#but i tried to get across her adhd and panic and stuff

[neonlight2]

Marauders era Headcanons

I’ll be adding to this throughout the storyline

Masterlist

Sirius Black:

- Partially Deaf, because there is no way he came out inbred and totally unscathed.

- Genderfluid because he’s an indecisive bitch

- Loves when his hair is braided no matter how much he says otherwise (also likes his head scratched)

- Paints his nails just to chip them cause he thinks it looks hot (same thing with smudging eyeliner)

- Calls Lily ‘Evans’, until she and James get together then he calls her ‘Mrs. Potter’

- annoyed he has to share James

- Fidgets with his hair and finger/rings constantly, because he definitely had ADD

- Makes this claw thingy with his hand when he’s nervous (if you know where this is from ily)

- Can dance REALLY WELL (ballet), because of that pure blood privilege, and does the stance naturally

-Can play the violin but is embarrassed so learns guitar so if someone asks him if he plays an instrument he can just say that instead

- Sexuality = Hot people aka Remus Lupin ( he’s just a whore idk what else to say)

-Touch starved/attention whore

- Such a fucking G, this man would riot for anything his friends ask

- If you walked into his closet you would think two people put their stuff in there, no, just him

- Speaks French

Remus Lupin:

- Poor boy is depressed

- And actually poor which is why he sells weed or other muggle things (he hustles the shit out of the students at Hogwarts by saying everything is ‘exotic’ and they believe him because everyone thinks he’s smart)

- Touch starved but doesn’t like to be touched (if you know you know)

-Bisexual panic. All. The. Time.

-Oblivious as hell to the fact everyone wants him— I mean everyone

- Loves tea. SO. MUCH. TEA.

- Has a book club with Lily

- Got a ton of piercings and tattoos over fifth year’s summer, but people rarely see them cause he’s always wearing sweaters or covered up some how

-His whole closet look like it should belong to an old man, yet he still slays

- Bites his lips and inside of cheek a lot, so James carries around lip balm for him

- When he’s high he’s chill

- But he’s hysterical when he’s drunk

-Can read multiple languages, but his pronunciation is god awful (Sirius makes fun of him for it)

-Has Chocolate on hand at all times because once he didn’t and he threw Snape across the classroom

-Man is an uncoordinated tree

James Potter:

- Both the Mom and child of the group somehow

- Takes lots of naps

-Sorry to say but Gryffindor is his personality

- Foot taps

- Holy shit this guy is ADHD

- ‘Bambi’ is his other nickname, and he thinks it’s cute until he watches the movie

- The healthiest mentally of the group

- Golden retriever vibes

- If James hasn’t seen Sirius within 30 minutes and he doesn’t know where he is, he gets panicked

-Has a thing for Youngest siblings apparently (Lily and Regulus)

-Obsessed with Babies

- Definition of himbo sometimes

- He’s good at every sport he tries

- Queer

- Trained Sirius not to say Mudblood throughout first and second year

Peter Pettigrew:

- Trans (I’ll go more in-depth later)

- Ace

- if Social anxiety was a person

- Bakes like an absolute KING

- Chews fingernails, so Sirius got him leather gloves to matches his own to get him to stop

- Knows random shit/facts

-also knows everyone’s business because no one pays him any attention

- Short king

- Hilarious, practically makes the group piss themselves when alone in the common room

- Loves everything fuzzy

- Has been in love with Mary since third or fourth year, but hasn’t said anything because he knew about her and Lily

- Has family trauma too, but he doesn’t thinks it’s enough to complain about because of what he’s seen with Sirius

- Was the first to master turning into an animagus

-As bad as Sirius and James with worrying about his hair, just less loud about it

-He knew about wolfstar before James

Lily Evans:

-Pansexual

- Politics Queen

- As sassy and sarcastic as Sirius

-Stress cleans

- the Left corner of her forehead twitches when she’s mad

- Thick girl (her thighs are HUGE and James practically drools over them 24/7, respectively ofc)

- Short 5’

- the others have to keep her within arms reach because she gets lost easily in crowds, her hair is the only thing that helps

- Human calculator (she gets perfect marks on every subject EXCEPT DADA, which is the class Sirius and James do; it annoys her to no end)

- Most likely to actually throw hands

- Fangirls openly about book characters (with Remus)

- Can’t sing to save her life (poor babe just wants to sing abba, but she just ends up being made fun of)

-Vowed to not cut her hair until she graduated, so around sixth year she had to start braiding it because if she didn’t she’d sit on it

- Can forge a signature/handwriting very well

- Is actually really insecure about her magical abilities because of the rift it caused between her and Petunia

Marlene McKinnon:

-Lesbian

-The only person to actually make her question her sexuality is Remus, and that’s because it’s fucking Remus Lupin

- During fourth year when her and Sirius were ‘dating’, they were just teaching each other how to flirt with girls/guys and they’d kiss just to practice

-Obsessed with Piercings (begged Remus to give her a couple after he told her about how he had the supplies)

- One of the best players on the Gryffindor Quidditch team/ uses it as anger management (Beater position)

-Her and Sirius have an agreement to tell each other the weekly outfit plan so they don’t wear the same thing or color (red or black mostly)

- Roasting people is her platonic love language

-Can play every band instrument

-She looks like a tough, rocker chick but is a softie for Dorcas

- Intimidates everyone because she’s low key buff (can bench more than James and Sirius combined) and super tall (looks like a giant next to Lily)

-Can’t speak in front of Dorcas at first, yet Dorcas understands her

-Big on PDA which leads to Sirius gagging obnoxiously

-Her and Sirius “fighting” is for show so people stop shipping them together/ teasing them

- Dyslexic so Lily and Dorcas read to her if there’s anything important (which leads to them doing it even if she’s not around)

-Simps for James Mum (but who wouldn’t)

Dorcas Meadowes:

- Part of the Slytherin skittles

- Non-binary

-Demisexual

- Dark humor and it’s worse when she’s around Regulus and Barty

- Nyx is her first girl kiss in my oc story (Marlene probably was for every other story)

-Big softy when it comes to Marlene

-Resting bitch face

- Amazing artist/ sketching Marlene constantly

- Makes jewelry (Marlene and her matching rings, and friendship bracelets/ necklaces for the others that they can never take off— she warns them before hand)

- Will go batshit crazy if she stays up after 12 am

-Gets super competitive when playing Quidditch

- Rants about how much she loves pockets every 20 minutes

- Instinctively moves closer to someone she knows when she’s in public

- More introverted than the rest, would rather stay in the common room and chill

-makes a ton of your mom jokes

Mary Macdonald:

- Pansexual or Polysexual

-She loves to embroidery/making clothes, so if anyone needs something made or tailored they go to her

-Hypes everyone up all the time, ‘don’t disrespect yourself’ vibe

- Has the best alcohol tolerance in the group

-James potter triggers her for a multitude of reasons; they have a banter relationship

- She always has what you need in her bag— like Mary Poppins

-Lily was her first love and friend

- SUCH a good listener (like I know canon Remus and Lily would be the best listeners, but I think it’s Mary)

- Both her and Remus had a glow up fourth year and everyone wants to either be them or be with them

- Loves dancing, will do it randomly while doing absolutely anything

-Hates cold weather, she’ll literally wear five jackets DON’T play

-Has had or does have a eating disorder because of societal pressure of internal judgment; not to mention people definitely paint her out to be a ‘slag’ because she happens to be more open about her sexuality (and they don’t do it to Sirius because we live in a fucked patriarchy)

- Will scream “fuck the police” or “fuck the Patriarchy” when running away from an authority figure (or just Lily/Remus)

-vegetarian 

-Extroverted (loves to be around people/hates being alone)

Regulus Black:

- Asthma (again, can’t escape inbreeding completely)

-Has permanent dark circles, yet he still looks beautiful??? Looks like eyeshadow to be real

- Demisexual

-trans

-Scratching his knuckles is a severe nervous tick of his

-Writes poetry and short stories

- Plays the piano

-Started playing quidditch to interact with Sirius more and to impress him (but as he got older he didn’t really give a shit anymore)

-Speaks French and Reads Latin

-Really into Astronomy

- He had a crush on James in fifth year but didn’t pursue it because he still somewhat resented him for having Sirius all to himself (and he knew Sirius would get mad)

-Cusses a lot when around his friends

-Best poker face, could lie to anyone and get away with it

-Photographic memory

-Nice to all the House elves (and all the Marauders except Sirius and James)

Pandora, Evan, and Barty

Evan and Pandora are siblings

Everyone in the Marauders and Slytherin Skittles have agreed that Pandora has to be protected at all cost

What they don’t know is that this girl is lethal (Carries around potions she’s created that could burn through steel)

Barty is hella gay, psychotic, and a bit of a pyro

Barty is also low key obsessed with Regulus

Evan is in love with Barty

Rosekiller is a thing, and it is toxic (don’t we just love it)

I’ll probably add more for Barth, Evan, and Pandora later

[snowmuttgetsweird]

3/5/23 CW: Abuse/Trauma mention kinda? ADHD stuff, anxiety stuff, "The Bluey Post."

Last couple days have been okay. I've been learning to manage the panic attacks better. I didn't actually have one today- I kinda had a smaller episode yesterday, but I put on some Bluey and it turns out to be like, magic anti-panic attack medicine. Who knew.

Some people have heard me say (seen me type?) before that after watching Zootopia, I didn't want to FUCK Clawhauser; I just wanted to be his friend. My first real furry crush was Alex the Lion from Madagascar- just a bright, bouncy, funny, silly, charming character that loved to perform and loved people- bonus points for having huge bappy manimal paws and big chompy teeth. This is going somewhere, I promise.

I feel like there's this positivity vacuum in my life that makes me a sucker for hyper-pure characters and content, like it artificially fills some kind of void that makes me wish I were a part of it in an earnest and genuine way.

Bluey has been like... The greatest expression of that feeling. I love watching Bluey never stop being bossy because she gets away with it nine times out of ten due to her shear charisma. I love watching Bingo constantly challenged to fight for attention and respect, and ultimately succeeding. I love watching the chaos that unfolds literally any time that Muffin is on-screen. I love the way Bandit genuinely loves his daughters and does everything in his power to spend time with them and indulge them, even if it's not always on his preferred terms. I love the storyboarding, the subtle hints at deeper trauma across the cast, the relatability of the characters.

I remember before ever seeing the show, I saw a clip of Jack on Twitter. Why can't you sit still? Why can't you remember anything? Why can't you just do what you're told? He stops fidgeting for a moment and really thinks about it and says, sadly:

"... I don't know."

I cried to that clip- hard- because that moment with Jack was my entire childhood and was the most I ever related to a character. It was the most I had ever seen of myself on a TV show packed into three words uttered by a cartoon jack russell terrier that couldn't remember his god damn hat.

Every day of my life, my dad yelled and screamed at me asking why I couldn't do these simple things he asked me to do and all I could say was "I don't know." Sometimes he'd scream it back at me at the top of his lungs in that condescending slurred "pretending to be special needs" tone, mocking me.

My third grade teacher tried to tell my parents "Chris is very smart but has a difficult time staying on task and participating in class- I think that Chris may be struggling with ADHD" and my mom jumped down her throat for suggesting her son could have been anything less than perfect. She didn't attend parent teacher conferences anymore after that. Where dad was hard on me, mom coddled me and kept me "under [her] wing" as dad would say.

I grew up "smart" and "gifted" but "lazy" and "unmotivated," bullshitting and last-minute-ing my way through school, flopping upwards and somehow convincing everyone I was everything they thought I was.

I'm not medicated or diagnosed and I can't afford to be, but I KNOW I'm ADHD. Seeing the way other people struggle and relating to it all- the time blindness, the hyper-focus, the terrible working memory, the difficulty managing emotions, the executive dysfunction, the rambling- yes I know I'm doing it right now, sorry- all of it and more.

At THAT moment, seeing Jack internally question why he can't do all these simple things really endeared me to the character, and I knew I wanted to watch Bluey for more than just lusting after Bandit (god help me he's still so fucking ideal). When I actually watched the show and reached that episode, I was floored by just how beautifully and subtly the show straight up teaches kids about ADHD without ever mentioning it.

Rusty involves Jack in a game that challenges every debilitating aspect of his neurodivergency, and Jack succeeds in every event based on the three motivational pillars of ADHD: Urgency, Novelty, and Personal Interest. If you think of motivation as a bridge, those three things make up the planks you step across, and if any or all of them are missing, it's MUCH harder for someone with ADHD to stay invested in the task at hand and follow through from start to finish without struggling along the way. It's a game, so there's novelty. Jack wants to make a good impression on Rusty, so there's personal interest. In the last part of the game, they need that dust off NOW, so there's your urgency. All three allow Jack to overcome his poor working memory (difficulty remembering multiple pieces of information across short periods of time), his inability to sit still, and his executive dysfunction (inability to actively prioritize what your brain decides to focus its attention on). The episode is just extremely well researched. Fun fact, did you know there's a prominent, internationally recognized authority in the field of ADHD research named Russell Barkley? Coincidence? I think not!

Obviously I got off-track and rambled a bit and now I'm mentally spent, but all I mean to say is that Bluey is a really, overwhelmingly beautiful and cozy show and I'm extremely thankful to have it in my life. It is genuinely beautiful artistically and the animators are given a lot of opportunity to flex their creativity. There's a lot to love but that first episode with Jack was the one that really sold me on it.

It's about 1:30 AM now, I've got a pot roast I've gotta get in the slow cooker in the morning, and I think I'm more prone to panic attacks when I'm sleep-deprived, so I'm gonna try to maneuver around this cat that's leaned up against my thigh and go to sleep.

I don't know if anyone is actually reading these, but I kinda like typing them either way.

Night.

[loopyhoopywrites]

Sneezewort & Accidents - a Starlight & Ashes fanfic

Written for @wildswrites for the fic exchange! Thanks for giving me permission to turn your characters into absolute disasters, Fox was so much fun to play around with. (Sorry I took so many liberties with her magic.) Thanks also to @humour-and-hyperfocus for organising this awesome event!

.

Magic, Fox had always been told, was a gift. If that was true, she hoped whoever had sent it had kept the receipt.

Although in fairness, it wasn’t the magic itself that was the Problem. No, the Problem was the generous side helping of memory loss that had accompanied her gift and wiped out the past several years of her life. Oh, and the fact that instead of playing nicely, her magic only reared its head at the worst possible time.

Like when hot girls visited her flower shop.

“Hi!” She said, arranging herself artfully across the counter and quickly slapping away the Lollipop plant that tried to cheekily peer over her shoulder, “How can I help you?”

The potential customer – about Fox’s age, long blonde hair, the kind of don’t-talk-to-me smile that could have been either anger or anxiety and, in case it hadn’t already been mentioned, hot – gave a polite nod.

“Just browsing.”

“You sure?” Fox wasn’t exactly shy when it came to getting to know her customers, and this was one customer she definitely wanted to get to know. “I got some more Baby’s Breath in recently, makes a great garnish for a bouquet if you’re looking for a gift. Or if gardening’s more your thing I can show you the Turkey Corn, if you plant it now you’ll- OUCH.”

Under pretence of an itch, Fox had reached down and tried to bat away the Sneezewort she could feel creeping up her leg. She’d missed. The plant, that was.

Rubbing her leg, Fox attempted a disarming grin. The hot girl gave her a look that, again, could have been either annoyance or awkwardness. It was hard to tell. Fox decided to hope it was the latter. It was far easier to put someone at ease than apologise to them, especially if you didn’t know what you’d done to make them mad in the first place. The Lollipop plant was still getting handsy, so Fox gave it a subtle shove and coughed loudly to cover up the sound of the pot breaking.

“Give me a shout if I can help you with anything?”

Hot Girl nodded, and turned her attention to examining the wall-to-wall shelves Fox had somehow stuffed into the cramped storefront. Fox immediately elbowed the bouquet of roses that had started to creep across the countertop.

“Stop it!” She hissed, “She’s going to see!”

“Sorry?”

“Nothing!” Fox quickly moved in to block the roses from view as Hot Girl poked her head around a Swiss Cheese plant. The roses weren’t having any of it, and shuffled faster. Fox followed suit, hoping she was making it look natural.

(She wasn’t.)

Hot Girl didn’t seem all that convinced by Fox’s attempted nonchalance. In another misguided attempt to ease any suspicions, Fox laughed.

Great, now she looked like even more of a weirdo.

Hot Girl disappeared behind the shelves again, and Fox immediately grabbed the roses and stuck them in the nearest empty vase. Wiggle their little thorns all they liked; they weren’t getting out of that one.

A few whispered warnings and a threatening wave of the pruning shears later, Fox was feeling calmer. Hot Girl was still browsing, picking up a flower or pot every now and again to get a closer look, and as far as Fox could tell they were all behaving themselves.

Determined not to look like a creep who couldn’t stop staring, Fox stopped staring. Instead she busied herself tidying up the countertop; returning the roses to the back room, repotting the Lollipop plant and placing it safely out of sight, and taking great delight in impaling the morning’s receipts on the metal spike that sat next to the till. Hot Girl had made her way to the end of the aisle by the time Fox finished, holding an orchid in each hand and glancing between the two of them with a look of intense concentration. A few moments later she lifted the Showoff orchid to her nose, closed her eyes, inhaled, annndddd Fox was staring again.

She tore her gaze away and dropped down behind the counter, figuring that not only would she be unable to stare at Hot Girl with the desk in the way, but she could clear up that mischievous Sneezewort while she was down there. Only, the Sneezewort was no longer there.

Fox took a deep breath, readied herself, and peeked around the corner of the counter. Sure enough, the Sneezewort had decided to make a run for it, and was slowly yet surely inching its way across the shop floor. Directly towards Hot Girl.

“Here, Sneezewort,” Fox called as loudly as she dared, grabbing one of the sachets of plant food she kept under the counter and wiggling it enticingly, “Come on, come get this tasty little snack, there’s a good Sneezewort.”

Fox would have sworn the Sneezewort looked at her. If it had a tongue to stick out, it probably would have done that too. It didn’t, so it settled for an insolent wiggle before resolutely continuing its slow trek down the aisle. Fox cursed.

Abandoning the plant food, Fox succumbed to plan B and began to follow it. She crawled out from behind the counter as stealthily as she could and slithered her way across the floor, creeping ever closer to the runaway wildflower. Gradually, she closed the distance, until with a hiss of premature triumph she lunged forward, managing to grasp the Sneezewort by the roots…

Just as her head collided with Hot Girl’s leg.

“Are you okay?”

Fox briefly considered remaining on the floor. Maybe if she played dead, Hot Girl would take pity on her. On the other hand, deadness would drastically reduce the chances of her getting Hot Girl’s phone number.

Cons outweighing the pros, Fox scrambled to her feet.

“Fine!” She managed, only slightly manically, “Just dropped this.”

She held the Sneezewort up, realised it was still wriggling in a decisively not-normal manner, and quickly hid it behind her back. Hot Girl looked… amused? Or at least, Fox hoped it was amusement. She hoped…

Oh great. Now she was panicking.

“Letmeknowifyouneedanyhelp!”

Fox quickly waved – why did she wave? – and did her best not to run as she fled the scene of her embarrassment. Managing to resist both the urge to look back and the even stronger urge to rip the tendrils of Sneezewort into tiny, unrevivable pieces, she made it safely to the cupboard that masqueraded as a back room and plonked the unruly plant into the nearest soil-filled container.

Okay, now breathe. The problem with uncontrollable magic was that it made an excellent trigger for Fox’s panic attacks. And given that panicking just made the uncontrollable magic worse, it was best to head it off as early as possible.

In… and out. In… and out. In… and out. In… and-

“Excuse me?”

“Ouch!”

Fox had jumped, and slammed her hand down on a squat cactus that definitely hadn’t been there a moment ago. She spun around, the cactus keeping her company by way of its spines embedded in her palm, and immediately tripped over a sprig of Devil’s Ivy that had come to see what all the fuss was about. Fortunately, the vine had the quick thinking to wrap itself around Fox in order to steady her. Unfortunately, it grabbed the wrong leg.

“Oof.”

Fox looked up from her position on the floor to see a face – Hot Girl’s face, to be precise – peering around the “back room” door with concern. Fox tried to smile. From Hot Girl’s expression, it wasn’t all that convincing.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. How are you?”

On the other hand, maybe she’d hit her head harder than she thought.

“Do you need a hand up?”

Hot Girl took a half-step through the doorway, hovering awkwardly as if she wanted to reach out and help Fox to her feet, but had only just realised both her hands were currently busy with an overly large pot of Mother-In-Law’s Tongue. Fox shook her head, which both answered the question and helped shake some of her dizziness.

“I’m good, but thanks.”

To prove it, she reached for a shelf to pull herself to her feet, realised she still had a cactus stuck to her palm, and reached for a shelf on her other side instead.

“Interested in buying that, or just couldn’t make the gym this week?” She asked, nodding to the leafy plant in Hot Girl’s hands as she yanked the cactus from her own. Most of the spines came with it.

“Hmm?” Hot Girl replied, “Oh. Yes. I’d like to buy this, please.”

“Great!” With her non-spiney hand, Fox gestured out the door, “After you.”

In what was nothing short of a miracle, they made it to the counter without any more magical mishaps. Fox briefly considered letting out a sigh of relief, but decided that would just be tempting fate. Hot Girl hefted the heavy plant onto the counter as if it weighted nothing – and if Fox wasn’t convinced of her hotness before that was the final nail in the coffin – and Fox set about ringing her up, jotting a few notes on how to best care for the Mother-In-Law’s Tongue on her cutest gift tag. She was just deciding whether a rainbow-striped ribbon would be too obvious, when Hot Girl spoke.

“Your tattoo is awful.”

Um, what?

“Excuse me?”

“Oh!” Hot Girl’s eyes suddenly widened, as if she hadn’t actually meant to say that out loud, “Oh, no, I didn’t mean- I didn’t mean the design. Sorry. I just meant, the actual tattoo itself. Your lines are wonky, and I can clearly see where the artist has had blowouts. Plus, the colour isn’t saturated properly.”

And Fox thought she had a tendency to ramble. Hot Girl still looked horrified with herself, but Fox wasn’t one to hold a grudge.

“Yeah, it was one of my first,” She shrugged, reaching for the rainbow ribbon, “I’ve got some better ones since then.”

Fox would offer to show her, but dropping her pants at this stage might have been a little too straightforward.

“I could touch it up for you, if you like.” Hot Girl offered. Fox raised an eyebrow.

“I’m a tattoo artist,” Hot Girl quickly explained, “Maverick, I work next door.”

She held out a now-empty hand. Fox shook it.

“I’m Fox,” She said, managing to keep her cool only to immediately ruin it as she added, “I work here.”

By some miracle, Maverick laughed.

“It’s nice to meet you.” She said as she handed over a few crumpled notes and a handful of change, “I mean it though. You should come by the shop sometime. Even if it’s just to check I’m keeping this thing alive.”

Maverick waved at the Mother-In-Law’s Tongue. It waved back.

“Sounds good!” Fox said quickly, desperately hoping Maverick hadn’t seen. Ribbon tied, she gave the plant a stern glare and pushed the pot back across the counter. “Here you go. And remember, Fox’s Flowers, for all your floral needs!”

Maverick laughed again. Fox immediately decided it was the best sound she’d ever heard.

“I will.” Maverick promised. With a final smile, she picked up her purchase, and with a nod of goodbye she was gone.

The moment the door shut behind her, Fox’s head collided with the counter. She hadn’t had a disaster like that in a long time. Groaning, she batted away the Venus Fly Trap that was trying to get her attention, refusing to lift her head. It was a shame really. If she had, she might not have been all that concerned about her unruly magic after all.

Because as Maverick passed the window, the Mother-In-Law’s Tongue in her hands began to glow a bright, vibrant blue.

[that-crow-kid]

to define a way of being

by @galactic-cam (galactic_cam on ao3) for @slothbeans (slothbeans on ao3) in the @friendly-neighborhood-exchange

the story is here on ao3

Rating: General Audiences

Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark

Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark, background May Parker

Summary: Peter Parker had ADHD. He’d never gotten an official diagnosis, and it’d never been on his medical records. All he had was the vague memory of a doctor at his four-year-old check up recommending he get tested - and then his parents dying before the appointment could be made. He's done his research - there's nothing else it could be. But he'd adjusted, and he was good at school, so it hadn't really mattered all that much.

And then, because the spider bite put its greasy little fingers on everything else, it had to grab that, too.

It had been a rough few days. Well, no, scratch that, a rough few months. 

Peter Parker had ADHD. He’d never gotten an official diagnosis, and it’d never been on his medical records. When he was super little, like, before his parents died little, his pediatrician had told them that he should probably get tested. But then they’d died, less than a week later, and Peter was left with no official diagnosis, just the remnants of a memory of the doctors appointment. He’d reinforced this idea all throughout his life with his own research, but he had never told Ben or May. He figured they had enough to worry about, what with their four-year-old nephew suddenly coming to live with them after Ben’s sister-in-law and brother tragically died in a plane crash and all. 

So he’d just kept quiet. He was incredibly smart, and nobody ever accommodated for him, so he learned to adapt. Maybe not super well, but his grades were stellar despite the ADHD, so nobody ever really cared enough to diagnose or medicate him. 

And then he’d been bitten by the spider and it had gotten worse.

He’d always identified with Percy Jackson’s view of ADHD: You can’t streamline your thoughts because you get much more input. It made sense, and it was kind of how he felt. But then he developed superpowers, and it made more sense than ever before. 

He was getting 15 times the input he’d been getting before, between the super hearing and the super sight. It was pretty useful when he was fighting - if he was ‘focusing’ on one guy, he was also aware of the other guy pulling out a knife from a hidden pocket, and could adjust accordingly. It was not so great for school. It was already hard when you were acutely aware of the people whispering across the room - it was worse when you could actually hear what they were saying, and what the kids in the classrooms next to, across the hall from, above, and below you were all talking about. 

When his grades took a dip, he wasn’t shocked. He was mad at himself, of course, that he was letting his ADHD get in the way when he’d always been able to manage it, and since Peter Parker was good at stuff, there was a massive hit to his ego. He quit most of his after school activities to compensate - he needed to be doing stuff he was good at - and not at school where he was doing sub-par - and the thing he was suddenly good at was fighting crime.

And then Tony Stark had shown up at his door and whisked him away to Germany to steal Captain America’s shield, and his Homecoming had happened, and suddenly he was going to Mr. Stark’s lab in the newly rebought tower twice a week and staying over at the compound once a month.

Mr. Stark’s labs were actually a safe haven. They were sound proof, and Mr. Stark always had loud music playing, and most of the time there was nothing in there that messed with his senses. Mr. Stark worked strangely, jumping around from project to project unless he found one that really grabbed his attention. That style of working really clicked with Peter - he’d always just sat down and tried to do whatever it was he needed to - which had never really worked that well - but working in the lab, bouncing from thing to thing? That was perfect.

Today was different.

Peter had gotten his report card last week, and since it was now Tuesday, that meant he got to be scolded by Mr. Stark now, on top of the disappointment he’d gotten all weekend from May.

See, his grades were bad. Like, really bad.

Well, to a lot of kids, his grades were average, even pretty good. But for Peter Parker, top of the class in one of the country’s best schools, every teacher’s favorite Peter Parker, anything below a 90 was an extreme rarity. Anything below an 80? Where several of his grades were? Gods save the earth, because it was going to implode.

May had mostly been confused, with that constant disappointment rushing through her words. Why had he gotten Cs? He was supposed to be Peter Parker, perfect student, perfect kid. 

And now, Mr. Stark was going to take away his suit. His spider-manning was entirely reliant on his grades staying up, Mr. Stark had been clear on that. And how could he be Tony Stark’s protege if he got Cs? Mr Stark was halfway through his PhD by Peter’s age. 

Today was probably going to be the last time he saw Tony.

That was upsetting -  lab time was the only thing (other than spider-manning) that he looked forward to anymore. He was good at lab time, and Peter Parker was good at stuff. 

Of course, his brain gave a little “not anymore, you’re not.” Which, not cool, his brain was supposed to be on his side.

When he walked into the lab, Mr. Stark wasn’t working on anything, which was unusual, to say the least. He was seated, facing the door, a look of such disappointment on his face. 

Peter’s eyes focused on the floor. Wow, Mr. Stark sure had some nice tile under the epoxy that covered his lab floor. How could Peter have never noticed before?

“Peter.”

Tony’s voice startled him a bit, even though he knew that was why he’d been looking at the floor in the first place.

“Hey, Mr. Stark! How are you today? I’m really great. What are we working on today?” His sentences all came out in a rush, barely leaving any space between the words.

When he glanced up, Mr. Stark was looking at him, a smirk of amusement was tilting his lips, even though the rest of his face was still etched with disappointment. 

“What happened

Peter shrugged, eyes going back to looking at the floor.

“C’mon Kid, I need an actual answer. I know you’ve been doing all your work, and I know you’ve been home by curfew, unless you’ve hacked your suit again and convinced Karen to lie to me about it. So why’re your grades so low?”

“I- I don’t know.”

“Peter, you are the worst liar in the world.”

Peter sighed. “I know.”

“So? What happened?”

Peter glanced up. He looked at his mentor’s face, expecting disappointment, but instead he found… worry? And maybe curiosity?

“I have ADHD.”

“What? That’s not in your medical files -”

“I know, it’s not an official diagnosis. I was going to get one when I was little but… my appointment was after the plane crash, and…”

“You never did.”

“I never did. And I adjusted, kept my grades high, and nobody ever thought I could possibly have ADHD.”

“So what happened here?”

“The spider bite. It was always hard having ADHD because I noticed so much, but there’s a difference between being aware that the kids in the back of the room are talking and being able to hear what the class on the other side of the school is discussing with perfect clarity.”

Tony nodded. “I can only imagine.”

“But so my focus and participation went down, as did the quality of any work I did anywhere but in here.”

“Peter, why didn’t you tell me this before?”

Peter shrugged, but he knew the answer. He didn’t want Mr. Stark to think badly of him. How could he, Tony Stark’s protege, have ADHD?

Tony sighed. “Kid, did you know I have ADHD?” Now that caught Peter’s attention. He abruptly looked up. “What?”

Tony chuckled. “Yeah, kid. Dear old dad paid a lot to cover that up. And I wasn’t nearly as good at hiding it as you. I was all the way hyperactive, and Dad refused to medicate me. Told me to get over it, or that he wasn’t going to fuel a drug addiction in his son. His excuse changed.”

“But - But you were so good at school!”

“Dad paid off MIT to keep them quiet, but I assure you kid, I failed… several classes..”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.”

There was a quick beat.

“So, kid, what do you want to do about it?”

Peter, who’s eyes had refound their way to the floor, snapped back up to Tony. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, do you want to get a professional diagnosis? See a therapist? I’ve been meaning to rope you into therapy for a while now, this might just be the perfect way to start.”

“No - No, Mr. Stark! I don’t need therapy!”

“You might not need it yet - which I doubt, considering you fight crime in New York and I’ve seen you have several panic attacks - but all of the avengers go, and you’re an avenger-in-training. Gotta get you ahead of the game, kid.”

Peter sighed. “Fine. Okay, Mr. Stark.”

Tony pulled him into a brief hug, then slapped his back. “Brilliant, I’ll get on that for you later. For now, though, you wanna do something fun?”

Peter smiled. “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds -”

“Fun?” Tony broke in, a smile dancing across his face.

“Fun.”

[3laxx]

When the Dream ends - Chapter 3

Luz and Amity have a sleepover and Boscha has a breakdown

TRIGGER WARNING - BLOOD - INJURY - PANIC ATTACK

For everyone who is easily triggered by panic or panic attacks, I recommend not reading any further than the Lumity part of this chapter. You won't need the entire Boscha part, just know she's incredibly distraught and has a lot of confusing emotions about fault and making up for it. She has a full-blown panic attack (actually I wrote myself into one thanks to this) and I recommend continuing on your own responsibility. There will be more on Boscha's state and her feelings on the situation in a calmer and safer scene later on. You won't miss anything if you skip this part. A lot of it was already mentioned in the actual scene of the accident and Amity's nightmare. Boscha's feelings will resurface later on and you will know how she feels in future chapters if you don't feel comfortable reading panic attacks with physical reactions.

I'M SERIOUS. ONLY READ IF YOU FEEL ABSOLUTELY SURE, THERE'S NO SHAME IN NOT READING IT.

Ao3 / FF.net

---

It still took Luz a few days to walk by herself again and she hated every second.

Well, not the seconds when Eda and King were visiting. And she loved every second Amity spent with her. And she also enjoyed all the seconds while Willow and Gus were visiting.

Skara, Cat, and Amelia had also paid her a visit and Luz had enjoyed having them all over. They were gentle and careful around her and even helped her get up once to get some snacks from down the hall, even if Amity had protested them carrying Luz.

In the end, it had been a lot of fun though, and they had giggled all the while two of them carried her to the vending machine and two carried her back by interlocking their hands and having Luz sit on them while wrapping her arms around their necks.

Amity had helped to carry her back and Luz had grinned at her constantly, knowing the girl had needed to warm up to her old friends showing up and not being bullies.

Viney, Jerbo, and Barcus had also shown up for a short visit, and Luz and Amity had coincidentally invited over Edric and Emira at the same time, giggling to themselves when Emira had started flirting with the unamused Viney until she had shot back a flirty line only to leave Emira a hot mess.

So, she guessed she didn’t hate every single second of it.

But the walking, the slow progress, and the lonely nights had been horrible.

When she had finally gotten the permission to leave, she had celebrated, even if Eda had put her under strict supervision over the weekend before letting her back to Hexside. She didn’t mind, though.

Strict supervision usually meant games, snacks, and movies, and having friends over once Eda had to get some stuff, run her business of human phenomena or do undisclosed business at undisclosed places.

So, Luz was super happy to be back in the Owl House over the weekend, naturally. With Eda’s permission, she had quickly invited Amity, Willow, and Gus over, but Willow and Gus had other things on their schedule – something about a forgotten homework and some tunnel Gus was babbling about, even if Luz had thought his tunnel underneath Hexside had already been finished.

Having Amity over was really cool, too. Especially since Eda had already announced she’d be out this evening, so she was looking forward to watching a movie and spending the evening with Amity.

 ---

“So, what do you wanna watch?”, Luz began, already grinning at Amity. The girl just shrugged at that, a small smile on her lips. “Your descriptions were a little-… Enthusiastic. Why don’t we just watch something you wanna watch?”

Luz grimaced at that and then pouted at Amity, causing her to chuckle.

“But I like all of these movies! Giving me the choice would break me!”

Amity immediately pointed at a random cover then, her eyes blown wide. She absolutely didn’t want Luz to break over something like this. The girl laughed.

“Okay, that one. That’s the super cute romance!”

Amity suppressed a sigh. Well, this was going to be easy, right?

She only had to make it through 2 hours of two characters getting together, kissing, building up chemistry, without projecting it onto her and Luz.

Already flushing, Amity pressed herself into the backrest and pulled up the blanket while Luz prepared the movie on her magic box, before returning to the couch as well with quite some effort and sitting close to Amity, close enough so she could steal the other half of Amity blanket.

Yelping, she tried hiding her face, then she looked up.

“… Is that too warm for you?”, the teenager asked her, obviously referring to Amity’s red face, but she quickly shook her head while the movie began, trying a smile.

“N-No! I like that.”

Luz smiled and grabbed the snack box, putting it between their thighs on top of the blanket, then the first scene started playing. A short-haired girl introduced herself, and the human world she was living in, before saying she was different than all the others. She was a lesbian.

Immediately, Amity suppressed rolling her eyes.

Suited her right that she had to pick the gay movie.

Luz already giggled at the introduction, then she turned to Amity, way closer than she had expected, making her blush. She was just glad the lights were dimmed now.

“That’s so cliché. I like this movie, but it stays as shallow with the LGBTQ community throughout.”

Amity tried controlling her blazing face.

“Wh-What do you mean?”

Luz shrugged at that, leaning back again and Amity felt herself relaxing, thankfully, “You know, all the drama about it. In movies like these, it’s a huge deal to be gay, and it’s either the scared, closeted character or the over-the-top gay who acts extra. There’s so much more to LGBTQ than that. I was actually quite glad that homosexuality isn’t as big a deal on the Boiling Isles as it is in the human realm. I don’t think it’s even recognized as different here, is it?”

Amity furrowed her eyebrows at that.

“It’s a problem to like the same gender in the human realm?”

For a few minutes, Luz watched the movie when the introduction was over and the story began, then she sighed and shrugged.

“That’s a topic for another time, I suppose.”, she finally said and Amity softly took her hand. Something in Luz’s words sounded heavy, clouded by something that must’ve happened. Pressing pause, Luz looked over to Amity and she slanted her lips.

“Are you sure?”, she finally asked and the human hummed, then she nodded.

“Yes. Don’t worry, I never had problems with that, because my mother is really open-minded and nobody else knew I was bi. But for many others, it’s a huge problem. It’s even a crime to be gay in some places. You’ll see what’s about it in that movie. Let’s just watch?”

Despite the worrying information about the human realm, Amity couldn’t help but replay that one thing Luz had said all over again in her head, even when the movie started picking up and the story got interesting.

She had hoped that Luz was interested in the same gender as well, even if she hadn’t really minded because, in her home, the different sexualities didn’t really matter. But hearing Luz confirming that she wasn’t straight was a relief, almost.

The longer the movie carried on, with the main character starting to chat with another gay girl online, getting problems keeping their sexuality a secret, and finally, everyone turning away from her when it came out. Amity followed the movie wide-eyed, learning how problematic it apparently was in the human realm, while Luz’s head got heavier and heavier.

She still couldn’t concentrate long on something, partly because of her ADHD but also because of the accident. Her mind needed rest.

When it finally got too much, her head dropped on Amity’s shoulder and she finally relaxed. With her head secured, she adjusted the rest of her body now, wrapping one arm across her lap, then she smiled softly and dozed off.

She couldn’t even notice Amity freezing up and blushing furiously again. And she didn’t see Amity’s eyes widening, or her heart skipping a beat. Sleep had taken her fully, leaving Amity to finish the movie by herself. Even if she found the story compelling, though, she couldn’t exactly concentrate anymore once Luz had fallen asleep on her.

Deciding to finish the movie on her own, Amity just settled against her and smiled softly. This was very nice. And before she knew it, she had fallen asleep as well.

 ---

Finally, it was the weekend and Boscha could be home again.

Away from the curious eyes, away from people asking her how she was, what happened and how Luz was doing. She had mostly relied on her friends to keep her out of the crossfire, something Amelia, Skara, and Cat had more than gladly done, but it had only helped so much. Every single gaze, every single question, reduced her to what had happened about ten days ago. And every single time it brought her back to these moments, minutes, she had spent kneeling in the human’s blood and trying to keep her alive.

Her parents, mostly her father, had been understanding enough to schedule her some emergency therapy sessions, and allowed her to stay out of school for a few days. While the therapy sessions had definitely helped, and she had been able to convince her parents she’d need them for a bit longer, she still felt as though this incident followed her every step.

When she looked out the window to see the forest, when she lied down to sleep, when she got up and when she ate. Throughout her whole day, the memories followed her, bothered her, taunted her.

She had injured Luz this way. She had thrown that ball, and her teammates had tried stopping her. She was at fault, she could’ve had this never happen. She should’ve stopped.

Tiredly, Boscha crawled under her sheets and buried her face in the pillow. This was unbearable.

Injuring another witch like that had never made her feel so guilty. Probably mostly because witches were more durable than humans. They could get back up, their injuries healed faster.

Seeing the human knocked out like this, seeing her bleeding out and dying, had been a rapid change from what Boscha knew.

She knew she had acted right after she had realized what she had done. She knew that she had reacted faster than all of them and that she had done the right thing, giving everyone tasks, avoiding them to slip into shock right there and freeze up. She had done the right thing.

That still didn’t excuse that she had done the wrong thing before. That didn’t make anything better, except that Luz was still alive, and well, as Amity had told her. It didn’t make her suffering better. It didn’t make it easier that she would have to adjust and live with what she had done.

Once again, her eyes burned and she growled. She had been crying a lot these days, something she hadn’t done before. She’d also had a lot of nightmares. Nightmares of the human dying, of everyone blaming Boscha.

She had shot up in bed in a cold sweat and cried, cried all night long until she had fallen asleep for the next nightmare again.

But she couldn’t face Luz yet. She couldn’t face her.

In her memories she was always so grey, surrounded by red, and draining of life. She was so weak and helpless and completely at Boscha’s mercy. Boscha liked bossing people around but, never like this. At her mercy, not responding. Still.

She gulped again.

The human’s soft, raspy breaths when she had leaned down to check for it.

Closing her eyes, Boscha groaned again and shook her head. She had never anticipated this, she had never wanted this. And now she was feeling so sick, so twisted. She had done the wrong thing, then the right, and she felt so guilty for both.

By the first throw, she should’ve already known the human wasn’t playing. She should’ve known the human was in real danger at the very moment she had seen the fear flashing in her eyes. But she hadn’t reacted to that, even liked the fear. Because she never would’ve thought something would actually happen. Nothing had happened to Luz before. Nothing would happen to them, they were just teens, right?

And then it had happened. The sickening crack still shook Boscha to her core. The ball leaving her hand and the crack that had followed when she had crushed Luz’s skull against the stone. The flashbacks were coming again and Boscha curled up under her blanket, baring her teeth.

When the human had been thrown back, her eyes rolling upwards and her torso collapsing in itself as the spine was turned to cracked pebbles. She winced.

Then the blood. She hadn’t registered how the wound looked like at first, but the more her shock faded, the more her brain gave her all the details she had burned into her memories by accident. When she had run over and remembered faintly not to damage Luz’s spine more. When, for a super scary second, her hands had hovered helplessly and she had done nothing.

She still dreaded that moment. It couldn’t have been longer than the blink of an eye but her memory stretched it to hours, unmoving, terrifying hours of dread while she stared down at the broken human, hearing her rasping breaths and letting the shock take over her.

And then that moment ended. When she snapped into action.

Her fingers reaching down finally, feeling as though she had just cracked a cover of ice over her skin when she moved, breaking free of her frozen state. The soft pulse, so weak and fragile, underneath her fingertips, her skin getting slick with the warm blood spilling from the human.

She remembered faintly how her grandmother, as strict as she had been, had been baking with her once. Her grandmother hadn’t taken any shit. Especially not from the spoiled five-year-old brat who hadn’t wanted to knead the dough or do the dishes by hand. She remembered her stepping behind the child and folding up her sleeves, before grabbing her hands and forcing them down into the sticky goo. Telling her, “When you work in the kitchen, you don’t use your fingertips and keep your hands clean. You can wash them after. Now knead it properly, child.”

She had done the same with Luz. Not fearing the blood getting on her, not fearing her hands getting dirty. She had just jumped to action, done the right thing, not minded any blood no matter how thick and slimy and warm it had felt on her hands. As if it was holding onto the skin by which it had been trapped before, begging for a way back in.

Luz had been facing down on the ground, and she would never forget the kind of awkward angle her spine had been in. Even in this lying position, she had seen the dangerous injury she had given the human.

Her eyes had flitted from her back to her fingers on her neck, then up to the back of her head. Where the laceration of the hit was. Boscha felt herself getting sick while her body started shivering uncontrollably.

The wound had been horrifying. She hadn’t paid attention to the details when she had been in the situation, but her mind would never forget. How the hair had been flattened down and dampened by red blood, how it had darkened her hair and flowed down her neck, down her back underneath her uniform, and down the sides of her face. The exposed flesh, something hard and red and-… Dark sitting underneath the pulled-back skin. The cracked skull.

Boscha convulsed, then she pressed a hand to her mouth while a pathetic whimper escaped her throat. She had done this. She had thrown the ball that had the speed to split open skin, crack bones. She heaved, then she finally got up to stumble to her bathroom that was attached to her room, and threw up in the toilet.

She would never forget how it moved. How she watched the wound oozing, how she had watched the skin moving with every slight movement of the human.

And the worst had been that, while Luz had been knocked out completely, her eyes had been half-open. She had seen the pain on the human’s face, the whites of her eyes, and the flitting iris sometimes coming into view when her eyes rolled.

Her knees had been damp, she could still feel it while kneeling in front of the toilet. She mistook the cold tiles beneath her knees as wetness, she was sure. But when she looked down, there was red.

Immediately, her eyes watered, and her torso convulsed again, forcing her to heave on an empty stomach. The blood-soaked pajamas climbed up her legs, and she remembered how her clothes stuck to her after that. No matter how much she had scrubbed when she had gotten home, she would never get rid of the iron smell, or the slight, faint coloring of a darker shade, of the dried, edges of the blood on her pink skin.

Desperately gripping the toilet seat, she leaned the side of her face against the edge and sobbed.

She still remembered how warm her forehead had felt when she had checked for Luz’s breathing. She still knew how it had felt, leaning over the human, pressing her forehead into the pool of blood, and feeling her hair getting dampened by the liquid.

She still remembered the raspy breaths, the heaving, and the blood sticking to her hair and face and getting everywhere. She could still feel the cold air hitting her blood-soaked skin when she had leaned back to bark more instructions, and checked Luz’s pulse again. The droplets out of her hair, running down her head, around her ears, down her temples and nose, getting in her eyes and mouth and tasting like iron.

She faintly remembered not wiping it away.

And Amity’s screaming. Her insults, the despair. Titan, the love from that girl. Boscha was glad she had instructed Amelia to trap her in a cage. But that hadn’t made her screams easier to bear, her screams that had morphed into the voice inside Boscha’s head that had been pestering her ever since that accident had started sinking in.

Finally, when they had turned Luz around and Boscha had done her best not to look at the wound, the skull moving when they moved her, her breaths coming to a stop. The sudden silence after the raspy, uneven breaths.

She had leaned down and listened and had heard it, heard Luz’s last breath in another reality, had she not started CPR. She was just glad she was on the grudgby team and everyone suspected harsh injuries in that sport.

It was completely uncommon in the demon realm to perform CPR because either the body of a witch or demon was fast enough to recover or there simply wasn’t enough left to perform CPR on. Boscha was one of the few people in the school, including some teachers, the healing track students, and the grudgby players to even know that practice.

It had been deafening.

Even tuning out Amity’s screams and sobs, and her own intrusive thoughts.

The sudden break had shocked Boscha more than she had anticipated. She only knew breathing. She had known it when her father had held her as a child, she had known it with her sister, and her friends sleeping over and breathing in their sheets while Boscha had lied awake. She had known breathing from Amity, from her panic attacks when they had gotten older, the hyperventilation, and the quickening breaths she had let out. She knew it from Amity when they curled up together, seeking each other’s comfort in their mothers’ competition. She had known breathing in her first kiss, and in the silence of a classroom during an exam. There was always breathing around her.

Hell, some houses in the Boiling Isles were breathing.

And yet, Luz had stopped.

It had been unnerving, understanding that the human had just stopped breathing. Her brain wouldn’t work it out until way later, in the situation she had known it was bad and had known what to do.

But now that she was pushing away from the toilet and leaning against the wall next to it, crying and sobbing hysterically into her arms?

She understood what it had meant, beyond bad.

It had meant Luz had just been moments from her death. She doesn’t think anyone but Skara, who had heard it, too, knew what that had meant. Willow had only sat on Luz’s feet and heard and understood what Boscha had said, but she hadn’t watched the sudden drainage of life from Luz’s face, she hadn’t noticed the forced lifting and sinking of her chest stopping under her hand and she hadn’t heard her last breath.

She hadn’t felt the pulse under Boscha’s fingertips weakening, hiccupping, stopping. Then restarting, before stilling again.

But Boscha had, Boscha had felt and heard and noticed it all, and she had realized what that had meant. Someone had jokingly told her once, that the soul of a being left its vessel with the last breath. Boscha had seen Luz’s last breath, she had seen the life fleeting from her body so fast that she had been scared that she wouldn’t be fast enough.

Letting out a feral scream, Boscha buried her head on her knees and clamped her arms over her head. The world vanished in static when the panic attack took full hold of her now. Her fingertips were uncomfortably pulsing and itching under her skin, mockingly, reliving the feeling of Luz’s pulse getting too weak for her to feel anymore, reminding her of the sudden lack of life.

She knew Luz hadn’t died at that moment, she knew it took a moment still, but it had certainly felt like it.

Her socks kicked against the floor in a desperate attempt to make herself smaller, press her back harder against the tiled wall, and the itching in her fingertips spread to her knuckles, to her palms and wrist, and down her lower arms. Suddenly, she had to get the sleeves off. Ripping her arms off her head, she tried rolling her sleeves up in unpracticed, frantic movements, starting to scratch her skin to get rid of the uncomfortable itching, but it wouldn’t stop. The blood was soaking her skin, the red was crawling up and the itching got worse until she finally ripped her shirt off and started rubbing over her arms, up and down and not noticing that she scrubbed it sore, turning it red, much lighter than the human’s blood.

How the wound on the back of Luz’s head hadn’t stopped bleeding, and how wet it had sounded, Luz’s head rolling around despite Skara’s grip on her to keep her crushed spine straight enough for Boscha to perform CPR. How stupid Boscha had been not to cover the wound. Had she even been supposed to? She didn’t even know now.

Another scream ripped through her throat and she squinted her eyes, biting her teeth together so hard it hurt, while her arms were still working over her biceps, shoulders, and whatever she could reach of her back. She saw the human convulsing, her belly rising and falling with each violent push she had given her chest, compressing the air that was left. As if she was breathing but not quite.

How stale and like iron her lips had tasted when she had blown air into her mouth, hoping so badly that she hadn’t suffered a wound in there somewhere so Boscha wouldn’t force blood into her lungs.

Amity’s screams had become one with the voice in her head, screaming at her to do better than what she had done.

And then, nothing anymore.

When Luz had been gone, and the storm in Boscha’s head had calmed down, the static had died out in the silence. Amity’s weak sobs, Willow’s soft reassurances, and Skara’s and Amelia’s shocked breaths, hitching every now and then when they collapsed in emotional and mental exhaustion.

Boscha whimpered and sobbed more, still rubbing over her arms frantically and still trying to push herself further into the wall.

Suddenly, she heard footsteps, fast footsteps approaching, and the door to her bathroom flew open. Before she knew what was happening, her mother’s arms were around her and her father kneeled in front of her. His expensive business pants got soaked in blood, so much blood that was covering all the floor, Luz’s blood. Boscha whimpered again, when her mother pulled her in, when her father flushed the toilet and sat down beside her as well, his arms wrapping around her cooling back, keeping her away from the wall just a little at least.

She managed to control her crying and whimpering the best she could, softly sobbing now, and felt her mother’s unruly hair on her neck and her nose in her hair.

Her parents held her close, not even caring that she didn’t have a shirt on, and as soon as she had calmed down a little at least, her father started soaking toilet paper in cold water to soothe her burning skin. She felt her mother chastising him, but he was so helpless, and Boscha didn’t want him to stop. Plus, it did help.

Sighing, she finally relaxed into her mother’s embrace and felt her father softly drying her arms again, then she was coaxed up by him, and led back into her room. She barely felt her mother lifting her arms and covering her with the shirt again. It was on backward, but it wasn’t important.

Her father scooped her up in his arms and started carrying her outside, causing a slight, irritating call from his wife, but he just spoke back in a calm voice before carrying her out. Her head was rested against his chest and she heard his heart beating.

Vaguely opening her eyes, she saw that he was aiming for her parents’ bedroom. Looking behind, she saw her mother closing the door to her room and carrying her blanket, before following them.

This was a privilege she would not pass up. Being able to sleep in her parents’ bed at least for tonight. Her parents believed in independence much like Amity’s, but she knew they had her back if something happened.

And if it left their daughter traumatized, they would move mountains for her. In the caring department, her parents weren’t that bad, even if there was mostly discipline in it, but the loving didn’t come too short in exceptional situations. She supposed this was one.

Her father lowered her down in the middle of the bed and kissed her forehead, before crawling in in his side and getting under his blanket, while wrapping his arm around her waist and keeping her close. Boscha managed an exhausted smile, then she felt a gust of wind, and her blanket sunk down on her before she felt her mother getting into bed as well and adding her arm around Boscha’s waist as well. She knew her mother wasn’t the most affectionate type, but she appreciated the effort she had put in today.

It was much needed.

With her father’s breath deepening, and her mother’s humming, she slowly felt herself getting drowsy and falling asleep. She had a feeling she’d have a nightmare tonight again.

But maybe, just maybe, she’d be exhausted enough not to dream at all.

And maybe the presence of her parents would also help her through this.

---

I will go now and uh. Calm down.

[chloroformthelittleb4stard]

Family Relations - Part 2

Summary: Your criminology teacher is acting all kinds of weird, which is the norm, except for the part where his eyes glaze over and he tries to kill someone. Stiles, the hero he is, tries to stop your professor with little avail until he gets some unnoticeable help from you. Stiles seems to find himself with you at the location of multiple attacks, just barely making it out alive. Through the bloodshed feelings, family, and friends mix to create a perfect blend of chaos and calm.

T/CW: Blood, gore, panic attack mention, violence

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You didn't see Stiles for another two days, but when you did see him, he wasn't alone.

"Y/n! Over here!" Stiles called you from across the quad, despite the almost murder college life hadn't slowed down much at all, and your local coffee shop was still swamped with people. Instead of leaving your place in line to see Stiles and the tan man next to him, you beckoned them over to you, indirectly inviting them for coffee as well.

Stiles shuffled up next to you, still not use crutches, and dragged Scott along with him, introducing you both immediately.|

"Scott this is Y/n, Y/n this is Scott." You both shook hands and exchanged greetings, a comfortable small talk taking over the three of you. You'd been so close to getting your sweet iced tea when a blood curdling scream rang out from the shop. Everyone ran towards it, including you, Scott, and Stiles, but when the general population saw the body of a barista, throat slit and bleeding out onto the counter still holding someone's drink, they ran away. Another scream came, this time from behind the "employee only" door and you all looked at each other before running towards it. Stiles burst through first, taking off seconds later to round the corner with you and Scott not far behind. You barely avoided running into one another as Stiles stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of a man, possibly a college senior, holding a knife to the throat of a crying barista who couldn't have been older than 19. She cried out to you three and immediately you all sprung into action.

Without a second thought Stiles grabbed the nearest object, a wooden crate, and ran towards the man who in response dropped the barista and charged at him. Scott had already transformed and was charging towards the man as well, fangs and claws out, his eyes glowing a blood red as he focused on his target. You panicked for a moment, frantically looking around for a way to help, when you caught sight of a pipe hanging above the man's head. Taking a deep breath you blocked out the scene around you, focusing only on the pipe you threw your hands forwards, sending blades of air to cut off a section of the metal which then fell just behind the man, the metal rolling forwards and tripping him into Scott's waiting claws.

Stiles at this point had backed off and run towards the barista, who was curled in a ball and crying on the floor, still bleeding slightly from where the knife had pressed into her throat. She was sobbing as he talked her down from her panic attack, a skill he had mastered by now. When she calmed down he made her promise to not tell the police what he, or his friends, looked like and she agreed, still shaken up from the entire ordeal.

On the strong possibility that you and Stiles would be suspects, having been at, as you're aware of, the only two crime scenes, you all decided that you'd simply go back to Stiles' dorm to have his watered-down coffee. The walk back was quiet, no one had seen your feat of magic and you pretended not to have seen Scott's shift, blaming the chaos and fear for your being frozen in place, which the boys believed. Stiles and Scott had comforted you the entire walk back to their dorm and you played heavily into the role of the scarred witness, leaning into Stiles' side for comfort and ignoring the warmth that spread through your body at the contact.

"I take it you're not from here Y/n." Scott assumed, head tilting in your direction as you settled into the boys' dorm for a cup of mediocre coffee.

"Nope, I'm from out East, DMV baby!" You laughed, proud of where your home was.

"DMV? No way, I wanna work out there." Stiles' eyes went wide, not paying attention to the coffee machine and almost spilling it onto his hands. Thankfully you managed to redirect it away from his hand with a small gust of wind, sparing him some nasty second degree burns.

"I kind of figured, FBI and all that." You waved your hand submissively, making Scott chuckle since you were the first woman outside of the pack who wasn't immediately taken with the fact that Stiles wanted to be a FBI agent.

"Well what do you want to do smartass?" Stiles rolled his eyes, not being used to someone who was unfazed by his career choice.

"I want to work for the ACLU in legal defense and legislation." You held your head high, the legacy of the ACLU and your family shining behind you as you were reminded of your mom's accomplishments before she passed.

"Ok I want to be a vet so I don't know what the hell you two are on." Scott's comment made you all laugh, the energy friendly and calm as you personalized your coffees to make them less plain. Stiles' cup looked almost light brown by the time he was done, it had a swirl of whipped cream on top of it and he slurped it down greedily.

"Can that even be considered coffee?" Your comment made Stiles roll his eyes, Scott having made similar ones before.

"That's what I said! He doesn't even need all the sugar, look at him he's hyper enough." Scott made an exasperated noise as he gestured to Stiles who was fidgeting as per usual and his leg was bouncing a mile a minute.

"ADHD?" You wondered aloud, a quick nod from Stiles and Scott confirming your theory which in turn caused you to mention your own ADHD casually so that Stiles hopefully wouldn't feel so called out.

"Great now you'll both be bouncing off the walls." Mutters came from Scott and you gave a snort in response, Stiles slipping his arm to lock with yours and playfully defend you of his roommate's accusations.

"She's not bouncing off the walls, look she's perfectly still!" While gesturing at you Stiles noticed your tremor, and the way you kept moving your feet in your shoes, choosing to ignore them in favor of winning in his defense of you.

You spent the rest of lunch with Stiles and Scott, milling about their dorm room while the conversation hopped from topic to topic, ending with a heated debate between you and Stiles over Star Wars and Star Trek.

"I cannot believe you're a Star Trek fan, that's so old!" You scoffed, rolling your eyes at the idea that something being old means it's bad.

"It's original! I can't watch Star Wars without thinking of Star Trek every second, they're a total rip-off!"

"That's not true! Star Wars has an entirely different plot, and they have different fights and different universes even!" Scott was banging his head against the wall, the nerd speak of his best friend and his best friend's new friend driving him absolutely insane with boredom.

"Enough! I have studying to do, or something, Stiles you have class in twenty minutes. No more nerdy stuff please." Letting out a chuckle you made your way towards the door, lingering so you could exchange numbers with them both. Stiles walked you down to the door of their building, gently holding your arm so you wouldn't leave immediately.

"I just wanted to thank you for helping me a couple of days ago, again." His hand came up to scratch at the back of his neck while he chuckled, leaning against the doorframe to take the weight off of his injured leg.

"Yeah, 'course, no problem really." A shy smile appeared on your face, the blush heating your cheeks making you tilt your head down slightly as you tried to avoid looking in his eyes for fear of giving your feelings away.

"Well, I really appreciate it. So, I'll text you?" He was still nervous, the energy around you both crackling with tension.

"Yeah, absolutely." Your eyes met his for a final goodbye as you reluctantly turned away, giving him a wave while you suppressed the grin that was threatening to overtake your face. A grin that finally came out as soon as you turned away, and didn't leave until you made it back to your own dorm, smiling like an idiot while you thought about him.

[stonertransdad]

Life Update since I hadn't been on here in forever

The pandemic was/is wild! Lockdowns started literally around the time we were going to the fertility specialist to get her pregnant. I lost my job to COVID in March shortly before we did the procedure, but we decided there's never really a good time to have a kid. Why not during a global pandemic when one of us in unemployed? (BTW, I don't recommend having a kid during a pandemic. Not being able to go to all of the appointments and having to sit in the parking lot was brutal.)

Let's talk about May friends...it was rough. (TW for mention of suicide btw. I'll post a gif where it's safe to start again if you wanna skip over it.)

So May 1st is the anniversary of my father's suicide. It had been 4 years. I found his body and since he wasn't married, I had to handle his affairs and arrange his funeral. May 1st, 2020 my wife and I had a Zoom game night with our friends and I got drunk because everyone was drinking (except my wife because she was pregnant). After our game night at like 2am, I had a psychotic break. I threatened to kill myself numerous times. My wife tried to talk me down, but eventually called the cops to take me. I thank her for that because looking back, that was the moment I knew something needed to change. I was convinced the cops were gonna kill me because I'm a trans dude in rural West Texas. I legit took the phone out of my wife's hand, hung up on 911, and yeeted her phone across the backyard and tried to hop the fence. Eventually the cops came and talked me down. They took me to the hospital an hour away in handcuffs (for their protection I did nothing wrong). They took me to the religious hospital that I was born in. So when they looked up my info by my name and date of birth from my driver's license (I only changed my middle name) literally all my paperwork and my bracelet had my deadname and wrong gender despite all of my legal stuff saying male with my new middle name. I mentioned it to them and they didn't care. They misgendered me the entire time I was there. I had hit my head hella hard on the bath tub when my wife was trying to snap me out of it, did the hospital even check me for concussion? Nope. I had punched so many things and my hand and wrist were swollen and discolored. Did they check out my hand and wrist? Nope. I was there for over 10 hours before I was able to convince them I was okay and that it was just the alcohol. Did I mention during that 10 hours I was literally out in the hall on a gurney with no mask and this was when COVID was running rampant in Texas (the first time)? I heard people die that night. I had nothing to distract me because they took away all of my personal items and clothes. My wife picked me up and we went home and I have been sober ever since. It's not the first psychotic break I've had with alcohol in my system. Alcohol just doesn't agree with me, but I'm finding new things to replace it with.

TW has been lifted...it's safe now.

A couple of weeks after that I began teletherapy because I had been on the same mood stabilizer and anti-depressant for almost a decade. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense that I felt like it hadn't been working for at least a year. This is a reminder to check in with your doctor if you feel like your meds aren't working. You may just need a different dose or a new med. There's no shame in that. I bounced around on various medications trying to find the right combo, some side effects scarier than others, but we got there. Before this, I had been diagnosed with ADHD, Major Depressive Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. My therapist threw out my Borderline diagnosis and said it was CPTSD instead, which made sense.

Fast forward to December because my wife was pregnant, I was unemployed still, and we did absolutely fuck-all because the global panini was still raging.

Our son was born on December 3, 2020. He weighed 5lbs 9oz and scared the ever loving shit out of us. He wasn't breathing when he was born so they called NICU in ASAP. I'm freaking out because I can hear and see what's going on while my wife was asking if he was okay as they put her guts back in place to sew her up. 5 or so minutes pass and a nurse asks if I want her to take some pictures. I'm like is he okay, he still hasn't cried. She's like "oh yeah, he's chillin." This goon was being held by a nurse and was just looking around not crying or anything. Chillest baby ever (he still is btw). I held him next to my wife's head until it was time to go back to the room. Little dude did have to spend 4 nights in the NICU because he couldn't keep his sugars or temperature regulated, but he was healthy otherwise. He's now 4 months old and is starting to sit up on his own a little bit and he's OBSESSED with standing. He's still a little guy, but very healthy and growing like a weed. He saves my life daily.

So after being unemployed for over 9 months, I started a new job working in a call center. I absolutely hate talking on the phone. It gives me anxiety and throws me into panic attacks, but I had been putting out hundreds of job applications since I lost my last job and this was the first offer I got. I wasn't really in a position to turn it down since my unemployment had ran out 2 months prior. It was 2 months of training, then we'd be on our own. I got thru the training and thought I could handle it...until they started putting us on live calls with someone helping us if we got stuck. My mental health hit the lowest point it had in a few years and my wife was terrified she was going to lose me. She convinced me to quit on February 28th (not because I didn't want to, but because I'm a stubborn ass who felt guilty). My meds got tweaked a little bit more dosage wise during this mess.

Starting about mid-February, I was experiencing severe shakiness, tremors, and spasms. I've always been a shaky person and never really thought too much about it, but at some points I could barely feed myself, or get a drink, or hold my son. On March 7th, I tried to make an appointment with my doctor about the weird symptoms I was experiencing, but she was out of town and her next opening wasn't until the 31st. My body said that won't work and my wife rushed me to the ER on the 9th...I had begun having seizures that day. I had no previous history of seizures. Got to the ER and had a seizure literally as I was walking thru the door, so they rushed me straight back. They took some blood and that was literally it. No MRI. No CT. They pumped me full of Ativan and said it was just a panic attack and to go home and chill.

Spoiler Alert: It wasn't just anxiety. I was having 20+ seizures a day. On the 10th, my wife rushed me to a different hospital...the good hospital over an hour away. First we had to drop off our gremlin with my mom to make things a little easier. Yet again, I had a seizure as I walked in the door and was taken back immediately. I don't really remember much because they kept pumping me full of Ativan and morphine because I had been in excruciating pain from the number of seizures I'd had. I do remember them doing a CT pretty quickly after I got there. Then they weren't happy with the results of the CT, so they took me to get an MRI, which showed possible signs of Multiple Sclerosis (but I didn't find that out until AFTER the notes showed up in my patient portal after being home a few days, so I raised hell...more on that later.) They did a 24 hour EEG on me and it showed nothing abnormal. Also, EEG glue is a bitch on your hair and scalp. After looking at everything and given my previous mental health history, they diagnosed me with Psychogenic Non-Epileptic Seizures, or PNES. It is a subset of Functional Neurologic Disorder, or FND. I couldn't walk well anymore and had to use a walker when I was discharged. I was in the hospital for 3 days.

When I had my follow-up appointment on the 23rd, I asked why the possibility of MS was never mentioned to me since it was very clearly in the notes. The doctor didn't have an explanation. He called in a referral to neurology so I could get a 2nd MRI to confirm MS and marked it as high priority. He also didn't take my pain seriously. My pain levels had been at a 5 or higher every single minute since they took me off of the morphine in the hospital. He told me to keep taking prescription strength doses of ibuprofen and Tylenol, which I had been. I let him know I had been and it didn't even take the edge off the pain. He ignored me. Leading up to this appointment, I had also added urinary incontinence to my growing list of symptoms and was forced to wear diapers so I didn't have to do laundry all the time. The doctor also took me off my ADHD meds because they were lowering my seizure threshold. He also took me off of my sleeping meds and nightmare meds for the same reason I'm assuming.

I kept my appointment on the 31st with my primary doctor because she's been my doctor for 5 years now and I knew she'd take my pain seriously. She did. She immediately wrote me prescriptions for a muscle relaxer and Tylenol 4. She also told me that my referral had been rejected by neuro. She said my case wasn't a good one for what she called a "wallet biopsy" and the doctors in neurology could be real assholes. She immediately sent the referral to other locations to get an approval. I am still waiting on that despite it being marked as high priority. She wrote me a prescription for a wheelchair because we both agreed my wheelchair was not enough for particular days.

Yesterday my wheelchair was finally ready for pickup, so my wife drove me to go get it. I'm still unable to drive due to my seizures and my tremors and twitches as it's predominantly in my legs and arms. I am an ambulatory wheelchair user now. Some days I can go short distances without my walker, some days I can't go without my walker, some days I can't even get out of bed, and some days I will be using my wheelchair. Don't judge a book by its cover, not all disabilities are visible. I have managed to keep my daily seizure count down in single digits and have even had a few seizure free days. They are still incredibly taxing on my body. I feel like I can't ever replenish my spoons fast enough to keep up with anything in my life.

So all in all, life has been chaotic. We are moving from Texas to New Mexico in the next few weeks, which should be interesting considering I can't overdo it without throwing myself into seizures. We will be closer to my mother-in-law so she can help us with our son and I can start resting a bit more on the more difficult days. Being a stay-at-home dad with an invisible illness has been one of the most challenging things I've done in my life, but I wouldn't change it for the world.

Sorry this is so long. I just wanted to update my followers since it's been over a year since I posted before a few days ago.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Mask/Breathe

Another gift for @wildfaewhump because your comment about putting your oxygen mask on inspired me! Sorry that I had to rewrite the part that got erased this morning!

CW: Some HEAVY subject matter is referenced or discussed here, please heed these CWs: referenced torture, referenced past burns. discussed extended metaphor involving parenting and plane crash/loss of cabin pressure, mentioned/referenced sudden death of spouse and grief, self-loathing thought pattern, brief memory of choking

tagging: @oofowouchies who asked to be tagged for Antoni-stuff, plus @astrobly, @burtlederp, and @finder-of-rings who are my everything taglist!

"Have you ever heard the saying, 'put your own mask on first', Antoni?" Dr. Berger smiles at him. She has a bit of hair coming loose from where it's been tucked behind one ear, her short, sharp bob dyed a deep, rich brown. It was red last year.

Chris loves that about her. He loves seeing people who change themselves in small or big ways year by year, the way he does. Antoni, though, doesn’t change. He stays the same, more or less. His hair a little shaggier, or longer, his eyes set a little more deeply in his face. But mostly he is the same.

Antoni gives her a thin smile, a barely-there stretch of lips, and gives his head a little shake, ducking his chin to look down towards the floor in the safehouse he goes to for therapy on Thursdays. "No, I am sorry," He says, softly. "I don't know the phrase."

At least, he doesn't know it anymore.

It does sting at the inside of his mind, in a way he can't turn into anything coherent. Itches like his scars. Gives him a sense of feeling very small in a big space, of falling asleep in someone's lap. The sudden dip in his stomach like being at the top of a roller coaster and knowing there is no way you’ll survive the trip back down, and yet you do, and yet he did, somewhere in the deeper recesses of his memories.

Dr. Berger can see when Antoni’s eyes go distant - she works with fifteen rescues at any given time, meeting with them in the evenings and weekends, fitting in an hour here or there when her regular practice won’t notice. She is used to the way a rescue’s face can shift to something empty and sad in a blink, as they find some part of themselves just peeking up above the surface.

With Antoni, he tries to let it drift back beneath as often as it can. What he remembers is bad enough. He doesn’t want to know how much worse it could get, for him to know why all of this happened to him.

She waits, as always, for Antoni to find himself again. Only then does she speak. "When you board a plane, there's a bit about safety at the beginning," Dr. Berger says thoughtfully. 

Her pen taps the notepad she keeps. She’s written some things there, in the code she uses. Even if someone found her notes, they would be about a manic-depressive, a man fighting generalized anxiety, treating an adult with ADHD - you would never look at those notes and know she is writing about Leila, about Antoni, about Chris.

You could read her notes on a patient struggling with abandonment issues caused by an abusive relationship and never once understand that she speaks to Kauri on Friday nights, the weeks he agrees to show up at her door with a shy, nervous smile and the wish, just one more week one more meeting one more time, to try.

Antoni's fingertips tap against his own leg. His left leg is the bad one today. They take turns, his limbs, burning over old scars with new injuries that aren't real. They keep him tightrope-walking along some terrible boundary between the person he must be - strong, capable, always ready with a helping hand - and the smaller, meaner, worse person he really is.

The damaged skin, the broken nerves inside of him are all reminders that he deserved it all, and worse, and if he went back he could wear all his wrongs on his skin like he should. But he won’t go back. 

He is too needed. As long as he’s needed, he will stay.

As long as he’s needed-

"They give the same speech every time. Wear your seatbelt as long as the light is on, stay seated, all these basic things. We all kind of know it by our second or third flight but they still repeat it, so that your… well, so your muscle memory will remember in an emergency even when you can’t think rationally, even if you’re following the lights towards the exit because your body knows there was a speech about this even though your mind’s just… checked out with panic. Sorry, let me get to my point. There's a bit there about what to do in a worst-case scenario... like a pressure drop if the plane has to change altitude too quickly. These little masks drop down from, ah-" She frowns, eyebrows furrowing. "Little... panels above your seat. And if you put the mask on, it gives you oxygen until you have enough in the plane to breathe again."

Antoni nods, just to show he's listening.

“One thing that they say, during the speech about the oxygen masks, is how important it is if you’re flying with someone who needs assistance, or you have a child or infant, that you put their oxygen mask on before your own. In the case of a pressure drop, you have seconds, Antoni, before you’ll stop thinking rationally, start acting drunk, losing reason. You have a minute, maybe a couple of minutes, before the situation is even more dire than that. So it’s imperative, absolutely essential, to put your own mask on before you help your child. Do you know why?”

He looks up at her, her warm understanding eyes, and shakes his head. “If you did that, you would save only yourself,” He points out, his voice low, a little gravelly.  “You should save the child instead.”

“No, Antoni.” She licks at her lips in thought, and his eyes drop to her hands, to the wedding band she wears with a sparkling diamond on one finger layered over a plain band next to it. I wear one for my late husband, She’d told him when he asked, and one for my second husband. 

I am so sorry. How did he die?

It was… sudden. Let’s not discuss my scars on our first meeting, Antoni. I’m sorry, it’s just difficult for me to talk about.

But they must talk about his, the ones he will admit to anyway, until he can barely breathe for the burning. He has to admit, though, he feels cleaner when he leaves these appointments, like he’s been purified by the fire, not burned by it. If he could only burn enough…

Dr. Berger clears her throat and gestures with the pen in her hand as she speaks. “As a mother - no, a parent - every single instinct in you will scream to save your baby first. This doesn’t apply across the board, obviously, but for most parents there will be a primal need to get your child out of danger before you care for yourself. In the case of hypoxia, those moments you spend trying to put a mask on your child could result in enough of a loss of oxygen to the brain that you are not only unable to get your own mask on, but you don’t put your child’s on correctly. But if you put your own mask on first, you will have a clear head and working lungs and can take the steps you need in your right mind to provide the best possible result to the situation.”

Antoni waits a beat, then swallows. “Dr. Berger, this is not a plane crash. I am not… I am not a parent.”

He can’t imagine the terror, of handling something so tiny and fragile as the children he sees, like Leila’s tiny infant daughter. Of having to hold it and feed it and care for it when it needed you more than it needed anything else in the world. How could you ever be expected not to shatter under the weight of that sort of responsibility? 

Bad parents made sense to Antoni, the way that bad owners made sense. Power and control over another human being gave you too many reasons, too many chances, to make them suffer for their sins against you. What staggered him wasn’t the existence of bad parents, but that anyone could be a good one.

“Aren’t you, Antoni?” Dr. Berger gives him that slight smile again, then waves her hand. “Sorry, that wasn’t a useful question to ask you. What I’m trying to say is that you come here every week and tell me about your life, but there is something missing from the story.”

There’s a flip in his stomach. He knows where this is going. “What?”

“You.” She taps her notepad again, where she’s written his ‘code’ name, the fake one she uses for all her reports on him. “You are missing, Antoni. You spend your every waking moment supporting Jake Stanton, and Chris, and helping out with the other shelters, and these are all valuable things, but… what of your life is about you?”

He rubs his face with his hands, shaking his head back and forth. “I am not-... I am not sure what you mean.” His voice trembles, a little, something inside him twists and turns to ice. “I like what I do.”

“I know, but… Antoni.” Dr. Berger sits back, glancing over at the window at the night outside. There’s a street light shining a circle down on the sidewalk, and outside of that hint of light the rest of the neighborhood is shrouded in darkness except for the dim yellow lights he can see cutting through blinds or shining out second-story windows. “Do you begin to see how the metaphor applies?”

He doesn’t answer. If he doesn’t answer, he won’t have to say yes.

“You have built a life that consists of providing oxygen to everyone else around you,” Dr. Berger says, and her voice is very low, and soft. “I know the feeling. I did the same, after… well. I did the same once upon a time. I had two young children and it was, God, I don’t even remember the first year. It’s just… the life I’d had was gone, and rather than think about a new one, all I did was tread water. All I did was put the masks on my children and pray I would find the air to breathe before it was too late for me, too. When we have our talks, Antoni, I find… I see a lot of that same way of living in you.”

“I have not lost my husband.” He looks up at her but she isn’t smiling, only looking at him very seriously again, studying his face in that way she has of looking beneath. 

“No,” She says, quietly. “But you lost a life, one that you have been led to believe you were responsible for losing. You are entitled to your life, Antoni. You did something immense to reclaim it. I’m only saying… well.” She shrugs, just a little. “I’m only saying that you must remember that you did reclaim it. I’m saying… Chris deserves his life, yes, and you are an essential part of it. Jake deserves his life, and he couldn’t do this without your support. But…”

The pause between them draws out and draws out until he can barely stand the itching that covers every inch of his skin.

Beg for me to stop, darling. Beg for it to be over, but know that you don’t deserve the mercy. He can almost feel the hands gripped around his throat, crushing his windpipe under the press of thumbs, the weight of Mr. Davies pushing his back into the floor until he thought he might sink into it and be buried under the floorboards of Mr. Davies’ beautiful home, another swirl in the woodgrain, a man’s life soaked into a rug, bled away, painted across the walls.

You don’t deserve the life I allow you, darling.

“You deserve to breathe, Antoni,” Dr. Berger says, softly. “You deserve to put your mask on. You deserve the air. You won’t be able to grapple with anything until you are willing to look me in the eye and admit that you deserve to live.”

The clock strikes the hour.

Their time is up.

[getreadytosmash]

Small smash headcanons I was thinking of and to put out my reboot designs

Skaar

Skaar took a more gladiator look from his time on Sakaar and no longer wears the loin cloth except for when he's on off days

His hair gets to around his upper back and often tends to be in buns and ponytails

Working on his reading and writing and gets help from Hulk and goes to the Xavier Institute for sessions with his mind control and memories

Got introduced to queer stuff by Rick and he was THRILLED to find out about this stuff and the footage of Skaar carefully picking out non binary, asexual and panromantic stuff was trending for a month

Yes I'm going into pridecanons a little more

Skaar's very happy with his own feelings of being nb. The rocks below him whisper about it always being fine and he doesn't need to care about what others say anyway. Not when they're too busy calling him a monster to care about his gender

Anyway. Skaar's sex neutral and I say this because its quite often the theory that all ace folks won't have kids blah blah but??? Some aces want sex to have kids and that's Skaar.

Ridiculously good sword fighter and often meets up with Nightcrawler and Shadowcat to have sword fights and compare tricks

Lots of whipping scars on his back and some around his mouth that hardly anyone knows are from

Has a matching scar with Red of a circle on the back of his neck as well as running lighting scars up his hands and feet with Rick, Red and Jen from where the Skrulls tried to harvest their gamma

Absolutely has the tattoo and has no clue about it

Occasionally has days where he can't remember the entire event and Skaar's become rather thankful that they can rely on Rick's cameras to guide him home if needed.

Adores the Savage Lands and is best friends with Kazaar and Zabu

Sometimes copies memes from Rick and it’s terrible

Likes having Jen help him with normal stuff, especially when she helps him learn stuff like reading and writing 

Rick

Yeah, can’t feel anything and that causes a few secret depression episodes aha 

Big on other sensory stuff now. Really likes to savour sights, sounds, taste and smells since he lacks a big ass part of it now. It really isn’t that uncommon for Rick to have a low of flowers within his bedroom and shit. 

Has to file down his spikes since they keep growing and often Hulk does it for him while Rick falls asleep

Rick needs a lot more protein now and often eats eggs or fish and gets into big fights with Red over it daily

Uses a stylish for everything since his fingers don’t work on touchscreens anymore

Often wears sleeveless jackets with different pins. Owns four of them with three of them entirely dedicated to alien, mutant and bi rights

Well known Youtuber and I really need to get around to writing some videos he’s done god someone remind me to put out that shit

Hardcore gamer and still screams at Samuel to help make a dating sim come oN-

Can hold his breath for an hour and a half and didn’t realise until he fell asleep in the bath and got woken up by Hulk panicking and tossing him out of the water

Very intent on mutant rights and often helps out with teenage mutants and raising the social status of the school 

Loves bi culture and is very defensive over aspects of his identity after years of feeling lost among the orphanages 

Has gotten more comfortable with his gender since he’s been wearing kilts and skirts for almost two years now

Used to have scars across his hands and thighs from years of canings from the nuns but now has a large cracked scar across his chest after Abomination ripped his shell off

Red unintentionally fathers him and blames Hulk 

Best pals with Jen and Betty and is the only one who gets to join them on Ladies Night with Lyra and Marlo

Stands on his tip toes when talking to Hulk often because he wants to be tall and it amuses Hulk to no end

Jen

Has a lot of different costumes she changes regularly and Rick always posts a vote on “What outfit has Jen got this week?”

Freckles and curly hair galore 

Hulk paints her nails and she does the same for him and it isn’t long before Skaar joins in

Works in New York but stays at Vista Verde for her time off

Yes i do want a all female gamma mutate team and yes they are A-force

They consist of Jen, Betty, Lyra, Carmilla and Marlo but are sometimes joined by other female heroes

Wears sweatband wrists, left one is the bi flag and the right one is the trans flag

Was afraid about being open towards loving women for a few years since Jen knew her father didn’t do anything about Bruce’s abuse, what would happen to her if Brian found out she liked more than boys? Came out after hulking out and is happier than ever

The same goes for being trans since Jen’s form is based heavily on her mentality of her body. Gamma gave Jen the body she wanted and she was SO pleased with it

tbh I do imagine she was more comic/noodle armed at the start since Jen wanted to look rather feminine but over time she’s gotten more comfortable with her body and idea of who she wants to be and slowly she got beefier 

Has two wardrobes at the base and makes Red help rearrange stuff for laughs

Pals with Samuel and often enjoys sitting around and dragging him out for shopping and starbucks while discussing cases

The one who appears in Rick’s youtube videos the most 

Can never finish a book and feels deep seeded adhd guilt

Sings outloud to every thing she hears 

Likes grape flavoured stuff and she is so thankful that she can’t die for that sin

BEST pals with Betty and Rick. Like. There’s a reason my “Betty is the OG Hulk and is a lil wlw with Jen” has happened honestly 

Has vitiligo patches of grey around her arms that were left over from her more traumatic transformations

Watches Red bake if she’s having a panic attack and the videos don’t help

Red

Has a lot of scars over his body from where Ghost Rider’s chain dug into him and left him burnt. idk seems really fucking cool

Like Jen, has yellow patches along his spine and hands from where he was joined mentally with Zzzax 

Still gets nightmares about said incident and is still scared for the day that a nightmare is actually happening

Started to bake because it helps from when he couldn’t control his heat powers or during ptsd attacks

Tends to get lost in work alongside Samuel, especially if they’re overly excited about a certain idea

Hulk fondly calls him a nerd for this exact reason and Red tackles him over it to this day

Tech reacts to him badly sometimes due to his possession issues and there’s been once or twice where he’s had some...odd experiences when it’s come to certain technology or alien tech

Stays the same mostly with his outfits but occasionally wears a leather jacket and fuck it takes his shirt off a lot he’s a dilf he can do that 

The one who crouches for humans the most and it isn’t uncommon for him to do it purely to unsettle the humans. Ass

Uh. Likes women but??? Sometimes there’s an annoying guy and shit being able to be easily suplexed now means that anyone who can do it can kinda catch his eyes and he fucked a demon- uh. Red has a lot of thoughts now about dating and it’s nerve-wracking

Still does missions with his Thunderbolt team and still hangs out with Hell’s Circle team when he met others that had been dragged down to hell as well

Gets courted by vampires and hates the fact that the others laugh at it 

Gets nightmares of crashing, of electric burning him away but doesn’t want to admit to the fact that he has some ptsd 

Not really Red but fuck it Betty has her own team and I’m shifting the Gamma Corps for Betty so her team involves; Betty (Harpy), Marlo (Sirin), Clay (Hulkverine), Lyra (Athen), Carmilla (Scorpion) and Gwen (Daydream) 

Right. Uh. So for those who don’t know who Daydream are, basically the writer at this time had been going through a bad divorce and he treated Betty like SHIT which involved breaking Bretty up before they could have a child, making Betty suffer a miscarriage, killing her and having the villain Nightmare raping her in her sleep and having Betty give birth to Daydream who appeared for one arc and was never seen again. So. I’m mad. 

anyway fuck him but I did like Daydream so instead she was an experiment from gamma base as a unique weapon that got used to infiltrate the Agents sleep but was later on rescued along with the rest of the gamma experiments. Got adopted by Betty when she found out Gwen had her DNA and went “oh worm?” to getting a baby i have more thoughts about this but u know. carry on.

Hulk

So Tired. Part time team leader and Avengers and even has his many own adventures of trying to help so many people out

I imagine he has a lot of the same issues as Steven in suf where Hulk often stresses out more about not being able to help people since he worries about the worst case scenarios 

Gets forced to take days off by each of the team and appreciates it but dear god if he doesn’t get anxiety about the whole situation every time

SomeTIMES he wears a blue shirt but only sometimes and that’s if he’s actually prepared for missions. Also has boots Red got him but Hulk keeps those clean and safe instead

Team dad for a reason. Fathers anything he can get his hands on and well known for it enough that Rick and Skaar get him something for fathers day every year and Jen gets him goofy ties because she KNOWS he doesn’t throw them out

Pretty relaxed about being pan and yes he makes jokes about being attracted to kitchenware he’s THAT terrible Rick wants to die and not come back pls 

Buys a lot of pride stuff for the others. Skaar owns so many nb and ace colour chalks he needs help

Really wants to own a guinea pig but he’s worried about scaring it or not being around all that often to take care of it properly

Falls asleep through almost every movie that he usually starts one half of it one day and finishes it the next day

Meets up with Ben Grimm and Logan Howlett every Wednesday for a night out. Usually they do bowling, play cards or go out to eat. It’s isn’t uncommon for other heroes like Spidey or Gambit to join them occasionally

Has business lunches with Betty to discuss movements of gamma mutates that turns into a fun brawl because they’re immortal children

Keeps a whiteboard in his room so that he can have arguments with Joe and Bruce.

Samuel

Keeps his outfit relatively the same but adjusts it slightly so it isn’t the exact same outfit he wears back when he was evil

Tends to cover up more after he gains a power that lets him control people just by touch

Aware of this power and thus often awkwardly flitters when someone near him might be upset and keeps spare gloves or arm sleeves on hard just in case

Has the sharpest teeth of all the hulks and actually tends to file them down so he doesn’t need to “scare people off” when in reality he’s self conscious about his teeth and the fact that he keeps biting his tongue by accident 

Buys and redesigns Icarus’s cage every other month to make it more elaborate, is currently fighting the constant urge to buy more rats for this reason

Demiboy! Fine with what he is, doesn’t give a shit. He rules hell and he’ll send you there if you argue with him so who the fuck cares if Samuel wears dresses and makeup?

Big stupid bi. Cannonly into women who are more powerful than him with examples being Rikki (Aka Brilliance, a female Leader) who kicked his ass and threw him across the room with her more advanced mind, Betty Ross...who can blame him, and lately is that one scientist in Hulkverine who Samuel literally fell for within one night sksksk

Big manipulator for people he cares about. Samuel has and will make elaborate plans to keep someone he cares about safe and is more than willing to kill anyone who has hurt his loved ones

Owns a large collection of nail polishes and tends to vary them when he’s bored and creates amazing art. Red watched Samuel once spend and hour re-creating all of Van Gogh’s paintings on his nails

Really good friends with Betty surprisingly, mostly because she can make jokes about being dead and he’ll just snort and go “same” 

Has the second best sense of smell after Skaar as he can smell early signs of sickness as well as a wider range of emotions

Info dumps so much and has long winded theories about the oddest things that resonate really well on the Youtube channel

talks to his oversized rat so seriously

Suffers nightmares and currently runs the Down Below and is so tired

Has actually died from exhaustion twice already 

Has large sockets in his back due to the fact that Samuel physically cannot hold the information he knows all the time and uses it to charge his phone

Still hangs out with villains like Loki and Mystique tho

[put-a-lil-alright-in-the-world]

do you headcanon beej as autistic/adhd? if so, would you share some hcs?

anon, you know the way to my heart! to answer your first question, yes and yes. to answer your second question, HELLS YES!

here are some hcs!

ok so beej has autism and adhd, both of which Juno wrote off as him being “sloppy”, “lazy”, “weird”, etc.

when he moved into the deetz-maitlands household, though, they started to notice that something was a bit off

it started with the stimming, something which beej had never been skilled at concealing

a lot of his stims (especially the ones he does when stressed) are blatantly obvious- things like vocal stims (humming, repetition, echolalia), and physical ones (rocking, tapping his hands, biting/chewing things), so they weren’t really possible to hide

and there were a lot of little things that you wouldn’t really pay much attention to unless you were actively searching for them: the way beej seemed to be absolutely obsessed with bugs, how it seemed like he was waging an internal war with himself whenever he made eye contact with someone

the deetzes were the first to notice, since lydia does some of the same things (autistic!lydia ftw!), but at first they wrote it off as “hey maybe it’s just a demon thing”

then, during a family movie night, when everyone was yelling at the cheesy horror movie on tv, knocking stuff over, the volume was too loud, and it sent beej into a textbook sensory overload meltdown

when the fam noticed, at first beej was terrified that this would be the last straw for them- that this would be the last “weird beetlejuice thing” that they were willing to endure before kicking him out, so he tried to apologize; choking out “i’m so sorry-sorry-sorry” through gasping sobs

when the family managed to calm him down, they eventually got to talking; asking beej why he melted down, what it felt like, you know the drill

it didn’t take long after that for them to deduce that he had autism, and they do their best to make him feel safe and comfortable

they buy those super-strong chewy necklaces in bulk to stop him biting on his hands like he did before, and try to turn his room into a quiet place full of stim toys and stuff to help him feel more chill

charles is surprisingly good at helping beej with panic attacks, overloads, and meltdowns. something about his calm, matter of fact manner combined with 15 years of helping lydia through the same thing make him an ideal candidate

they were initially a bit (read: EXTREMELY) awkward with each other, but it doesn’t take long for beej to start seeking charles out of his own accord, whether he needs help fixing a casualty of his latest prank, someone to listen to him, or even just a calming presence to sit with

it takes a few more months for them to notice the adhd, though

he’s bored, wandering around the house while lydia does homework, charles is at work, and the maitlands are working on their model when he stumbles across delia meditating

well, less stumbles and more forces his way into her room in an effort to figure out just what was going on behind the closed door

she invites him to try some meditation to “balance his chakras”, and he accepts the invitation with perhaps too much enthusiasm (“im gonna have the most balanced goddamn chakras you’ve ever seen!” “what do you mean that’s not how meditation works?”)

however, when they actually get to the sitting still and quieting your mind part of the whole meditation thing, beej can barely seem to handle 8 seconds before he a) blurts out a thought that just crossed his mind or b) groans that his mind won’t “shut the hell up”

delia knows that meditation isn’t for everyone, but for some reason she keeps thinking about how he struggled long after he leaves, about twenty minutes later

suddenly, the pieces start assembling in her mind

beej, who is always fidgeting at least one part of his body, even if it means sprouting new limbs to make that possible

beej, who was so excited for the maitlands to help him learn to read (yes beej is illiterate), but just got up and left after no more than 20 minutes of sitting

beej, who paces constantly, loses his train of thought, and seems like the most scatterbrained guy to ever walk the face of the earth or netherworld

the next day, after giving herself sufficient time to mull the situation over, delia approaches beej again, and asks if he wants to go for a walk

they walk around the property, delia trying her best to stay nonchalant as she asks beej questions about his struggles paying attention, keeping still, remembering things, and by the end of it she’s sure- he’s a textbook case, after all

after talking to charles and the maitlands that evening to get their opinions, she sits down with beej and explains their suspicions

beej deflects, at first (“god nerfed me with not one, but two mental illnesses because he knew I’d be too powerful otherwise”), but eventually starts to take it in, and realizes exactly how much this explained

why he could never seem to finish a task unless he could get himself hooked on it

how an hour for everyone else either felt like 2 minutes or 9 days to him

why every bit of possible rejection felt like a stab to the chest with Bad Art

he starts learning how to cope with it all a bit better. lydia shows him online articles for how to deal with symptoms, delia helps him do some beginners guided meditations, and everyone just supports him

on the bad days, when RSD is hitting hard and he feels absolutely worthless, he often turns to the maitlands

they don’t have much knowledge of adhd beyond what they read about in their child psych books when they were alive, but them just being themselves is enough to help beej

barbara puts on disney movies, and cards her fingers through his hair while they watch. sometimes, beej will curl up on the couch, his head on her lap, and fall asleep. she doesn’t mind, she knows he gets nightmares; wakes up screaming some nights, or sobs into his pillow when he thinks that nobody else is awake to hear it

adam sits on the couch, beej’s head on his shoulder, and reads aloud to him. he follows the words with his finger as a quiet way of helping beej learn the words. even though it’s an awkward angle, he wraps one arm around beej, holding him tightly

anyways beej has a family who loves and supports him and autistic/adhd beej holds a special place in my heart

these were really fun! i’ve never actually written hcs before and this list got hella long, but feel free to request more, y’all! i don’t write x reader (just not good at it) or beetleb*bes (ew. go to hell), but request anything else, y’all!

[fireflake-art]

HC: Mystery Gang

The gang's all here! (Except Scoob, but this is mostly a shipping piece.)

Inspired by all the content coming across my dash, I decided to whip up a late 50th birthday for these characters; Velma Dinkley, Fred Jones, Daphne Blake and Shaggy Rogers. The OG meddling kids.

I've always loved this crew. When I was younger, my favorite aunt and I would spend the entire day in our pajamas and binge Scooby Doo movies. My favorites as a kid were Ghoul School and Cyberchase. Those are some of my fave memories with that aunt, who I recently found out isn't as good of a person as I had thought. Scooby Doo might seem childish, but these guys were my childhood, y'know? They were important to me, and they still are.

(I've actually been thinking about making an Ao3 fic about em. Can you believe it)

Down to the headcanons

- They're a polyam quad! Bi Daphne, lesbian Velma (is somewhat into guys a tad bit, she just prefers lesbian), bi (and trans) Fred, and pan Shaggy.

- Velma's Hispanic! Specifically Latina. Shaggy's half-Mexican, half-Irish. While we're at it; Daph is Asian and Fred is an all American boyo.

- Daphne's Catholic and Shaggy and Velma are Jewish

- Fred has a distant relationship with his adoptive father, ever since his adopted mom left them when Fred was a little girl. Their bond was pretty decayed already when Fred came out in his young teen years, but it only got worse from then. Fred's dad doesn't abuse him physically, or verbally; he's present, sometimes, but not in an emotional sense.

- Fred has a lot of learning disabilities, including dyslexia, dyscalculia, and ADHD. This made it hard for him in class, which is how he met Daphne and Velma in early middle school. Daph and Vel were competing for the smartest of the grade; as an attempt to get the girls to be friendly to each other, they were both assigned to tutor Fred. Fred was, and still is, a well-meaning dumbass that drinks respect women juice, so both girls warmed up to him and his attempts to get them to be friends.

They were soon assigned to Shaggy, too, who was failing his classes because he was taking too many "sick" days, when in fact he was too anxiety-filled to get out of bed and face anyone.

The group quickly became besties and shared their full selves. Velma was there when Shaggy admitted to his parents about his anxiety, and they all went to choose a support dogo for him. (Scooby's legally Shaggy's emotional support dog, but Shaggy doesn't mind sharing.)

- As young teens, the group originally went by the Scooby Doo Detective Agency, before changing it to Mystery Inc/the Mystery Gang.

- Fred wears two shirts to better hide his breasts and help his dysphoria. His white shirt is actually a sweater, and under it is a button-up fancy blue long-sleeved shirt.

- Daphne is his hairdresser and fashion advisor, as she is for all of them. Daph always makes sure that whatever she suggests is within their comfort range.

- Shaggy has a panic disorder. Scooby Doo is his emotional support animal. Shaggy uses prescription marijuana to help with it.

- Daphne is always trying to prove herself (example; always running into danger and getting kidnapped) because her parents always compared her, the youngest, to her big sisters. Her sisters were successful, wealthy and independent women, while typical Daph had to keep getting saved by her partners. She loves feeling important, like she's the focus of everyone's attention. She tries to excel at everything, but is slowly starting to get better at not sprinting blindly into danger. (You can thank the Gang for that.)

- Daphne's mother is a celebrity supermodel by most days, acholic by night/some days. Her dad is a famous author. Neither of them approve of most of the things in Daphne's life; bisexuality, polyamory, mystery solving, Velma, Fred, Shaggy, Scooby... The list goes on.

- Daphne is an honorary member of the Hex Girls. She shows up sometimes when the triad needs another voice on stage. (Also, the Hex Girls are lesbians.)

- Velma's the mom friend.

- Velma Dinkley has always had a fixation for mysteries and figuring things out. She enjoys puzzles, crosswords, riddles, detective novels, serial killer documentaries, and horror movies. (She can always guess who the killer is.)

- She is fluent in Latin, Spanish, Mandarin and Morse Code.

- Velma's incredibly flexible, having taken martial arts and gymnastics as a child.

- This isn't headcanon, but I feel the need to mention it, as I don't think a lot of people know this is actually canon in multiple movies. Velma has a little sister named Madelyn, also known as "Doe Eyes Dinkley". Madelyn is a stage magician and is in clown college. She is an extroverted woman with a giant crush on Shaggy, who she continues to pine over. Both sisters are very overprotective of each other and mostly have a friendly relationship.

- The Gang eventually drop out of their shared community college to pursue mysteries, and to get away from their disapproving parents and overwhelming responsibilities. Velma does decide to take up online courses to get her degree.

(The Mystery Gang, including football jock Fred and track captain Shaggy, could have went to more prestigious schools, the girls because of their smarts and the boys on sport scholarships, but they were pressured to stay where their parents could see them.)

And that's my headcanons for them. I didn't mention some stuff because it's canon, but I'll recap real quick; Velma has coulrophobia (clown phobia) and aquaphobia (fear of water/sea), Scooby has an excitable, somewhat annoying nephew (Scrappy Doo), they're junior detectives/amateur sleuths, Fred's allergic to cats, they live in the Mystery Van, road trip for life, Shaggy's real name is Norville, Shag was briefly a vegetarian, Shaggy can do voice impressions, he was once a junior pilot, Daphne's a black belt in karate, Daph has a motorcycle, is an amateur musician, was a journalist a couple times, the Gang occasionally break up and go their seperate ways until a long-yearned for mystery pops up and serves as an excuse to get back together, those deals.

Peace! ✌️

Reference by @croxovergoddess;

Literally only 2 progress pics;

[redandfranticfeelings]

okay ive been wanting to make a post like this for a while but i wanted to make it an essay and i dont know if i can really organize my thoughts in that way yet, so here’s a chronological bullet-pointed dump to explain my very important thesis:

be more chill is about internalized ableism, and jeremy, michael, and christine are all highly autistic coded. this is going to be very long and detailed but only because there’s a lot of details that work very well under this lens.

there’s probably even stuff i missed but this is already extremely long so it basically just functions as a way for me to collect a bunch of details that i can piece together later in a more coherent manner.

“more than survive” in the context of jeremy being autistic works so much. the theme of wanting to be just socially acceptable enough to not burn out or be harassed is so relatable, and it visually establishes very early how jeremy is isolated from his peers due to his own awkward behavior and hypersensitivity. it’s coupled with his very obvious anxiety disorder, but the social aspect just screams autistic coding to me. i take this song to basically be “not having a meltdown is basically my goal but i would love to be neurotypical enough so i can heighten my standards and actually enjoy my social life.” some choice segments:

“if i’m not feeling weird or super strange, my life would be in utter disarray, cuz freaking out is my okay”

jeremy’s house being a mess is partly due to his dad’s serious depression, yeah, but i believe the other aspect is that jeremy’s executive dysfunction makes it just as hard to clean up in his place

he gets super anxious at the prospect of his expected routine being shaken up and having to make the decision on his own of how to get to school

“so i follow my own rules and i use them as my tools to stay alive” honestly sounds like a euphemism for autism to me

jeremy not really realizing that he’s staring at chloe

“avoiding any eye contact at all” explains itself

michael’s introduction, oh my god, every time i watch this part i just adore it. i could talk a lot more about michael’s autism later but this whole segment sells it especially.

first off, michael keeping his hood up and headphones on in a deliberate attempt to avoid social interaction and stay in his own space is such an autistic mood. even before this scene he’s constantly moving in the background to his music a la stimming. in the later performances he spends a lot more time playing with his hoodie strings and even chews on them!!

the fact he doesn’t talk to or even really look at jeremy until his song is done playing also feels very autistic to me! and the way he dances so confidently and basically pretends even his best friend isn’t there for the time being because he’s engrossed in his own passions.

michael is a great friend but it’s clear that he doesn’t really understand that his coping mechanism doesn’t really work for jeremy, and that even though michael feels confident reclaiming his identity as a ‘loser,’ jeremy doesn’t really feel any better about it. i think a lot of autistic folks, or at least i do, have this tendency to assume what works for us works for everyone around us at first due to our struggles with empathy. michael tries his best but struggles to see outside his point of view. it’s mind-blindness in action and jeremy can’t communicate why it upsets him any better than michael can pick up on it not working for him.

near the end of the song, they have a brief moment where all the ensemble crowds in around jeremy and the lights start flashing, which i interpret as a visual representation of sensory overload.

we’ll talk more about her soon, but outside of jeremy’s fantasies about her, christine also avoids social interaction during this number, constantly hiding her face in a book and avoiding eye contact just as much as jeremy. people forget that she’s not comfortable with unexpected social interaction, and that really informs my headcanon for her which brings us to....

“i love play rehearsal” is an autistic anthem. it also works, possibly even better due to in-text evidence, as an adhd anthem, but combined with the above it makes so much sense for her to be comorbid autism/adhd. i did a breakdown of the song in this context before, but i’ll sum it up here

the song showcases what having a special interest/hyperfixation is like. christine is singing to jeremy, yes, but she really seems so caught up in her own passion without much regard for how jeremy is following it, and even cuts him off from responding to her once or twice because she’s just so hyped up on her own feelings. she also basically implies her happiness is reliant on her special interest which is very relatable.

lines like “you follow a script so you know what comes next” also really sell the interpretation that christine isn’t good in unpredictable situations, and has so many identity issues and likes having something to look to where things are laid out for her. i think that stability is what a lot of autistic people look for, especially teenagers.

also with that in mind, look at how upset she gets watching a play she loves about get rewritten into something weird and new that she doesn’t know.

also gotta love how she still self-isolates before this song by focusing on her book, until she has a reason to infodump to jeremy. and then feels guilty afterwards and goes right back into her book while apologizing for getting “carried away”....biiiig mood there

the whole intro scene showcases both of their awkwardness so much. jeremy gets completely thrown off by her sarcastic comment about the swim team and almost believes it, which implies that he can’t read tone very well. and then christine’s “you’re a virgin” comment comes across like she really didn’t think about how that would sound to jeremy before saying it since she only made the clarification after he was ready to panic about it. she has a habit of speaking before she thinks, i think, the self-harm comment is also very awkward considering she barely knows jeremy.

after that scene we get “more than survive reprise” where jeremy admits to routinely having such bad breakdowns that he needs to step out and go to the nurse which works for both the anxiety disorder and the autism interpretation.

i’m not quite sure whether i see rich as autistic (i see him with a lot of mental issues for sure though) so i can’t say much on “the squip song” but there’s definitely something to describing a confused autistic kid as “almost helpless.” rich definitely has a habit of giving too much information though, i’ll say that.

“two player game” is just jeremy and michael being autistic solidarity: the song. i guess this is a good place to say that jeremy and michael work well as a contrast b/w two sides of autistic community, the side that struggles to function and desperately wants a change bc they’re afraid of being alone forever, and the side that tries to love all their symptoms and embrace their autistic pride. and as coincidental icing on the cake, jeremy wears blue (associated with the derogatory views from autism speaks) and michael wears red (associated with combating said views through autistic pride).

btw you could probably attribute michael’s ability to casually down a long-expired crystal pepsi as a sort of weird sensory quirk. and his fixation w/ that sort of memorabilia honestly feels like a special interest in its own right!

both “nice sideburns....wolverine, right” and “like in x-men????” using fiction as a reference point for real life always gives me autistic vibes (esp the first point where he awkwardly uses it to start conversation). can we assume x-men is a special interest? :3

jake referring to jeremy as a ‘freak’ when the squip turns on is really sad in this context but it also does make so much sense

now we get to the squip.....and what do you know, it uses tactics from abusive therapy used on autistic children. dare i say that “be more chill” as a song isn’t just an abuser’s song, but an ableist’s abuser’s song.

first off, the “spinal stimulation.” here’s a not so fun fact: electroshock therapy has been used to discourage autistic behavior in very recent years. (content warning in link for graphic description of ableist torture)

then the lyrics, in which the squip mostly focuses on jeremy’s posture and physically punishes him for disobeying. jeremy is shown to really struggle to stand up straight and pose himself in a normal, confident way, and i think that tendency to be unaware of what our body is doing is a pretty autistic thing?

the fact the squip singles out stammering and refers to jeremy’s “tics and fidgets” brings attention to two more autistic traits of jeremy’s

the squip basically punishes jeremy for responding “incorrectly” to social situations like rejecting brooke, even if they aren’t objectively wrong. it eventually just starts speaking for jeremy because jeremy seems incapable of acting natural. the squip is an abusive autism parent.

“sync up” demonstrates jeremy’s weird relationship with empathy. he wants to be nice to everyone- will has even called him “deeply empathetic”- but he’s initially really bad at seeing other people’s point of view, which is why he positions himself as sort of against the world, seeing everyone as better than him or trying to set up these barriers of Coolness where everyone else must be perfect compared to him. he’s so surprised to learn that the popular kids also hurt because of his strict idea of the social structure. it’s a combination of low self esteem and a black-and-white viewpoint.

let’s go back to christine. the squip, already established as ableist abuser, finds her “highly unusual” for acting in a way that disregards everyone who views her. she has very strange and specific visions in her head, and it seems very natural for her even if jeremy struggles to follow along.

in later performances, she chews on her sleeve and spins around during AGTIKBI. that’s stimming, babes. also gotta acknowledge “i don’t always relate to other people my age, except when i’m on the stage”

i’m gonna use this section to talk about jake and christine. christineis a bit unsure when interacting with jake, until he validates her interest- her acting is what really touches him. but jake, while good-hearted, has trouble being self-centered and thus not fully aware of christine’s own needs and space. so christine is always a little uncomfortable around him, especially in public, and not always willing to socialize. he is right about her being kind of stuck in her comfort zone, though, not doing anything off of her stage. and he is genuinely nice to her, it’s just a matter of their social strategies clashing.

the fact that the squip blocks out michael...i’ve had a lot of times in my life where i was told that socializing with other “weird” people would be counterproductive for my social development and it was part of why i was stuck with so few friends. so i really feel the idea that blocking out the person who helps you feel confident in your atypicality is framed as a good thing so you can act more socially adept, and that doing otherwise would just drag you both down.

hot DAMN does “loser geek whatever” make so much sense for an autistic kid with internalized ableism.

“it’s not only school that’s rough, being lonely’s stupid tough” makes it pretty clear this isn’t about the school social scene as muc as it is the entire social scene of the world. we may not see it, but it’s just (not) interacting with people in general that jeremy can’t stand.

“michael says that weird is rad but feeling weird just makes me sad” as stated above, makes a Lot More Sense with the idea that michael is both a more confident autistic and really bad at addressing jeremy’s own internalized ableism and desire to make connections outside his small friend group.

everything about jeremy boiling down all his problems to his “instincts” sucking and needing to basically be told what to do really highlights how autistic kids can feel broken because of their inability to fit into the social norm, to the point where we repress every behavior that actually makes us feel comfortable and unique. 

not to mention the line about him being seen as a “normal handsome guy” since autistic people tend to be infantilized and never seen as desirable (will roland also implied this line has trans coding which is another discussion altogether but i feel i should acknowledge that here)

all of those terms that jeremy calls himself near the end- namely weirdo, misfit, oddball, freak, failure- all of this sounds like the shit people throw at autistic kids. like this goes beyond anxiety alone, this is jeremy being outcasted and oppressed by the general public due to his behavior. especially the “please don’t speak” part, considering how often autistic kids are mocked for misunderstanding when to speak, how to speak, and what to talk about. jeremy needs some freaking love. :(

“michael in the bathroom” is a panic attack, related to severe anxiety, but i do see a lot of aspects that play into autism as well. the little nervous stimmy movements of foot-bouncing and picking at grout, the explosive sensory overload during the “knock knock” section of the bridge, the whole concept of losing the only person you ever managed to connect to without sacrificing who you are, dealing with this massive change to your sense of philosophy and reality where you pinned everything on one person to ground yourself, and thus you’re now completely lost trying to isolate yourself from this big overwhelming social gathering...neurodivergent anthem all around.

jeremy and christine’s couch interactions during halloween give me such autistic positivity. christine basically echolales jeremy’s weird noise and they both have so much fun vocal stimming that they forget there’s another person in the room. it’s such a sweet moment until jeremy ruins it by realizing that asking her out right after a breakup is Not Really Good For Her.

christine’s reaction to the fire demonstrates a clear case of hyperempathy to me. it isn’t discussed as much as a complete lack of empathy, but autistic folks are prone to feeling way too much especially when it comes to others’ pain. christine talking about how she hates that everyone’s hurting and desperately wants to help but doesn’t know how, and how we’ve already seen how much she struggles to connect with others like jake....it’s a very relatable, very specific autistic mood.

going back to the theme of jeremy and empathy, christine’s above hyperempathy kind of breaks this mold, and while jeremy always does feel for the other kids, by this point he feels so strongly- particularly for christine, who he also saw as a perfect confident being until now- that the squip can manipulate him into “fixing” everyone the same way the squip was supposed to “fix” him. and he never considers that christine doesn’t need to be fixed because he just projects his own insecurity that strongly onto everyone else who seems “weird” in the same kind of way- hence why he assumes michael is jealous of him back in MITB. it’s likely a result of the squip’s manipulation but i feel like mind-blindness is a factor, even if jeremy switches between struggling to process others’ emotions and being extremely empathetic.

michael’s special interest saves the day!!! :D

the whole fight b/w jeremy and michael, assuming it comes from a genuine place of repressed bitterness, has a lot of added subtext with them both being autistic. jeremy accusing michael of “giving up” on social interaction, michael envies jeremy for trying bc michael is clearly Not comfortable in most large social settings, jeremy envies michael for his pride, it just hits home for me i guess

rich calling michael “antisocial headphones kid” honestly how is michael not canon autistic

in the off-bway version michael briefly speaks too loud forgetting that jeremy’s head still hurts which is a relatable Forgot About Boundaries thing. plus him smacking rich playfully forgetting that rich is Still In Pain

“voices in my head” works nice as a fuck-societal-norms-and-just-be-happy song. “embrace the traits that make you so odd” in particular :’)

jeremy remembering christine’s infodump about her obscure bowling alley performance art idea and bringing it up to her again!!!

the squip doesn’t go away because ableism and the anxiety it brings and all the upsetting symptoms of autism don’t go away, but with the right support and confidence you can live with them!!! good message for mental disorders in general and works very well in this context!!!

so in conclusion.....be more chill is autistic pride!!!

[millie1536]

Different, Not Weird

Well it let me post the ghost thing so hopefully this works this time. 500th times the charm after all

TW: mentions of panic attacks, mentions of meltdowns, mentions of destructive stimming, mentions of child abuse, the documentary ‘Blackfish’ is referenced a number of times (It’s one of Izzy’s hyperfixations) so if that’s triggering for anyone please consider if you are in a place where you can think about that stuff at the moment.

The first time Jane heard Izzy imitating a cat she assumed it was a joke between her and Kitty. The occasional meow that would break the comfortable silence between the two was cute. It hadn’t gone unnoticed that some of Izzy’s behaviour was, well, odd. At times she seemed so much younger than she was and at other times she was far too mature for her age. The queens had chalked it up to her past. The fact that she had never been able to be a kid, that she had been used and abused by men four times her age for the past nine years.

And yet there were still things that bothered Jane. The way Izzy would curl up beside Anne or Kathrine as if trying to merge with them but pull away from even the slightest physical contact with anyone else. How she would wear the same pair of jeans every day no matter how hot or cold it was. It wasn’t that she was jealous, I mean sure, she would have loved to curl up on the couch with Izzy and watch a movie or read a book occasionally but, what worried her was the reason, or rather the lack of.

Izzy had warmed up to everyone a lot quicker than expected. She and Anna would go for bike rides together, anything to get out of the house. Jane was teaching her to cook and bake, something she seemed to be enjoying very much. She had asked Catherine, very anxiously, to teach her Spanish, which the queen was more than happy to do. Cathy had taken on the role of Izzy’s teacher when it became apparent that the girl had an insatiable curiosity. Parr had jumped at the chance to help Izzy catch up on the education she had missed out on and Izzy was proving to be a fast learner.

“Did you know that Cassowaries are the world’s deadliest bird?” She asked over dinner one night.

“Did you know that only one third of the rivets used to build the hull of the Titanic were up to standard? And they were all in the centre third, if they had been used for the bow the iceberg might not have done so much damage.” Was another nights conversation starter.

“Did you know that the flat cap was invented by a golfer?” Izzy’s ability to retain knowledge never ceased to amaze Jane. She often wondered if maybe she was overreacting. Maybe all kids were like this and she just never got the chance to see it before now.

But it wasn’t just her memory or her relationship with Anne and Kathrine that was strange.

Panic attacks weren’t a new thing for the queens and they all knew from the beginning that Izzy would likely succumb to them. However, they seemed off. Some of them weren’t too different from Anne or Kitty’s but some of them seemed to be something else entirely. Izzy’s panic attacks varied from silently shutting down to screaming and fighting.

Jane also failed to see a pattern. Like the others, Izzy had triggers, and yet they had been unsuccessful at identifying all of them.

Loud noises, large groups of people, yelling and shouting, unexpected physical contact.

These were the ones they had picked up on. But they didn’t explain why Izzy would seem to shut down at random times, why her eyes would become distant and she seemed to lose all awareness of where she was.

Jane wanted answers and she was sure the others did too.

 “I just don’t know what’s wrong with her?” Jane sighed, exhausted. Kathrine was upstairs with Izzy and so Jane had taken the chance to talk to the others.

“It’s probably just part of the process, you remember what Kitty was like in the first few months.” Catherine wrapped an arm around Jane’s shoulder, pulling her into a side hug.

“She does remind me a fair bit of Kat, especially the constant movement.” Anna commented.

“Should we get her checked for ADHD?” Jane asked suddenly.

“I mean, if you want, but that’s not really where I was going with that.” Anna shrugged.

“Sorry, I just…” Jane trailed off, resting her head on Aragon’s shoulder.

“It’s alright, I get it. You just want to make sure she’s alright.” Anna smiled kindly.

“I know that ADHD isn’t a disease but I still… I get so worried about Izzy, about not knowing.” Jane was, for the most part, the most level-headed of the group, but when it came to anything medical she began to worry.

“I’ll book an appointment tomorrow.” Aragon gave Jane’s shoulder a gentle squeeze.

 “But I wanted to read more about Tilikum.” Izzy protested when Anne told her they were heading out.

“I know, but you can do that when we get back, alright?”

“Fine.” Izzy huffed as she grabbed her book from beside her.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Anne asked, holding out Izzy’s coat.

“No.” Izzy said simply before heading towards the front door. Anne shook her head before picking up her own coat and making her way out to the car.

“Aren’t you cold?” Anna asked when the girl got into the car, “It’s freezing.”

“No it isn’t, it’s like 19 degrees.”

“Exactly,” Anna responded, “It’s cold.” Izzy just shrugged.

“Seat belt on.” Jane said from the front passenger seat. She didn’t have to look to know that Izzy wasn’t wearing her seat belt.

“But it’s annoying.” Izzy argued.

“You know what else is annoying? Dying in a car accident.” Catherine raised her eyebrows at the girl, watching in the rear view mirror as she relented and buckled her seat belt.

“Miaow.” Kathrine looked down at the girl resting against her shoulder.

“I thought I was the cat.” Kitty said feigning confusion. Izzy shrugged, a cheeky grin spreading across her face.

“Cathy?”

“Yes?” Parr turned around to give Izzy her full attention.

“Why are they called quadratic equations when there are only two answers?” Izzy asked, the question had been bothering her for weeks.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Izzy sighed, not understanding why the woman didn’t get it, “Quad means four but there are only two answers so why are they called quadratic equations if there are two and not four answers?” Cathy thought for a moment.

“I don’t know, kid. I’ve never thought of that before.”

“Why not?”

“I just haven’t.” Izzy wasn’t sure how anyone could live so long without asking such a question.

The queens had gotten used to Izzy’s questions. The way she would ask the most obscure things at the strangest of times.

 When they arrived at the paediatrician’s office Izzy stayed in her seat. She knew where they were going but being there made it real.

“What’s going on inside your head?” Anne asked gently.

“I don’t like doctors.” Izzy almost whispered.

“It’s alright, they just want to talk to you. No needles or anything like that, I promise.” Anne waited for Izzy to nod before leading her into the building. Izzy felt her nose scrunch up at the smell, a mixture of cleaning chemicals and coffee. The lights, too, put her on edge. They were bright and made a buzzing sound that seemed to drill through Izzy’s skull. The third light from the left in the waiting room flickered occasionally. Izzy tried to spot a pattern but there was none. Kitty, it seemed, had also noticed the light and had positioned herself so that it was behind her. Izzy considered her options for a moment before getting out of her seat and climbing onto Kitty’s lap. It wasn’t uncommon for her to use affection as a mask to hide what was actually happening.

Kathrine smiled when the girl began nuzzling into her shoulder, an occasional whimper sounding from her throat. The whimper wasn’t one of fear, instead it was a ‘I want to snuggle’ kind of whimper. Kathrine wrapped her arms around Izzy who immediately fell still, melting into the embrace.

“Isabella?” A woman’s voice called from the doorway. Kathrine felt the girl tense in her arms.

“It’s alright, we’ll be right there with you the whole time.” Kathrine felt Izzy nod against her shoulder before she uncurled herself from her spot and stood up. She held tight onto Anne and Kitty as they followed the doctor into her office.

“I’m sorry it’s a bit crowded,” The woman said as she sat behind her desk, “We don’t usually have so many people in here at once.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Anna waved the woman’s apology away.

“This is quite the family you’ve got.” The woman, who had introduced herself as Doctor Morgan, smiled at Izzy who did her best to hide under Anne’s arm.

“She’s a bit shy.” Jane said, not wanting the doctor to think she had done something wrong.

“Izzy, sweetie, can you sit up please?” Anne asked gently, full prepared for Izzy to tighten her hold. She was a little surprised when Izzy sat up slowly, leaning into Anne and holding her arms to make sure she didn’t let go.

“Izzy?” Doctor Morgan asked, having noticed the nickname, “Is it alright if I have a chat with your- uh, with the grown-ups?” Izzy shrugged.

“Can I watch tv?” Izzy asked Jane, who pulled out a pair of wireless headphones and her phone. Izzy grinned as she put on the headphones and snuggled closer against Anne.

“Noise cancelling headphones?” The doctor asked after a moment.

“Yeah, she struggles with loud noises.” Catherine informed her.

“What about light? Does she struggle with that too?”

“Yes, actually. Bright lights hurt her eyes and flickering lights give her head aches.” Anna said.

“And sometimes they trigger panic attacks,” Kitty added, “Too much light or noise scares her.”

“And temperature?”

“Doesn’t seem to feel the cold, but she’s really sensitive to heat. If she’s too hot she starts to feel sick.”

“What kind of sick?”

“Nauseas, I think.” Cathy answered.

“And how is she socially?” Doctor Morgan asked, “Does she make eye contact?”

“Rarely, but we’re working on it.” Anne pressed a kiss to the top of Izzy’s head, “She’s come a long way with it since she came to live with us.”

“You didn’t raise her?” Doctor Morgan looked surprised.

“Unfortunately.” Kitty muttered, a mixture of hate and anger filling her eyes.

“No, she’s been with us for almost 4 months now.” Anna added. The doctor nodded, typing some notes on her computer.

“What about her parents?”

“Her mother died when she as about 5 and there’s no record of who her father is.”

“Who was she living with prior to you?” Kathrine gave a dry, spiteful laugh.

“Her uncle.” Jane said before Kathrine had a chance to say anything. Doctor Morgan nodded, again writing down some notes before moving on.

“What about her peers? Does she have many friends at school?”

“Actually, I’m home schooling her for the moment.” Cathy said, seemingly a little nervous.

“We’re hoping to get her into the local public school once she’s caught up.” Catherine gave Parr’s knee a gentle squeeze.

“Caught up? Does she struggle academically?”

“No, not at all.” Anna couldn’t help the slight laugh the accompanied her words.

“No, she’s a very quick learner, but she never got the chance to go to school. She was… uh, her uncle he…” Cathy didn’t want to tell the woman, a complete stranger, about Izzy’s history but she didn’t know if she needed to.

“I see.” The doctor gave a sad smile. Cathy doubted that she did in fact ‘see’ but was grateful that they didn’t have to go into it.

“Does she respond to you? Does she notice when you’re trying to talk to her?”

“For the most part, but if she’s reading then it can take a few tries to get her attention.” Jane said.

“Usually we just have to say her name before whatever it is we want to say and she listens, I think she often assumes we’re talking to someone else if we don’t say her name.” Anna added.

“Any issues with sleep?”

“Night terrors.” Kathrine sighed, she hated watching Izzy toss and turn each night with no way of putting an end to it.

“But that would be connected to her uncle?” She asked cautiously. All six women nodded. “What about her temper? Does she tend to get angry?”

“More at herself than any of us, and she usually locks herself in her room when she’s like that.” Anne said, remembering the last time Izzy had gotten like that, “She can get a bit uh… Aggressive? I don’t know if that’s the right word, Violent? I really don’t know how to explain it. She’s never hurt anyone but often when she comes back out of her room after getting really angry it’ll look like a hurricane has gone through it.”

“Or covered in scratches and bite marks.” Catherine said quietly. The doctor made a few more notes.

“And she does it to herself? The biting and scratching?”

“Yes, we’re trying to get her to stop but…” Cathy sighed, not knowing how to explain.

“How is she with touch? Is she alright with physical contact? And what about textures, are there any that bother her?”

“Well, she can be quite the snuggle bug with those two,” Jane nodded at Anne and Kathrine, “But she’s still a bit more wary of the rest of us.”

“She’s starting to get comfortable with me.” Cathy said.

“And she has no problem with me carrying her, but she’s still a bit unsure when it comes to hugs.” Anna added, it was a common sight to see Anna running around the backyard with Izzy clinging to her back.

“And textures?

“She likes soft things. She tends to rotate between the same three or four outfits, I think the more she wears them the softer the materials get.” Catherine said.

“Some foods too. She doesn’t like things like pasta bake because there are too many textures in it.” Jane told her. Doctor Morgan wrote down a few more notes before looking up.

“Do you think Izzy would be willing to answer some questions?”

“You can try, but she really doesn’t like stopping something before she’s finished it.” Kitty said.

“Izzy? Can you pause that for a minute, please? Doctor Morgan wants to ask you some questions.” Anne said, gently removing Izzy’s headphones.

“But they just got to the bit about Kasatka.” Izzy whined.

“Who’s Kasatka?” Doctor Morgan asked, hoping to engage Izzy in a conversation. Cathy, who could see what the doctor was trying to do jumped in with,

“She’s a whale.” She knew how Izzy would react to hearing that and she felt a little bad for setting her up like that but it paid off.

“No she isn’t. Kasatka is a dolphin. Orca aren’t whales but everyone thinks they are because their common name is ‘killer whale’ which is ridiculous because all recorded encounters with wild orca report that they are very gentle and very playful. The only time they’ve ever shown aggressive behaviour is in captivity and that’s because, unlike land mammals, it’s almost impossible to mimic aquatic habitats and they just end up sitting in concrete tanks their whole lives and they end up with depression and are bored out of their minds and lash out.” Izzy crossed her arms and leant back against Anne before adding quietly, “It’s not their fault.”

“You know a lot about orca.” Doctor Morgan commented.

“They’re interesting,” Izzy shrugged, “Plus, animals make more sense than people.” The offhand comment was just what the doctor was waiting for.

“How so?”

“Well, they’re easier to understand. They don’t say one thing but mean another. It’s simple. They do what they have to in order to survive and they only attack when threatened or distressed and not for the sake of hurt someone else, for the most part anyway.”

“What kind of things do people do that don’t make sense?” Izzy thought for a moment before answering.

“Well, sometimes Annie makes jokes when she’s sad, or Kitty will say she’s okay when she’s not.” This took the queens by surprise; they hadn’t realised just how observant the young girl was. “And Anna and Jane always tell everyone not to bottle up their feelings but they do it too. Catherine pretends to be angry with Bessie but she isn’t because she’s always making sure she’s alright and Cathy says it’s not good to isolate yourself from your family but she spends as much time alone as she can get.” The queens exchanged subtle glances at this. They hadn’t been expecting Izzy to call them out like that, but hey what were kids for if not brutal honesty.

The rest of the appointment passed in a similar manner, with Doctor Morgan would ask Izzy a question and Izzy would answer with a bit too much honesty.

 That night Izzy was far more talkative than usual, which to be honest was an achievement.

“And they got some marine biologists in to study the sound Kasatka was making and they were long distance calls.” Izzy finished sadly.

“But they brought her baby back, right?” Jane asked, her heart breaking at the thought of being forcefully separated from a child. Izzy shook her head.

“The higher ups didn’t care. All they cared about was money. They didn’t even bother to learn about the animals. If they had they would have known that calves stay with their mothers their entire life, even when they’re adults. The females stay beside their mothers the whole time but the males end up pushed to the outside of the pod because it’s a matriarchal society but they’re still in the same pod and still near their mothers. Also orca have multiple languages, well scientists are hesitant to admit that any species other than humans have languages but they do. Different pods speak different languages and yet Sea World told everyone that the orcas were with their families when they weren’t. They were with a bunch of other orca that they couldn’t understand and in a confined space so of course they fought with each other. They were frustrated and didn’t have any other way of communicating.” Izzy slumped back against the couch; her arms folded across her chest.

“And on that note,” Anne put an arm around Izzy’s shoulders, “It’s time for bed.” Izzy considered protesting but the thought of curling up under the blankets with Anne and Kitty was rather appealing and so she said goodnight to the others and made her way to bed.

“How does she remember all of that?” Catherine asked once they heard the door shut upstairs.

“I don’t know.” Anna shook her head in disbelief.

“If only she could remember her times tables.” Cathy joked.

“So she remembers all of that but not her times tables?” Jane asked.

“It’s probably because it’s something she’s interested in; trust me she hates maths.”

 Three days later and the queens were sitting in the living room, minus Kathrine who was upstairs with Izzy.

“ASD, ADHD combined and Anxiety.” Cathy read aloud from the email she had up on her laptop.

“I know what half of that means.” Cleves said bluntly.

“Anxiety, I doubt I have to read the explanation of that one.” Cathy sighed, “ADHD combined, both Attention deficit and Hyperactivity present.”

“So just ADHD then?” Cleves asked, still unsure of what the email was saying.

“I think it’s possible to have one and not the other,” Cathy said, “Like Kitty and Maggie both have ADHD but Kitty’s is more hyperactive and Maggie’s is more the attention deficit, I think.” Cleves nodded slowly, trying to make sense of it all.

“And ASD?” Anne asked.

“Autism Spectrum Disorder.”

“Autism?” Catherine asked, her god daughter nodded.

“Jane?” Cathy had noticed how Jane seemed to pale at the news, “What’s the matter?” Jane shook her head, biting the inside of her lip to stop herself talking.

“Hey, come on,” Anna said gently, “You remember what Izzy said, right? We both need to take our own advice.” Jane was silent for a minute before she spoke.

“I don’t want to lose her.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper, “I can’t lose her.”

“We aren’t going to lose her, Jane.” Anne gave Jane’s hand a squeeze.

“But what if… What if they come and take her away? What if they lock her up somewhere?” Cathy set her laptop aside and knelt in front of Jane.

“No one’s going to take her, I promise.”

“But-“

“Jane, listen to me.” Cathy cut her off, “We understand so much more than we did back then, Izzy won’t be locked up because she’s different.”

“Yeah,” Anne brushed some hair from Jane’s face, “She’s the same Izzy as before, but now we have a better understanding of how to help her.”

“I can’t lose her.” Jane repeated, her voice stronger this time.

“You won’t. Izzy is going to stay with us and we are going to look after her and she is going to grow up knowing that she is loved no matter what.” Anne pulled Jane into a tight hug, if she was being honest Anne would have to admit that the same thoughts had been spiralling through her own mind but as they sat there holding tight to one another she knew that what she had said was true.

Izzy was a part of their unconventional family now and nothing would ever change that.

[miraculousfoxnews]

Kitsune’s reveal & Stoneheart’s rage

This whole mess started when I, the lovely Jasmine, was shopping for college.

There was this lovely thrift shop that I found, it had so many cute boxes and plates and goodies, how could I resist. 

I got a cute jacket, it had fox ears! I found some cups, they had pretty designs okay. I found a few cool boxes, they could be useful guys, don’t judge me. The item responsible was one of these boxes. It had dark red wood with a cool red pattern on it.

I swear that the box just appeared in front of me, it wasn’t there when I looked a minute ago.

Regardless, I bought my new stuff, for a great price, and headed home to pack it to take to college.

My room is super cute by the way, it’s painted like a field of flowers, my mom did it when I was really little and it’s super pretty.

It’s currently a bit of a mess, with books scattered all over and clothes in piles on the floor. I have two full floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and books stuffed all over my room, and it’s so difficult to pick the ones to take to college. 

I may also have a habit of collecting nicknacks, so there are a lot of items for me to pick from around my room.

So I started wrapped the cups and stuffed them in the backpack, and checked each box to make sure they were empty, until suddenly the red one lit up when it was opened. 

A brilliant light rose up and I stared in disbelief as a strange being appeared.

“Mm,” the creature shook its head as it stretched.

I slowly reached for a throwing knife I’d been debating on whether to take to college or not and prepared to throw it at the creature.

“Oh, Hello!” It beamed at me and I froze. 

“....... AHHHHH” I threw the knife at it. 

“Woah, nice throw kit,” the thing dodged neatly, “I’m Trixx,” it dodged the next knife, “the fox kwami of Spirits and Trickery.” it twirled around another knife, “It’s nice to meet you!” 

“Uh... “ Now, this was a very odd situation, but let it not be said that I can’t adapt… after a brief panic, “Nice to meet you.”

The creature, a kwami it said? Beamed at her, “I like your room,” it zipped around, studying everything, “Do you have any eggs?”

“Uh, I’ll give you eggs if you tell me what you are and where you came from.” 

The kwami laughed, “I already told you what I am, I’m a kwami, my name’s Trixx.” Trixx was suddenly right in front of me, “As for where I came from, I am the embodiment of Spirits and Trickery. I came from those, I am those.”

I stared, was this thing saying… was it saying it was basically a god?

“Uh…” 

It laughed, “It’s okay, don’t think too hard about it. Most humans don’t get it.” Trixx turned back to studying my room, it’s white tail tipped in black twisting as they studied the room.

“Okay, why are you here then? You’re like, a god right?”

“I’m a kwami!” Trixx spun around, “And I’m here because I’ve picked you as my next guardian mademoiselle… uh, what’s your name?”

Of course this was absolutely ridiculous, a mini god just appeared in my room declaring I’m its guardian, then asks me what my name was. Brilliant, just brilliant.

“I’m Jasmine. What does being a guardian mean?”

Trixx gave a little bow, “Hello then Jasmine. Fear not, I shall explain all!” It’s stomach growled, “After I eat. So, eggs?”

I got them eggs.

After Trixx ate their eggs, they settled down on a pillow and looked at me expectantly. 

“So, what’s a guardian?” I sat down across from them.

“An excellent question!” Trixx grinned and suddenly there was a figure in the room.

“AH,” I threw a knife at it, (I knew all these knives would come in handy one day), but the knife went right through the person. 

Trixx cackled, “It’s just an illusion kit, my last guardian in her hero form.”

“Hero form?” 

The figure had a flute held in her hand, her outfit streamlined, nothing loose except the tail and ears, faint claws glinted on her hands and white and black were the predominant colors. It wasn’t skin tight, but it was still sleek, stylish almost.

“This is what you’ll do!” Trixx flit up to hover in front of me, “You’ll use my power to accomplish the duties of my miraculous and ensure the safety of spirits.”

---------

Workers Report

So we had this big order, like huge order, and Geoffrey was in charge of the details. 

But this other guy, Owain, he took the call from the client, Rene, when they changed some details. But he forgot to tell Geoffrey. So the order wasn’t changed, but like, it was a big change, they wanted a different color entirely.

So when the order was filled and it was wrong Rene was furious, and Owain claimed he had no idea what happened, so Geoffrey got fired.

Then I don’t know man, suddenly he was covered in weird purple stuff and then he was a rock giant!

It just came out of nowhere and he just started destroying things, it was scary.

-------------

So I headed to college, Trixx coming along for the ride.

And this is where things really got crazy.

---

I finished smoothing out the bedding my friend Ian had given me (He’s a snobby rich kid but he’s a loyal friend… and tends to buy anything I look at for more than three seconds), pausing to peer around my half of the room. It looked good, lots of art, plenty of pillows, and my secret stashes of chocolate set up.

My roommate was straightening up her bed still, she’d added some fairy lights to the bed frame. 

I hummed, double checking my plugs, then turned to my roommate. I have no idea what her name is but I do know she’s unfairly pretty.

She bounced on her toes, looking very cute, “Uh… Ciao! NO wait… Bonjour…? I’m Hazel-August Primo! I’m from Italia! Milan specifically! It’s uh… very nice to yeet you! I MEAN meet you! I am sorry, I’m really awkward and don’t talk much.” 

My roommate ducked her head, her hair covering her face.

I smiled shyly, “Konichiwa, or uh, haha, we’re both doing it. Bonjour I suppose. I’m Jasmine Vermillion, I’m originally from Britain but I’ve lived in Nihon for the last ten years.”

I bowed politely, “It’s very nice to meet you Hazel-san, I hope we can get along.”

She perked up instantly, “Japan! Oh my stars! How many cherry blossom blooms did you go to? Did you participate in the street fashion? What was your favorite part? Did you try Soba?”

She suddenly flushed, rubbing her neck, “Oh uh, Apologies. I got excited. It’s very nice to meet you too! Let’s do our best this year!” She bowed her head.

I couldn’t help but laugh, “I love the festivals, though I’ve only been to a few. They’re so beautiful. And I didn’t do much street fashion, but I did help some of my friends with theirs. My favorite part is undoubtedly the shrines, they’re all so pretty and there’s so much to do. And yes, I’ve had soba many times.”

I shrugged, smiling, “I’m glad you’re excited, I’m happy to be roommates with you uh,” And I may have already forgotten her name, “I guess we should finish setting up. I can go grab some groceries.”

I tugged my hair, my stomach twisting into knots again. Trixx snickered in my hair as I peered at my roommate, whose name I can't remember.

My roommate giggled, "I can come with if you would like an extra set of arms. Or I can stay back and start putting away pots, pans, and plates. My Mother sent some nice stuff from a military installation in India! Mostly plates and silverware but also some spice jars for keeping spices." 

I perked up, "that's great, I have a bunch of cups and jars and stuff, I can go get some groceries and you can put your stuff up, then I'll put up my stuff and you can put up the groceries?”

"Okay! Oh! Before I forget! I got you a gift! I only knew my roommate was a girl so I hope you like it!" The shorter girl smiled and offered me a beautiful bracelet, probably from Milan. 

It had seven gems embedded in it. Ones I recognized from Trixx’s lessons, Ruby, carnelian, yellow quartz, emerald, sapphire, amethyst and Obsidian. It was on a silver chain that was not really thick but not thin either. "I know it's kinda pricey but I really wanted to make a good impression. I hope you like it!" My roommate smiled up at me shyly.

It was amazing, I definitely loved it, though I couldn’t be rude.

"Oh! You didn't need to," I tried to push it back to her roommate, "I really couldn't accept, it's too much!"

"Please accept it! I think it'd be good for formal occasions! My Mother will flip if she finds out I bought something expensive because 'bambina, it's conducive to your therapy! You don't need to get people nice stuff to like you. Just be genuine and up front!' It's not getting you to like me as much as it is trying to make a really good first impression. I should explain. I have borderline personality disorder and I get anxious and sometimes I say stuff I don't mean and that's called splitting. So like one day I could be really nice and kind but then the next day I can be like mean and rude. Is this making sense? I'm sorry! I can return it!" 

"Oh, I just wouldn't want you to feel the need, but if you insist..." I smiled slightly as I accepted the bracelet, picking it up carefully with both hands.

 "I understand, I have ADHD which isn't nearly the same but does come with struggles, we'll work out issues as they come." 

 I carefully put the bracelet on my wrist, "it is a beautiful gift, thank you. I actually have one for you as well." 

I dug through my trunk for a moment before pulling out a plastic bag, I pulled out the present I had carefully wrapped in green. I offered it to my new roommate with both hands. 

She accepted it with a gentle smile. "Grazi! I appreciate it very much." I watched her unwrap the gift nervously. Compared to what she got me my gift to her was much simpler. 

She finished unwrapping it and just looked at the folded fan for a moment. I had picked it carefully, from the darkness of the wood to the beautiful purple fabric with the delicate white butterflies on it, I went for some simple symbolism, while focusing on the elegance. 

"This is beautiful. Did you know that Purple was a very hard color to produce? It was made from one type of sea slug and was very rare and usually reserved only for royalty." My roommate sounded in awe of the gift, which was a relief. 

I smiled, "I'm glad you like it, and yes I did. It symbolizes celebration and luxury in Nihon."

I let out a breath, "I very much like the bracelet that you gifted me, thank you for thinking of me." 

I turned and grabbed some grocery bags, the reusable kind, glancing at the clock. "I'll go grab groceries, anything you need?"

"It's a bit of an odd and pricey request, but could you get some Camembert? I'll pay you back!" My roommate looked hesitant. 

I nodded, "sure, as long as you don't mind me getting some eggs" ‘Or a few dozen.’ 

“Sure, go ahead.”

I grabbed my purse and headed out the door, slipping my shoes on as I left. "Be back in an hour or so"

 I headed out to grab some groceries so we could have food, we had a microwave! And yelped when a rock nearly took my head off.

I snapped around to gape at the stone golem in front of me. It was huge.

“You need to hide kit” Trixx hissed from my hair. 

I quickly ducked and slunk along the line of cars to slip into an alcove hidden by some bushes.

“What is that?” 

“It’s the butterfly! I can sense it’s power but I don’t know what it’s doing this, Nooroo always picks kindhearted people to hold their miraculous.”

I frowned, this isn’t good, “Okay, but what do we do about it?”

“You need to transform to fight it.”

I blanked, that thing, a monster attacking us, the butterfly was supposed to be a partner to me, that’s what Trixx said, but it was attacking, and how was I- what was I- This couldn’t- I can’t fight this thing. The ground spun, my head hurt, what was I supposed to do? Throw some illusions at it? FoxFire probably wouldn’t do anything to stone, Requiem was useless for this, how could FoxHunt help ? Honoring? Useless, Shift couldn’t help! My ears were ringing, I’m not a fighter holder, I’m a strategist! I can’t do this, Trixx should pick someone else, someone who could use the skills she gave, but I’m not it. I can’t do this, I just can’t.

“No, no Trixx how am I supposed to fight-”

“You don’t have to fight,” Trixx hovered in front of me, “You don’t have to fight, just gathering information will be enough. Stay hidden and find the corrupted item. It’ll be something that the golem has.”

“I- I- I-” My chest was tight, an asthma attack? 

“Focus on me, Jasmine, look at me, look at me.”

I looked at the little kwami, “Okay, looking? Good, now focus on my breathing, see, in, out, in, out,” The kwami’s tail flicked and suddenly there was a shape, growing slowly, “In,” it started shrinking, “out,” slowly my breathing steadied. 

In, out, in, out, in, out, I breathed, finally able to take a breath. I could hear again, the crashing farther away, but crying nearby, I needed to move. 

“You alright?” I blinked, looking at the kwami, they peered back nervously. 

“I- sorry, I guess my asthma acted up.” I scrambled for my inhaler.

“That wasn’t an asthma attack, that was a panic attack kit.” Trixx drifted forward to nuzzle my cheek, “It’s okay if you don’t want to go out and fight, it’s scary.”

“I-” The cries were loud, sobbing from nearby, people were hurt. I normally don’t particularly care, I have low empathy, but… I still couldn’t stand by and do nothing. This was a lot of pain, I needed to help somehow, “I just need to transform again?”

“Yep, only this time focus on the threat, your suit will change to match the situation.”

I blinked, “The suits change?”

Trixx giggled, “You didn’t think that dressy, dramatic, bright outfit was the one you’d fight or sneak in did you?”

“Can it change mid-battle?”

Trixx nodded, “Yeah, you can use your flute to change it, but it leaves you vulnerable while you change forms, and it will take a point from your miraculous, so it’s best to know what your intent is before transforming.”

I took a breath, the building shook, I could do this, focus on sneaking. 

“Trixx, Time to Hunt.”

The magic of the transformation swept over me, different from the previous times. Instead of rising to coat me in softness and loose cloth, it slid close to the skin, muted and steady. The two tails remained, but otherwise the style differed. 

I studied myself for a moment, touching the new mask, styled like a kitsune mask from a festival. The suit was more dark grey then white and black, but it was nice, the belt had multiple pockets, and the flute was tucked into a loop on the back.

I clutched the flute, and slipped out of the alcove. 

Slinking along the path I had a hard time breathing. The destruction was horrible. Buildings crushed, torn apart, people broken and bleeding. This was very real, and very dangerous.

I slid around and leapt up to a roof, studying the area. I was to gather information, couldn’t do much else right now.

I carefully followed the golem down the road as it yelled in rage. 

Then there was a child crying as it stumbled away from the golem. A young boy with blonde hair. The golem raised its fist.

The world blurred as I snatched the boy up and threw us into an alley. I spun to see the golem focusing on us. Damn.

“YOU, FOX”

A symbol appeared on its face, a butterfly huh? Well, looks like I need to trick the fool into breaking the item Trixx mentioned, or I’m doomed.

“GIVE ME YOUR EARRINGS!”

I blinked, earrings? Whatever.

“Fox Sense.” I murmured, twirling my flute. Breathing in as I focused on the enhanced senses. The dust was annoying, but I could see every detail of the golem, hear the cries from all around the area, and smell the dirt and fear and blood around me. 

More importantly, I noticed nothing on him that could be the item, but I also noticed his fist. One was open to attack me, the other, it was in a fist. As, I realized, it had been the whole time.

If the item wasn’t on the golem or visible in any way, then the golem must be holding it.

I crouched, gripping my flute tighter. The fox is not meant for battle, but that doesn’t mean I can’t win anyways. 

I raised the flute to my lips, blowing a soft tune, “Mirage” 

The area shimmered with light for a moment, and then it was a construction zone, with bars falling onto the golem, a rumble as a crane tilted.

“RAAA” The golem staggered, grabbing for the bars falling with both hands, a small piece of paper falling from his hand.

The bars shattered right before they could touch the golems hand. Shards falling as the crane fell towards it. The golem stumbled back, raising its hands to cover its head. 

I moved. I reached the paper, a strange black energy surrounding it. It shattered as soon as I stomped on it.

A little black butterfly pulled free, fluttering off.

Black energy bubbled around the golem, fading to reveal a man.

I blinked, ‘that...’

“Huh” My ponytail swung as I shook my head, “Weird.”

“Who are you?” A whisper caught my attention, the boy was staring.

“I’m....” Names were important, “Kitsune Neige.”

I swiped my flute to disperse the illusion and leapt up, pausing on the roof to look at the butterfly hurrying away. It still had black energy around it.

-----------

Time to Rest-

[bartleby-irl-blog]

Looking Forward

If fear of a thing is often worse than the thing itself, the opposite it also true.  It’s easy for me to get lost in fantasy, in what I wish were true.  At the same time, it’s hard for me to distinguish between the more general “wouldn’t it be cool if” from what’s an actual goal.  Assuming, of course, that any difference actually exists.

Anxiety doesn’t have to mean panic.  Fantasizing about ways my life could be different can often get me through a bad day, but actually taking positive steps towards making that fantasy a reality is a whole ‘nother thing.  Everything seems possible when it’s solely in my head.  Reality, on the other hand, is much messier and much scarier.  I’m in control of how things play out in my head.

At first, I figured this was all just ADHD: a tendency to lose interest quickly.  Now, though, I’m increasingly convinced that what I’ve been thinking is boredom is, instead, a way to protect myself.  If I’m bored I won’t try, and if I don’t try then I don’t have to face something scary.  This also means the way to fix it is different from what I’d been thinking.  I’d hoped I could get a better handle on myself and learn what I really want.  But of course, it’s not about wants, it’s about being anxious in the face of investing myself in something that could subject me to some kind of negative consequences.  I’m being vague here because I’m not sure what I’m actually “afraid” of, and that may be somewhat of a red herring anyway: you can’t reason yourself out of something you didn’t reason your way into.

I’ve been considering, maybe even attempting, some degree of exposure therapy on myself.  I’d thought that perhaps if I can have some small successes, that this’ll help to train my brain to see risk-taking differently.  This is hard to do on my own, though, since even little steps are still steps in a direction my brain doesn’t want me to take. 

Contrary to what I said earlier, I think my focus then needs to be figuring out what I’m actually worried about, as I don’t know how else I can start to address it.  I’m also going to talk to my med provider about getting some anti-anxiety stuff too.  We’d tried Lexapro, which did help with the anxiety somewhat, and that’s what first put me on this track since I got a taste of how my brain would be with that gone (or at least tamped down).  Unfortunately it also caused severe emotional blunting across the board, so was definitely not a good fit.  I’m seeing her next week, so thankfully not long to wait.

Worst-case, I could always write mediocre erotic fanfiction on Wattpad.  Hell, if the dice roll goes my way, I could get a movie deal out of that!

[chibistarlyte]

life update stuff under the cut

this year has been such a doozy so far. i feel like each year gets steadily more and more difficult and sometimes i fall into the depression pit of “nothing matters, what is the point in literally anything”

i’ve been sleeping a lot lately because doing anything takes too much effort. i’m on meds, and i do feel better versus when i wasn’t on them for a while, but i like. don’t know what my problem is? idk if it’s the adhd acting up and not letting me focus on anything/making me bored all the time because i can’t focus on anything. my anxiety hasn’t been too much of a problem lately, not since a few months ago when i had that full-blown panic attack at work. and i keep digging my heels in about going to the doctor because my health insurance plan doesn’t have co-pays, just a yearly deductible, so like...my last doctor visit, which was just a med check, cost me almost $200 and i’m just like????? what the fuck, i can’t afford to go to the doctor to address issues i’m pretty positive i have (example, i’m pretty fuckin’ positive i have some sort of thyroid issue because it runs in my family and affected my yia yia (mom’s side) and my mom currently, both pretty severely) and then i also wanna go to therapy again because Trauma(TM) and i’m noticing a lot of ways past trauma is affecting my daily life and i just

everything is so expensive so i just sleep and hope i’ll feel better when i wake up

i also dove a lot into my hyperfixations over the last few months to cope with some shit and at the end of the day, it doesn’t do anything to fix the problem. it’s just pointless escapism.

my cat was really sick at the beginning of this month and had to be hospitalized, so i had to open a new line of credit to pay for her hospitalization. i made the decision to do so because she had pancreatitis and it was completely curable, and plus my cat is young enough (she’s 11 this year) and has been healthy for the majority of her life and to me, it was worth it to fork over a bunch of money to make sure she stayed alive because she still has a lot of youth in her and she’s got a lot of years left, and the vet agreed. so, she got much better but the vet did find that presea has bladder stones (which didn’t surprise me all that much tbh, she had some urinary problems a few years ago due to stress of living with two dogs at the time) so we had to switch her diet to a special prescription urinary diet (which she’ll have to be on for the rest of her life and is pretty expensive, but still worth it to me) in the hopes that the food will help dissolve the stones. if they don’t dissolve, though, she will have to have surgery and i don’t even want to think about how much that is going to cost. but, again, it’s worth it to me to have her around for many more years because without her, i don’t know what i’d do. i literally don’t.

uh, what else? i had a new baby cousin born last month, which is cool. his name is alton and i’m hoping to visit my family in ohio sometime this year so i can meet all the new babies that have been born in the last five years and also bring my boyfriend to meet my extended family. my cousin was going to be getting married in september and that was when we were gonna go, but after we found out my aunt (mom of said cousin) has a rare form of breast cancer, my cousin decided to put the wedding on hold. i still think i wanna go back and visit since i already have the vacation time for when the wedding would have been. this particular aunt is definitely the one i’m closest to out of my entire extended family (my dad is one of nine kids) and i haven’t seen her in a few years, so it’s something i really want to do.

i may end up going back sooner than september, though, depending on if my grandma passes away before then. she has dementia and it’s gotten to the point where she can’t swallow anymore, and because of that whenever she tried to eat, a bunch of fluid got into her lungs and she caught pneumonia and ended up in the hospital, and she’s now on a feeding tube as of the last update i heard from my dad and i just. i feel bad but also my grandma was nothing but abusive to everyone in her family--my dad, his brothers and sisters, my cousins, me, my sister, my mom, etc.--and i feel no closeness to her whatsoever so like, i almost feel like i don’t care if she dies or not? but i’m still gonna go back for the funeral and such when she does go because it’s important to me to be with my family. especially because i never see them because i live across the country from them.

some good stuff, uh, my boyfriend got a new job that he starts on april 1st. it’s a full-time gig and he’ll be making more money than me so hopefully that will help as far as our plans to move in together next year (holy fuck i can’t believe i’m in that point in a relationship, wtf). marriage has been lightly in the talks as well and i’m like awsiuhjkdsagflkdshl wtf

my job sucks but i’m applying for other jobs here and there. it’s possible that i’m looking at a promotion in the next six months at my current job so i’m kiiiiiiiinda waiting to see what happens with that, but also i’m applying for positions elsewhere to see if i get any bites. nothing so far, but the situation isn’t dire so it’s whatevs. i’m considering picking up a second job again, especially if presea needs surgery.

my birthday is in nine days (march 31st) and i just hope to have a good and relaxing day

uhhh anyway that’s it for now, i think. i haven’t been super active on here lately and i miss it, so i’m gonna try and be around more. i also want to keep working on my fanfics and i’m gonna be pulling out some of my old plays and fixing those up because i know of a group in denver that does live readings of plays by local playwrights and i think that might be fun to try, if anything. i also need to work on sending some of my poems and short stories out to like lit journals/magazines and such this year and hope i get at least one thing published. i ain’t aiming for the stars, here, just something to get me started, y’know?

if you made it here to the end, thanks for reading. <3