned to address the middle of the room. “Holly, give me another beer, will you?”

(next)