#and it will continue to as long as my fucking psychosis keeps coming back

[voiceshearingyouloud]

I felt terrible (putting it mildly) because I had a really severe episode of my delusion coming back (so much so that I was googling if you should break up with your partner cause you’re in love with your friend) and it brought back all the crushing guilt and grief like crazy. But I walked down to the ravine and waded in the river and screamed along to Lover, You Should’ve Come Over and then I felt better

[heyheydidjaknow]

Think this is the shortest properly written thing I’ve posted and it’s not even what I usually write. This is in response to the whole “Whitney’s one of the better fathers” thing that went around a second ago. No idea if the people who follow me are DOL people but whatever man it’s Tumblr.

Prospects

His reaction was less violent than you had anticipated.

When you first wrapped your head around the whole thing, the first thing that came to your mind were the issues of how you were going to tell him and how you were going to put yourself between him and the baby. You had assumed he would tell you to get rid of it. You had assumed he was going to deny being the father. You had assumed you would be on your own. You were hardly happy with those prospects, but you had come to terms with them long before you had asked him over.

He did not look angry. He did not even look upset. He stared down at the test in your hand, registering the lines the same as you had. He took a deep breath, held it for a second, exhaled. He dug into his pocket for a moment, paused, took a second. Another breath.

The silence hung in the air like a guillotine over your neck.

You offered a smile. “So? How do you–”

“Stop talking.” His eyes raised towards your cracked ceiling. “I’m thinking.”

You sat down on the bed, the test still held between your fingers.

After a few more seconds, his gaze fell sharply back on you. “How much do you make?”

You blinked. “I–”

“Rent here isn’t cheap, right?” His voice shook ever so slightly. “You make money, right? That I don’t know about? How much?”

You considered it, lazily running your gaze along the floorboards. “I don’t know. Depends on the gig and how long I spend–”

“Assume you aren’t going to school.”

You sighed. “Nonstop? I can maybe squeeze out between four and ten thousand a week.”

He nodded slowly. “And how far in are you? Like how long have you been pregnant?”

“Three weeks or so?’

“And pregnancy lasts forty? So you’re due in a little more than half a year?”

“Mhm.”

He ran his tongue along his teeth, nodded. “Doable,” he decided. “Difficult, but doable.”

“What are you on about?”

He cast his eye towards the door, voice lowering. “I have five thousand in my account right now. If I drop out and you can save a thousand a week we can be out a couple months before you’re due.”

You looked up at him. “What do you mean?”

He grabbed your bag off the floor, digging into it for a piece of paper and a pen. “Babies are expensive,” he continued, sitting down on the ground and beginning to write. “If we assume we need–”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re keeping it, aren’t you?” He gestured at you with the pen. “You wouldn’t tell me if you weren’t, would you?”

You sat up. “I– well, no, but–”

“Then we’re going to be responsible for a baby in a few months.” You could not tell if he was nearly as out of sorts as you were; from where you were sitting, he seemed shockingly calm. “And in those few months, we need to be settled so we aren’t scrambling when it gets here. We need to figure out a game plan.”

“Settled?” You stumbled to your feet. “What, you want me to move in with you?”

He laughed, a whisper of manicism poking through. “Fuck no; you wouldn’t be let in the door. No, we’re skipping town.”

You blinked. “What do you mean?”

The pen stopped moving. “What do you mean what do I mean?”

“I’m not leaving.”

He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but is prepartum psychosis a thing?”

“Hey—“

He raised his voice over yours. “If you think that I’m letting any kid— any kid of ours especially— get raised in this shithole I don’t know if I want to see what our kid is going to look like, what with the type of shit you have to be high on.”

You felt yourself shrink. His voice was still fairly even— unusually even for him— but somehow that registered as more concerning than if he were throwing shit at you. “My entire life is here.” You looked away, trying not to notice the incredulous grin that spread across his face. “Everyone I know lives in this town.”

He looked at you as though you had grown a third head.

Your face flushed. “I have family here!” Your fists clenched at your side. “And I have a stable job and friends—“

“That rape you.”

You shot him a glare despite yourself.

He clarified. “You have a family consisting of a leech you almost die every week for, a ‘steady’ job diving and whoring yourself out to make two people’s worth of unreasonable rent and friends that are also rapists.”

“Oh like you’re one to talk,” you snipped. “Like you aren’t half—“

“In what universe does the fact that my treating you like a piece of meat isn’t a turn-off does not register as a red flag to you?”

“Are you fucking complaining about my being into you right now?”

He took a deep breath, held it, and exhaled slowly. You flinched as he took your hands in his. “Look,” he tried, voice softer, “I know you have reservations— it’s a lot to ask someone to pack up and leave with you, and I have my own life here— but from where I’m sitting this is a matter of life and death. If we stay here, it’s not going to have a good life; fuck, I don’t even know if it’ll really have a life.” You could hear something like desperation in his voice. “I know that you don’t want to, but we both know it’s what’s best.”

His fingers twitched around you. You kept your eyes on them. “What if I say no?” you asked. “What if I don’t want to leave?”

He squeezed your palms together gently. “Then I’ll get that cuck that follows you around all the time to hold you in his basement,” he promised. “Or I’ll take the baby while you sleep.” He reached up, tilting your head so he could look you in the eye. They seemed bottomless, and you felt fear slither around your throat and squeeze. “I’ll drag you and our brat out of this town kicking and screaming if that’s what it takes, and if that doesn’t work,” he said, voice now barely a whisper, “I’ll kill you and take it away so that it can live a good, happy life and not end up like us. Do you understand me?”

Your leadened tongue laid useless in your mouth.

“Good.” He patted you twice on the cheek, letting you crumple to the floor drenched in cold sweat while he went back to his calculations. Through your fear-induced haze, it occurred to you that in all the time you had known him you had never seen him look so basically happy. You would have gone so far as to say that he almost looked like a normal person; terrified and resolved, but quietly overjoyed. You never would have thought that would be the thing that scared you most after everything he had done to you. “Do you need boxes or bags to pack your stuff in?”

[martyrbat]

martyrtodd, my beloved, I see your disability takes and as someone who is physically and mentally disabled I appreciate them and hold them close to my heart.

I humbly ask for some disabled Jason headcanons

goosey my beloved <3 im so glad you're enjoying them and i offer mere samples on how far deep the disabled jason todd rabbit hole can go <3

im mixing in some that he should just canonly have and personal hcs (plus a bit of self projection) but hopefully you'll like any of these too :3

schizoaffective disorder

more prone to mania outbursts

can be extremely delusional

paranoia and anxiety -> isolating

psychosis

(lots of people give him hallucinations due to his ptsd but i think he experiences a range of it and in different levels of intrusiveness!)

(and fun fact, children under 16 who experienced trauma are more than 3x likely to have psychosis as an adult! up to 50x if its severe!)

autistic

literally just a given. look at him. autism coded.

deaf/hard of hearing

always had poor hearing

fast visual learner because of it

has multiple pairs of hearing aids he wore as robin to "keep his identity secret"

bruce taught him asl

batman and robin used a lot of nonverbal cues and their own version of sign language on patrol too. (batman teaches it to the others when hes gone and jason cries)

as a kid he had a gun shot near him & developed tinnitus

^ only worsened as time went on

it gets overbearing after he comes back to life due to the beating he received and literally dying in an explosion

it continued until he got Lazarus Pitted. but that ringing was replaced with silence & most of his hearing fully gone

gains more due to close proximity with firearms and explosions constantly

terrifies him as his hearing loss got worse.

like full on sobbing terrifies.

he spent his entire life relying on his senses and wayne techs always improving technology to keep himself and others safe. with that fully removed it leaves him feeling vulnerable

'how will i know if im alone? if someone is sneaking up on me or im being too loud? if someone is screaning for help just out of eyesight?'

so much fear !

but! he grows to accept it and use it to his advantage and

helmet rigged to have sensors that alert him of almost anything around him

and so sensitive to the vibration of any sound to where he can pinpoint anyone

will close his eyes/remove his hearing aids when arguing so he doesnt 'hear' them

really into heavier music for the bass and drum vibration

fully deaf by the time he reaches his 30s

speech

(this one can be effected by all but)

severe speech delay as a child

repeated lines/quotes mostly to express his feelings because he's autistic and its easier than coming up with the words yourself

semi nonverbal

damaged vocal cords, gets hoarsed easily/painful to talk for too long

stims by clicking his tongue against his teeth

^^ became a tic !

chronic pain

a given for anyone but especially jason

from the streets and not being able to afford a doctor

to as robin and the injuries he received

to dying

to being forcefully brought back to life

to the Lazarus Pit

just so much pain. he cant remember a time he wasnt in pain. its the one thing that'll always be consistent no matter what.

chronic migraine haver, u can tell

talia tries her best to help ease it and make sure he has meds/the fake id and doctor to keep his prescriptions

his shoulder, head, and hips get the worse flares

would push himself as robin too much and made it worse

allows his body the rest as an adult, using that time to do his scheming and think of every detail/possible route in it

misc.

had NAS

picks at his skin if overstressed

being poor can and will make your health worse. from stress to not being able to get the help you need and something small becoming chronic or permanent

extreme fatigue

so many burns and damaged nerve tissue :(

i think about that one batwoman comic where he lost an eye in a future timeline constantly

OCD

periodically gets bad tremors in his hands

again. so fucking autistic coded.

[unperceivable-future]

Repetitions and Branching Off

Hawks/Keigo Takami x Reader.

Content warning: ANGST? references of mental illness including symptoms of psychosis, self-mutilation. Usage of AFAB pronouns. Usage of "angel" as petname. Not proof-read (and English is not really my first language) and more on waffling to cope.

Synopsis: Keigo trying to be a kind (ex)boyfriend.

Note: I don't know, I mentally checked out and came back to this. This made more sense in my head.

===============

Perhaps this was a mistake. There has to be a turning point in Keigo's life where he should have been smarter, wiser and chose the better option.

His phone buzzes yet again. Another message, another rambling that makes sense to nobody but her. Well, it sort of makes sense to Keigo. He's heard her ramble about it, ranting and throwing her hands around in frustration, sometimes in excitement but mostly in worry too. He glances at the notification banner on his lockscreen.

"They are parko..." parkouring by the closet, in my room. Keigo does not need to unlock his phone to read the whole message. The sentence tends to end one way or the other: the cats are parkouring by the closet or the cats are parkouring in my room.

She often thinks the cats are cute. Spooky but all cats are cute.

He continues to fly in the direction of her home, her little rotting pod as she calls it nowadays. He takes his time, both mentally preparing himself on what to say and how to compose himself. It never gets easier and he wishes he made the right choice during that one moment where the story branched off.

Keigo was never a caregiver. He can only fend for himself, he could not even save his own parents. He wished he could though.

He wishes that he is mentally sound, mentally safe and mentally sane. Maybe he could help his drowning loved ones instead of being passive, instead of letting them slip through the cracks of his fingers like rainwater when he would cup his hands out when he stands under the storm.

He sees the roof of her house and makes a touchdown, preparing himself for the worst case scenario. First he truly wishes that she hasn't snapped and skedaddled to the afterlife, second he sincerely wishes to turn back time---before the story branched off.

Before he agreed that they were better off as friends and not lovers. It made it easier for him to keep track of her because she felt more obliged to open up. Now she runs rampant like the cats that plague her home, no longer find it necessary to give him an update of her life.

"Angel?" Keigo does not knock, he simply sends a feather through the mail slot of his ex-girlfriend's front door and unlocks it to let himself in.

"I used a feather to let myself in!" He calls out from the landing, he hopes that the sentence is long enough to not fuck with her head, that his sentence was not a figment of her imagination.

"Keigo...?" His best friend's voice quietly inquires, it comes from her bedroom. The ground zero of it all.

Keigo makes his way inside and no matter how many times, the sight never gets easier.

"Angel..." There goes his angel, sitting in the middle of her room swallowed in her thick duvet with her forehead slumped against her desk chair. Keigo does not waste time, he pulls her duvet off her as if ripping off bandages. He needs to assess the damages.

"I think I did good." She mumbles, her voice flat and nonchalant. Keigo gently pulls her arms, pushing her pyjama shorts up inspecting her usual sites.

Words scribbled in markers. Some were intelligible, others were repetitions and others were smudged and scratched out by her inked-stained nails. Her arms and thighs look like those paper notes you'd sneakily pass between you and your friends in class.

'no'

'spooked'

'uh oh'

'no'

'clean'

'stop'

':('

'okay'

'go away'

'ok'

'no'

'scary'

'scry'

'clean'

'theyre clean'

Keigo is not necessarily a massive guy, though his hands make people feel as if he is. He wrap his warm hands around her ink-stained arms, he makes note of how her non-dominant arm is throbbing. The wave isn't over yet.

He wants to quickly pull her into a warm embrace, a part of him wanting to just smother her with his love and pray it cures her but it is never that easy. So he pulls her slowly and gently, trying to swallow down the flinch from how empty her eyes look and how much she stank of hair grease and musk.

"You should have called me sooner." Keigo chides her quietly as he grounds her back to Earth.

"I thought he had me bugged." She retorts and Keigo wants to remind her that the prime minister of Japan is too busy to be personally stalking her and that there is no reason for the prime minister to have a vendetta against her but it is futile but he knows that on clearer days she knows this. But right now it is not that day.

She flinches, her eyes darting to the crevice under her bed.

"There's nothing there." Keigo reminds her that there are no black cats. There are no white cats either. No garden gnomes, no dogs and no children running around her home.

"I'm sorry Keigo." She apologises for taking his precious time, for putting more onto his plate. She wants to cry but there are no tears. In her head she is grief-stricken that she dragged him down with her but her body has nothing to give only flat-voiced mumblings that makes her sound like a careless asshole who is simply apologising for the sake of getting it over with. But Keigo has learned to understand, he gets it. The whole emotionally shutting down response that the body can put you through.

"You can't be sorry over something you can't control." At some point gets her to sit down on her bed, taking over her aggressive scrubbing on her skin with a damp towel in favour of gentler rubbing to remove the scribbles on her flesh.

"The doctor keeps, the doctor keeps saying that I cannot be manic. Otherwise I wouldn't have known that I was manic." She explains to Keigo. She explains this to him many times why she seems to be stuck in this cycle.

"Well your doctor is a dickhead and you need to change to a better one." He replies as his brow twitches in irritation.

"Do you want me to call you a new doctor?" He asks. It's the same conversation every few weeks, the same doctor she sticks around with despite how unheard she felt, despite how her concerns with her medicine is shrugged off.

"I...I'll do it, I promise. I'll call them this time." She vows but Keigo knows this will unlikely happen. He holds her now damped arms, her non-dominant arm still throbbing. Sometimes he wonders if psychiatrists actually acknowledged the physiological effects of wanting to damage your own body. He knows hers doesn't.

"Sleep first." Keigo suggests. It does not matter if she has not slept for more than three hours or if she has slept for sixteen hours.

He likes to think that sleeping can help her reset somehow, that she will wake up feeling a little bit better and a little bit more present. Besides, she tends to always be exhausted after...an episode.

"Will you be here tomorrow?" She asks as Keigo helps her get tucked into bed. He joins her to her bed like he used to, holding her close after turning off the nightstand lamp and ignoring how she does not feel or smell like his pretty ex-girlfriend that was so well taken care of.

"Tomorrow, we'll get you a better doctor. Tonight, we sleep." He reassures her in the darkness of her room, in the ground zero of it all.

[bluedishsoap]

toby nat and jeff (the saga)

i keep lamenting about nobody knowing about my creepypasta interps but i realized i could amend that by just Talking about them. so today i’m going to tell you guys the saga of toby,  jeff, and nat (or at least a brief overview of it). would love suggestions for a name i can use to refer to this part of my cpp universe/this trio.. if i find a catchy enough name i will go back and tag all posts about them with it

during the events described in this post jeff and toby use he/him  and nat uses she/they but still considers herself a chick (after the events of this saga they end up coming out as genderfluid and switch to using all pronouns)

heed the content warnings in the tags!

it all starts when jeff, who’s fresh out of highschool, meets natalie after getting a black eye in the mosh pit of a local punk show. nat pulls them out of the pit and has an ice pack on her for this exact situation, and soon they exchange contact information and become friends. nat lives by herself and jeff doesn’t, so he ends up coming over a lot. they dye each others hair and listen to crass and discharge, amongst other bands.

a year later jeff’s starting college, and in my canon he gets horrifically hazed freshman year (they cut gashes into his cheeks, that’s how he gets his signature smile). he ends up killing the perpetrators around a month after the fact. this makes him a wanted criminal, and so he decides he’s gonna gather his shit in a backpack and leave the state. he goes to nat, who is working a shift at this dingy slushie shop when he approaches her, and says “hey. i’m leaving town. i’m giving you until the end of this week to decide whether you want to come with me.”

nat chooses to tag along, and they make it all the way from maine to illinois (you might wanna look at a map of the US if you’re not from here, but basically from the northeast to the midwest) before they run into toby. toby's originally from vermont, but he's been on the road since he turned 17 because he doesn't really have a home to return to; his mom thinks he's fucking dead and so does the government. he's also trying to escape the slenderman's influence because he isn't really up for doing its bidding. (he actually does manage to escape the range of its control, but because he keeps hallucinating it when its not actually there, he doesn’t realize this.)

but yeah. toby runs into nat and jeff and they end up hitting it off to the point where toby starts tagging along on their saga. others have tagged along before and will continue to come and go, but toby nat and jeff stay a trio for 4 years. sometimes people who get in their way end up dying, but they try to make this a rare occurrence so pigs aren’t onto them.

now some of you might be inclined to think this time was as blissful as can be (and of course they did find their own form of joy within their ever-changing circumstances) but all three of them were all suffering from the psychological aftermath of a lifetime of trauma, and a complete lack of mental health support. (which is not fun when all three of them suffer from some form of psychosis). they also find themselves addicted to a large array of substances, the most notable one being heroin. (toby specifically also struggles really bad with alcohol) they each have mental health crises that sometimes come to life-or-death, but even while hurting each other and themselves they stick together. it’s not healthy in the slightest, but it’s the best arrangement they can manage for a good few years.

it all comes to a head when they’re all on a mix of different things, which by itself isn’t an uncommon experience, and neither is the yelling, the rising tension. here’s where i’m gonna have to give a brief rundown of events, because it would take me so long to fully articulate what each person was experiencing in this moment. jeff is going through a really bad psychotic episode and nat only escalates it (she’s usually better at handling this situation, but so much of it is out of her control, out of everyone’s) and it really seems as if she’s mocking jeff’s hazing, as if she’s taunting him for what he’s been through. jeff ends up cutting the same smile into nat’s face, and the rest is a blur for all of them. the morning after, nat wakes up with makeshift duct-tape-steri-strips sealing the wounds on her face, all applied by toby. the three of them are equally mortified at the events that transpired the night before. it is the first time it has really set in that what they have together isn’t sustainable. and for the first time since they all started traveling together nat feels unsafe and scared, the trust she used to have with jeff completely fractured after what happened. she can’t keep staying with him anymore, even if she still considers him their very best friend.

so she leaves, and toby goes with her.

[eric-the-bmo]

Wait have i told you guys about John and Shelby and the axe

So since Shelby is meant to be my backup character in case anything happens to John (god forbid), one of her viable weapons is an axe. Whether or not she becomes playable is undetermined, but she’s going to have the axe regardless.

Oops this turned into a speculative fanfic:

John is the one who gives her the axe.

It was a very sudden gift, one that made her look at him with confusion (and a little bit of concern) when he presented it to her. A weapon? “Surprise!” He had said with that nervous grin of his, and then began to stammer as he realized he needed to provide an explanation. “It’s- It’s for if anyone breaks in,” he had told her, lacing his long fingers together. “I know that this is a small town, and this is a suburb, but- but it does’t hurt to have a weapon! Just in case!”

She had thanked him for it, albeit reluctantly.

Eventually he would tell her the reason he’d bought her the axe, when she continued to express concern about his increasingly odd behaviors. “There’s... there’s monsters here,” he said, and he sounded like he genuinely believed it. “The axe is for if any of them come after you.” A few thoughts ran through her head, one of them being that monsters aren’t real. The next one was the memory of learning that withdrawals can cause psychosis. Her brow furrowed with concern. “John, are-” “Shelby.” He makes eye contact. Piercing yellow meeting green. “Darling. Please believe me when I say that I’m trying to protect you. Keep the axe.” She believed him. He’s always been protective of her, as much as she is with him. And since he’s obviously going through some sort of episode, keeping the axe would probably help alleviate his worries about her safety. “...Alright,” she said. “I’ll keep it with me if it makes you feel less worried.”

The time would eventually come where she would use it- and because of a monster, nonetheless.

She had never believed in monsters; she’d always been ones for logical explanations. Part of her still doesn’t want to believe in them.

But last night she had seen one, all covered in blood and full of claws and teeth and shifting bones under the skin. And it had hit her that John was right, there were monsters in this fucking town, and- And he-

When John showed up a few days later, she had the axe ready. She didn’t swing it at him. She just pointed the blade towards him. “Get out,” she had hissed, hoping he didn’t realize she didn’t know how to properly use it, or how her voice shook- the image of her best friend with bloodstained teeth and a feral glint in his eyes still wouldn’t leave her mind, even as he stood there now looking heartbroken with a flower in hand; an attempt at an apology. “I don’t want to see you. Get the fuck out of this house.”

“Darling, I-”

Both hands on the axe. Poised to strike. Just in case.

The monster took a step back with raised hands, a series of worried clicks escaping his mouth. “...Okay,” he whispered, wide eyes on the blade. “Okay. I get it.” Slowly, without looking away, he stepped off the porch. “I just wanted to say sorry. I never- I never wanted you to be scared of me.”

“I think it’s too late for that.”

[hahlilvndr]

Personal rant/vent on my experience with disability

Coming to terms with disability is so much to process. And finding out I’ve been disabled this whole time (my life) without knowing that my struggles even counted as such?? Is intense. 😵‍💫 I’m autistic, & I’m pretty sure I also have EDS, a common comorbidity with autism that’s evident for example in my weirdly flexible joints. These two disabilities, I’m realizing now at 32 years old, have been there the whole time. Just that fact alone exposes so much childhood trauma of parents & teachers mistreating me and taking advantage of this vulnerability through my growing up years. & it seems to have also triggered my predisposition to POTS after working at an Amazon warehouse til I got sick (I didn’t even last 2 months).

Amazon-is-evil storytime: After standing on concrete for “mandatory overtime” of 66 hours a week with monitored bathroom breaks, write ups for failing to maintain a working rate over 98%, LITERALLY dancing for managers handing out scratch cards in hopes that a “free” candy might ease the existential part of my pain at the end of the day, but actually hoping that maybe this scratch card that I danced “We’re All in This Together” for will be a Nintendo Switch this time. The crow I hallucinate when things get ROUGH is back, trying to keep me awake so I don’t pass out onto the industrial conveyor belt that I already injured my thumb on after dozing off on my feet that one day, & I know I’m supposed to be concerned with all this, even though my own doctors think I’m lazy, just trying to find excuses not to work. Well, I only started listening to these physical alarms after contracting a fever/diarrhea combo that put me out of commission for a whole month. I was automatically fired & locked out of the warehouse after this cause I didn’t have the PTO. Just 4 months later I would contract mono with permanent long-term symptoms. (Like how you can get long-covid from a covid infection. It’s also the same for many viruses, like Epstein-Barr. Though I eventually ended up with long-covid too. 🫠)

When it comes to POTS, that sort of physical activity is actually dangerous. All the blood drains from my head because my circulatory system cannot contract itself enough to keep the blood flowing vertically while I’m standing. So it’s no wonder I kept nearly blacking out at the end of every day requiring me to micro nap in my car after every shift just so I was capable of driving myself home. And this is to say nothing of my hour long commute!

This was all 2018.

Fast forward to 2020, I had just found some semblance of stability in my life, I had a full time office job that I was trying to ask for work from home accommodations for after recognizing that my difficulty with my now relatively short commute (15 min) still caused me to miss work because autism. I even began working on a pitch to form an accessibility committee in hopes of streamlining for others the grueling accommodations process I was dealing with just trying to stay employed.

Then the pandemic happened. I got to work from home for a couple weeks at first, but was refused my petition to continue. Even though other employees in my own department got to keep working from home. HR just bullied me into compliance, and required me to get an official diagnosis to “earn” WFH as an accommodation, but the psych that evaluated me insisted I wasn’t autistic, but living in a neurotic psychosis. Even though I scored 157 on the RAADS-R and met the criteria for symptoms, he insisted I was faking because I didn’t “look autistic.” (The fuck does that even mean????) Next thing I know just before clocking in at work, I got pulled into another room and fired. I wasn’t allowed to say goodbye to anyone, I was just immediately escorted out the building. I couldn’t even grab my personal things from my desk. They shipped them to me in a box. My coworkers would thank me in secret for standing up to HR’s constant ableism, racism, & transphobia (which I would frequently have to do) but they would never stand with me openly & that was what really felt isolating.

Anyway, capitalism is violence. It’s no fucking wonder the mortality risk of autistic people is twice as high as the general population. We’re not physically wired to handle this shit & then get systemically discarded for it because “metrics.”

[iknowthisisnowhere]

trigger warning, part 1

I've been pretty affected in the last few weeks by three psych patients. These patients have devastated me, and I have spent an evening crying over each.

These reactions of mine have upset me further because not only am I crying for them and what's happened, but also for myself.

I have to get their stories out.*

*details changed for HIPAA compliance

"I haven't been taking my clozapine," she tells me. "For how long?" I ask. I pause, looking at my patient. This is important; I hope my eyes convey this urgency, and I will her to be able to tell me accurately despite her psychosis. I discharged her last: did I fuck up her clozapine? That had been a difficult med rec, full of tapers and titrations, on and off the phone with the pharmacy multiple times for the bubble packs, and coordinating with the lab to schedule her blood counts. Did I fuck this up? Shit. Shit. Shit. "Days? Weeks?" I press. She slowly looks at me. She's RISing. "The voices are bad today. Did I run out? I can't remember." The clozapine titration. I knew I had fucked it up. How can this be? I triple-checked. I sent in both scripts with the correct directions to the correct pharmacy... right?

(Dear reader, I go back in the chart later to check after the interview. It's right. 200mg x 7 days. Followed by 275mg, the final dose. I still remember.)

"Are you having any thoughts of wanting to hurt yourself?" I ask. The crucial question. "Yes," she shows me her wrapped forearms. "I bit myself." The ER must have cleaned and dressed them. "What about right now?" I ask. The even more important question. She shakes her head. "If those thoughts come back or get worse, will you please tell staff?" She nods. "My priority is to keep you safe." She nods again.

"Are you having thoughts of wanting to hurt others?" I expect her to say no. Rarely do I hear yes. Most psychiatric patients only want to hurt themselves and turn their feelings inward. And yet...

"Yes."

"Who?"

"I want to crush up my pills and put them in my niece's formula. My dad's coffee. The family water bottles."

I breathe out. What the fuck?

"Did you do this?" I ask. Tell me the truth. Tell me the truth. Tell me the truth.

"No." I stare at her. Intensely. I hold her gaze. She stares back at me. I have to be sure.

"Did you do this?"

"NO!" she shouts. "That's why I bit myself! So I wouldn't hurt them. Like an honor killing. So they won't suffer. They're safer if I'm here, in the hospital."

I can nursing coming; they've heard the yelling. "Dr. H?" they ask at the door.

I'm grateful for the interruption. I have no idea how to continue the interview, and it's urgent that I staff with my attending. And urgent that I call DCS.

"I have to go," I say, gesturing to nursing. My patient nods.

I walk to the door. I can hardly hear nursing. I rush to my attending's office. I forget to formally present. I stumble on my words. I can hardly focus. Did I do this?

My attending calls DCS. (Later, we hear that the child and family are safe and medically clear.) After the phone call, we staff the other patients.

It's quiet.

"I'm afraid I did this," I look down. I can never move past this. My attending looks bewildered. "What do you mean?" "The med rec. Did I mess it up?" "No," she says, "I know you checked. I checked. Nursing checked. Pharmacy checked." She pauses. I feel like I'm close to tears.

"You can't make a patient take their medication," she says. I nod. Her words do not soothe me.

"I also feel guilty, like I betrayed her trust," I hesitantly say. I do not know why I feel this way.

"You have to tell. Legally. Ethically," she sternly states. I nod. I know this. "I did the right thing," I say. She nods.

I'm hesitant again: "Hearing that kind of fucked me up." My attending nods, "I was her outpatient psychiatrist for 6 years. We can talk about it later."

It's later. I'm in a groove with documentation when my attending texts me, "Come to my office if you want to talk." I glance at the screen, at the list of notes I have to get done.

I don't go.

[renaroo]

Other History? More Like Other MYSTERY

as in it’s a MYSTERY how the hell this got past an editor the week before Pride Month are you fucking kidding me?

I was kind of hoping for more than like... a week of being back on tumblr before I breathed fire and ripped a comic book to shreds. But we all know why I’m here.

There are so many preemptive things to get out of the way before I rip into this thing...

John Ridley as a writer in other forms of media has been incredibly accomplished and an important additional voice to entertainment industries. I do not wish to take away from that or to minimize the impact of voices like his.

But, you know, he’s a voice in media. Not the end-all, be-all to all marginalized people worldwide who can substitute his perspective for any nonwhite straight male voice. And I don’t think that has ever been more apparent than the continued spiral down the drain that has been every issue of The Other History of the DC Universe since the first. 

DC’s “new” approach to everything being canon and everything mattering is dumb and filled to the brim with ways it’s going to backfire and reveal itself to be the eye sore of publications that it’s aiming for, but I was curious to see how they would try to incorporate these characters’ long and contentious histories in the comics with the real world issues they often were billed to tackle, and try to fit it into the current pop culture landscape. That was the whole reason I had my eye on this comic to begin with.

By the second issue we were getting some stark warning signs because as much as I appreciated hearing an authentic perspective on how the Teen Titans brand carried on while neglecting its landmark Black teen heroes (Mal Duncan and Karen Beecher), there was a note of cruelty added to the issue that felt otherwise misplaced and uncharacteristic of the tone being set. 

There was no reason to have a significant portion of that issue dedicated to Mal and Karen’s monologues taking some aggressive words out on Roy Harper specifically for being an addict. 

Perhaps it was a quirk of writing from a flawed perspective or a show of how righteous upset and anger could be turned outward to other people suffering in a vy for your own empowerment. 

I’m now pretty sure that wasn’t it at all. I’m pretty sure because it kept getting worse every issue and it’s culminated in today’s issue where the retelling of Renee Montoya’s story managed to be petty, cruel, shockingly pro-police brutality int its adulation of Jim Gordon and especially Harvey Bullock, and managed to make a well-rounded and very beloved Latina lesbian and just retrofit every stereotype she never had before to her without regard for what it did to her story or to the stories of people around her. 

Honestly, lapsed faith and a poke at the damage that Catholic guilt can have on especially queer believers is kind of my jam, so it’s not that I wouldn’t be down for a story with that perspective. I could even understand exploring that with Renee. But not at the expense of her established history.

Which is a question all of its own. Here we have the skeletal structure of Renee’s life events that we have read before (in much better stories), but they are surprisingly out of order and also shockingly twisted in a way to make EVERYONE as unpleasant as possible. 

And in a way that has convinced me that either John Ridley has never read comics featuring Renee, or that he was mandated to change things that had no business being changed.

According to this issue Renee hated Batman and other superheroes? Which, ah, I don’t even know where that could come from. Ever since the animated series where she got started, Renee’s whole bag has been “the acolyte of Jim Gordon, only other cop who supports Batman”. Like I don’t even know how you get around that.

But according to Ridley she’s hated them all along as an extension of her internalized homophobia and self-loathing. Great.

What follows out of that is that apparently? Renee and Batman specifically butted heads over wanting to rehabilitate Harvey Dent? As in Renee wanted to help him and BATMAN was the one flipping out and saying Harvey was a sociopath and couldn’t be helped.

Like. I’m starting to question if Ridley has read Batman comics before. I don’t know where that interpretation could possibly come from? Bruce and Harvey were friends? Bruce has always held out hope for saving Harvey from his psychosis? It’s like. THE storyline for Two-Face.

The cop stuff... I don’t really know how to talk about the cop stuff to be completely honest. If you mention the LA Riots on one page and a few pages later try to frame it so that over policing and methods of brutality weren’t a thing until 9/11... I don’t know what to say to you. 

I’d say maybe I was being ungenerous here except there were two characters who got entire full page spreads about what good cops they were. And one of them was goddamn Harvey Bullock with the explicit commentary that Renee USED to be uncomfortable with his torture methods and general brutality but figured it was “okay” because he knew how “innocent people screamed different” and that he “never collared someone and it didn’t stick” because. Y’know. Police violence and falsifying evidence never go hand in hand. what the actual fuck ever right?

The timeline for Renee and Kate’s relationship is also completely changed which means that we get to add a trope I just LOVE as a lesbian personally, which is that lesbians can’t keep relationships and can’t keep from cheating on their loving partners. Especially when they are butch. 

And I’m not talking about Renee cheating on Kate. Oh, no. Ridley decided Kate was the Other Woman during Renee’s relationship with Daria. 

And just.. the cruel commentary that Renee had about both Kate and Daria throughout. It made my skin crawl. The way she talked about other women in general made my skin crawl. “Uncomplicated women” “Broken souls” “Can’t be with someone better than yourself”

So I actually planned to go into a full rage post about just the queer content because 1. my lane and 2. it honestly affected me so bad I was shaking and tearing up in anger a bit. Every single friend I know who loves Kate and Renee, see themselves in Kate and Renee, have been the same kind of mess I am after this.

The NASTINESS of the internal monologue. I don’t know how to explain it more than this is how poorly men think of flf and to have one use a character so meaningful to the community to spout this hatefulness has revolted me in a way I... haven’t had happen to me for a while.

I was going to talk about the weirdness of just... randomly deciding to retcon Renee’s parents into being undocumented when that’s never been a thing before and just doing NOTHING with it the whole while after. Or how it’s pretty questionable how Renee suddenly became so adherently Catholic when it’s never been portrayed like that before (that’s Hel B’s bag, JPV if you squint) but it’s entwined with any of her commentary on her ethnicity p sus too but I don’t have the nuance for that discussion right now.

Rena Rants are back and what a fucking JOKE this comic was. 

I didn’t pay for it and neither should you.

P.S. bringing back Tim Fox and calling him “Jace” is dumb as fuck too

[littleoddwriter]

So in the comics, Sionis's skull mask is actually NOT a mask and the result of him cutting off his face. What about a story where Roman entrusts with Zsaz with disfiguring him?

Perfection | Roman Sionis x Victor Zsasz | ZsaszMask

1) Anon, please, you need to tell me what comic you saw/read this in, because I've read pretty much all of the ones Roman is in and it's always a mask (he's called Black Mask for a reason after all). It's usually just fused with his face because it was burned to it.

So, I'm genuinely just curious in which comic book version he cut his face off, because I'm not aware of it, fjdhfjkskfsl. And I need to read it. Please, dhjgsdjfhsf.

2) This turned more into a character study, whoops. I hope it's still to your liking anyway. Thank you so much for the request, it was super interesting and it totally got out of hand again... (cue no one being surprised).

I hope you enjoy! :)

summary; see above.

notes; TW / CW // Dissociation; Delusion; Psychosis; Visual Hallucination; Murder; Violence; Blood; Cutting; Disfiguration; Scars; Identity Death. That should be everything important.

A/N: Also, Roman suffers from BPD, like always in my Fics, so that's where this is all coming from, as I headcanon that it started out as the general symptom of having a distorted sense of self, and developed into a delusion, and then he suffered a psychotic break with hallucinations and such, resulting in his disfiguration.

[And remember that psychosis is a very serious thing and that I'm not using it lightly here. Psychotic people suffer. They're not bad people for having psychosis. They deserve love and respect. Don't use it against people, don't disrespect them with it and do not under any circumstances use it as a synonym for evil. Thanks.]

Everybody knew just how much Sionis cared about his perfect looks. Always, at any time, he had to look and be presentable, and he had to be perfect doing it. His parents had drilled it into him from an early age on, not caring much about anything about him, other than his appearance. He was one of the faces of Janus Corp after all. He had to be perfect in order to make the cosmetics sell better.

Still, when Roman looked in the mirror he couldn’t recognise himself. It was as though he was staring at a stranger. He painted his face and took great care of it; always making sure it looked immaculate. It didn’t help the disconnection he felt from it, though.

Sometimes it only made it worse, because really – he was just putting on a mask, wasn’t he? He made himself look absolutely perfect, so that others couldn’t possibly see what was underneath the surface.

He was a cruel and sadistic man, one with many issues, and a crime boss behind his businessman persona. That was all him, but it also wasn’t.

No, this cruel man was Black Mask.

The persona he’s made up to make a name of himself in Gotham’s underbelly. That was who he really was. Not Roman Beauvais Sionis. No, that man was just a mask that his parents had constructed and that he’s kept up all his life in a desperate attempt to gain approval and respect.

But every single day, one more crack appeared on this mask, and another piece broke off on worse days. Soon, none of this ‘Roman Sionis’ would be left.

He could feel it.

He could see it.

When he looked in the mirror, all he could see then was this broken mask, an empty shell, waiting to fully break apart and let the inside rear its ugly head to its fullest.

Some days even, he would sit in front of his vanity and look at himself for a while, seeing the way he cracked and broke apart slowly, but surely, how his skin was crawling with the feeling of it. It made him itch. He desperately needed to get it off.

So far he hasn’t dared to do it, though. He couldn’t make himself take a knife and just carve into this fleshy mask.

He hated the way he hesitated every time.

This mask didn’t mean anything.

It was just an unnecessary hurdle he had to overcome to be who he really was, to the fullest.

He’s already made a good progress of realising himself with the Black Mask, but it was just there to hide his perfect exterior, to seem more malicious, to protect his precious skin.

That particular night, he’s worn his Black Mask and had gotten into a nasty fight with some other criminals. While Zsasz and his other goons were usually so good at keeping him out of it, this time wasn’t so.

Victor had been busy fighting off three men at once – and really, Roman admired the way he’s overpowered them after all, soaked in their blood, three new tallies on his skin. It was magnificent. Zsasz was so gorgeous to him. He knew who he was; he had no qualms about whether or not he looked perfect. He wore each tally as though it was a medal – and in a way, Roman guessed it was. Sionis envied him – this freedom Zsasz had that he so desperately wanted.

Black Mask had been attacked by two men of his rival. He had tried shooting them, but one of them managed to knock his revolver out of his hand. It was okay, he wasn’t entirely incompetent when it came to hand-to-hand combat after all. Still, that didn’t mean he liked it.

During the fight, he’s taken some punches to the face, which was fine; the mask saved him of some of the damage. But then one of the muscles took it off his head, leaving him vulnerable. He hated it. It enraged him. His rage caught on fire, bursting into roaring flames. He went to beat them up with more fervour. He didn’t care anymore. He just wanted them dead.

And he did kill them, after one of them had swung a knife at him, slashing his left cheek. He wrestled it out of the guy’s hand and stabbed them both in the neck, watching with cold eyes as they bled out right in front of him.

The turmoil around him and Victor had started dying down by then. Eventually, they were able to go back home, death and victory hanging fresh in the air, excitement buzzing under their skin. And for that one night, Roman hadn’t even cared that there was a cut on his otherwise immaculate face, or that it would most likely heal into a nasty scar.

Of course, that hadn’t lasted very long.

The next morning, he had started crying because of it, too upset over his ruined skin, the evidence that his mask was slowly but surely breaking apart. He couldn’t stand it.

When the cut had healed, though, and it was merely a pink scar, and not as ugly as he had expected, it was easy to cover it up with make-up. He did that for a while, until he seemed to have reached his breaking point.

Roman has just gone through his usual nightly routine, which always took way too fucking long anyway for the fact that he’d never look as perfect as he wanted – no, not wanted – felt like he had to. And like so often, he just sat there in front of his vanity and looked at himself, staring at his face.

Was it really his face? He just couldn’t tell.

Was that really what he looked like? He didn’t feel like it.

It was just all wrong, so far away, not him.

No, that was underneath.

Everything important was only skin deep.

Or was it?

What if everything important was under the skin?

What if skin was nothing but a fucking hindrance?

What if perfection was nothing but an illusion? He was sure that it was.

Perfection didn’t exist.

Nothing and no one was perfect. He should know. While his parents tried to appear as though they were above everyone else, they really weren’t. They struggled with the fact that the Wayne’s were above them financially, but also as humans. Roman’s parents haven’t ever felt human to him at all. All affection was nothing but a lie, all ‘perfect and happy family’ was nothing but a show.

So no, perfection didn’t exist.

Then why did he even bother conforming to something that was only a construct anyway?

No more, though.

As he looked at himself in the mirror, it had become distorted. That wasn’t unusual for him. It happened a lot, especially as of late. He saw the crumbling mask that was his supposed face. Pieces broke off, starting by the scar on his left cheek. Those pieces were falling away, revealing only darkness. It was as though one was breaking a porcelain doll’s face in. Hollow inside. But that wasn’t what he was. He wasn’t hollow. His true self just needed a little help to come out.

“Zsasz!” he shouted for his partner.

It felt far away, as though someone else had shouted it, someone that wasn’t him. But then again, this wasn’t who he really was anyway.

“Boss?” Zsasz came into his dressing room.

He didn’t take his eyes off the mirror, looking at Victor through that.

“I need you to help me with something. You’re the only one I trust to do it right,” he stated, holding up the carving knife Zsasz usually used to peel off faces and slit throats on his command.

Victor looked at the knife and then back at him, looking confused. “D’you need me to kill someone?” he asked, unsurprisingly.

“No- well, technically yes, but not really,” he answered cryptically.

“Uh, sure, alright. Whatever you need me to do, I’ll do it, boss.” Zsasz was always so fucking loyal and obedient. It was truly lovely. That was exactly why he trusted him with it – and because Victor’s knife skills were definitely superior to his own.

“Good boy,” he purred and let Zsasz take the knife from him. “I need you to ruin this,” he continued, gesturing his hand around his face in circles to let Victor know exactly what he was talking about.

“Your face?” He nodded. “Are you sure, Roman?”

“Don’t call me that,” he hissed angrily, “And fucking do as I say! Ruin my face. I trust you to do it right and not have this body end up dead. ‘Kay?”

He didn’t know if Zsasz understood what he was on about, although it was so very clear to him, he couldn’t fathom the possibility of someone like Victor Zsasz not getting it.

“Alright, sure. Whatever you want,” Victor murmured then, “I need you to turn around, though. I can’t reach you well like this.”

Nodding, he turned around in his seat, facing Victor, who stood beside him on his right. “Go on then.” He twirled his hand, index finger up, for emphasis, like he always would.

In a way, he felt giddy with excitement, although some underlying anxiety lingered beneath it all. It would be okay, though. He was certain of it.

This was right.

This was what was supposed to happen.

Zsasz took a deep, steadying breath. Then he pressed the blade’s point against his right cheek. For a moment he didn’t do anything else, looking him over, giving him an exit to all of this. But he was so absolutely certain of himself in that moment; he wasn’t going to back out.

Not this time.

“Do it, Victor,” he ordered with a steady voice, conviction clear in it.

Nodding, Zsasz put pressure on the knife and pressed the tip into his skin, drawing a three inch line down his cheek with it. He didn’t react to the pain. He couldn’t feel it. He was so disconnected from it all.

Zsasz continued to slice into his face’s skin, making bigger and smaller cuts, all deep enough to scar, just like he did for his tallies. Blood was oozing out of them, running down his face, his chin, falling on his precious pyjamas – those with his face on it. It was alright, though. He wouldn’t need them after this anymore, anyway.

Eventually, Victor stopped cutting. “Is that enough, boss?” he asked.

He turned around and looked at himself in the mirror. He’d have to wear bandages over his face for a good while, that was for sure. It was worth it, though, because now it was perfectly ruined – disfigured.

Roman Beauvais Sionis was no more.

Due to the blood all over his face and running over his lips, he could only nod a little. He didn’t dare talk just yet.

Then Zsasz cleaned up all the cuts and bandaged them, making sure it was all safe and secure for the night.

While his face was slowly healing, Zsasz had inquired why he’d asked him to do it in the first place. He explained it to him and Victor understood – just like he knew he would. That was exactly why they were so strong together; why they had been meant for each other; why there was never a question about whether or not their relationship had been a good idea.

No one but Victor Zsasz could understand him. And no one but him could understand Victor.

When he was able to leave the bandages behind, Victor ran his fingers over the would-be scars. His eyes reflected the admiration and wonder he must have felt. It delighted him. He knew it had been right.

“Thanks for trusting me with it, by the way,” Victor had murmured that night as they lay in bed.

“Of course. No one else could have ever done what you have,” he replied, kissing his partner, “Thank you for not refusing to do it,” he added, his lips brushing against Zsasz’s as he talked.

“Anything for you, boss. Told you so.”

“I know. Still, saying something doesn’t always have to mean anything. Only actions truly say what words can’t.”

“Yeah, I s’ppose you’re right.”

It was just so easy to be with Zsasz. He couldn’t have possibly asked for someone better at his side.

The next morning, he looked in the mirror without any kind of bandaging and for the very first time in his life, he felt a connection to his mirrored image. He could finally see himself.

Now when he wore his Black Mask it wasn’t to hide, or to protect – no, it was only to symbolise his true self, put emphasis on it. He had nothing to hide anymore.

Perhaps perfection existed after all. Just not in the ways that society believed in.

He realised that, when he stared at himself in the mirror, in awe.

“Perfect,” Black Mask whispered, stroking his fingers over the scabs on his face.

And he truly was perfect.

[peaceoutofthepieces]

chapter 30

The Stars Look Very Different

Social Media AU

previous chapter

tag list: @yellowballoon @cleocc @ijzermanora @boldlydeepestcupcake @pduwd @notallthereyall @gingerhead007 @groeneweiden @nyttvera @painfully-oblivious @zoenneforever @curiouskopf @engelkeijsers @xiaomailab @honeyandsinn @lauren-bk @saraben00 @tailsbeth @boysrunaway @howlingsaturn @menamesniall

I only decided to do this this morning and that’s why it’s so late. super sorry. I hope you still like it ❤️ and as always, sorry for any mistakes

Warning: discussion of mental illness

~^~

Robbe pulled Sander after him, away from where Jens and Lucas were still curled up on the sofa, into his bedroom where he could shut the door tight behind them. He almost expected Sander to flop right onto his bed, but instead he stayed right behind Robbe, ready to bring him closer once he turned, shifting a hand into his hair and connecting their lips.

Robbe made a small sound in his throat and then sighed, gripping at Sander’s waist to pull him closer, even though the other boy had already done well at eliminating the space between them. Still, the kiss was kept soft, free of their usual urgency but with a familiar neediness, the constant desire to be ever closer. This was evident when Sander pulled away only to press his forehead against Robbe’s, eyes shut and hand still firm on the back of his neck, not letting him pull away. Robbe wouldn’t have even if Sander wasn’t holding him. He had no reason to want to be anywhere else.

“Your bed looks very appealing,” Sander mumbled, lips brushing against Robbe’s.

Robbe hummed. “You also look very appealing. I think a combination of the two would be truly mind blowing.”

Sander huffed, and Robbe just had time to trace a fingertip over his smile before he leaned back in for another kiss. Robbe gladly reciprocated, but moved his hands to slide under the edges of Sander’s zip-up hoodie, pushing it off his shoulders and tossing it onto the end of his bed. Then he gave the same shoulders a careful push, and Sander let himself be guided backwards, finally falling onto the mattress with a pleased sigh. He held his arms out immediately, however, making grabby hands towards Robbe, who complied without an ounce of hesitance, crawling over Sander and settling on his hips. He cupped his face and squished his cheeks, making Sander laugh through puckered lips that Robbe eventually leaned down to kiss.

“This is why it’s better being at yours,” Sander mumbled, and Robbe couldn’t argue. He ducked his head down to trace kisses along Sander’s jawline, peppering his cheek, the spot behind his ear, further down his neck. Sander melted further with every press of his lips, sinking lax into the bed underneath him. It left Robbe grinning against his skin, nipping at it lightly with his teeth to make Sander whine and squirm away.

Sander huffed as he pushed Robbe off him, only to follow him onto their sides and pull him back in by the waist. Robbe giggled and slid his hands back over his cheeks as he kissed him again.

“Wait, do that again.” Sander drew his head away, gazing at Robbe in something a little too much like awe, making him turn his face into the pillow and groan.

“Do what?”

“That little giggle.”

Robbe groaned again. “Oh my god.”

“Please, Robbe, it’s so cute. What do I have to do?”

“Leave me alone, preferably.”

Sander pouted, shaking his head rapidly at Robbe’s denial, squeezing his sides pleadingly. It had the unintended effect of making Robbe wriggle, an aborted laugh escaping him.

They both froze.

“Oh my god—“

“No,” Robbe warned.

“—you’re ticklish,” Sander finished, and now that was definitely awe. “Oh my god. Why did I not know that?”

“I am not ticklish.”

Sander rose a disbelieving brow. His fingers twitched against Robbe’s side. Robbe’s hand flew down to still them.

Sander snorted and kissed his nose, tugging him in closer and slotting a leg between Robbe’s. “Too cute.”

“You’re so annoying,” Robbe breathed, in the instant before Sander’s lips connected with his and all words were lost. He couldn’t help but make this kiss deeper, threading his fingers into Sander’s hair and parting his lips. The faint ache in his head had all but slipped away, soothed under Sander’s gentle touch.

Sander himself was a little more lethargic than usual, but no less responsive. He reacted easily to Robbe, lips parting and tongues tangling and hands drifting. Robbe had to keep his grin under control as Sander’s hands slipped under his shirt, skimming over his sides to settle against his back, tracing light patterns. Robbe hummed against his lips and felt him smile, and then Sander brushed over a faint scar.

Robbe’s heart skipped, but Sander’s movements hadn’t stopped, so Robbe kissed him harder and hoped that would be enough. Instead Sander’s hand trailed back over his side, around to his front, and landed on another old mark.

“You really like getting yourself into trouble, huh,” Sander said, and Robbe lifted his shoulders in a shrug. He didn’t want to discuss this.

Instead, he thought of a new tactic, and lifted himself up before pulling his shirt over his head. He rose a brow as Sander gazed up at him, unflinching, nothing giving him away but the slight uptick of his lips. It didn’t take long for him to reach out, sliding his hands back over Robbe’s skin as he pushed himself up onto his elbows. However, instead of drawing him into another kiss, Sander leaned forward and pressed his lips to Robbe’s collarbone, where another scar rested over the bone.

He looked up at Robbe through his lashes, and Robbe smiled at him and gave his hair a light tug. “And you call me the cute one,” Robbe mumbled.

Sander smiled brightly as Robbe traced a finger down his cheek and kissed his forehead. He remained silent as Robbe dropped back onto his pillow with a sigh. Sander followed, rolling onto his side to face him and waiting patiently.

“You remember how I told you about...why I’m staying here?”

Sander nodded, expression gentle. “About your mom?”

“Yeah. I didn’t really explain.”

“You don’t have to,” Sander said softly.

Robbe offered him a smile. “I don’t, usually. It’s not really something I talk about. But I want to tell you.”

Sander’s nod was encouraging.

“She, uh. She suffers from psychotic depression.”

He waited, but nothing in Sander’s expression changed, so he went on.

“She’s always managed it okay. Even when she’d have her episodes of psychosis—she was brought out of them pretty easily. Then when I was thirteen, her mother died. She didn’t take it well. Her episodes got worse. But it was still something we managed, still something she had control of. Then I turned fifteen, and my dad decided he’d had enough. He packed up and disappeared. A few weeks later she was admitted for the first time.”

Sander gently took his hand where it lay between them, rubbing his thumb over the back of his fingers.

“I had to stay with Jens for a week. I’ve had to a lot of times since then. But I never wanted to—to actually leave her. We managed. She was only ever gone for a week or so at most, and it really wasn’t that frequent. Then this past year...it wasn’t so good. She’d space out more often. Talk to herself and then act like nothing happened. She was admitted again just days after I met you and they haven’t been able to release her since.”

“Fuck, Robbe,” Sander muttered.

Robbe shook his head. “When I went to see her—the time I told you about it—it was bad, Sander. They called me because they’d had to sedate her. She was convinced she was being held prisoner, that someone was coming to her. To hurt her. She knocked down one of the nurses. But when I went to see her—“ Robbe paused, choked, “—she didn’t know who I was. She just looked right through me. It was like she couldn’t see me, couldn’t hear me. She acted like I wasn’t even there. That’s never happened before. They called me because—because I’m the only one who’s always been able to calm her down. But she couldn’t even remember me. I meant nothing to her.”

Sander shook his head, ready to protest, but Robbe went on before he could.

“That’s why I drank so much and why I—why I just needed you there. I just felt so...so alone and so stupid and so insignificant. And I knew I’d stop feeling like that if I had you. I never feel like that when I’m with you.”

He looked between Sander’s eyes intently, begging him to understand, and Sander shifted forward and wrapped him up in his arms. Robbe sunk against him, tucking his arms around his waist as Sander kissed his cheek and then tucked his chin over his shoulder. He ran his hands soothingly up and down Robbe’s back, and Robbe was horrified to realise his cheeks were wet. But Sander hadn’t said anything, and he still wasn’t. He simply held Robbe together until he stopped feeling like he was about to crack apart, and Robbe clung to his shirt and allowed his comfort to seep through him.

“I’m sorry, Robbe,” Sander whispered against his neck. “I had no idea.”

Robbe pressed his face to his shoulder and shook his head. “There was no way you could have.”

“I could have been here more.”

“Sander, if you were here anymore, your parents would start to think you’d been kidnapped.”

Sander didn’t react the way he’d expected to the joke. He barely reacted at all. He just tightened his grip on Robbe and said, “You shouldn’t have had to deal with all that.”

Robbe shifted away, onto his back, as he shook his head. “She’s my mama, and I love her. Sometimes the worry just takes over. It’s just—the first thing they did was tell us all these ways it could get worse. Like she had more chance of developing further psychotic problems, or that it could develop into bipolar disorder. I don’t know how to deal with it sometimes. It just gets too much.”

He rubbed a hand over his face, harsh, as Sander remained quiet. When he looked over, Sander wasn’t looking back. He’d dropped his gaze to a spot on the sheets, even as he continued to stroke absentmindedly over Robbe’s hand.

Robbe smiled self-deprecatingly. “What a way to kill the mood, huh?”

Sander looked up at that, and there was something equal parts fierce and haunted in his gaze as he stared at Robbe. He moved his other hand up to stroke over Robbe’s cheek, then leaned forward to kiss him deeply. Robbe couldn’t even feel surprise, too relieved as he kissed back, allowing Sander’s intensity to encase him and remind him there was nothing unsure about this.

He pulled back and looked at Robbe seriously as he wiped the remaining dampness from his cheeks. “Thank you for being honest with me, Robbe.”

Robbe smiled, sneaking a short kiss to his nose. “Thank you for listening to me.” They lay and watched each other for a moment, and then Robbe chanced a lazy smirk. “I suppose it’s too much to pick up where we left off?”

Sander smiled again, and this time it was tired. “I don’t think this hangover is going to appreciate much more action, to be honest.”

Robbe snorted and gave his hand a tug, laying flat on his back again and drawing Sander with him.

Sander lay his head on his chest and dropped a kiss over his heart, hugging him tightly around the waist. “I just wanna stay here with you for a little while longer.”

The words were no more than a whisper, and Robbe held him tighter and dropped a kiss on his head as a weight slipped from his shoulders. “You can stay as long as you like.”

[bitegore]

re: trauma from fiction,

I could maybe come up with 3 cases in which fiction actually fucks me up for a while

1: any work dealing with unreality or dreamlike settings is horribly unpleasant to look into, as it reminds me of my brushes with psychosis and makes me doubt things. not trauma, as the issue stems ultimately from preexisting things, and I can still look away long before the damage is done (which unfortunately means I can't play Pathologic 2 and Knock-knock until I'm in a better place)

2: anything from our school's literature class, as my teacher was verbally abusive and reading what she taught makes my anxiety spike. not trauma, work itself doesn't even do anything because it's my teacher who keeps ruining my attempts at re-reading Hero of Our Time

3: a long and painfully descriptive piece about illegal abortions in ussr, read by me at the ripe old age of 13 which had descriptions of deaths induced by abortion methods and details about what led to them. it was horrible, I kept having to stop, yet I still made the choice to continue. not trauma, as it really isn't anywhere near the forefront of my mind, but I'm pro-choice now

tl;dr from what I can see, you can always just stop reading the moment you see something upsetting. a more plausible source of trauma would be it opening existing wounds or the circumstances around it. and considering that this post was provoked by discourse around Maus, that's sure as fuck not what people mean. god damn it. if Maus is upsetting, isn't it a good thing, considering the subject matter?

Honestly, i'd rather people not be traumatized by descriptions and depictions of the Holocaust. At the end of the day, trauma is a very unuseful response to historical atrocities, especially ones that people are interested in repeating on different groups nowadays. What i want is for people to be very, very angry that it happened, and dedicated to keeping it from happening again.

If people are traumatized about depictions of the holocaust, how are they going to be able to engage with news stories about genocides worldwide? Are they going to be able to do something about it? the answer here isn't necessarily "no", but engaging with stuff even tangential to one's trauma is much harder on the person doing it than just like engaging with something painful and angering but which isn't checking the trauma boxes, I guess.

Someone else pointed out that secondhand trauma is a thing, though, so I am gonna walk it back a little bit and say that it's... possible for some people to be traumatized by descriptions/depictions of things that happened in real life. I just don't think that people reading Maus are going to be traumatized by that.

....also this is just a personal experience but I didn't feel like Maus was that, uh... not sure how to put it. It was heavy and it was detailed, but it wasn't so heavy or so detailed that I even had to put it down, and I grew up in an American Jewish household with the whole legacy of the holocaust hanging over my head, you know? I've read other accounts on the subject that I literally couldn't finish. Maus was not one. I'm not trying to put Maus down, but like, if you're gonna claim to be traumatized about depictions of the holocaust i feel like it's kind of insulting to the actual legacy of the holocaust to say it about the version with cartoon mice and not, like, something with photographs of emaciated corpses or piles of confiscated shoes in glossy paper on every ten pages, you know?

[ziracona]

Hello! I have always believed that Michael needed better doctors and good treatment. He was simply billed as "Evil". Sometimes I think that at that time they were unaware or ignorant of mental illness, and that is why Michael did not recover. I wish it had been treated better. I would like to know your opinion about it ;v;

Oh, absolutely. Michael is a very tragic character, and what happened to him was almost entirely Loomis’ fault, secondarily the system and his parents’, and like onyl 0.8% his own. It’s true that mental health aid has historically been really bad in most places, and even today treatment and acceptance—even in specifically medical settings—tend to be abysmal. Of course people knew less than they do now about how psychological stuff works, but bias, cruelty, and superstition as well as a system that enables and even to degrees outright encourages that is to blame for the awful treatment people woth mental illnesses and personality disorders faced and continue to face, not just a lack of knowledge, and the history is really heavy and awful to look over. : ( It’s horrific some of the things doctors have done and do to people just trying to get help.

Like, in Michael’s case, we’ve had a name and understanding of psychosis since the 1800s. Canonically, by the time the poor kid was six years old, he was hearing voices telling him to do bad things to people. He told his parents, seeking help, and they did nothing to help him—just told him it was his imagination—despite knowing hos grandfather had suffered the same symptoms. If they had only taken him seriously and given him therapy and possibly medication too, Judith never would have died. (I am not goong to say it every time, but all this information is official canon) Michael’s reason for killing his family members is wanting the vocies talking to him to be quiet, because it’s agonizing. If you’ve ever had intrusive thoughts (stuff like “pull into oncoming traffic” or “break that and see what happens” and such that don’t actually compell or force you to do it at all, and are always things you as a person deeply do not want to do, but nevertheless are really annoying or distressing to hear in your head), imagine that cranked up to 1000, endless and constant, but from voices that seem to come from around you instead of in your head. Especially as a young child, with no understanding what is happening to you, this would be incredibly scary and distressing—doubly so when dismissed by your parents, whose sole job is supposed to be to love and protect you.

The voices say they’ll be quiet if Michael kills Judith, so Halloween night, he does. Important to note here Michael is recently six years old at the time, which developmental psych literally is not old enough to have a complete understanding what death itself is, let alone complex morality. You /cannot/ be evil at six, you simply don’t have a complex enough understanding of right and wrong or of consequence to /be/ evil. Also at this age, usually kids see death as a vague concept, but one that applies to people they don’t know only, not to them and their loved ones. In Halloween 1978, immediately after stabbing Judith, Michael looks away while he keeps doing it, and his breathing speeds up in a scared way. He barely looks at the body, and immediately goes down stairs to wait for his parents—probably for them to fix it—and does nothing to flee or hide what he’s done. He looks traumatized when they take his mask off. (Lots of little notes here like that Judith when she sees him seems annoyed but not very, and when he attacks her, tries to shield herself and call to him to stop, rather than fleeing or fighting back, which [appealing instead of fight or flight] is pretty exclusively something you only would use if attcked by someone you are on good terms with—I mean, Michael is six—if Judith had /tried/ to fight back, no way she would have died—so there’s less than nothing to indicate they had anything but a loving familial sibling relationship. But if I list all these I’m gonna launch into my six page Michael Myers meta so I will speed through the rest.)

Anyway! Sorry, I have many feelings. About...everything. Including Michael for sure. So, immediately after killing Judith, Michael stops talking. He also shows other psychosis and trauma readily recognized side effects, like catatonia, slowed movement. In Halloween 1978c Dr. Loomis claims he tried to treat Michael for eight years, then spent another seven trying to keep him locked up because he realized he was evil. This is a /blatant/ lie, as in film canon Loomis, by Michael’s review hearing I believe four months in? Six or less for sure, I believe it is four. Loomis has /already/ become convinced Michael is a demon in human form, faking his symptoms, and itching to kill again. The other doctors think Loomis is crazy, as does the other doctor who examines Michael, but they’re awful people so they let him stay Michael’s doctor anyway, even though they refuse to move him to Litchfield maximum security. By this time only a few months in, Loomis is canonically also threatening the six year old in his care and constantly telling him he is an evil being who wants to get out and terrorize again. (Also, I will die enraged the sentance Michael gets for killing Judith is to remain locked in solitary in a sanitorium for /15/ years, until he turns 21, at which point he will be tried as an adult for murder??? The fuck?? You CANNOT charge a 6 year old’s crime in adult court! ‘Tried as an adult’ is meant for like, when a 17 year old dismembers their family and eats them! It’s for particularly heinous crimes, committed by someone /very/ close to being legally an adult, and that /only/. The idea of waiting fifteen years to try someone as an adult for something done at age six is laughable and sick).

Okay this is already long, I get carried away rip. Uhhh, anyway, yeah. In Smith’s Grove, Michael is visited by mom and Laurie once, then never sees any of his family again, because his dad hates him and forbids the others—finds out because Laurie is four and talks that they went /one/ time, and physically beats four year old Laurie for mentioning his name until she trauma blocks out ever having had a brother. From then on, Michael spends /fifteen/ years and all the dest of his developmental stages of childhood in a sanitorium with Dr. Loomis—a man who on wild religious superstition grounds assumes by his own admission /on sight/ that Michael is evil, and no other human contact. According to canon, Michael spends at least four hours of /every/ day with Loomis, his /only/ human contact, who threatens him, promises to stop him, and endlessly barrages him with “You’re evil, you’re not human, you want to kill again, I /will/ stop you,” and nothing else. He also canonically keeps Michael overdosed on a type of antipsychotic that, while a fine drug if used normally, if overdosed can deeply worsen symptoms, and can cause permanent brain damage.

Honestly, if a six year old is exposed yo major trauma, none of their issues are explained, legitimized, or believed, and almost all of their developmental stage is spent with endless voices they don’t know the cause of suggesting murder and violence, one human being and authority figure telling them over and over and over for fifteen years with no other constant in their life or human contact period that they are a demon in human form who wants to kill and is /going/ to do so again...? How else was that story ever going to end? I’ve said it before, but that’s beyond conditioning; it’s lab growing a human child to one day walk out and murder Laurie Strode with a large kitchen knife.

I stand by Halloween is a greek tragedy more than a slasher, and Michael and Laurie are both victims. He’s the Asterios, she’s the Ariadne. Loomis the Minos, the real villain. (Or the Poseidon choose your poison).

Anyway, I 100% agree! If he had just gotten help from his parents, Judith would have never died. If he’d had good doctors, none of the events of 1978 would have come to pass, or anything after it. Loomis single-handedly causes the deaths in 1978 himself through years of cruelty, and bigoted bias towards a small child in his care who needed his help, not his abuse, but he chose to break as much as he possibly could despite his responsibilities as a doctor, an adult, and a human.

If you’re interested, I did a canon-deep-dive character study short story on Michael on AO3! Halloween is such a sad story but it’s fascinating. God, poor Michael and Laurie deserved so much better than they got. It’s a testament to Michael’s character that even after 15 years of Dr. Loomis, he really only kills his intented target(s) in search of quiet from the voices, and anyone who sees him/would be a threat, and not other people. Makes no attempt to kill any of the kids in Halloween 2018, and only kills Bob when he literally opens the door to his hiding spot and Michael is found and Bob becomes a threat to him. In H20, after Michael has had 20 years on his own, you get arguably the least brutal Michael, who intentionally passes on killing the mother and child, and the security guard he walks right past, because they don’t see him and thus he doesn’t /have/ to. Halloween II is less intentionally avoiding, but even then he still does the same multiple times too, like with the old lady making a sandwich, or the scene in the incubator room. Anyway he desevered better fuck Loomis all my homies hate Loomis.

[watersbound]

IAN  GALLAGHER  /  001  .  break  their  hearts  just  to  look  at  you  !

triggers  ;  medications  ,  severe  mental  illness  ,  hospitals  ,  violence  ,  implied  self  injury  . mentioned  ;  diana  ,  fiona  ,  lip  ,  carl  ,  mickey  ,  monica  .

 the  bottles  weren’t  always  empty  .  who  or  what  brought  him  here  somehow  thought  to  give  him  the  gift  of  antipsychotics  ,  and  only  antipsychotics.

 olanzapine  ,  the  bottle  reads  .  aripiprazole  ,  the  bottle  reads  .  lithium  .  even  if  he  didn’t  run  out  of  the  ones  he  showed  up  with  ,  a  few  were  missing.  where  was  his  lamictal  ?  his  seroquel  ?

 he  wasn’t  always  so  compliant  with  his  meds  ,  back  when  they  insisted.  when  they  diagnosed  him.  40  years  of  it  ,  they  said  .  the  books  warn  of  the  dangers  of  long  term  antipsychotic  use  .  but  what  the  fuck  else  is  he  supposed  to  do  ?  live  like  he  has  the  past  few  weeks  ,  for  the  rest  of  his  life  ?

 the  past  few  weeks  have  been  nothing.  a  lot  of  sleep  ,  so  much  of  it.  

 ian  can’t  be  trusted  to  keep  himself  alive  on  his  own  sometimes  ,  let  alone  explain  why  he  needs  the  chemicals  despite  all  the  risks  that  healthy  ,  so  called  experts  who  have  never  felt  the  way  he  has  ,  have  to  say  on  the  matter.  these  are  the  people  who  know  what’s  best  ?

 the  gallagher  fucks  are  the  only  ones  that  keep  him  from  shutting  out  the  world  completely.  he  keeps  his  phone  charged  in  case  one  of  them  need  him  ,  in  case  they  call.  in  case  carl  shoots  someone  or  lip  gets  his  ass  beat  again  or  fiona  goes  awol.

 they’ll  be  okay  ,  says  his  brain.  just  go  back  to  bed.  his  brain  knows  he’s  obvious.  if  he  goes  ,  they’ll  know.  

 and  fucking  monica  ,  she’s  in  his  head  pleading  with  him  from  her  own  experience  ,  baby  ,  she  said.  you  can’t  make  those  people  happy.  when  she  told  him  he’ll  break  their  hearts  by  being  who  he  is  ,  it  stuck  with  him.  did  she  curse  him  with  observation  or  plant  a  lie  in  his  brain  ?

 so  that’s  why  in  the  hospital  in  cook  county  ,  under  commitment  at  nineteen  ;  it  took  a  lot  for  him  to  drag  himself  from  his  room  ,  to  see  his  family.  the  tile  was  cold  under  his  socks.  it  made  him  think  of  the  way  he  beat  his  head  against  them  when  the  first  doctor  left  his  room  on  the  first  day.  and  how  cool  it  felt  against  his  flushed  forehead  when  the  techs  got  him  to  stop.

 he  doesn’t  remember  now  ,  if  he  even  returned  their  embraces  .  or  if  there  even  were  embraces.  or  who  had  even  come.  he  just  remembers  mickey  ,  remembers  feeling  like  he  should  want  to  apologize  ,  but  realizing  he  didn’t  care  to.  they  all  walked  on  eggshells.  he  knows  it.

 he  had  been  heavily  medicated  at  the  time  ,  mellowed  out  .  a  stark  contrast  to  when  he  was  throwing  open  doors  ,  swinging  bats  ,  stealing  babies  .

 it  was  easier  that  way  ,  because  ian  didn’t  want  them  to  see  him  as  monica.  he  wanted  them  to  see  him  like  they  always  had  ,  like  he  was  ian.  stable  ian  who  wouldn’t  break  their  hearts  like  their  parents.  he  was  still  ian.  he  is  still  ian.

 that  was  a  long  time  ago.  he’s  twenty  five  now.  at  least  ,  if  memory  served  .

 today  his  eyes  are  burning  even  minutes  after  the  shades  are  drawn.  he  hates  diana  for  it.  even  after  the  tears  of  protest  stop  falling  ,  they  ache  to  be  fully  consumed  by  the  darkness  of  his  bedroom  again.  even  with  his  eyes  closed  ,  he’s  seeing  more  light  than  he  has  in  days.

 he  tells  diana  as  he  lets  her  spray  him  down  with  cologne  ,  “i  know  what  this  is  going  to  do.”  ian  doesn’t  hate  looking  at  her  face  so  much  anymore.  for  the  first  few  times  she  invited  herself  over  ,  he  boiled  with  rage.  but  that’s  not  really  him  ,  is  it  ?  it  was  his  mental  illness  ,  comfortable  in  its  suffering  ,  knowing  any  step  forward  is  going  to  make  it  weaker  ,  and  him  stronger.

 that  step  requires  a  lot  of  work  though  ,  and  the  fact  that  said  work  is  never  going  to  be  over  ,  at  least  not  for  another  40  years  ,  well  it  tears  him  apart  a  little  more  every  time  he  thinks  about  it.

 he’s  thought  about  it.  a  few  minutes  here  and  there  between  lengthy  naps.

 he’s  holding  one  of  his  bottles.  aripiprazole  20  mg  ,  po  t.i.d.  w/meals  for  psychosis.  he  rolls  it  between  his  hands  and  finds  little  comfort  in  the  lack  of  clattering  ,  capsuled  chemical.  and  he  continues.  “they’re  going  to  boost  me  too  much.  this  place  doesn’t  have  my  med  history  on  file.  it’s  not  fucking  worth  it.”  

 i’ll  hear  things  and  be  afraid  ,  he  wants  to  say.  i  won’t  sleep  ,  he  wants  to  say.  but  he  doesn’t.  he’s  tired.  it’s  an  unfinished  thought  and  ian  doesn’t  even  lift  his  shoulders  to  shrug.  defeated  again  ,  by  himself.

 “i  don’t  want  that,”  he  only  mumbles.  he  doesn’t  recognize  his  voice.  and  it’s  not  just  because  ian’s  tired.  he  hasn’t  talked  out  loud  in  days.  and  like  his  limbs  that  feel  fifteen  times  heavier  than  they  are  ,  his  speech  is  slow.  it’s  really  slow.  everything  is.

 the  first  step  is  really  hard  ,  from  an  outsider  maybe  it  looked  like  nothing.  but  ian’s  eyes  haven’t  seen  light  in  days  so  they  ,  the  steps  ,  get  gradually  more  manageable  but  also  more  abundant.

 and  maybe  that  means  with  just  a  look  ,  that  he’ll  be  up  to  taking  the  risk  of  breaking  the  hearts  of  his  loved  ones  any  day  ,  now.

[docholligay]

DEFINITELY AU TO MY UNIVERSE

This is based on the idea @rhiorhino came up with in her ask of having Pharah and Tracer live together after something happens to Emily and Mercy. I worked on this A LOT A LOT, so I hope you enjoy! its not at all perfect but I think it’s good! 3,300 words. 

Tracer and Pharah had been opposites from the first day they had met, and while they had grown warm to each other, they certainly had not grown any more like each other. Tracer was impulsive and quick, going in with her whole self, a tiny firework of a human being, exploding and lighting the entire sky in one moment. Pharah was thoughtful and measured, tracing out the steps in her mind, a clear line from one to the other, carefully lighting each corner like a candle. 

So it made a certain amount of sense that when Emily MacNair, who would have been Oxton, was murdered, Tracer immediately and quickly lost her mind. Emily had not even been laid to rest when Tracer skipped the country in pursuit of her murderer, and anyone who got in the way discovered that Tracer was sunshine, and the sun is more than capable of killing without mercy. They said she beat Widowmaker to death with the butt of her rifle. Tracer would only say that probably did happen, but truthfully she didn’t remember a thing. It was hard to argue against that point, when she returned to London and descended into what a physician had called “brief reactive psychosis.” It was difficult to charge her for the death of someone wanted dead or alive by several countries, in any case. Born under a lucky star. 

It was four months after that, with Tracer finally more or less in touch with reality and functional, that Overwatch continued its disastrous year. 

Perhaps it had been that there was no one to blame, no villain to pursue, that it was just one terrible moment. An accident. There had been the terrible accident, and Pharah had held Mercy, and Mercy had died, and that was all there was to it. Who could she hate? And so, perhaps it was these things, but perhaps it was that different quality to Pharah herself, that she did not explode into loud and keening grief. 

She buried her wife, exactly according to her religious wishes, and calmly laid a hand on her coffin before it was laid into the grave. She went back home, and cleaned and folded and scrubbed the floor, lined up the shoes at the front door in a neat line, and went to bed. She went to work, and redid the filing cabinet, and wrote a detailed schedule on the board, and shined her shoes. She carefully settled Mercy’s affairs, and mostly remembered not to bring up a cup of coffee in the morning. And, repeat.  Fareeha Amari was doing very well, by most standards. 

Even Tracer, in that first month, as people told her how unwavering Pharah had been in all this, had grumbled “Right, because Fareeha’s bloody fucking perfect and don’t I know it.” 

 People had mostly stopped asking questions with concerned faces, three months later. Anyone looking at her would have seen how stable and steady she was.

“Bit worried about Fareeha.” Tracer had said, leaning against Winston as they watched TV in his living room. 

Tracer had given up on living alone, sold her house to her cousin, and decided, simply, that she was going to live with Winston for the rest of her life. It was more than big enough for three, if it came to it, hope never leaving her even as she grieved, and it made the most sense to have herself there. She loved Winston, and he loved her, and Tracer was a bit frightened of her own recently-discovered fragility. He’d welcomed her happily. 

“Did she say something?” He snuggled her in a little closer. 

“No, and that’s part of it,” She sat up, gazing over the top of the TV back into her own mind, “she hasn’t snapped at me, or teased at me, in months. I spent all morning doing things I know drive her absolutely mad. It’s like she’s not even there, Win.” 

Winston shifted uncomfortably. “She knows you’re--well--she’s trying to--” 

Tracer sighed aggressively. “Win, it’s been months now. Not even on medication now, Doc’s really quite happy with me, and no one sniping at me did it in the first place. Don’t treat me like--”

“I’m sorry,” he touched her back softly, “I’m just,” he gave a sheepish laugh, “Myself, all the time.” 

Tracer shook her head. “She comes in, same time every day, she puts away her papers, she cleans something, always, she tidies up my desk, as well, without a word, ‘ardly. She does her work, ‘as a three pound meal deal for lunch, same time every day,, works out, and I ‘appen to know she goes to the Tesco every night, same time every day, gets a ready meal, goes ‘ome, cleans and organizes something, again, eats it, and goes to bed.” 

“Lena, how do you know that?” 

She tossed her hands in the air. “I followed ‘er, obviously! Multiple times!”

“We have to get you a constructive hobby.” 

“And she didn’t even notice I was bloody fucking following her. Fareeha.” Tracer gave a little frown and flopped back against Winston. ‘She’s ‘orribly depressed, Win. I know it.” she closed her eyes, 

“I don’t want ‘er to live this way. Or not live, right? Or worse, I don’t want to wake up one morning and find,” her eyes popped back open, gesturing wildly, “Commander Fareeha Amari, precise and disciplined in every way, ‘as done a very precise and disciplined job of offing ‘erself.” 

“You don’t think--” 

“I do think!” She jumped back up again, a creature in constant emotion. “She’s so bloody logical, to the point of being stupid, and she’ll, “ Tracer drew her hand widely across the air, slipping into a terrible Egyptian accent, “find it most reasonable that I will never find happiness again, and my lack of passion makes me a liability, and so, I will make sure not to leave a mess.” She snapped her fingers and jumped toward Winston, eyes locked. “That COULD happen, Win, I can bloody well see it in me mind’s eye!” 

“Lena--” 

“Know what she bought at Tesco, Win? Bangers and mash, a ready meal from Tesco for one. Of bangers and mash.” 

Winston put his hand on her back, and drew her into his shoulder. He said nothing. What was there to say? Tracer was right, of course, and he felt terrible not having noticed. But Pharah was so good at being stoic, at keeping herself straight, at convincing the world that she had always simply been this way, and he had forgotten how her speech had lost some of its formality, how she had laughed easier, how she had teased. How she had been happy. 

It was easy to ignore Pharah’s coping, because it was not drinking too much, or getting into fights, or hallucinating, but her absolute sense of control and order that guided her through difficulty. 

“Also, she isn’t eating enough,” Tracer shook her head, “She’s lost ‘alf stone, at least. Maybe more like a stone, really.” 

“What should we do?” He said softly. 

“Well,” she rocked back to sit on her heels, running a hand through her hair, “We ‘ave to ‘ave her come live ‘ere, with us. Break her out of it all, right?” She grinned. “Bunch of the sadsack bachelor types, that’s us. We can ‘elp ‘er, Win, I know we can.” 

Winston had no idea how Tracer was going to get Pharah to agree to this. He wasn’t sure if she knew how she was going to. But Tracer believed she would, and she could, and that it itself made him believe. 

____

It wasn’t nearly so hard as Tracer had thought it was going to be. It took only two weeks of wheedling and begging and claiming that she and Win couldn’t possibly afford the place without her, being everything that had happened. It would be a proper favor to them, if Pharah would come and live with them. Besides, wasn’t Pharah so good at all the things she wasn’t? She’d be so much more help to running the house than Tracer was, after all. 

Pharah was scrubbing the office floor, as she did every single Thursday, when she finally broke. A person could only avoid Tracer’s attempts at something she truly wanted for so long. 

“If you and Winston need money, I will give you money.” She did not look up at Tracer. Back and forth across the boards. Check carefully for a scratch the needs filling. RInse the brush. Repeat. “I have little need for extra income.” 

Tracer sighed heavily. She kept trying to give Pharah a graceful way to accept, and Pharah kept throwing it back in her face. It was aggravating to keep inventing new disasters for her and Winston to be having, particularly given that they were doing quite well, all told. 

She thought of the solution, and hated it just as quickly. Tracer had worked hard. The odds of any sort of relapse were exceedingly rare. She had just now gotten to the point where it seemed like people weren’t whispering about it behind her back at the greengrocers, that her reputation was beginning to shine up near to normal again. Life was full of bloody fucking sacrifice, wasn’t it? 

She knelt in front of Pharah. “Fareeha.” 

“What?” Rinse out the brush. 

“Win’s taken care of me, so much, over and over and--” It stuck in her throat, and she hated every inch of it, “I worry I might be too much for ‘im, if it ‘appens again, and ‘e’ll try to do it ‘imself, all over again. You know how Win is, about these things, and I thought, if you were there, you could reason with ‘im. Day by day. Might be best to send me off, but ‘e won’t, but, you know ‘e trusts your judgment.” 

Pharah looked up at Tracer. “I doubt I could convince Winston of this.” 

Tracer’s fists balled at her side. Pharah had always said Tracer had a way of working a person’s last nerve, but she wasn’t giving herself enough credit. 

“But,” Pharah continued, putting the brush in the bucket, “he is also unlikely to see an early sign. I would notice.” 

Tracer smiled and nodded. 

Sure you would, Fareeha, as my general early signs are jot off to Paris and kill someone, which I think Win might also pick up on, but all right. 

She sighed. “I will rent the apartment, until you feel secure. I will also pay rent at Winston’s, to assist.” 

On some other day, Tracer might have tried to tell Pharah that she could always buy another apartment, and it might be better for her to do that. But it was enough to know that Pharah would move out her things, even if every single box of Mercy’s scattered notes was going to the wide expanse of leftover warehouse they used as a storage unit in the back of Winston’s place. She had Emily’s things there as well, and was only beginning to realize she needed to begin to sort through them, so what could she possibly say? 

“Thank you.” was what she chose. 

_____

A new living arrangement is always difficult, even without the added difficulty of a person not realizing the are going through a certain amount of emotional trauma. Pharah had been living with she and Winston for six weeks now, and while they had managed to put her weight back on, and she had even managed a smile or two, Pharah still lived her life within the lines of her planner with rigidity and focus. She never looked up. 

She never spoke Angela’s name. 

Tracer began to spend the night in Pharah’s room, chatting to her about her day, asking questions that would almost certainly go unanswered. She had liked it, when she was struggling, and people had talked to her. Parvati had once recounted an entire night at the pub as a one woman play, and Tracer had managed to laugh, and so she knew there was some medicine in it. Whatever Pharah might think. 

So Tracer threw herself against Pharah’s brick wall, and she fell down, and she got up again. 

Until a Friday night on the sixth week. It was Shabbat, and Pharah had remembered it was Shabbat, because someone had greeted someone else in the grocery store as she got her three pound lunch. Tracer had noticed her quiet sternness, even more pronounced than usual, as they went through the store together, as they stopped for flowers, as someone had asked Tracer if she was planning to pop by the pub this week. 

Pharah said nothing, but Tracer was undeterred. 

“I do not entirely understand why you are in my room.” Pharah turned onto her side and shut her eyes. “Again.”

“I slept with me dad for something like two years after Mum died,” she scoffed and shook her head, “I know that sounds all sort of funny, least, the looks people ‘ave given me make me think so. 

But it wasn’t--just ‘aving each other, right there, as we were scared to lose each other, and--and well, it felt a bit lonely, and a bit cold. ‘Ard to explain, but there was something very comforting in it.” 

She laughed a little, chewing at the end of her nail. “Truth is, I only needed for so long, but somehow I knew ‘e needed it longer. To ‘ave me at ‘and, right? To know I’s safe? So I stayed there, a while longer.” 

Tracer looked over to Pharah, whose back remained turned to her, silent and still in the dim glow of moonlight, outlining her shoulder like a headstone. 

“We did mend, Dad and me.” Tracer shifted under her blanket. “Took time, but we did mend.” 

Pharah lay staring at the wall, jaw set in a hard line, arm tucked firmly under the single pillow she used. She said nothing. There was nothing to say, just more of Tracer’s rambling in the darkness. 

“There’s nothing in you that’s broken, Fareeha,” she said it with such confidence that for a moment, Pharah nearly believed it to be true, “rather, not forever. I know because there’s nothing that can be mended in me. There’ll be scars, of course, but,” she giggle and shrugged at the ceiling, “Isn’t as if you and don’t ‘ave plenty as it stands.” 

“You do not understand.” Pharah’s voice came like a command in the night. 

Tracer swallowed hard as the anger built up in her. Pharah was hurting and Pharah had a hard time with things, and Pharah did not mean to make it sound like the way she’d loved Emily wasn’t as strong, and she was going to pop Fareeha Amari in the face right FUCKING now. 

And she sat up to do it. 

But before she could, Pharah pushed herself up to her side. “You, maybe, will mend. You do not understand,” she turned to face Tracer, taking a deep breath and slowly letting it out, steam rising from a kettle, “because you are the sort of person people love. They remember you, they--they cherish seeing you, you make them laugh. You are the sort of person who has romances, a woman talks about you at brunch with her friends, and everyone says,” she began a very poor imitation of the East End, “well isn’t that Lena so very cheerful and what, right?” 

There is--” They were nearly nose to nose to now, but Pharah had the floor, and Tracer sat quietly even as her brown eyes glowed with fire. “There is nothing of that, for me. That is for people like you!” She slapped the bed in frustration. “And you will never, ever understand me, because you are some...Turkish rug, or a carved chair, and people notice you in a room, and they love you! Plenty want you in their homes.” 

Tracer moved to say something, but found the anger had left her, and she was filled instead with a deep and unyielding sorrow for all they had both lost, and all Pharah had learned she could lose. Tears slipped down her face, only to find Pharah’s had matched them. 

Pharah tapped her chest.”I am--a broom. A filing cabinet. I am useful, and needed, and diligent. I am necessary, and valued. But I am not loved. Except by her.” 

They sat in the terrible London quiet, the one that shouldn’t be real but had made itself known in the long, cold, sharp blades of that night. Both them looked down at the small expanse of cotton between them. 

“I love you. Course I do.” Lena’s voice was soft, but it did not waver. Then, quick firework that she was, her head popped up and she grinned, “Fuck’s sake Fareeha, why do you think I lay in here next to you every night and tell you stories,  me own ‘ealth?” 

It was her sunshine, always her sunshine, that broke the darkness, and even Pharah had to offer a weak huff of what had to pass for laughter now. 

“I’m scared, as well. I miss Em every single day. I wonder what might become of me, sounds a bit dramatic, but that’s how I think of it.” She rested a hand on Pharah’s knee, “You ain’t the only one with plenty to take on. We’re soldiers, right? It’s ‘ard. And me ‘aving me,” she touched the place where her CA rested, “and Ang, well, she did know me best, ‘ard to say if this friend of ‘ers will ‘ave a mind for it. Just--a bit of an ask, innit? For me, as well.”

Pharah put her hand on Tracer’s. “You will find love again. It is very hard to know you, and not love you a little.” 

“Fareeha,” she waggled her eyebrows, “is this you proposing? Flattered I am, but--” 

In one smooth movement, Pharah swept up the pillow and batted Tracer in the face with it. She fell to the mattress in a flurry of bubbling laughter, and Pharah was forced into a smile. 

“Well,” Tracer’s voice was peppy as she folded her hands and grinned up at Pharah, “I think, that when you’re ready, there’ll be someone wonderful, you know Fareeha there are women who go just mad for closet organizational systems and all that, proper filing, I don’t think you’re ‘ard to match at all, and besides all that, Ang was never any of that, but she saw, well she saw what I see, in you.” 

Pharah shook her head a moment, and waved it off almost out of habit. 

Tracer caught her eye, made sure she saw the genuine truth and belief in it. “You ‘ave a good heart, and a more tender spirit than you let on. Ang always said so, even when I didn’t believe it, that everything you do is a kind of love. That you’re terribly loving. She saw that, in you. She--” 

Pharah turned away and pinched the bridge of her nose, tripping over her words.  “Let’s please not speak of her more. Tonight.” 

“Course,” Tracer nodded, “Sometimes I can’t talk about Em, neither.” Tracer reached gently, carefully, and rubbed at Pharah’s shoulder. “You always ‘ave an ‘ome with me, and Win, ‘ere, if you want it. We love you, Fareeha. We love you ever so much.” 

Knowing it was true, and knowing that it could not possibly repair the deep chasm in her heart, the one that cried her name when the wind blew, Fareeha Amari forgot herself, unmade, in an instant, every lesson she had taught herself about how to be in this world. She began to cry. No, to sob, choked breaths flashing the memory of Mercy’s broken body, her smile under their wedding chuppah, a thousand small touches and loving words falling on her like rain. 

Tracer held her. Tracer held her, and whispered that it was all right, and that she wasn’t a filing cabinet, until they both fell asleep.

[headoverhiddles]

All Work, No Play - Jack Torrance x Reader

Synopsis: You investigate the Overlook alone one night, unsure of what you’ll find. 

Notes: HAPPY HALLOWEEN YA SPOOKY BITCHES!!!!!! 

It's Halloween night, and this probably wasn't a good idea.

The Overlook Hotel had withered and shrunk in on itself over the last decade of being empty. One too many murders, and the previous owners had given up-- the bad press had grown tiring, and a repeat offense couldn't simply be explained away as cabin fever this time.

There was something about the old Overlook, and as with any place attached to a grisly history, it had its divided theorists. Some say there's bad energy there-- that's what made him do it. Others say the ghosts roam freely, whispering to whoever stays there or enters the front doors. Most people just go with the rational excuse; it was a coincidence of mass psychosis.

You let the words ghost and psychosis rattle around in your brain as the chilly fall air sweeps you inside. You probably should've brought someone-- anyone. You hadn't even told a soul where you were... this was a very, very bad idea.

As you turn to leave though, the door shuts on its own. Doesn't slam; just closes softly. You swallow. I guess that's decided for me.

You take a few cautious steps inside the large hotel. It's dark, but there are candles, half melted down, that you can make out in the dark. Taking the matches out of your purse, you walk around, lighting each sconce.

Your nerves are overtaken by awe as the place lights up. It's absolutely beautiful. Fallen from grace, sure, but the cobwebs add to the antique novelty of the place. How more people don't go ghost hunting here on TV, or just for fun, astounds you. Maybe the rumors really are true, and madness prevents visitors from staying a whole night through.

"Hello?" you call, your heart rate spiking. There's a ballroom to your left, empty and thick with dust. Your heart gradually starts thumping against your chest with each step you take further, and you wipe your palms on your jacket. "Anybody here?"

The autumn wind answers you again, howling outside and rattling the windows. The place is huge. Thinking of the scope of it makes your head spin... there are hundreds of rooms, and each could be filled with hundreds of things.

A breeze blows behind you, but you're already on the stairs. Trailing your hand up the banister of the grand staircase, you start to smile. This is so spooky. Maybe this wasn't such a bad idea after all--

You pause, eyes widening. What's that noise?

Tip. Tap. Tap-tap-tap. Tip tap. Tap-tap. Tap.

It sounds like a... typewriter?

"Hello?" you repeat. The echo of the old typewriter keys is all that remains of the disembodied noise.

Coming up to the second floor of the Overlook, you again marvel at the view out the window. The snow-capped mountains behind the place tower over the hotel, and it looks strangely serene, out here in the middle of nowhere with no one to look at it but you.

"I'm all alone," you remind yourself. Your voice sounds so out of place.

You walk down the hall, and head down to the room that the Grady murders supposedly happened in. You inspect the walls, hoping for just a little leftover blood, but they did a good job of cleaning up-- it just looks like a regular old room, with the aging 70s style decor.

Taking a peek in the bathroom, you hold your breath. The shower curtain is drawn, and by the ghost stories floating around about this place, there's supposed to be an old lady who haunts the bathtub. As you inch toward it, you swallow, remembering that if there is something horrifying behind this curtain, you've got a long way to run from it to the front door.

It's fine. It's fine. She supposedly appears as a regular lady until her skin starts to decompose, according to the legend. Still... seeing someone hiding in here wouldn't be the most comfortable thing, no matter what she looked like. You notice something dark moving behind the curtain, and your hands start to tremble.

"Oh god. I-I don't mean to disturb you," you toss out timidly, hoping that you'll at least warn the spirit (if there is one). Please don't let there be one... please, please...

You peel the shower curtain back, looking between your fingers... to find a missing tile, a swarm of cockroaches crawling around the hole in the wall. You make a face, rubbing your hands on your pants just in case, and back away. Well, no old lady. Just an old, infamous hotel room lost to the hands of time.

You nearly jump out of your skin as you feel a hand on your shoulder. You whip around, to find nobody there. Another jump, as you hear the striking of a piano chord beneath the floor, just downstairs. Your brain instantly reaches for anything to make sense of it-- you left your phone downstairs by accident, and it started playing your classical playlist. No. There's a radio downstairs that... turns on by itself? No. There's an ice cream truck???

You frown at yourself for that last idea. Anyone would have to be crazy to drive all this way out to serve ice cream to some supposed ghosts. You're crazy for even attempting it yourself, especially at night. Then what about that hand, too?

You have to go see what made the sound.

As you walk slowly down the carpeted hall, you hear the music drift up. It's some sort of ballroom music. Descending the stairs, you bite your lip, chewing obsessively. Oh god, oh god. You really hadn't thought this through.

"Is there someone here?!" you call, "This place is... closed. I don't... work here, or anything." Then what are you doing here?

Having a happy Halloween, you argue with yourself. Right. If you survive the night.

You nearly stop breathing as you see what's going on. The ballroom that had previously been empty was now fully lit, golden, and open for business. Soft waltz music drifts out, and you put a hand on the entryway.

Ghosts.

You walk inside, looking around. There are no ghosts that you can see, but what else could have done this?

"Mr. Grady?" you ask, looking up at the ceiling, at everything you can take in. "Mr... Torrance?"

You sit down at the bar, and are amazed to find that it's fully stocked. You grin a little bit, feeling more excited now than scared to be experiencing all this, and walk around to the other side.

"Would you like a drink, Miss (y/l/n)?" you ask yourself in a posh accent, straightening your back.

"Don't mind if I do," you answer, pouring one.

"Make that two, would ya honey?"

You scream, and drop the bottle, hearing it smash at your feet. You turn around, to find a man sitting at the bar where you had just been.

"Who are you?" you breathe, white knuckling the shelf.

"Don'tcha know my name?" He gives a splitting grin, eyes ghostly shadowed, "You just called for me five minutes ago."

"Mr. Grady?" you ask cautiously, looking around to see if he had any weapons on him.

"The other happy haunt," the man continues to grin unnervingly, You don't dare blink or look away from him.

"Jack Torrance," you whisper. He laughs loudly, the booming sound filling the ballroom.

"That's me, honey. That's me. Stuck in this fucking place after an... unfortunate unfolding of events. Now, uh... if you don't mind honey, since you're on the other side of the bar already... would you swipe me a bourbon and make it neat?"

Shakily, you pour him his drink. You don't stop to question how you're talking to, and pouring a drink for, the ghost of an axe murderer.

"That's more like it," he nods, licking his lips. His eyes descend a little, and he hums. "You're a pretty little thing, aren't you?" You blush a little bit. You had noticed he was pretty good looking as well, much more attractive than the legends paint him, but you're not about to admit that.

"I..." you mumble.

"What're you doing here tonight, Miss... what did you say your name was? Miss (y/l/n)?"

"(y/n)," you tell him.

"(y/n)," he muses. "Come sit. Can't tell why you'd wanna spend the night in a... run down old place like this hotel." His fists ball up. "These walls can drive a man mad. And, they did!" That laughter returns, before his face gets dead serious. "You know who I am, don't you?"

You swallow. "You murdered your family with an axe... just like the caretaker before you." He shakes his head adamantly, slamming his glass down and making you jump.

"I didn't kill them. I was told to... and I tried. God knows, I fucking tried," he grits his teeth, and takes another long drink of bourbon, "But sometimes, things are just out of your hands." He looks at you sideways. "You never answered my question. Why did you come here? Hm? To see little old me? Come see if the ghost stories are true?" He makes a 'wooo' sound, wiggling his fingers playfully. You shrug, unable to hide your nerves.

"Basically, yes. That's why I came."

"You're interested in ghost stories, are you?"

"Yes," you say.

"Fine, that's just fine. Interesting. My wife never liked them. She used to get squeamish, you see, whenever I would talk about anything that scared her. Everything scared her. Ghosts, spiders... me."

You walk around to the other side of the bar. "And why would she be scared of you?"

"Because I'm a scary person, (y/n)," Jack smiles. "Can't you tell?" He puts a hand on your knee, and your whole body goes frigid. You don't remove his hand, though. For a second, confusion flashes over Jack's face. He can't tell why you're not running, screaming. Now that you had adjusted to finding the very thing you came here to find, you weren't afraid anymore. He places the glass in front of you.

"Your turn. I think we have cause to celebrate."

You agree, and pour some of Jack's bourbon that would be very (very) nicely aged at this point. Lifting it to your lips, you appreciate the taste. It's probably the best bourbon you've ever had.

"Are you gonna keep me here?" you ask. Jack moves his hand up your leg slightly, looking down at it.

"That depends, sweetheart. I could keep you here for the night... just you and me, celebrate Halloween the old fashioned way, y'know..." He raises an eyebrow. "You know it has been a very long time for me."

"Aren't there other ghosts you can... pass the time with?" You start to worry. What if he wants permanent companionship? He could kill you!

"Let me put it this way honey. Ghosts making love to ghosts is like waving a hot dog around in the air," Jack mutters sarcastically, downing the last of his bourbon. You frown at that mental image, and decide then that killing you wouldn't be in his best interest, it seemed. He goes on. "No. I've missed feeling this. And you walk in here tonight, ready as can be to find some ghosts. Well, lucky me. You found one." He gives a big, playful smile, and you stand up.

"I came to look for ghosts," you say, voice low as you back up against the wall, "Not fuck them."

"Life is full of surprises, isn't it?" his grin grows, as he walks closer to you from the bar, "Or death is, I guess."

"Mr. Torrance," you say softly, "No matter what, I'll just have to leave in the morning."

"Then stay awhile," he grins, reaching his hand out. You look at it, listen to the ghostly noises echoing around you, and remember that you're standing in a hotel haunted by killers. Not bad looking ones, if Jack was anything to go by. Dammit, no!

"I guess I don't have to leave just yet," you cave, and take his hand. Just as you're about to close your fingers around his though, you start to feel a little dizzy. "Mmm," you moan, putting a hand on your chest. You start to cough, and your eyes close. You can see in your mind's eye, as clear as if you were looking at it, the elevator doors in the hallway opening, and a river of blood pouring out.

"Help, help, help," someone says, and you realize it's you. You start to cough, and see the same shade of red that came out of the elevators, in your palms.

"Drank the bourbon did you?" Jack asks, sighing. "Well. You know what they say. Always read the label!" You turn back, and see the ballroom has completely darkened, everything dusty with cobwebs and silent as a mausoleum. The bottle sitting on the bar is rat poison.

"No," you cough, and try to crawl toward the door.

"At least it wasn't an axe," Jack reminds you, and his laugh echoes as you run out the front door. Two steps, three, and you fall to your feet, pawing at the ground. Coming to terms with the fact that you're not going to get any further, you roll over onto your back, and look up at the Overlook looming over you. Jack approaches the door, and holds it open for you.

"All work no play makes Jack a dull boy. So, (y/n)... ready to play, angel mine?"