#but seriously as someone who is suicidal to hear the characters say that just shatters my heart

[bastionbibi]

Detco really needs to focus on cases and basic character development and stir away from nuanced topics. Because what do you mean life is precious and you cant kill yourself because it doesnt BELONG to you? What do you mean killing your abusers that almost killed you is the wrong thing to do? What is wrong with you???

The only thing a person have from their birth is their life and they try to go and make it deep and steal it from them.

Like how conan always stop ppl from commiting suicide etc despite himself being the one that pushed them to that point and he KNOWS it. He's a really selfish guy, stopping people from ending their misery because it makes him feel like a villian, and im fine with that but when i see fans agreeing with it it just makes my skin crawl because like. To rob someone of the only thing they have in this world, their choice to continue to keep it or end it. How cruel.

One of my inspiration for my Forsaken fic is how lives aren't precious actually. It's just is. It's just. Is. Life exist, precious or not is a matter of perspective.

[anthurak]

So I’ve been thinking more about one of the more subtle but striking questions brought up by Ruby’s tree vision:

Namely; to where or rather to who were Raven and Summer portaling to? After all, it’s been established that Raven’s semblance, Kindred Link, allows her to create portals specifically to people she has established a certain bond and connection with.

And this is particularly interesting, because of the people we thus far know have Raven’s ‘Link’, only ONE was otherwise not present in the flashback; Qrow.

And wouldn’t you know it; Qrow also happens to be one of the people we can definitively say DOESN’T know what happened to Summer, going off his talk with Ruby in Volume 7 where he mentions having no idea where Summer went or what she was doing on her mysterious last mission.

Now, as I’m sure some people will bring up, it IS possible that Qrow was actually present and is simply keeping quiet about it to Ruby. However, personally I seriously doubt that. As I simply don’t see the writers cheapening such a personal and important scene between Ruby and Qrow by later revealing that Qrow was actually outright lying to Ruby at the time.

So that seemingly leaves us with seemingly only one other option: That Summer and Raven portaled to someone else.

As to who that someone might be? Well personally, I think it would have to be someone we likely haven’t met yet. I know some people have suggested it could have been Ozpin, but frankly I don’t buy that one bit. Whatever happened to Summer is clearly meant to have MASSIVE implications, impact and general status-quo shattering revelations, all things it would make much more sense that Oz has NO idea to. Not to mention it’s kind of hard to imagine Raven forming a link, clearly a very close connection, with someone she seems to have always distrusted like Ozpin. Meaning that we’re left with a character that we simply haven’t be introduced to yet.

However, after giving it some more thought, I think there may be a THIRD option:

Raven and Summer DIDN’T actually portal to a person.

Remember just how we learned the mechanics of Raven’s semblance?

It was via Yang explaining it, via information she was told by TAI.

Here’s the thing though; Tai certainly knew how Raven’s semblance worked back when they were a team with Summer and Qrow. But it’s also been a LONG time since then. And wouldn’t you know it, these last couple volumes have ALSO introduced us to the concept of SEMBLANCE EVOLUTION.

So what if in the near-twenty-odd years since leaving her team, Raven’s semblance ALSO ‘evolved’? To the point where she can form her ‘Links’ with more than JUST people?

Perhaps now Raven can form a link with objects that have particular significance to her? Or, and this one I find the most compelling, LOCATIONS that are particularly important to her?

It’s funny that we’ve never actually known for sure where or to who Raven has been portalling to all the times we’ve seen her. Sure, in hindsight I think we’ve all been assuming it was Vernal in Volumes 2, 3, and 4, and to Taiyang at the end of Volume 5. But the funny thing is, we DON’T actually hear the characteristic sound of Raven’s portal opening in the V5 post-credits scene with Tai, only the flapping of wings. Implying that Raven may not have actually portalled to Tai directly…

Meaning that throughout the show, perhaps Raven wasn’t actually portalling to Vernal, but rather to the camp, the home which now has great significance and meaning to her. And at the end of Volume 5, she portalled not to Tai, but rather to the home she once had on Patch. Or, for the REAL spicy alternative, to Summer’s grave.

So what if at the start of their world-most-homoerotic-suicide-mission together, Raven and Summer portalled not to a person, but rather to a LOCATION that Raven was able to set up a link to?

(shoutout to @mikey-polo420 for the ask that got me thinking about this :D)

[slicznymartwy]

Hello, can I request Billy Lenz with an s/o who is also a murderer? Like one of the members of the sorority had snapped and started killing or maybe Billy accidentally witnesses a murder when he's out of the house and develops an obsession? Love your writing!!!

fish .. ur so genius as always. i loved writing this so much, like genuinely i want to expand on this more one day .. just 2 very sick people against the world ueueue warning: brief mention of suicide/self harm, bullying, the sorority sisters are kind of mean in this one im sorry T T u guys know i love all of them, minor oc character death (she deserves it)

☾⋆⁺₊ billy lenz x gn!reader

The puddle shimmers under the dim light coming from your bedside lamp; it’s a mix of glitter and little shards of glass that get swept up in the spreading fluid. The base of the snow globe lays in the rubble, the little Bambi figurine is broken too. You can see his decapitated head lonely on the floor.

“Oops,” Susan says. You can’t stand to look at her, but it sounds like she’s smiling. This must be really funny to her, you think to yourself, still watching the snow globe’s blood spread. 

Your hands tighten into fists. Your breath shudders. Your ears are still ringing from the sound of your most precious treasure shattering on the floor.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to cry,” Susan goads, but your eyes feel dry. You used to cry when her bullying began. She would stand on the other side of the bathroom door and let you hear how hilarious she thought you were being. You hate her laugh. It’s ugly, like a braying horse spooked in its stable. No one else seems to mind it, though. None of your sorority sisters ask her to stop, even when she’s laughing so hard that she cries too.

Your father bought you that snow globe. He used to shake it up for you then put it in your hands, making you promise to be careful with it. He died when you were ten. The glitter in Bambi’s eyes makes it look like he’s weeping for you.

“It’s just a piece of shit toy, anyways. You’re too old for a stupid Bambi snow globe, aren’t you? I mean, that’s probably why no one wants to date you. Everyone can tell you’re just a weird loser freak. I don’t even know how you got into this sorority. I’d ask if you slept with someone to get here, but I don’t think there’s a single person on Earth that would take you up on that.”

You keep watching the puddle. It turns the wood dark as it flows into the cracks. Susan laughs and laughs, you can see her holding onto her stomach like she’s making herself sick. 

“Hello? Are you ignoring me now?”

You look up at her. Her smile is ugly and mean.

She follows behind you as you walk downstairs.

“Where the fuck are you going? Are you leaving? Don’t you know it’s rude to ignore someone who’s talking to you? Hello!”

She’s in your ear like a gnat. You don’t know why she can’t just leave you alone. You walk into the kitchen, and you rip your arm out of her attempt to hold you back.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, huh? Are you broken or something? You can’t just ignore me!”

You pull a knife out from the storage block. She guffaws, rolling her eyes.

“Seriously? You fucking bitch. Is that for me, or are you finally going to off yourself already? Everyone’s placing bets, you know,” she says, still laughing. “Go ahead and do it. Slit your wrists, I won’t save you if you do.”

You’re not laughing. You stare at her. The knife is surprisingly heavy in your hand. You lift it up by your head.

Her laughter dies down.

“You can’t be serious. It was a joke!” she says. She stumbles back, but you follow her. “Stop it! What the fuck is wrong with you!”

She runs up the stairs and you follow her. In the long straight hallway, you lunge and drive the knife into her back. Susan screams as she falls, and you follow her down. She’s screaming and writhing in pain, but you sit on her hips and drive the knife down again and again. She’s leaking like the snow globe, her fluids spreading across her shirt. Once she’s quiet, you sit back on top of her.

Sniffling, you lay down the knife on top of her back. You feel numb inside still; part of you had hoped that doing this would snap you out of it, but it didn’t. You don’t react when you hear someone climbing down from the attic. You only barely glance at him when he kneels down next to you.

“I’m sorry,” you murmur to him.

“It’s okay,” he whispers back. “You didn’t mean it.”

“I think I did,” you admit.

“Bitch whore deserved it. Fucking cunt.” There’s so much animosity in his voice. You wonder why you’re spared from it. You wonder who this stranger is.

Still, you don’t respond to him. You keep watching the blood grow.

“I can help,” he says after a moment. His voice is quiet and nervous, like he’s never said those words before and wasn’t sure how to pronounce them. He gestures you to climb off of her and you do, standing up shakily beside him.

“How?” you ask. He doesn’t answer you, just hands you the knife and takes a hold of your dead sister. He holds her wrists and hauls her towards the attic ladder. Her blood smears like jelly on hardwood toast. 

“Fuck. Fuck,” you mutter to yourself. You need to clean the mess before it stains. You hurry to the bathroom, running the hot water and putting on gloves. When you get back to the hallway, all that’s left is blood. You clean diligently, and it’s all mostly out. What’s left might be unnoticeable to someone who doesn’t know where to look.

The man comes back down, his sweater covered in blood. You frown.

“I have to wash that before it stains,” you say. You take him to the bathroom, and he sits shirtless on the floor next to you as you rub out the stains in the tub.

He keeps looking at you, you can feel his eyes on the side of your face. You don’t look back at him.

“I can help,” he says suddenly. He sounds more sure now.

“It’s almost out,” you say, shaking your head.

“I can kill the rest,” he says. Your hands stop moving in the freezing cold water.

“You don’t have to,” you murmur, still not looking at him. 

“You’re so pretty.”

“They’re not all like her,” you tell him gently, ignoring his comment.

“They’re pig sluts. Disgusting shit-smelling whores,” he spits. You look at him then.

“What about me?” you ask him quietly. He looks into your eyes.

“You’re so pretty. I like Bambi,” he says. 

You couldn’t cry before, but now you mourn your snow globe. Your face crumples, and the stranger hugs you.

“They’re so mean sometimes,” you whimper. “I don’t know why they hate me.”

“I can help,” he says into your ear. “Billy wants to help Bambi.”

You know there’s no saving Bambi, though. His head is cut off and he’s crying in his own blood. All that’s left are shards of glass.

© slicznymartwy 2023, please do not repost or copy.

a/n: reblogs and replies are really appreciated <;3

[thelastyetfabolousmidwestmadman]

That One Fanfic Idea I Had That Was Too Fucked Up For Me

So picture this.

Your watching Highschool DXD with your mother. It’s weird I know but my mom has done much more disgusting stuff so it seems rather normal in comparison... 

No? You Don’t want to picture it?

Kay, now stop picturing it, cause you’re either squicked out or have issues so imagine just watching alone, with a friend, or if good fortune strikes you the best girlfriend/Boyfriend ever.

But lets talk about YOU.

You are a lonely depressed coed, who straight out of high school suffered one of the most painful experiences of your life. The one you love the most just broke up with you for reasons you don’t understand or can comprehend at the time. 

For brevity’s sake I won’t tell the cause of what happened between me and my ex. I think some things should remain private and everyday I’m regretful for how I acted and wish that things could have gone differently. That is the past now and it should only be revisited to show how much you changed for the better.

You present yourself a mask of happiness when in reality you are in so much pain you are genuinely considering suicide but in a attempt to keep your mind off the pain, you listen to music that you never liked before because what you loved reminds you of them, and most importantly you watch shows that you previously had no interest in due to a desperate attempt to feel something, anything.

Its been nearly four years since that happened and some things are better but the scars still bleed deeply in the sides of my cerebrum. Today while I still have many issues and I wont pretend to have them together, but with the passing of time wounds become less salted and eventually will heal. Parts of myself I lost I’ve regained and that has made me proud but in other ways my trauma made myself break in two more then shatter. I may never be the same again but that doesn’t mean I could be something new or better.

Some of you might me wondering, “Why Madman, why are you talking about this now.” Well if there is one positive thing I can say about what happened is that it made ma a better writer. I now take my time, and don’t stress out about due dates. Since I experience one of the worst experiences of my life, I could greater write and understand the pain, sadness, and fears the characters I adapted experienced. I guess talent increases through suffering and struggle. I guess the best I can say was before I wrote like a child who hears a song and only focuses on the feelings in their simplistic form while now the adult who has life experience and sense the greater meaning.

But even now I still have so much to learn, and improve from! Sometimes I look at both my ongoing and old work with a equal measure of fondness and disappointment knowing what I know now. Even after the tragedy, I wrote in stasis for a while and works like Goodbye Innocence could have started less like a soup opera and be better for it. But suddenly I had a ephinany. I couldn’t allow myself to keep my writing at this level with the lackadaisical attitude I had before. I had to try harder! And that meant  updating less and taking my time to get back in touch in why I loved writing so.

Then it hit me. The childish magic and wonder I got from writing hasn’t left me at all, even at my lowest most pathetic moments. There are people better then me and instead of repeatedly getting down on myself, I accepted my limitations and regained my enthusiasm that I thought lost. 

But briefly over a period of twenty months my mind sorta went to a dark, bitter place and I sorta gave in into nihilism and despair. I kept thinking about Deconstructionism in general and what it could be applied. As you could guess, my mind landed on one show in particular.

So I kept stretching out my mind, in a rather feverish pace, thinking about how could I turn Highschool DXD dark? I mean the show is literally nothing but fanservice and tame ultraviolence how can anyone possibly make that edgy? Even without Funimation’s help the show is so ludicrous how could anyone take a dark fic seriously?

Well... Unfortunately for my sins, I came up with one.

I thought about Issei when I got to the Diadora Asteroth part. I thought about how hypocritical he could be at times considering how he tried to influence Gasper into stopping time in order to fondle unknowing women, which is pretty much beyond comedic anime perversion and more Diadora levels of sexual predation. 

Granted, I’ve long since learned that if you spend all the time thinking about the unfortunate implications of jokes, plotlines, and character arcs, particularly in politically astute context like myself, you’re quickly drive yourself crazy and be unable to enjoy any work of fiction ever. There are some that are admittedly more egregious than others but author’s intent, values dissonance/resonance, and alternative implications are important to examine as well. Life is too short to turn into a zealot and their are other social-economic problems that require requisitely radical solutions like Medicare For All, Reparations, BDS, etc that are more important to focus on then minor shit like this but anyway why the fuck am I rambling, you didn’t read this far to hear me pontificate on politics, back to the point.

TRIGGER WARNING from this point onwards

So the idea goes like this. The girls of Rias’s harem fall in love with Issei just like in canon. But what if said love is only due to Ddraig’s influence? What it Issei now had a excuse and means to justify his perversions and channel them into outright sexual and emotional abuse?

Yeah I don’t particularly feel like going further into what I entailed other than saying that it got really graphic and disturbing. So why you may ask, why would someone who was infamous for his rape fics be unable to write this of all things?

I couldn’t stomach it.

The amount of talent required at the time was beyond me and I think it’s beyond me even now but lets pause for a second and really think about this. This is something that I have no experience but sadly too many people do. IF I got even the most single fact wrong, I simply wouldn’t be able to forgive myself.

Even worse, the part that I would be at most knowledgeable about, the emotional aspect of abuse, would bring up memories that I would rather not think about.

You don’t like fics like this out of passion or joy, you write them out of sheer artistic conveyance to a particular issue. You write them cause you are in pain. You write them to punish yourself. You write them to reveal a dark part of yourself you suppress with thousands of years of civilization and morality. It would be an all around miserable experience for everything.

And why would I do that to myself and others? That is not the sign of a healthy mindset and it is counterproductive to the reason I write dark fics in general.

So I am happy to toss this idea in the bin. I can’t stop anyone from doing this idea, all power to you, but I don’t want to read it. Perhaps my curiosity would get to the better of me.

Either way, I say goodbye to this fic, and hopefully this painful period of my life.

Peace.

[inevitably-johnlocked]

I know this is controversial but do you have any johnlock non-con or (preferably) dub-con for the twisted minds out there? If it's roleplay even better. If you don't do this sort of stuff just ignore me.

Hey Nonny!

Ahh, I usually don’t so I don’t have a lot of personal recs (more… it just happened in the fic and it’s a side issue), but I’ll give you the ones I have bookmarked as well as the ones I have on my MFL list, if only to bloat this list a bit more, LOL.

Cheers, and as always, if anyone has some recs, please let us know!

NON-CONSENT / DUBIOUS CONSENT

See also Alexx’s Lists:

John bottoms, Dub-con - Johniarty, Johnlock, Johncroft

Alpha!John, Omega!Sherlock & the Dub-con sex

Dubcon Johnlock

Drugged Non-con sex

Johnlock non-con and dub-con sex

And my alternate list: Consent and Relationship Negotiations 

Upon Waking by joolabee (E, 3,901 w., 1 Ch. || Mild Dub Con, Magical Realism, Angst, Somnophilia) – It sets on slow: John can only be awake while Sherlock sleeps, and vice versa. Their lives are codependent, but never meeting. Like a set of scales.

A Certain Kind of Hunger by MapleleafCameo (E, 5,881 w., 1 Ch. || Magical Creatures || Incubus!John, Worried Sherlock, Tail Penetration, Somnophilia, PWP, Threats of Non-Con) – A concerned Sherlock watches as John seems to be rapidly losing weight. What he discovers is that John really isn't normal. And he is very, very hungry. The tail was the real surprise.

Caves in the Mountains Are Seldom Unoccupied by starrysummernights & TheMadKatter13 (E, 7,925 w., 1 Ch. || Were-Creatures, Werebear John, Pseudo Bestiality, Rimming, Dub Con, Rough Sex, Come Inflation / Eating, Size Kink, PWP, Bratty Sherlock, Rutting) – “This isn’t something to play at, Sherlock,” he snapped. “If it doesn’t work out- what you’re asking of me- we can’t shrug and say 'oh well, at least we tried'. If we do this… I could seriously hurt you. Do you understand? I could lose control. I could… I could kill you.”

On the Losing Side by missselene (E, 8,210 w., 1 Ch. || Anal / Oral, First Kiss / Time, Angst, Misunderstandings, Mild Dub Con / Drunk John) – After Mary's death, John moves back into Baker Street, but is still upset at the loss of his wife and child. Eventually, he and Sherlock stumble into a sort of relationship, but it's more physical than anything and they don't talk about it. They especially don't talk during sex. If they are going to have sex, Sherlock notices the signs hours beforehand, and he prepares carefully. The lights are off, they're under the covers, he prepares himself using lots of lube so he can make it feel as much like a woman as he can, and he doesn't let himself make any noise so that, if John wishes, he can pretend that he's still with Mary.

Better Than One by Innerspace (E, 14,760 w. 1 Ch. || Threesome, Self-cest / Clone Sex, First Time, BJ’s, Power Play, Slight Dub-Con) – Sherlock creates a clone and discovers things about himself and John he never imagined. John is just along for the ride, so to speak.

Kintsugi by distantstarlight (E, 14,772 w., 1 Ch. || Post S4, Emotional Hurt / Comfort, Regret / Remorse, Loneliness, Separation, Drug Use, Healing, Protective John, Sad Sherlock, Dev. Rel., Complicated Relationships, Love, Angst With Happy Ending, Sherlock is Called Freak, John’s Penance, Voyeurism, Doctor/Caretaker John, Guilty John, Detox, Fingering, Love Confessions, Cuddling, Slight Non-Con Turns Enthusiastic Consent, Virgin Sherlock) – Sherlock Holmes becomes estranged from the man he had once considered his best friend after John lets him down horribly in public. It seems that the world's only consulting detective will be on his own once again...or will he?

The Midas Touch by flawedamythyst (E, 32,231 w., 1 Ch. || Magical Realism, John has a Magical Cock, Dub Con, Healer John) – John Watson has a medical condition that means everyone he sleeps with is instantly healed of all illness and injury. This causes complications when Sherlock breaks his arm, and even more complications when Sherlock falls in love with him. Yes, this is a story where John has a literal magic healing cock. It's a lot less cracky than you're probably imagining. Warning: Contains complex issues of sexual consent, although not between Sherlock and John.

A Love with No Name Series by aceofhearts61 (G to M, 49,955 w. across 20 stories || Asexual Sherlock / Straight John, Est. Rel, Queerplatonic Relationship, Romance, Cuddling, Fluff, Platonic Romance, Domestics, Rape/Non-Con) – In which Asexual!Sherlock and Straight!John are platonically in love life partners.

Coventry by standbygo (E, 52,020 w., 26 Ch. || Dollhouse AU || Case Fic, Slow Burn, Sci-Fi / Fantasy, First Kiss / Time, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, BAMF John, Falling in Love) – “Let me get this straight,” John said, wondering when his life had become a science fiction film. “Some guy orders up a personality, a person, to his specifications, and they program this into a real live person, who has consented to do this, and she goes to this person and acts as his wife, or lawyer, or Royal Marine, or Navy Seal or what have you, and she has all the skills, all the knowledge, everything? Then you say the magic words, and she follows you back to The House, and they erase it all until her next appointment?”

Scars by SilentAuror (E, 60,494 w., 5 Ch. || Rape / Non-Con / Abuse, Gaslighting, Manipulation, Dub Con Elements, Homophobia, Angst With Happy Ending, Mary is Not Nice) – S3 rewrite, showing Mary’s manipulation of John as he realizes his love for Sherlock. Mary is not having it.

A Cure For Boredom by emmagrant01 (E, 81,665 w., 8 Ch. || Dirty Talk, Threesomes, Light Dom/Sub, Sex Club, Experiments, Anal, Mildly Dubious Consent) – They’d never talked about sex in the year they’d known each other. Well, that wasn’t quite correct: Sherlock had never said a word about sex; John had bemoaned his personal dearth of it on many occasions.

Secrets and Revelations by Hisstah (E, 83,535 w., 9 Ch. || Sentinel / Guides Omegaverse AU || Adventure, Violence, Anal / Oral, Omega!John / Alpha!Sherlock, Case Fic, Politics, Mild DubCon) – Dr John Watson has some major secrets that he's kept from his flatmate, Alpha Sentinel Sherlock Holmes. Now the Sentinel Tower is after him. Can John stay out of their hands until he can reveal his secrets to Sherlock? Part 1 of Secrets and Revelations

Not Broken, Just Bent by Schmiezi (E, 87,585 w., 43 Ch. || Pining, Love Confessions, Rape/Sexual Assault, Torture, Hurt/Comfort, Heavy Angst, Villain!Mary, Suicidal Ideations, Main Character Death, Sherlock First Person POV, Parentlock, Sherlock’s Mind Palace, Grief/Mourning, Emotional Love Making, Possessiveness, Depression, PTSD, Kidnapping, Virgin Sherlock, Eventual Happy Ending) – "For a second, I allow myself to remember teaching John how to waltz. There is a special room in my mind palace for it. A big one, with a proper parquet dance floor. For a second, I go there. I remember holding him, closer than the World Dance Council asks for, excusing it with the fact that we are training for a wedding, not for a competition. For a second, I feel his hand on mine again, smell his sweat, hear the song we used. For a second, I allow myself to love him deeply. For a second, only a second, that love reflects on my face." Fix-it for S3, starting at the end of TSoT. Evil Mary.

Shatter the Darkness (Let the Light In) by MojoFlower (E, 109,683 w., 23 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Genie/Djinn AU || Magical Realism, Kidnapping, Genie Sherlock, First Kiss / Time, Case Fic, H/C, Angst, Clubs, John Whump, Mild DubCon, Hand / Blow Jobs, Torture) – Fairy tales are for those who remember how to dream; not John Watson, broken and hiding from his bleak future in a beige bedsit. But then he discovers a lamp and finds himself in the dangerous riptide of an enigmatic man whose very existence is unbelievable, murder charges against his sister, and the growing pains of feeling alive once more.

Ten Days by Engazed (E, 137,208 w., 31 Ch. || Rape/Non-Con, Post-TRF, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Torture, Case Fic) – Sherlock Holmes has been dead for forty months, and John is at last beginning to live his life again. But just when he believes he might be happy, his world crashes back down around him. John is named a missing person. Someone is pointing DI Lestrade in the wrong direction. And as the days pass, his situation only grows more dire. It seems like the disappearance of his best friend is the only thing that can bring Sherlock Holmes back from the dead. Part 1 of The Fallen

A Fold in the Universe by darkest_bird (E, 152,869 w., 26 Ch. || Omegaverse / Prime Universe Crossover || OmegaJohn / AlphaSherlock, First Kiss / Time, Friends to Lovers, Established Relationship, Angst, H/C, Dub Con, Humour) – Alpha Sherlock and Omega John are in a relationship. Prime Sherlock and Prime John are not. So what happens when a freak fold in the universe switches one John for the other?

The Gilded Cage by BeautifulFiction (E, 326,887 w., 31 Ch. || Omegaverse || Omega Sherlock / Alpha John, Friends to Lovers, Dub Con, Reproductive Rights) – In a world where Omegas are the property of the elite Alphas, locked away and treasured by those wealthy enough to buy them, John never questioned his flatmate's secondary gender. Sherlock Holmes was an Alpha through-and through. Wasn't he? A chance discovery turns the world on its head, and John is left grappling to come to terms with Sherlock's past as events conspire to threaten their future.

MARKED FOR LATER

Three drinks or was it five by iriswallpaper (M, 1,455 w., 1 Ch. || Mild Dub Con / Drunk Sex, Morning After, First Time, Awkwardness / Awkward Sex, Idiots in Love, Avoiding The Talk™/Miscommunication, Fluff, Happy Ending) – Sherlock wakes up beside John, naked in his bed, after a night of getting hammered together on very good Scotch. Trying to spare John embarrassment, Sherlock makes as much noise as possible to indirectly wake John, all the while dreading the Very Important Talk he knows John will want to have.

Scars by Mildredandbobbin (M, 2,516 w., 2 Ch. || Post-TSoT/Pre-HLV, Rape/Non-Con, Hurt/Comfort, Rape Aftermath, Past Torture, Pre-Slash) – On his honeymoon, John starts receiving anonymous texts with increasingly disturbing images. He discovers how much he doesn't know about Sherlock's time away. Part 1 of the Scars series

No Means No by lindor1306 (M, 3,606 w., 1 Ch. || Post-TRF, Underage / Non Con / Rape / Child Abuse, Dub Con, Drunkenness) – When Sherlock attends a party with John, he finds himself in a horribly familiar situation, and learns the meaning of the word 'No'.

Tumblr Mini-fics #7: Triskadekaphilia Fic Fest - The Johnlock Fics by berlynn_wohl (E, 3,791 w., 16 Ch. || First Time, Alley Sex, Dub. Con., Loss of Virginity, Oral Sex, ABO Dynamics, Mpreg, Omega Sherlock, Sub Sherlock, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Chastity Device, Drugged Sherlock, Milking, Omega John, Experiments, Nudity, Yoga) – In March 2013, I celebrated 1300 Tumblr followers with my Triskadekaphilia Fic Fest. Followers requested a pairing and a kink, and I wrote a fill for each that was 13 sentences long, with one sentence that was 13 words long, and with one word that was 13 letters long. These are the resulting Johnlock fics. Part 7 of the Tumblr Mini-Fics series

If You Go Out in the Woods Today by Sexxica (E, 5,247 w., 1 Ch. || Fawnlock, Mythical Beings/Creatures, Teen John, Virgin John, Anal Sex / Fingering, Mildly Dub. Con., Bottom John, Top Sherlock, Outdoor Sex, Blow Jobs) – You're sure of a big surprise. 18 year old John Watson certainly didn't expect to stumble into the realm of a forest god, let alone one demanding payment in order to let him and his friend Mike leave.

Company by lookupkate (E, 6,004 w., 2 Ch. || BDSM Club AU || Dom John, Sub Sherlock, Soft Dom John, Mentions of Previous Bad D/S Relationship, Past Non-Con, Humiliation, Happy Ending) – Sherlock goes under cover to suss out an embezzler at a BDSM club. His past is marred by an ex-boyfriend who verbally abused him under the guise of a D/s relationship. What he thinks he needs is a little different than what he needs. Luckily he's placed with someone who can see how fragile he is, Dom John Watson. Once the case is over he realises how much he's going to miss the man. Damn.

Let's go home by thewallflower07 (M, 6,333 w., 2 Ch. || Post-S3, POV Lestrade, Cuddling, Snuggling, Protective John, Hurt/Comfort, Hospital, Restraint, Psychological/Physical Torture, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Non-Con Touching, Non-Con Drug Use, Kidnapping, Fever Dream/Hallucinations, Villain Mary) – Lestrade is driving John to the hospital and helps him bring a heavily injured Sherlock home. In a flashback Mary had kidnapped Sherlock and played her cruel tricks on him. Sherlock is walking through a weird London where nothing is logical and he sees a John Watson he no longer recognizes.

Splat! by Vulgarweed (E, 6,618 w., 1 Ch. || Historical Appalachian 1970′s AU || Dom / Sub, Gunplay, Knifeplay, “Non-Con” Roleplay, Switchlock, Anal, Rimming, Bondage, Hunting Kink, Rough Sex, Object Insertion, Dirty Talk, Comeplay) – Sherlock decides he does want to go hunting with John after all. But not for deer. Part 2 of the The Bone Fiddle series

Pulse by SoftTae (E, 6,620 w., 1 Ch. || Vampire AU || Vampire John, Human Sherlock, Dark John, Dub Con, Rape/Non-Con Elements, Blood Drinking, Anal, Light Bondage, Violent Sex, Biting, Vampire Sex, Angst, Preditor/Prey Dynamic) – This was written for a friend who asked for vampire John, and human Sherlock.

Black Cat by CatieBrie (E, 7,158 w., 1 Ch. || Psychological Horror, Supernatural Elements, Disturbing Themes, Body Horror, Sex, Major Consent Issues / Possible Rape, MCD, Intent Magic, Ambiguity) – He’s watching Sherlock crawl up his body, doesn’t have to see to know he has a blade tucked away somewhere, knows his body will react no matter what. “Do you know what this is, John?” Sherlock holds up a doll made of rudimentary cloth stuffed with god knows what. It’s wearing a crude rendition of John’s favorite striped shirt, denim pants and the hair is too fine and blonde-shocked-grey to be anything else but his.John tries to answer, has no voice, shakes his head. “It’s a poppet.” Sherlock explains, pushes the arms together and John’s limbs react, snapping to his sides and remaining there even as he tries desperately to struggle free.

Perception by orphan_account (M, 7,821 w., 1 Ch. || Rape/Non-Con) – John is perceptive sometimes.

A Chemical Defect Found (On the Losing Side Remix) by AreteArt (M, 7,978 w., 1 Ch. || First Time / Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Mildly Dubious Consent, Angst, Fluff, Misunderstandings, Pining, Anal / Oral Sex, Frottage) – A remix of missselene's "On the Losing Side." After Mary's death, John moves back into Baker Street. He and Sherlock stumble into a relationship, or something of that sort. Sherlock's rather giving when it comes to sex, but that doesn't mean he and John ever talk about it.

A Study in Asexuality by ladyxdarcy (M, 8,082 w., 1 Ch. || Asexual Sherlock, Bisexual John, Acephobia, Mentions of Rape/Corrective Rape Therapy, Past Suicidal Ideation, Implied / Referenced Drug Use, Overdose, Past Mary/John, Emotional Sherlock, Insecure Sherlock, Vulnerable Sherlock, Est. Rel., Angst with Happy Ending, Fluff) – When Sherlock, asexual to his core, fears that John may grow bored of a sexless life, he decides to do whatever it takes to make John happy so he stays. Good thing John is already happy.

as if not spoken to in the act of love by coloredink (E, 8,288 w., 1 Ch. || Dubious Consent, Codependency, Angst, Drama, Consent Issues) – Sherlock endures the indignities, bodies squirming against one another, the sweat, the saliva, because of John's jam in the fridge and sour-breathed kisses in the morning.

Making History by SaraDobieBauer (M, 8,622 w., 6 Ch. || Vampire AU || Season 1, Vampire John, Dark John, Bondage, Dub Con, Virgin Sherlock) – Sherlock Holmes lay unconscious and handcuffed to John’s bed. John had been waiting for this day ever since he’d first met the consulting detective. He'd been waiting for centuries really.

Slave by skadi_zlata (E, 15,654 w., 1 Ch. || Slavery AU || Rape/Non-Con, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Dub Con, Abuse, Angst, Hurt/Comfort) – In the gambling dens of a vaguely AU London, John Watson has won and lost fortunes in a night. One evening he winds up playing with entirely the wrong crowd, the kind of people that make him feel he’ll be lucky to get out of there with his life – let alone anything else. But the announced prize is somewhat unexpected. It’s an abused slave with dark curly hair and mesmerizing blue-grey eyes.

Kingdoms Rise by colbee (E, 15,668 w., 1 Ch. || Post-TRF, References to Canon, Graphic Descriptions of Crime Scenes, Mentions of Rape) – "The name is Sherlock Holmes, and I broke in."

The Wench Is Dead by Chryse (E, 15,915 w., 1 Ch. || Underage, Extreme Dub Con, Flashback, Manipulative Relationship) – “You thought…not just you, Molly too. Probably everyone assumed it. You thought that bad things happened because I used drugs. That I made terrible choices and got myself hurt. And you weren’t wrong, not exactly. You just got it backwards.” What Sherlock put in the box. Part 2 of the Another Country series

Evidence of Human Life by thesardine (E, 16,906 w., 1 Ch. || Possessive Sherlock, Mental Health Issues, Rough Sex, Dubious Consent) – Sherlock's sanity deteriorates while he and John are stranded on a deserted island.

Broken Wings and Cigarettes by solisandluna (NC-17, 20,298 w., 10 Ch. || Violence, Abuse, Rape, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Sherlock Whump, Dark Story) – Sherlock has been missing for two years. So when he is found in a cellar, tortured and raped, how will John help him recover? Can he get over the shock and guilt of seeing his seeing his friend so abused? And can Sherlock be fixed?

A Question of Intent by Mildredandbobbin (E, 22,129 w., 6 Ch. || Omegaverse || Dub Con / Consent Issues, Misunderstandings, Knotting, First Time, Switching, Mating Cycles, Top/Bottom O!Sherlock, Top/Bottom A!John) – Sherlock was on the bed, naked, writhing, tangled in the sheets, on all fours and apparently in the full throes of a Heat. So very not good, the non-lizard part of John's brain was saying -- the enlightened 21st Century, reconstructed Alpha part, the part that supported Omega contra-heat, equality, pro-choice, the Omega rape legislation and general gender liberation. The part that knew Sherlock did not, obviously did not, want to copulate with him and certainly did not want to bond.

Consent by KeelieThompson1 (M, 26,466 w., 11 Ch. || OMC, Rape/Non-Con, Rape Recovery, Sexual Abuse, Emotional Abuse, Developing Relationship, Triggers) – Sherlock has a difficult past regarding sex which John discovers when he tries to change their relationship.

Dubious by mslilylashes (M, 29,907 w., 14 Ch. || Rape/Non-Con, Dub. Con, Abusive Relationships, Victor Trevor) – John says every time Sherlock says 'stop' he will do so immediately. Sherlock knows that there is always a point that most men say they can't stop. The idea that John might be so much more than what Sherlock has come to expect from other men intrigues him, so he begins an experiment in consent. John begins to realise he is being tested, but he doesn't know why. (Does he ever when it comes to Sherlock?) All he knows is that something happened in Sherlock's past to make him think that what he wants or doesn't want doesn't matter in the bedroom. Then the nightmares start. Part 1 of the Dubious series

Lessons in Astronomy Series by CaitlinFairchild (E, 31,164 w. across 3 stories || Angst, Post S3, Grief/Mourning, Mildly DubCon, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Physical Abuse, Oral/Anal Sex, Unrequited Love, Pining, Sibling Incest (No Actual Holmescest), Masturbation, Accidental Voyeurism, Drug Addiction, Romance, Dev. Rel., Trust Issues, Happy Ending) – In a different time, a more naive time, Sherlock thought he was the star and John the satellite, circling him in worshipful orbit. He knows now that was never true. John was always the sun, bright and fierce, and Sherlock was the pale, cold moon, his only heat coming from the light he reflected. And then his sun went into supernova. Moriarty said he would burn him and he has, and John is the fire, his rage and grief incinerating Sherlock, burning the heart out of him in the end, turning him into nothing but cinder and ash. And now the supernova is collapsing, a black hole born where there was once warmth and heat and love, and Sherlock is being pulled down, down past the event horizon, into the endless frozen void where nothing can ever escape.

Unsettled by AxeMeAboutAxinomancy (E, 33,879 w., 10 Ch. || HIs Dark Materials AU || Daemons, Dark Themes, Non-Con) – Sherlock's dæmon hadn't settled. Once John realised that, so much made sense. Though so much else didn't, because it practically wasn't possible. Part 1 of the The Utmost Edge of Hazard series

The Half-Life of Love by Calais_Reno (E, 38,751 w., 12 Ch. || Dev. Rel. Angst with Happy Ending, Obsessive / Possessive Sherlock, Different First Meeting, Manipulative Mycroft, Drug Withdrawal, Rehabilitation, Pining, Mild Dub Con, Abusive Parents) – “Maybe we met too soon or at the wrong time, under the wrong circumstances,” said John. Sherlock shrugged. “Hypothesis Contrary to Fact: none of these 'what ifs' happened, so it’s all pointless speculation. We did, in fact, meet at a specific time and place.”

Renegades by augustbird (E, 39,405 w., 12 Ch. || TRF AU, Dubious Consent, Torture, Drug Use) –  Sherlock Holmes takes down Moriarty’s syndicate. He also takes John Watson with him. AU of The Reichenbach Fall.

Shadow by MapleleafCameo (M, 40,845 w., 11 Ch. || Rape/Non-Con, Supernatural Elements, Non-Con Kissing, Non-Con Touching, Dub Con, Implied Slavery, BAMF Molly, Angst, Creepy) – Invaders from an alternate universe, another dimension, invaders called Shadows have humanity fighting for their own survival. John, captured by the Shadows, has more to fight for more than he originally thought. Eventual Johnlock.

Defrag by 7PercentSolution (T, 43,748 w., 21 Ch. || Graphics Depictions of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage, Angst, Drug Use, PTSD Sherlock, Memory Palace, Case Fic, Mental Health Issues) – Sherlock's hard-drive needs to be cleaned up; viruses detected, malware files deleted, memory freed up, order restored. Follows on chronologically from Musgrave Blaze, but there will be enough back story to stand alone if you haven't read that yet. An important Part of the Game Theory Series. Part 4 of the Game Theory series

Silence by halloa_what_is_this (T, 44,993 w., 13 Ch. || The Piano Fusion || Victorian Sherlock, Dub Con, Voyeurism, Permanent Mutilation, Johniarty, Mute John) – In 1850, John is a mute young man forced to marry to save his father from indebtedness. His sister as his interpreter and his piano to keep him company, he travels to London to live with his husband James Moriarty. Without John's consent, James sells the piano to his friend Sherlock Holmes, who only asks for lessons from John in return. The lessons turn into a power play between the two when Sherlock proposes a deal: John may earn his piano back one key at a time, certain conditions attached. Part 1 of the Aborted Wings series

Mind the Gap by orphan_account (E, 45,089 w., 6 Ch. || Victor Trevor, Dubious Consent, POV First Person Sherlock, Character Development, Friendship, Pining Sherlock, Fluff, Introspection, Parent Death, Vulnerable Sherlock, Doctor John, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Child Abuse, Implied Sexual Abuse, Domestic Abuse) – An introspective journey through the life and relationships of Sherlock Holmes. "I can hear the bones hum beneath pale and freckled skin, this sack that holds my form together. Bits and pieces that start at the bottom and end at the top, hiding the blood, muscle, fat. Cells, knit together, constantly in motion. They'll live and die, and replicate, until total equilibrium is met."

Vault by masterofall14 (M, 47,766 w., 23/31 Ch. || WiP || Loosely Inspired By Room, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Parentlock / Sherlock Has a Son, PTSD, Eventual Johnlock, Suicide Attempt, Pining John, Sherlock Loves John & Vice Versa, Big Brother Mycroft, Triggers, Creepy Magnussen, Happy Ending) – Jack lives in Room with his Pa, Sherlock. They share everything, except the secret that Jack isn't privy to... Room is in Appledore's vault. Magnussen and the woman his Pa calls the Wicked Witch visit when Jack sleeps and Jack can't explain where the bruising on his Pa's body comes from... But if they get out, how will they both cope after years of imprisonment? Even Sherlock, who can imagine nothing other than the four walls he has known for thirteen years...

The Night Is Darkest by missselene (E, 48,461 w., 8 Ch. || Post-TLD, Extremely Dub Con, S4 Rage Monster John, Insecure Sherlock, Self-Esteem Issues, Sexual Exploration, Healing, Self Care, Self Acceptance, Sexual Exploration, Casual Sex, Gentle Sex, Sherlock/OMC, Threesome with 2 OMCs, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Communication, Internalized Homophobia, Relationship Negotiation) –  Sherlock Holmes would do anything for John Watson... and that includes letting John do whatever he wants to him. What would it take for Sherlock to stand up for himself and finally start taking care of his own needs?

Command Structure by 221b_hound (E, 49,034 w., 16 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Post TRF / Not S3 Compliant, Dom/Sub Play, Dom John/Sub Sherlock, Oral/Anal, Anal Fingering, Frottage, Past Child Abuse, Anxiety Attacks, Captain Watson, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Protective John, Slow Build, PTSD Sherlock, Consensual, Past Dub Con, Rimming) – Sherlock Holmes returns from his hunt to destroy Moriarty’s network. He comes home to John, and at long last they start this thing between them that couldn’t begin while Moriarty threatened them. But Sherlock has returned fractured and suffering anxiety attacks. He thinks he needs discipline - the whip - to help him focus and be strong. But his problems are deeper and run back to a childhood of neglect. John Watson is prepared to be Sherlock’s Captain, but he’s a doctor too. His command style isn’t about pain and subjugation. It’s about care and responsibility: and those concepts go in both directions in Captain Watson’s command structure.

Brotherly Bargain by xenobia4 (E, 50,187+ w., 17/19 Ch. || WiP || Rape/Non-Con Elements, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Abuse, Torture, Blood and Gore, Fisting, Dismemberment, Non-Con Oral, Object Insertion, Watersports) – A violent drug cartel abducts Sherlock Holmes after two of their operations in the UK have been shutdown. They upload the videos of torture online, gaining the attention of both the British government and Mycroft.

Musgrave Blaze by 7PercentSolution (T, 64,527 w., 28 Ch. || Equestrian, Country House, Series One, Murder Mystery, Case Fic, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Rape/Non-Con) – Mixing ACD canon, Sherlock and John are drawn to the rolling hills of Gloucestershire to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a horse, the death of its trainer, and the theft of a three-day eventing trophy from Musgrave Hall. Multi-chapter case fic that brings back some old memories for both men.

Roommates are for little people by alexxphoenix42 (E, 69,042 w., 14 Ch. || Teen/Unilock || Forced to Share a Bed, Pining, Hurt/Comfort, Fake Relationship, Sherlock is a Prick, Drinking, Inadvertent Drug Use, Family Wedding, Footballer John / Ballet Dancer Sherlock, Frottage, Slow Burn, Mild Dub Con, Cuddling While Sleeping, Slight Homophobia, Posh Boy, Dirty Dancing, Endearments, Nosy FAmily, Bathing Together, Mild Angst, UST/RST, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff) – John was looking forward to seeing his friends back at uni, but a new year brings new complications, not the least of which is a dorm room with only one bed, and a stroppy roommate with an utterly spectacular arse. God, John doesn't need the headache.

Sherlock's Bane by toggledog (E, 70,095 w., 19 Ch. || Post-TRF, Rape/Non-Con, Rape Recovery) – John's friend, DI Toll, is brought onto a case involving murder and the destruction of a Mozart bust. He starts sexually harassing Sherlock. Toll being such a likeable guy, this appears to go unnoticed by everyone. Sherlock, himself just wants to work on the case and not cause trouble for John. However, the harassment starts getting more and more obscene…

Next Right: Welcome to Westbound Rest Area 818 by elwinglyre (E, 73,618 w., 16 Ch. || American Unilock AU || Bunk Beds, Anonymous Sex, Homophobia, Closeted John, Roommates, Angst with Happy Ending, Idiots in Love, Music, Rape/Non-Con, Hurt John, BAMF John) – Sherlock Holmes dreams of escape from his smothering family and space to breathe. Studying chemistry at the University of Michigan, he's almost far enough away to fill his lungs. Almost. While John Watson dreams of being a doctor, he also dreams of being with another man. John knows that with hard work and study, he can make the first a reality, but he's certain the second can never be. Until a secret encounter in the dark at Rest Area 818 changes everything. When Sherlock meets his new roommate, John Watson, he sees a man in the closet. Sherlock hides from no one. Except from his own family, a detective inspector who wants his evidence returned, and his secret encounter at Rest Area 818. Setting late 1970s, Michigan, USA. POV third person alternates between John Watson and Sherlock Holmes.

This Is Your Song by agirlsname (E, 79,990 w., 19 Ch. || Moulin Rouge Fusion || Prostitute Sherlock, Poet John, Acting, Singing, Dancing, Writing, Poetry, Musical, Song Fic, Heavy Angst, Unreliable Narrator, Sherlock is French, Love at First Sight, UST, First Kiss/Time, Frottage, Coming in Pants, Anal Sex, Switchlock, Clothed Sex, Crossdressing, Secret Relationship, Forbidden Love, Jealousy, Terminal Illnesses, Grief/Mourning, Breakup/Makeup Sex, Past Drug Use, Attempted Rape, Canon-Typical Violence)– When John Watson is invalided home from the army in 1895, he moves to Paris to rediscover his writing and find a new meaning in life. His old friend Stamford invites him into a group of artist friends, and suddenly John finds himself auditioning to write a show for the famous brothel across the street. There, he meets the most beautiful man he’s ever seen - Sherlock, the star of the Moulin Rouge. But Sherlock is already promised to the investor of the show, the rich Duke Moriarty.

Stranger at the Gate by bendingsignpost (E, 85,190 w., 11 Ch. || Vampire AU || Vampire Sherlock, John with a Sword, Hypnotism, Vampire Sex, Dub-Con, Lying Sherlock, Vampire Puberty) -  As far as initiation rites go, kidnapping a human doctor from a defended town ought to seem extreme. When James Moriarty offers him the challenge, Sherlock never considers saying no.

A Study in Slavery by sweetinsane (M, 88,538+ w., 12/? Ch. || WIP || Dark / Slavery AU || ASiP, Angst, Domestic Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Slow Build, Dehumanization, Sexual Slavery, Child Abuse, Master/Slave Dynamics, Dark Content) – John has never owned a slave of his own, but after returning from Afghanistan is awarded one with his pension. A disobedient male slave with way too much troubling history, however, is not what he would have chosen himself.

Fade To Black by twistedthicket1 (M, 93,389 w., 29 Ch. || Split Personality Disorder, Action, Romance, Violence, Implied Rape/Non-Con, BAMF John, Fluff and Angst, Baskerville, Human Experimentation, PTSD, Implied Self Harm) – John Watson believes one day he'll just fade. That he'll drown in the black spaces of his mind, and that one day he will no longer exist. It's always been like this, the dark spots marking out moments in his life he can't remember. Where for just a moment he's someone else. Having a Dissociative identity disorder, he can't even be entirely sure he's really who he says he is. Then he meets Sherlock Holmes. A brilliant detective who when he looks at you can read your entire life story. John is immediately fascinated and afraid, half-wondering if maybe Sherlock can see the other personalities in him and half terrified of the thought of him finding out. Becoming his flatmate seems at once to be a wonderful and horrible idea. Yet as John's Blackouts become more and more severe and his other personalities begin to truly awaken and show themselves with Sherlock's help, the two soon discover that sometimes even the kindest person can harbour a demon best left untouched inside of them. Because not all of John's other personalities play nicely and some may be hiding secrets best left undisturbed...

A Waste of Breath by Chryse (E, 95,452 w., 25 Ch. || References to Drugs, Dubious Consent, First Time, Friendship / Love, Hurt / Comfort, Angst) – John had always assumed Sherlock was uninterested, untouchable, married to his work. He was wrong on all counts. But when Sherlock embarks on a relationship, John worries that he is in over his head.. .and this time he might be right.

We're All A Little Mad Here by angelblack3 (E, 98,019+ w. across 4 works || Series WiP || Dark AU, Obsessive Behaviour, Stockholm Syndrome, Torture, Kidnapping, Dark Sherlock, Abusive Relationship, Bondage, Aphrodisiacs, Rape/Non-Con, Painplay) – In this universe, Jim got a hold of Sherlock way before he ever met the ones that were meant to save him. Now, they're happy business partners. Though, according to Jim, Sherlock isn't nearly as happy as he could be. He should find someone like Jim found his dear pet Sebby. Sherlock is skeptical, until he finds an army doctor with a psychosomatic limp in a twisted sense of fate.

Riptide Lover by jinglebell (E, 114,090 w., 20 Ch. || Merfolk & Victorian AU || Mermaid Sherlock, Human John, BAMF John/Sherlock, Possessive Sherlock, Oral Sex, Hand Jobs, Mild Gore, Dubious Interspecies Consent, Stockholm Syndrome, Dark Romance, Dubcon and Morality, Rough Sex, Abstract Mentions of Rape, Size Queen, Switchlock, Foot Fetish) – The year is 1866. When John becomes swept overboard, he never expects to encounter a living creature of myth. When the merman absconds with John, the lost sailor must use every tool at his disposal to convince Sherlock not to kill him. But it seems that killing John Watson is not what the deadly, beautiful creature has in mind at all...

Thirst by bittergreens (E, 122,257 w. || Post TGG, POV John, Angst, Pining John, UST/RST, Masturbation, PTSD, Sexual Fantasy, First Kiss/Time, Nightmares, Frottage, Friends to Lovers, BAMF John, Mildly Dub Con, Hurt/Comfort, Oral Sex, Rain Sex, Voice Kink/Porn, Loud Sex, Rimming, Fingering, Dirty Talk, Case Fic, Baths / Bath Sex, Mild Gore, Psychological Torture, Fluff, Slow Burn) – When John realizes he has feelings for Sherlock and decides he must keep those feelings secret at all costs, the resulting tension might bring Baker Street to the ground.

"Merry Christmas" I wrapped it up and sent it with a note saying "I love you" by starrysummernights (E, 135,132+ w., 30/31 Ch. || WIP || Post S4, Slow Burn, Mary is Not Nice, Christmas, Fluff, Smut, Angst, Parentlock, Past Torture / Rape) – John has moved back into 221B with his daughter Rosie after Mary was killed, but things are not exactly comfortable between him and Sherlock. After everything that has happened, they are trying to become friends again...and maybe something more. What better time than the Christmas season?! Takes place after TLD.

A Little Help from my Friends by Ttime42 (E, 140,776 w., 28 Ch. || BDSM AU || Switchlock, Fluff, Verbal Abuse, Bondage, Hospitalization, Military Kink, Teacher/Student Roleplay, Consensual, Punishment, Violence, Blood, Knives, Past Drug Use, Dub Con, Masturbation, Case Fic, PDA, Stalking, John’s Giant Junk, Aftercare, Kidnapping, Happy Ending) – In a world where everyone identifies as either a dominant or a submissive, Sherlock is having a rough time moving on from a bad relationship and has sworn off doms forever. John has recently returned to London from war and has a fortuitous run in with an old friend in a park. Sherlock and John's lives are changed forever because of that chance meeting, and they'll both find their way through life with a little help from their friends.

The Frost Is All Over by Chryse (E, 148,518 w., 21 Ch. || Pining Love, Implied / Referenced Rape / Non-Con, Period Typical Homophobia, Virginity, Teenlock, Major Illness, Implied / Referenced Child Abuse) - John was brave and clever and loyal, a commoner who longed for an exciting life. Sherlock was dashing and brilliant and passionate, an Earl’s son who longed to solve crimes. Being a Tale of Glorious Adventures, Love Letters, Treachery, Longing, Secret Identities, Deathbed Confessions, First Kisses, Daring Escapes, and True Love.

Failing Upward by elwinglyre (E, 204,847 w., 40 Ch. || Parallel Universes || Rape/Non-Con, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Magical Realism, Science Fiction, Supernatural Sex, Non-Con Unwanted Frottage, Memory Loss, First Time, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Immortal Johnn, Friends to Lovers, First Person POV John) – When John Watson, a young med student who supports himself as a florist-by-day and musician-by-night, finds he is heir to supernatural powers that others would kill to possess, John’s life transforms into a mixture of comedy and terror. As he fights to understand what’s real and what’s imagined, he travels from one alternate universe to another. Along the way he finds the key was there all along: his brilliant best friend, Sherlock Holmes, the man who becomes the touchstone for all that John is and ever will be. Set in current day cities and countryside of Michigan, this story blends romance, magical realism and science fiction with humor. Part 1 of the Failing Upward Universe series

A River Without Banks by Chryse (E, 203,286 w., 23 Ch. || Alternate Realities || Angst with Happy Ending, Depression, Suicide, Violence, Torture, Rape/Non-Con Elements, PTSD, Serial Killers, Virgin Sherlock) – "You love this, being Sherlock Holmes."He had once. When had it all gone so wrong?

The Jewel in the Tower by PoppyAlexander (E, 207,079 w., 39 Ch. || Dystopian AU, Violence, Rape/Non-Con Elements, Mild Dub Con, One World Government, Class Issues, Assassin John / Geisha Sherlock, Self Esteem Issues, Slow Burn, Espionage, Miscommunication, Sexual Fantasy, Masturbation, Letters/Texting, Phone Sex, Infidelity, First Time, Blow Jobs, Dirty Talk, Injury Recovery, Panic Attacks, Frottage, Scars, Misgendering, Happy Endings) – In a contemporary dystopia, Unity is peace – despite the fact unsanctioned information, illicit currency, and every sort of danger flows unchecked in the world's pleasure districts. John Watson, a weary hired gun, is assigned by the mysterious Mentor to investigate a subversive element lurking in the Icehouse, the world's most famous House of Repose. As accustomed as he is to dealing with the unexpected, John is nevertheless woefully unprepared to meet the gem of the Ice house, Xie, the world renowned "drashaskaya," the living work of art after which all other drashas are modeled. In sumptuous suites, amid trailing puddles of silk and fervent whispers in the night, John soon learns that nothing is as it seems in the floating world of London's pleasure district. (PUBLISHED AS “At Night in the Floating World”)

Conductivity Series by liriodendron (E, 207,367 w. across 7 works || TRF / Post TRF, ReunionCanon Typical Violence, Developing Relationship, Friendship, Romance, Sexual Tension, First Kiss/Time, Synesthesia, Power Dynamics, Self-Harm, Drug Use, Case Fic, Est. Rel., References to Drug Use, Homophobic Language, Religious Content, Intercrural Sex, Unrequited Love, Angst, References to Suicide, Injury, Anal, Dub. Con, BDSM, Suicidal Thoughts, Violent Sex, Suicide, Grief/Mourning, Break Up) – In which Sherlock Holmes locates his heart, John Watson learns what it's like to burn, and there is no darkness that cannot be made bright.

Deflowered - Director’s Cut by Lorelei_Lee (E, 328,535 w., 51 Ch. || Mafia / Mob AU || Rape/Non-Con, Dub-Con, Boss John/Rentboy Sherlock, Bottomlock, Virgin Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Jealous John, Prostate Milking, Sounding, Anal Beads/Plug, Anal Sex / Fingering, Spanking, Begging, Blow Jobs, Riding Crops, Begging, Romance, Desperation, Minor Character Death, Implied Self Harm, Violence) – It should have been strictly business. Being a Mafia boss with a sadistic sexual streak, John had long since realised that his playthings were in it for the money only. Being a masochistic rent boy, Sherlock seemed too good to be true. Little did they know…

[notasiren21]

To those who want to kill themselves:

I’m not going to sugarcoat this at all. I’ll be gentle at times and then rather aggressive. And for good reason...

Because you deserve to fucking live.

I’m aware there’s blatant bullying, discreet and subtle bullying that makes you question if you’re just being sensitive and taking things too seriously (most of the time you’re not, trust me), neglect, familial issues, and then situational instances that pound into your heart and head consistently.

Believe it or not, but the cliché term of “it does get better” is true, just as long as you yourself is willing to check its validity and try.

I thought of several ways like drowning myself in the bathtub and hoping my fingertips would slip on the rims so I couldn’t pull myself up when my body got weak/ holding a knife to my chest while crying/ contemplating on just taking those three steps into the road when I was supposed to get the mail/ jumping off my balcony/ finishing off my oxycodone pills from a wisdom teeth surgery/ etc.

Maybe I’m a coward or was weak, but I could never follow through with it. Just left with that same bottle lying in a medicine basket somewhere or had a brief puncture mark on my chest that just broke the skin with the tip, whatever.

Crying myself to sleep almost every night because it was too much.

Honestly, I think being a coward and weak was the best thing to happen to me.

I lost a boyfriend from how much my anxiety and suicidal thoughts consumed me and had to tell my parents why I was dumped which led to me seeing their faces when I fessed up and said “I’m not happy, I’m not okay”.

It’s funny because I’ve had a cry for help several times through stuff I’ve written and published on fanfic sites, stuff I’ve given to my teacher to read senior year, literally telling my AP Lit class two years ago I was depressed and thought suicidal shit (only 8 of us in that class and teacher) and being told “it’s just like that sometimes, gotta shake it off”, “don’t let people’s words get to you”, “yea, same” and having a teacher pretend like she heard nothing.

That one time I was brave, and I was waved off.

I know there are times where you finally find your voice for that one split second and then you’re ignored, and you feel yourself rescinding back to mute and distant.

I know you’re plastering a smile on constantly to fool others because you’re afraid what will happen when they find out.

It sucks, doesn’t it?

When you hear so many voices in your head playing that record on repeat of the things you most want to forget. Having those nightmares occur where someone takes the final step to push you to your edge. Seeing the annoyed rolling of eyes or blatant show of disinterest of you.

Nine years of schooling, because after 3rd grade, I was just one of those girls who females decided to hate for breathing or asking a question. So nine years I was trying not to victimize myself in my head and justifying why everyone acted the way they did to me.

Teenage girls and teachers alike made my life hell. The girls never gave me the chance and teachers treated me like I was some lost cause that couldn’t even make it to merit roll and like my work was shit.

“Oh, you sure you can make it into the media production film? I don’t think you’ll be able to make shows like you planned. Maybe try for something else.”

“Your writing is, it’s okay. Try harder next time.”

I struggled with grades in high school and wondered if I’d even graduate.

I made the president’s list my first year of college. Got straight A’s. My English professors loved to leave excited feedback on my essays and were amazed how quickly I could conjure one up and fix my own mistakes before peer review.

My professors talked about me to one another and when I met the new ones, they already knew of me.

My history professor begged me to write a poem for a book he’s writing and publishing near 2021.

My creative writing professor attacked me with an email of compliments over a chapter book of poems I wrote where i took them in the order written so it was me at my worst, to me fooling myself, to me losing and falling back, to me trying for help, to me being the best I’ve ever been. >I also made him cry in a class writing experiment with less than 300 words.

(Idk maybe the bitch is that sensitive but he was chill)

My point is: fucking block out what other people say or do to you. Tell someone you trust you need help and stop kidding yourself.

And please, for the love of god, if it is really that bad then do not make yourself so naive into believing a friend or partner can take the brunt of it all and fix you.

It may work for some time, but if you’re still suffering, they will too and neither of you will win in the end.

I took to therapy and it worked. And I dropped all the toxic shit out of my life and moved on.

I may not use social media besides Tumblr or Discord, but I’m more present in life than I was before and not comparing myself to others anymore.

I dropped friends that made me feel bad and bashed things I liked or would cause issues and I have a peace of mind (as much as one can have one during a pandemic and such).

Get the help. Find ways to receive help if you can’t financially afford it. Find that courage to tell someone you trust that listens to you that you are suffering and need that professional help and to be taken seriously.

I was the first to walk the graduation stage of my 2019 class, and I thought I’d be the first of us to die because I couldn’t move past everything I’ve endured from a large majority of them.

I would’ve missed how positively my life turned around.

I would’ve destroyed my parents, little sister, and brother for being so selfish.

I’m the middle child, the good kid with a career in mind and the mediator of the family. And I’m used to not being the favorite but appreciated one.

My dad confessed to me that I was his favorite and I never want to hear it again.

You never want to hear a man you see as the strongest person you know say that while trying not to cry and keep his voice normal, you don’t want to hear “You were always my favorite” said in such a thick voice it brings tears to your eyes.

Your life matters.

This isn’t Sims where you can move on to the next household member. This isn’t like throwing LEGO R2-D2 off a cliff with that iconic scream only or lose a few coins. This isn’t a fucking game.

And I am so sick of hearing people treat it like some quest you get once in your life:

“You’ll be okay.”

“Cheer up.”

“It’s just a phase.”

Etc.

It’s all fucking bullshit. We live in a world that sugarcoats the severity of someone’s life when it’s presented in front of us while on the precipice of shattering.

You deserve to live. Anyone who tells you otherwise is the one who loses the right to be considered human or a person, not you.

Do not let someone dictate your life’s outcome because they don’t agree with you or like you.

And please, for all that is good in this world, don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re alright when you don’t feel it.

Hang in for one extra day to gather the strength and tell someone you need help.

Everyone acts so ashamed of it but it was the best thing that happened to me after being such a weak coward and now, I’m genuinely happy. And it was a lot of work to get here.

Want to know where all my angst and suffering had gone to? Just ask the characters in the books and fanfic content I’ve written. I’m sure they don’t appreciate it, but those stories wouldn’t exist if I gave up then.

And believe it or not, people will fucking miss you like hell if you killed yourself. It’s just too hard to see it right now and I was blinded before too.

Not everyone has the same opinion of you. Not everyone matters in your life.

You’re living this life singlehandedly by yourself while surrounded by others experiencing the same thing. Don’t let that opportunity go to waste.

And if you need distractions, indulge yourself in the harmless guilty pleasures like I do.

It can get better if you just open yourself to it.

It can get better if you get help.

You really must be so tired, isn’t it time you stopped pretending?

[mistbornthefinal]

Madoka Magica Aniversary Analysis: Part 8

Song of Sayaka

We begin the episode where the last one ended with Sayaka hacking away at the Witch. As the labyrinth fades we se glimpses of Sayaka’s injuries but her magic quickly erases them. With the witch defeated Sayaka gives Kyouko a very unnerving dose of the Shaft Head Tilt.

The she throws Kyouko Else Maria’s Grief Seed telling Kyouko that she doesn’t want to owe her anything. As she releases her transformation though she nearly collapses and has to leave the scene heavily supported by Madoka. (cue connect)

Rain falls on Mitakihara, Madoka and Sayaka have taken shelter in a bus stop. Madoka asks Sayaka not to keep fighting the way she did against Else Maria, recognizing it as being more self-harm than battle-strategy. Sayaka says that she couldn’t have won otherwise. Madoka says that even if she wins that way it won’t help her in the end (which is true a battle strategy built around dehumanizing yourself and taking punishment is going to hold out over the long term. Not when you’re a meguca and thus have a very fragile critical hit location and a fatal allergy to despair)

Sayaka brandishes her soul gem. “Now that I’ve been turned into this thing how can anything help me?” She continues this line saying that she’s just a rock that pretends to be alive by puppeting a corpse. Madoka says she just wants Sayaka to be happy again, and Sayaka attempts to guilt Madoka into making a contract. Madoka says she can’t but is unable to articulate why. Sayaka indicts Madoka for remaining on the sidelines when she could be all powerful and storms off into the rain telling Madoka not to follow her. As she runs she calls herself an idiot and says that she can not be save now.

As the scene transitions we get a shot of Sayaka’s Soul Gem and the curse growing inside it.

We then get our first glimpse of the Homu-home which is Magia Record anime levels of cursed architecture. Kyouko and Homura are having a meeting and as always Kyouko is chowing down. Homura indicates a location on a map and says that Walpurgisnact will appear in this area. Kyouko asks how she knows that Homura replies “statistics.” Kyouko is knowledgeable enough to realize that is a non-answer but before she can inquire further they are interrupted by an unwelcome guest. 

(seriously why is this place like this Homura was in the hospital less than a month ago)

Kyubey has stopped by to inform them that “there is a curse growing within Miki Sayaka”. When Kyouko asks for clarification Kyubey passes the buck onto Homura saying that she already knows the answer. When Homura does not dispute it Kyubey wonders where she got that particular piece of info. Homura dismisses him, he leaves, and Kyouko wonders why she just let him go. Homura replies that killing him would be pointless. 

At school the next day Sayaka is once again absent with Madoka regretting not following her the previous night. We then cut to Hitomi walking alongside Kyousuke as the sun sets, Kyousuke being neutronium dense only just realizes that Hitomi house isn’t this direction. Back with Madoka we find out that Sayaka didn’t come home the pervious night. We see that Sayaka is behind a pillar looking on while Hitomi and Kyousuke talk, though we don’t get to hear the conversation.

Regardless we see Sakaya drift through a dark blue background before we cut to her venting her emotions on a gaggle of Familiars. Homura steps from the shadows to confront her saying that she can’t afford to waste any more magic. She tosses Sayaka a Grief Seed saying that she must purify her Gem but Sayaka kicks it away. Sayaka makes it clear that what she’s doing, recklessly rushing into battle and refusing Grief Seeds is a suicide attempt. She intends to burn up all her magic fighting and expects to die when it is exhausted. 

Homura ask why Sayaka won’t accept her help Saying all she wants it to save her. Why won’t can’t she believe her? Sayaka says that she can’t trust Homura because her words fell empty to her and it’s clear from her eyes that she’s given up on everything. Homura showing her yandere side claims that she only cares about Sayaka in so far as her suffering causes Madoka to suffer. And then says the if she keeps causing Madoka pain she intends to

Given how long she takes to make her move and how little she resists when Kyouko grabs her from behind I’m not sure how committed to that course of action she was. Kyouko notes that Homura’s “weird technique” can’t be used if she’s being grappled. Homura responds by pulling a flashbang grenade which dissuades Kyouko enough for her to make an escape. 

We find Sayaka listlessly riding a train and sharing a car with a pair of assholes boasting about how they abuse their girlfriends. Needless to say this is exactly what she didn’t need right now. She feels like she’s tried to do the right thing only to be used and abused and now she has to hear these shitheels gloat about how they treat the women in their life. She confronts them and doesn’t so much talk too them as at them. She openly wonders if the world is even worth fighting for and then a labyrinth-like texture over takes her body and scenes cuts implying but not showing some serious violence.

Meanwhile Madoka is wandering the city trying to find her friend when Kyubey steps from the shadows. He asks if Madoka hates him as well. “If I said yes would you turn Sayaka back?” Madoka asks in turn. Kyubey claims that such a thing is beyond his abilities. Madoka then asks that if she accepted Kyubeys offer would Sayaka still have become a magical girl. Kyubey says that was Sayaka’s own decision. That said Kyubey reiterates that Madoka has enormous potential something that confuses her as much as him, if she wished for it even the laws of the universe could bend she could be an all-powerful god. Madoka asks if she could do what Kyubey couldn’t and return Sayaka to normal. Kyubey says that this would be childs play for her and as Madoka is about to accept the contract... 

It’s interrupted by Homura filling the bunnycat with lead. Initially Madoka is shocked by Kyubey’s death but as distress becomes evident that come to occupy her focus. Homura’s façade finally breaks and she grabs Madoka by the shoulders with tears in her eyes. 

“Why are you always sacrificing yourself? Don’t demean yourself by saying that you can’t help anyone of that you’re useless. Think about all the people who care about you! Just cut it out! Why don’t you understand that there are people who would grieve if you died?! Why don’t you consider the people who try so hard to protect you?!”

Homura’s tearful plea seems to trigger some kind of timeless recollection in Madoka but ultimately she rushes off to look for Sayaka, despite Homura’s pleas.

“You knew that was pointless but you did it anyway”

Another of Kyubey’s bodies is perched on a nearby fence. It hops down to the bench and eats his corpse. He notes that this is the second time Homura has killed him, but he’s starting to understand how Homura fights. Homura’s power is time manipulation and she is not from this timeline. Homura fires back that she knows what he is and his true plan. The Incubator asks if she is that determined to change Madoka’s fate

We find Sayaka experiencing that post murder depression when Kyouko finally catches up to her. Kyouko asks how long Sayaka is going to sulk and Sayaka simply apologizes for wasting her time. Sayaka has given up she can’t even remeber what was so important to her what she was protecting. She reveals her Gem.

It’s almost completely dark. Sayaka repeats Kyouko’s line that the balance of hope and despair always zeros out.

“Sure I managed to save a few people but in exchange hatred and jealousy filled my heart. I even hurt my best friend. Whenever we prey for someone else’s happiness someone else must be cursed in exchange. Turns out that’s how we magical girls work.”

As her teardrop hit’s the Soul Gem it releases a wave of force that throws Kyouko back and then it shatters becoming a Grief Seed. Just like that the last secret if revealed and a sketchy Oktavia rises from the dark blue depths.

In the last scene Kyubey seems to address the audience. In the world women who are not yet fully grown are called “girls”(”shoujo”). Thus should those who will become Witches (”Majou”) not be called Magical Girls (”Mahou Shoujo”)

This episode is one of the big episodes of Madoka Magic we get the two revelations that we’ve been building up too for most of the show, and the culmination of one of it’s longer character arcs of Sayaka’s fall. Though we get to see Homura’s backstory in full in EP 10 the core details are pretty much laid out in this one. Homura has gone back in time to try to save Madoka from contracting. We also learn the dark truth of magical girls and witches, just as a Soul Gem is born from a girls wish and hopes a Grief Seed and it’s Witch are born when that Gem is overtaken by her curses and despair. It’s clear now the “protecting humanity” is not the goal of Kyubey’s system though we’ll have to wait for the next episode to find out what it actually is.

[fairydust-stuff]

Bosses of China Town

Banana Fish has a lot of awesome characters but I want to talk about the China Town gang bosses. I was originally going to talk about just Shorter, but he’s one of those characters who took a back seat until shortly before his own death. So I figured I could talk about Sing as well just to extend things a bit. Also I strongly disagree with the Sing is just another Shorter Wong, argument because these two have very different mindsets.

Shorter Wong is first introduced in the Short story “Angel Eyes” the first shot we get of him is Shorter writing his sister Nadia a letter. Ash is brought to the juvenile detention center and Shorter is assigned the responsibility of watching him. “That’s why I wanna put him in Block A with you. You got things under control over there” (pg. 45). This line from the guy in charge tells us Shorter has some authority over the other guys and deals with situations before things get out of hand. From the get go Shorter is presented as a leader who handles things before they get out of control.

Shorter’s first impulse is to try to be friendly towards Ash showing him around while warning the other guys not to try anything when they cat call Ash. “I’m supposed to look after you here, so you need any help with stuff or whatever shoot” (pg. 51). This shows that Shorter takes his responsibility towards Ash very seriously. It’s also kind of interesting how Shorter doesn’t like him at first referring to Ash as a brat in his head and even feeling wary of him. When two guys get into a fight over who gets to claim Ash. Shorter ends the fight by saying “You can duke it out with me Frankie” judging by the fact the guys back off, Shorter is not the kind of guy you want to fight. He also mentions Frankie tried to sexually assault him but Shorter fought him off emphasizing that he’s a good fighter.

There’s also a bit of a duel personality since Shorter tells Ash to let Frankie rape him but thinks about how practical or not this is awful advice and feels ashamed of saying this. “But his eyes said if you can’t or won’t help me, keep your big mouth shut and leave me alone!”(pg. 67). Shorter’s ability to realize Ash is a rape victim show he’s perceptive and suggests he has been exposed to these kinds of stories numerous times. Shorter even casually asks if Ash was arrested for child prostitution. He also tells off the guys for trying to obtain Ash even though he told Ash to just let it happen. This shows Shorter can’t bring himself to let Ash get raped again. Later Ash challenges Frankie and defeats him easily later he tells Shorter he got the idea to challenge the other guy because of him “I didn’t decide to go easy on him but I know how thanks to you” (pg. 83). Ash informs Shorter. This causes Shorter to become rather scared of Ash.

Later its revealed Ash faked sexual interest in one of the other juvie boys to find out if Frankie was actually an assassin sent to kill him. Shorter calls him out for being a user to which Ash gets testy and reminds the other boy Ricardo wanted to use him for sex. Shorter retorts with “Don’t play games with people’s feelings! Cuz if you do that- you’re no different from those assholes you hate!” (108). this seems to be something Ash kind of forgets later on, but this exchange causes Ash to reveal his honest feelings about being objectified, which Shorter listen’s to. I know fans get wrapped in how special Eiji is to Ash and I’m not denying that however Eiji was not the first person to treat Ash with kindness, it was actually Shorter who was the first person to treat Ash like a person. Shorter was the first guy who listened to Ash and dared call him out.

“Angel Eyes” characterizes Shorter as the kind of guy who tries to be practical, but due to his compassion often goes against what makes sense in favor of what he believes is right. This trait of Shorter’s shows up again in Banana Fish vol 4. It’s revealed here that Shorter works under the Chinese Mafia. Hua lee asks Shorter to spy on Ash and his group. “Forget it Ash is my friend and I don’t stab my friends in the back!” (146 pg.) he declares. However, Shorter does agree to work with the Lee’s because Hua gets in his head. “Beautiful words but remember Ash is a white punk and you and I share the same proud heritage” (146). This is important because it seems to imply Shorter’s has a misplaced sense of nationalism.

This is further elaborated on in a conversation between Yut Lung and Shorter, where Yut reminds Shorter of the bloody history of the Chinese families in power. “Often of their own relatives their own children our ancestors in the ruling family of the Ching Dynasty committed murder and assassination” (153). As I stated in my previous piece “The Flying Boy and the Snake” Yut often acts as a guide that encourages other characters to look at the less pleasant aspects of their situation. This suggests that Shorter views his own cultural heritage and the Chinese Mafia in an idealized way. He does not see the complexities of a very complicated cultural history with both good and bad points. Shorter’s idealization is further emphasized by him telling Yut they like Eiji “Because he’s innocent and honest” which is actually a really simplistic view of who Eiji is as a person.

Shorter’s reaction is to pull a knife on Yut because once he finds out the Lee’s are working for Dino his image of them shatters. “I was raised to respect you! To look up to the Lee family” (180). It’s implied that Shorter and his family as American immigrants wanted to view someone as being on their side. “It’s because of the Lee Family that we can be safe here. That we can live and put down roots in this feign soil because the Lee’s are here to protect us” Shorter laments. Though Shorter, Banana Fish seems to express a kind of wary ness towards the idea of complete loyalty to one’s own kind at the expense of everyone else. The Mob is the mob and cultural heritage doesn’t erase that Banana Fish argues. “You’re no better than Papa Dino! Just another Mob! Leeches who live off the blood of others” (181) Shorter declares. These are the kinds of loyalties that bind gangs and mafia together blood, and where you come from your ethnicity from are often manipulation tactics used by those in power to control and use others to their benefit.

Shorter despite dying horribly does so because he goes against what he was taught for the first time in his life. “I’ll protect Eiji with my own life. I won’t let them hurt him”(pg. 31) Shorter declares in vol 5. Trying to protect Eiji no matter how fruit ness it seems is all he can do at this point. While he ultimately fails to shelter Eiji and has him forcefully snatched from his arms. This does show that Shorter has learned the hard way to place friendship above nationalism.

Though unintentionally or not there’s still kind of a flawed ideology in the fact Shorter vows to an unconscious Eiji he’ll kill him to preserve his innocence. “If Dino tries to make you into his pet I’ll take you out before you know what’s happening” (69). Shorter has more traditional values and maybe that’s the point. Shorter’s death maybe a symbolic representation of older pro mafia attitudes rooted in nationalism and blood ties dying out.

After a couple of re watches and rereads of the manga, I realized Sing had to be brought in because despite being Shorter’s successor. Sing Soo ling does things differently from Shorter. Sing offers to team up with Ash’s former gang members to take Dino’s manor. “Our suits did a deal with Dino Golzine but that’s got nothing to do with us” (pg. 179). While Shorter idealized the Lee’s, Sing refers to them as the suits viewing them as a kind of beaurcracy whose dealings are far removed from his gang.

He also shows himself to be more practical then Shorter wanting to actually make a plan before attacking Golzine’s manor. “We’re here to rescue our respective bosses. If we don’t know where we can attack from and how to get out we’ll just die like dogs. And I sure as hell don’t plan on committing mass suicide with you guys” (pg. 50). Sing informs them. Later when he’s told Ash killed Shorter, Sing wants to wait to hear Ash out and receive an explanation. When Ash won’t give him one Sing reverts to rules of the street and tries to take him out.

Later when Sing joins Yut in his helicopter he admits they only reason he put up with the Lee’s bossing them around was out of respect for Shorter. “Because we’re sick and tired of em that’s why! The old guys and all their deals (172). In contrast to Shorter who in Yut’s own words respected his elders. Sing has a disgust for a traditional older generation who he finds oppressive due to their backroom deals that screw people like him and Shorter over.

It’s also of note how Sing behaves towards Yut in contrast to Shorter. While Shorter agreed to obey Yut because of his name and showed subservience towards him at first. His protégée flat out questions Yut a lot. “Or do you just think the lower class doesn’t need know?”(128). In Vol 9 Sing tells Yut “Look I know you saved before but that doesn’t mean you can tell me what to do with it (Pg. 74). Sing is fine working with Yut but he doesn’t want to be his lackey and makes that very clear. When Yut is taken hostage by Eiji in vol 10. Sing goes after them in contrast to Yut’s bodyguard who yells that he’s going against master’s orders. Sing chooses to save rather than obey by going after them. “In case you never noticed I don’t take orders from him!”(pg. 18).

However Sing shares Shorter’s sense of compassion when he realizes Yut wants Eiji to shoot him he tries to communicate with him only to be shut out and told to leave. Sing responds by saying “Easy to say, harder to do” (pg. 31). This implies he doesn’t want to leave Yut but realizes that Eiji is running around a dangerous neighborhood at night and that takes priority. Sing saves Eiji from attempted rapists and nurses him back to health, giving him a safe place to stay. He also saves Yut again later on from an assassin even after he’s cut ties with him.

In vol 13 Sing later follows in Shorter’s footsteps by going against Yut when he finds out he’s working with Golzine. “ If your going to keep up this little partnership of yours- I might end up giving that Japanese kid some backup”(pg. 95). However, it’s not so much a sense of morals it’s more of a street code. If Yut wasn’t working with the guys who killed Shorter I honestly doubt Sing would care. “ Golzine’s the one who was giving Arthur orders and he’s the one who gave Shorter that drug”(pg. 95) Sing emphasizes. I just want to point out it’s not a conflict of morality but one of interests between the two of them. Sing likes Yut but he has obligations as boss to avenge Shorter. Sing’s role as boss often conflicts with his personal feelings. He is obligated to fight Ash to avenge Shorter in the eyes of his gang and must perform this function. Yet its clear Sing does not want to fight Ash not only because he doesn’t want to die but as Sing tells Lao in vol 14 “ The only one who can keep a lid on the downtown turf is Ash got that!” (pg. 53). Sing is the out of all the main bosses the one who thinks of the bigger picture beyond revenge and basic power plays.

Sing is much more concerned with the safety of his gang. Later in vol 15 he wakes up at Ash’s hideout and his first concern is his guys even though Sing himself is injured. “ Because it ain’t your buddies that’re gonna be skinned alive!”(pg. 117). This takes priority for him over who has the most power or pursuit of revenge. Unlike the Lee’s Sing cares about his own people even though it’s never at the expense of other individuals. This is what turns him aginst Yut since the other boy targets others out of jealousy. However unlike Ash, Sing does not pursue revenge in the end. As depicted in vol 16, when Ash gives Sing an out not to fight him Sing takes it. He also can’t bring himself to shoot Yut lung in vol 18 despite his betrayal. “ Cuz your hurt your soul’s bleeding even now”(174) Sing says.

Interestingly enough, Sing claims he too is responsible for the invasion of China Town “ But the bad blood between us created an opening for the Vietnamese and Arbs and I guess that’s my fault as well as yours”(171). This suggests that Banana Fish lays the blame of corruption at the feet of feuding authority figures and that maybe Sing’s rule of the street. As Sing reminds Yut like it or not “ Your still our leader” and convinces the lee heir to help him fix China town since “ China towns gone to the dogs people can’t even walk around safely in broad daylight”(173). These are the reasons it’s Sing and not Shorter who is the one to repair China town. Shorter is a relatively good person, at least by these series standards with a lot of empathy. However he was too willing to bend to the Lee’s whims and never question and challenge anything they did. Even before Shorter is injected with Banana Fish it’s heavily implied he’s given up hope entirely. Thinking the best scenario is for him to kill Eiji and then himself. Shorter exits being used as a tool to get to Ash and anger him being put down like a dog to end his suffering. Sing represents a newer generation that didn’t absorb fully nationalist ideas and loyalty to the mafia. 

While he does still value his own ethnic group and their needs he questions whether the Lee’s are what’s best for the citizens of China Town. Even when he’s willing to work with Yut, Sing makes it clear he’s not going to be a blind lacky. Sing when faced with the messy reality of Chinatown crumbling due to his and Yut’s feud tries to repair the rift between them. He is in the position do something since Sing post phoned and eventually decided not to die because of some honor bound purpose. At the end of the day Sing chooses to survive, repair and unite the different fractions for a common goal. However Sing was very much inspired by and driven by the empathy, sense of responsibility and love he learned from Shorter these are the same lessons Sing teaches Yut. I think both Shorter and Sing have their flaws and both bosses ideologies loyalty to one’s own kind above all else and street code can both be downright be toxic when taken to extremes but I think both are equally well written characters and important to understanding Banana Fish’s theme of unity in the face of oppression.

Citations Yoshida, Akimi. Banana Fish Vol 3. Shogakukan inc,1987 Yoshida,Akimi.Banana Fish Vol 4. Shogakukan inc,1987 Yoshida,Akimi.Banana Fish Vol 5. Shogakukan inc,1987 Yoshida,Akimi. Banana Fish Vol 6. Shogakukan inc,1987 Yoshida, Akimi. Banana Fish Vol 9. Shogakukan inc,1987 Yoshida, Akimi. Banana Fish Vol 10. Shogakukan inc,1987 Yoshida, Akimi.Banana Fish Vol 13. Shogakukan inc, 1987 Yoshida, Akimi. Banana Fish Vol 14. Shogakukan inc,1987 Yoshida,Akimi.Banana Fish Vol 15. Shogakukan inc, 1987 Yoshida,Akimi.Banana Fish Vol 16. Shogakukan inc, 1987 Yoshida,Akimi.Banana Fish Vol 18. Shogakukan inc, 198

[honeypiehotchner]

Covered Memories -- part 1

TW for mentions of suicide, suicidal thoughts/tendencies, paranoia(?), sadness. Stay safe lovelies.

Here is the Sherlock I promised. It has a couple parts, so I’m going to let this one settle before I give you the next (I’m also editing it as I reread it haha). This was inspired by Billie Eilish’s song “listen before i go” but you don’t need to listen to it while reading or anything. Enjoy! Love you guys xx.

I went to sleep watching Sherlock and woke up on a bus in London.

           It sounds crazier than it actually is, I promise.

           Just kidding, it’s absolutely insane. I’m on a fucking bus in London and I’m from Ohio. I’m from the United States of fucking America, and I somehow woke up on a bus in England.

           I didn’t realize where I was at first, to be completely honest. I didn’t recognize it. The first dead giveaway was that the bus was driving on the wrong side of the road – well, the correct side here, but the wrong side to me completely.

           I’m still in my pajamas, and I’m a little more than thankful that last night I fell asleep in a hoodie and leggings. At least I’m not half naked on a bus in downtown London.

           Things could be a lot worse than they are, that’s for sure.

           But the situation I’m in also isn’t exactly okay. I don’t have my purse, my phone, or any damn shoes on my feet. I don’t even have my damn glasses, so walking around is going to be a little more than challenging, which is partly why I’ve stayed on this bus for longer than I should.

           Eventually, though, I figure I’ve been on here for long enough, so I decide to step down and onto the sidewalk.

           Okay, bad idea. Foreign city, foreign person, and I have no earthly idea where I’m at or where I should go.

           One piece at a time. Okay, I have no money, so a cab ride is out of the park. And so is…basically everything else.

           Okay.

           When one wakes up in London, what does one do – especially if one has never been to London before?

           I have no earthly idea.

           The only knowledge I have of London is from the show I fell asleep watching – Sherlock – and even then, it’s a TV show. It’s fiction.

           My eyes widen at the idea that just came into my head.

           I know, logically, that Sherlock Holmes does not exist. He’s a fictional character, but in knowing that, I know that the show itself is pretty popular. I know a lot about said show. And I know that Baker Street is actually a real place. There’s a museum there now, or something.

           Well, if I’m going to be stuck here, I might as well take advantage. I’ve always wanted to come to the museum, and since I’m here basically for free, I’m going to go see it.

           Strange that I’m not freaking out right now, I know. I don’t know why I’m not freaking out either. I don’t think it has sunk in just yet. It always takes me a good week to really process things, actually, but who knows what that’s about.

           Okay, Baker Street. I need to find my way to Baker Street.

           Because I have no other option, I walk up to the least scary looking woman on the sidewalk with me, tapping her shoulder. Thankfully, she looks to be around my age, so she doesn’t seem too alarmed by me tapping her.

           “Hi, you wouldn’t happen to know where the Sherlock Holmes museum is, would you?”

           She smiles, sort of knowingly and nods. “You’re lookin’ for Sherlock Holmes?”

           “Yes…” I nod slowly, not sure if she’s messing with me and is about to tell me to get lost, but she doesn’t.

           “Come on, I’ll walk with you.”

           If she wasn’t also a female and young, then I would not have followed her, but she looks like she means well, and knows where she’s going, which is evident when I vaguely see the awning to the museum in the distance.

           “So, what’s up with you?”

           I blink, letting out a weak laugh. “What?”

           “Why do you need to see Sherlock Holmes?” She clarifies. “What’s your case?”

           Okay, now I’m not sure if she’s the one who knows Sherlock Holmes doesn’t exist. I don’t even know how to respond to her.

           “Oh, I’m not supposed to be here right now,” I shrug. “Just wondering if maybe he could…help me out.”

           “Sounds interesting,” she nods seriously. “Well, it’s just up there. I’ve gotta get to work. Nice meeting you.”

           “Yeah, you too…” I furrow my eyebrows, watching her cross the street.

           I shake my head, rubbing my face with my hands. This no longer feels as concerning as it feels strange. Especially after that interaction.

           I continue walking, continue feeling the concrete underneath my bare feet as I walk. I come up on the awning of the museum only to find it’s…it’s not the museum. It’s Speedy’s Café.

           But Speedy’s isn’t here. Speedy’s isn’t supposed to be on this street – They don’t actually film the show at the exact 221B Baker Street. They film it on North Gower Street, everyone knows that.

           I look up at the brick building, and sure enough, she led me to Baker Street, where the museum should be, but it’s Speedy’s.

           I shake my head again, walking past the building to find someone else. I cast a quick glance at the door next to it, doing a doubletake when I see the golden 221B on the outside.

           “This day is just getting weirder and weirder,” I sigh.

           I rub at my eyes, stepping closer to see if it’s my eyes just playing a trick on me, but it’s not. It really does say 221B on the outside. Complete with the knocker turned to the side like Sherlock keeps it.

           Okay, stop it. Sherlock Holmes is fictional. He keeps it that way in his fictional world. This is the real world, and yes, it’s short circuiting right now, it’s still reality.

           It’s short circuiting? Really? I just woke up on a bus halfway across the globe after going to sleep in my apartment, and the best answer my brain can come up with is that the world is short circuiting?

           Just for that, I’m going to ring the doorbell. Just once. If nothing happens, then I’ll go…find the police station, I don’t know.

           Without giving it a single second thought, I step up, and briefly press the doorbell.

           Nothing happens. Literally, nothing. Which gives me the impression that this is the flat they film in, and that it’s just made to look like it really is Baker Street, even though everyone knows it’s just North Gower.

           I scoff to myself, feeling silly for even entertaining the idea, turning around to walk the other way. It’s when I turn my back that I hear the sound of the door opening, followed by an all too familiar voice.

           “Ma’am, wait!”

           I freeze. Absolutely not. There’s no absolute way that could be him.

           I take a deep breath, slowly turning myself back around, coming face to face with the man I’ve only ever seen on my laptop or phone screen.

           John Watson.

           No…it’s not. It’s Martin Freeman, come on, John Watson doesn’t actually exist. He’s a fictional character.

           “Would you like to come in?” He asks, stepping back and gesturing inside.

           My legs move before I tell them to, walking me inside the flat. I wait until John closes the door, before I turn back around to look at him.

           I probably look more than startled because he returns the expression, furrowing his eyebrows.

           “Are you alright?”

           “…no.”

           “Alright, well, come upstairs. I’ll get Mrs. Hudson to make you a cuppa.”

           I let him guide me up the stairs, checking on me every few steps to make sure I haven’t fainted, I’m sure. I’m not feeling faint, but I know I must look white as a sheet.

           This is just wrong. And not real. I’m dreaming. Surely, this is just a dream.

           “Mrs. Hudson, would you make…”

           He looks to me for my name, so I answer him. “Liz.”

           “Liz here a cuppa, please?”

           Mrs. Hudson – yes, the Mrs. Hudson I’ve seen in the show, Una Stubbs – nods, frowning. “Of course, dear. Are you alright? You look a little spooked.”

           “Yeah…I’m…I’m spooked,” I let out a breathy chuckle.

I glance around the apartment – flat, they’re flats here – with wide eyes. Everything is the same. The yellow smiley face ridden with bullet holes is on the wall above the couch. The messy coffee table that Sherlock always steps over is in front of the couch. The wall itself has various pictures and things pinned up, but I can’t see them clearly enough to know if it’s anything I’d recognize.

“Here you go, dear,” Mrs. Hudson hands me a cup of steaming tea. “Drink that and it should make you feel better.”

“Thanks, Mrs. H.”

John freezes, staring at me with wide eyes. “Mrs. H?”

“I’m sorry, force of habit,” I grimace. I’m ruining this already.

“Habit? Do you know Mrs. Hudson?”

“No, I—” I sigh. “It’s not a long story, but it’s really complicated, and I’m still trying to process everything right now and— Oh my God.”

The grip on my tea loosens completely, the cup falling from my hands and shattering at my feet. Standing before me is the man I’ve watched on a screen for years. Sherlock Holmes.

He finishes buttoning his blazer, raising an eyebrow. “Client?”

John answers, whilst cleaning up the broken shards of the teacup. “Yeah, I think. She said it’s complicated.” He stands, tossing them into the trashcan that Mrs. Hudson brought over before taking the towel from her to soak up the tea.

“It always is,” Sherlock dismisses John’s answer, holding his hand out to you. “Sherlock Holmes.”

“I know,” I blurt, immediately smacking myself in the forehead. I take his hand, giving it a firm shake. “I mean, I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m Liz. Liz Singleton.”

“Singleton,” he repeats, narrowing his eyes. “I know that name.”

“You do?”

“Yes…I’m not sure from where. Well, it’ll come to me soon enough.” He walks around me, pulling the chair out from under the table and sitting it in the middle of the floor. “Have a seat, Miss Singleton and I’ll see what I can do for you.”

“I want to stand, actually,” I say, the past moments’ events coming back to me. “I’m sorry about the cup, Mrs. H. I’m having delayed reactions to things.”

“It’s alright, dear, I’ve got plenty others. Sherlock has a bad habit of breaking them.”

I smile softly, turning back to Sherlock, only to find him staring me down. Deducing me, most likely, so I brace myself for the onslaught of accusations and truths I’m not aware of.

“Why do you speak to Mrs. Hudson with such familiarity?”

I pause, nodding slowly. “That’s part of my story.”

Sherlock sighs tiredly. “Go on, then.” He stays standing as well, continuing to look me over while John sits down in his chair.

“I’m not from here.”

“Yes, I gathered that from your alarming American accent.”

Ignoring the ‘alarming’ adjective, I continue. “I’m from Ohio. The state in the U.S. Thing is, I went to sleep there last night. But I woke up about an hour ago on a bus in downtown London.” My heart is pounding in my chest, the severity of what’s happening finally settling in now that I’ve said it aloud. “Any ideas, Mr. Holmes?”

“A few,” he mutters. “Those are clearly pajamas and judging by your lack of shoes, the sleeping bit does make sense.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “What were you doing last night?”

“That’s,” I pause to chuckle. “That’s the kicker, really, because I was watching you.”

His arms fall to his sides. “I’m sorry?”

“There’s a show, on BBC, it’s called Sherlock. It’s about you and John and Mrs. Hudson,” I swallow thickly. “And Molly, and Lestrade, and Mary.”

“Mary? Who’s Mary?”

“No one,” I cover quickly, not entirely sure what I’ve done, but I know it isn’t good. It sounds ridiculous, but I must be in the world before he met Mary, so before…before the Reichenbach. “Just a random person. But my point is, it’s a TV show. I was watching it when I fell asleep last night, and I woke up on a bus here, in London. And now I’m talking to you. And you’re not supposed to exist – none of you are. You’re fictional characters. I thought when I first got here that it was a little weird, but I was coming here to see the museum. There’s supposed to be a Sherlock Holmes museum here, not this flat. This flat isn’t supposed to exist – none of it is.”

I turn in a circle, looking at everything I’ve seen over the years. I used to dream about visiting this flat – visiting the set and sitting down in John’s chair or grazing my fingers over the smiley face on the wall, but now I’m here and I don’t even want to be. Now I’m here, and this is the worst nightmare I could ever imagine.

I stop, pointing at John, my mind spinning. “You. Your name isn’t John Watson, it’s supposed to be Martin Freeman. And you,” I point at Sherlock. “Your name isn’t Sherlock Holmes, it’s supposed to be Benedict Cumberbatch.”

           John laughs loudly. “What kind of a name is that?”

           “You played Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit,” I tell John—Martin. He’s Martin. “And Ian McKelpie in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. And you,” I turn back around to Benedict. “You played Khan in Star Trek. And Alan Turing in The Imitation Game. You guys are actors.” I cover my face with my hands. “This is one weird dream. I need to wake up.” I open my eyes, looking dead at Benedict. “Punch me.”

           “I’m sorry?”

           “Punch me. Right now. Knock me out in here, so it’ll wake me up back home.”

           “I’m not going to punch you, Miss Singleton.” He pauses. “Because I think I know what’s going on here.”

           John looks as surprised as I am. “You’re serious?”

           “Yes, John, I’m quite serious,” Sherlock tucks his hands behind him. “I’m at the height of my fame. You know that because we’ve been in the papers almost every day for the last month.”

           “No idea where you’re going with this, Sherlock.”

           “Oh, come on, open your eyes,” Sherlock cries. “Look at her outfit, look at her eyes. She’s an addict, clearly still high, and one of her delusions is that there’s a TV show starring the both of us. The TV show is incredibly popular, I’m assuming, which falls into the current pattern of my own popularity.” He turns to me. “I suggest you find your own way back home.”

           “What—”

           “Leave,” he points to the door. “I don’t have time to solve the delusions of an addict when there are more pressing issues on my mind.”

           I stare at him, thinking maybe he’s kidding with me, but it’s clear on his face that he’s not. I look to John and he doesn’t say anything. Why would he? They don’t know who I am here. I’m not supposed to be here.

           “Fine,” I mutter. “Sorry for bothering you.”

           I turn and exit the flat, stepping slowly down the stairs. I let myself focus on how the wood feels beneath my bare feet, something I was too dazed to feel when I first walked up. Now I’m feeling entirely too many emotions all at once and the stairs don’t feel magical beneath my feet, they just hurt. Like a million splinters being stabbed into my skin all at once. It’s not a dream like I wanted it to be. This is a literal nightmare.

           I stop at the bottom, letting my hand linger on the railing for just a moment longer. This is the first and last time I’ll ever be in 221B Baker Street and it couldn’t have gone any further from how I wanted.

           “Wait!”

           I ignore the voice – it’s John, but why does he care? – and pull open the front door, slamming it as I step out onto the sidewalk. I barely get past Speedy’s when I feel an arm on my shoulder, turning me around, making me face John Watson – stupid John Watson—

           “What do you want?”

           He removes his hand rather quickly, holding both up in surrender. “Hey, sorry.”

           I cross my arms over my chest. “What?”

           He hesitates, gathering his words. “Is what you said—Is it true? Is there a TV show about us?”

           I roll my eyes. “I’m not having this conversation right now.” I turn around, walking down the sidewalk, and much to my dissatisfaction, John follows beside me.

           “I just… I know what an addict looks like, and you’re not one. You looked too scared when I opened the door earlier and you walked around the flat like you’ve been there before—”

           “You know what?” I stop walking, turning to face him. “The show – You two idiots have gotten me through the roughest points of my life, alright? I’ve watched the show over and over until I could speak Sherlock’s dialogue in perfect timing, I’ve paused scenes to examine the background, I’ve even paused scenes to try to deduce things that Sherlock doesn’t to see what piece of the puzzle he doesn’t explain. So yes, I walked in there like I’d been there before, because I feel like I have. I used to want to live in this world more than my own, but that was a mistake because now that I am here – I don’t even want to be. I just want to go home. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go throw myself off a building and hope I wake up back in my bed. In my home. Because this doesn’t feel like home anymore. And I was so stupid to think it could’ve been.”

           John’s frown deepens the more that I speak, and part of me thinks I see tears in his eyes when I finish. But it doesn’t matter what I see because this isn’t real, and it never is going to be.

           “Good night, Dr. Watson,” I breathe, blinking and realizing the tears I see are actually in my own eyes. I sniffle, pressure rising in my chest as I try to hold back a sob. And I can’t cry about this in front of him, so I turn and leave, biting my sleeve to keep myself under control until I turn the corner, collapsing against the building in a fit of sobs that wrack my body.

           This is the biggest mess I’ve ever been in. If this is some trick the universe is trying to play on me to tell me that I had it good back home, despite the shit I went through, then that’s fine. I get it, Universe. Lesson learned. Take me back home now, please.

[rogerina-yee-haw]

Truth or Dare, Part 2

Ben Hardy x OC (original character)

Summary: Ben and Jane have been friends since they were eleven years old. They’ve shared secrets, their sorrows and happiness, but there is something they have never confessed to each other - and it’s their love.

Warnings: language (i curse a lot, so yeah, be ready), bullying, angst, mentions of suicidal behavior

A/n: here’s part 2! it’s a kind of slow burn, so...yeah. it’s also long again. enjoy!! (i do not own any gifs, credits to the owners uwu). excuse my mistakes, srry, i’m really dumb haha  btw, Ben’s real last name is Jones, in case you didn’t know (k thx it’s enough of the author’s note i guess)

also, if you have something against lgbtq+, feel free not to read this fic and leave my page :)

you’re my best friend.

“You alright?” Ben lightly touches Jane’s arm and it sends shivers down her spine. She’s not alright with him touching her like that.

She shrugs her shoulders just to seem indifferent and turns to the window. “I will be, when I have those chicken nuggets”. She hears him chuckle, but it doesn’t make her smile. She has all these memories running through her mind and she can’t stop thinking. This pain reminds her of an old one, the scars of which are still fresh.

Ten years ago.

The laugh and insults were echoing in Jane’s mind as she was standing in the school hall, completely startled and shattered. She felt her heart breaking into million pieces when she saw Leah standing next to Naomi Frasier, who was victoriously sneering. Leah was standing there, and she was laughing at Jane. Everyone were laughing, loudly and disdainfully.

Jane felt like dying right there, in the hall, where people were coming near her, just to laugh and throw pictures in her face. Dying felt like the best option.

She heard a voice calling her from a huge distance. All voices actually merged in some mixture of sounds, and she couldn’t tell whether they were all real or just in her head.

“Jane!” The voice was getting louder and louder. Jane turned her head and saw her best friend, Jazminne, clasping her wrist. “Jane, please”, she looked at her pitifully, “let’s leave”.

Jane frowned, not quite realizing what Jazminne was saying. “Leave?” she mouthed.

Suddenly Jane felt a pinch on her left shoulder. After slowly turning her head, she almost bursted into tears. “Leave?” said Naomi, who was now standing near her. “Oh no, dear Jenny, you can’t leave. The party’s just started!” Naomi’s laugh was disgusting and ugly, but it brought Jane to her senses immediately. It also made her realize what had just happened.

What a bitch.

“Leave her the fuck alone, Naomi”, Jazminne let go of Jane’s wrist and came closely to the girl. “You’ve done enough; you’ve had your fun, now just stop”. Naomi was a bit shorter than Jazminne, who wasn’t actually really tall too – but Frasier still looked like a child compared to Gardner.

Naomi let out a laugh. “The problem is, Gardner, that I still want to have more fun. And also restore justice”. She looked at Jane. “We do not tolerate any immorality in our school. And that’s exactly what she’s been doing”, Naomi pointed at Jane.

God, she was angry. Jane looked at Jazminne’s hair, just not to look at Naomi’s obnoxious face. She clenched her hands so tightly that her nails were digging in the soft skin of her palm. How much do you have to hate someone to do something like that?

“Immorality?” Jazminne raised her brows. “Are you fucking kidding me, Frasier? What’s immoral about that?”

“You even wonder?” Naomi seemed to be genuinely surprised. “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them”.

“Are you seriously quoting the Bible right now?” Jazminne couldn’t believe her ears.

When Jazminne opened her mouth to say another thing, she was suddenly interrupted. “How the fuck is it about me?”

Naomi seemed to be puzzled by Jane’s comment; she didn’t expect her to speak at all. She looked at Jane and then sneered. Again.

“It’s the same thing. Men being with men is as equally gross as women being with women. It’s just not natural”.

“Against the laws of Mother Nature, right?”

“Glad you understand that, Chinny”.

Silence covered the whole hall as Jane continued speaking. “I don’t, actually. I don’t understand why would you take pictures of me kissing and making out with Leah and then humiliate me. I don’t understand why you make it look like I’ve killed someone. I haven’t harmed anyone but myself. I don’t, and I can’t understand that. I’m not sure I ever will”. Tears were burning Jane’s cheeks as she stormed out of the hall, and then out of the school. Jazminne gave Naomi a death stare that could kill Frasier right then and there, ripped one picture from the wall and ran after Jane.

She was out in the street, standing in the cold April rain and crying. She was hurt, so deeply and horribly, that she felt like she couldn’t live with it. She had never been hurt like that.

“Jane, come on”, Jazminne put her hand on Jane’s shoulder. “Let’s leave. You’ll get sick”.

“Maybe I’ll die after that”. She could barely speak as her teeth were chattering.

“Don’t say that”.

Jane looked at Jazminne and bit her lip, trying to stop herself from weeping. “Come on, Jane. Let’s go home”.

After a moment Jane was sitting in Jazminne car, trying to warm herself up. She was doing it unintentionally – because in reality all Jane wanted was to freeze in the street and die quickly.

“Do you want to talk?” Jazminne said before starting the car. Jane shook her head and turned to the window. Jazminne let out a deep sigh. These fifteen minutes just won’t be easy, she thought, they will be silent and sad. And they were indeed.

When the car stopped at the Chinny’s house driveway, Jane almost flew out of the car. Jazminne took a deep breath and followed her best friend.

Jane was quick to find the keys in her bag. Jazminne just took one step into the house, when Jane was already running up the stairs. Jaz was rushing after her; she was constantly thinking that Jane might do something to herself. Something terrible. She couldn’t let that happen.

She came into Jane’s room and saw her lying on the bed, loudly crying. She was weeping. With her face buried in pillows and her muffled sobs, Jane looked as wretched as ever. Jazminne was on the verge of crying herself. She couldn’t bear seeing her best friend suffering. “Janey”, she tried to hide the trembling in her voice, “Janey, please, talk to me. I will do anything to help you”.

Jane raised her head and looked Jazminne straight in the eyes. Her face was fully red from crying, and she was angry. “What you’re gonna do, Jaz?” her voice sounded bitter. “How you’re gonna undo everything? There is no way to fix that”, she said resting her head on the pillow, “Nothing can be done. I’m going to be bullied even more. Now for my sexuality”, she let out a sad chuckle, and her eyes were filled with tears again. Jazminne sighed deeply and sat down on the floor, in front of Jane’s bed.

“Look, you’ve got to tell me what happened between you and Leah. So that Emily and I could start plotting the revenge plan”.

“I don’t want that”.

“What do you want us to do, then?”

Jane looked at her. “To leave me the fuck alone, Jaz. That’s all I want now”.

Jazminne nodded and silently left her friend’s room; while closing the door, she heard Jane sobbing once again.

She didn’t know what to do. She and Emily weren’t of great use and Emily especially, with her sneezing and coughing right now. Calling Jane’s parents weren’t an option either – Jane probably hadn’t come out to them yet; so it would be difficult to explain all of it to them at once. It was one way. Jazminne didn’t quite like it, but he would be certainly of great help.

She ran downstairs; it took her a couple of minutes to take the phone in her hands and find Jones’ home number. It was the first time in Gardner’s life when she was praying for him to pick up. “Hello”, Jaz let out a breath of relief, when she heard his raspy, sleepy voice.

“Ben, it’s Jazminne. I need you to come to Jane’s house. She’s in trouble. I’m afraid she might do something to herself”.

In ten minutes Ben was already knocking on the front door; not loud enough for Jane to hear it, though.

“What happened?” he whispered, when Jazminne locked the door after him.

“Naomi ‘outed’ her”, Jaz said quietly. “In front of the whole school”.

Ben looked too confused, and Jaz had a sudden desire to punch him in his stupid face. “Gardner, I have no fucking idea what ‘outed’ means”. Jazminne sighed.

“She’s bisexual”. Jaz was quite for a moment. “So Naomi found that out and revealed it to everyone at school, without Jane’s permission. That’s what ‘outed’ means”.

Ben closed his eyes and sighed. What the fuck? “Did you know about that?” he asked that, obviously hiding the real question which was “Did she tell you?”

“Emily and I only assumed, never asked her directly”, Jazminne shrugged. “You had no idea, had you?”

Ben shook his head. “Feels like a brand new world”, he mumbled, heading upstairs. “You staying?”

“Yeah”, Jaz answered. “Just in case”.

Ben nodded and went to Jane’s room; he was puzzled, confused, startled. Jane was bi? How come he had never noticed that? How come he had never asked? How come she had never told him?

He quietly knocked on her door. There was no answer. He knocked again.

“Go away”. Her voice sounded sharply; but Ben knew she was just hiding her pain under that. He opened the door and came in.

Jane sat down on the bed, tightly hugging her pillow; her face was as red as the shirt Ben was wearing, her makeup completely ruined and her hair was a mess. But she, somehow, looked ridiculously beautiful to Ben.

“The fuck you doing here?” she said, looking at him.

“T’s a warm welcome”.

“I don’t want to see you”. She turned her head and started starring at the wall. Ben knew she did that only to hide her tears.

“Yes, you do. You always want to see me”, he sat down on the bed, facing her.

“Not now”, she answered and bit her lip. Jane took a deep breath and that was the moment Ben understood what he had to do. He moved closer to her and touched her hand gently.

“Come here”.

Jane finally pulled her eyes of the wall and looked at Ben. It seemed to him that he could see the world in her eyes.

“No, or I’ll cry again. I don’t want to cry anymore, Ben”, she whispered, covering her face with her hands. Ben was fast enough to put his arms around her and pull her closer. He felt his heart beating too fast, and it made him a bit nervous. But it wasn’t as much important at that moment as Jane, who was sobbing into his chest, while clinging to the back of his shirt. She needed that, she needed a good cry. She also needed someone to hold her close, running their fingers through her hair and quietly whispering, “It’s okay”. Ben was that someone; and Jane didn’t need anybody else. Just her best friend. 

They both didn’t know how much time passed before Jane stopped crying; she slowly pulled away from Ben, wiping her cheeks and breathing heavily. “I ruined your tee-shirt”, she sniffled, “sorry ‘bout that”.

“Got plenty of ‘em”, Ben looked at her. “Stop apologizing”.

In fact, he couldn’t stop looking at her. He felt a sudden necessity to wipe her tears away with his thumb and then kiss her. That desire sent shivers down his spine and made Ben swallow nervously; he couldn’t understand why he was thinking like that about his best friend.

“Thanks”, she said quietly, looking at him. Ben’s heart was ready to jump out of his chest. Why’s it happening to me?

“Don’t even mention it”. Jane took a deep breath and for a moment Ben was scared she was going to cry again; but she just swallowed and looked back at him.

“Did Jaz tell you anything?”

“Only that Naomi ‘outed’ you”, Ben was going to continue speaking, but Jane interrupted him.

“What’s ‘outed’?”

Ben let out a chuckle. “Means she told everyone you’re bisexual without your consent. I didn’t know either what it means either”. Jane’s cheeks flushed and Ben, once again, saw her eyes filling with tears. He took her hand in his and gently squeezed it. “Jane, you can tell me. I won’t ever judge you”.

She looked at him and sighed deeply. Ben felt her hand shaking. “I was going to tell you, I just…just…couldn’t”, she stuttered, as she felt the oxygen leaving her whole body; Jane thought she was going to choke on tears, anger and pain. “I didn’t even tell my parents, I was so scared”, she whispered, “scared that something like this would happen”.

“What happened exactly?” Ben asked carefully, hoping she would tell him.

Jane took a deep breath. “A month ago I had my first kiss. With a girl”, she was silent for a moment. “With Leah Kay”. Ben raised his eyebrows; he was truly taken aback by this.

“Leah Kay?” he said loudly, “the most talentless and obtuse person alive? Seriously, Jane?”

“Could you just shut up?” she suddenly got annoyed; no wonder it happened – Ben was always able to change Jane’s emotional state from one to another with a snap of the fingers. “I’m trying to open up here!” Ben smiled, and Jane pinched his shoulder. He sighed and apologized; and he never let go of her hand. “So we were going out, kissing, making out in her house, and…” Jane swallowed. “And turned out Naomi had planned all of it. She was taking pictures of us, while Leah was just lying to me all the time. Today at school there was a whole exhibition of our pictures”. Jane’s whole face went red again, and one tear was streaming down her cheek; she tried to swallow the lump in her throat, and Ben could feel her pain. It made his heart break into pieces; he had never seen Jane being so vulnerable and defenseless. She was always the tough one, the girl who never cried. Ben cried way more often than Jane did, if being honest.

It made him sick; as he thought about what she had to face at school today. Naomi had always been an ass towards Jane, but what she did today totally crossed the line. Jane didn’t deserve it. No one did.

Jane sniffled. “Feels like this crying will never stop”. She wiped the tears with the back of her palm and sighed. “Maybe I just deserved it or whatever”.

“No”, her eyes seemed to know no end, as Ben just couldn’t stop looking in them. He had never noticed before how wonderful they looked. “You did not deserve that”.

It seemed like she needed his reassurance, his warmth and help. She sniffled one more time and clenched her hand tightly again, making her nails dig into her skin; but this time Ben was there to take her hand into his.

“Don’t do this”, he said quietly. He held her hand for a while before noticing the marks her nails left. He sighed deeply. How come he had never noticed how broken she was? Then Ben kissed her knuckles. Her skin was soft and it was the first time he noticed all the scars she had on the back of her palm.

“They do not deserve you”, he whispered’ holding her hands tightly and looking her right in the eyes. “None of them do”. Jane looked at him and felt a new urge to cry. This time it was because of the unconditional love she felt for her best friend.  

“Ben”, she gasped, “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to pay you back”.

He smiled softly. “You don’t have to. You are my best friend. I’ll do anything for you”.

 back to the presence.

The cab stops at the red light; Jane is still looking out of the window. Ben is stressed out by her behavior, unable to sit straight. He is twisting and turning, until Jane finally notices his movements.

“Your ass scratching or what?” she is annoyed; Jane looks at him and he freezes under her gaze. “Stop this moving, you’re going to get us kicked out of the car!” She has no idea why she is so angry with Ben suddenly. Of course, she is still displeased about seeing him with another girl and about her feelings in general – but this came out too harsh and sharp.

“Always polite and nice, as usual”, he mutters. “If you didn’t behave as weird as you do, I wouldn’t be turning, trying to get your attention”.

Jane snorts. “Oh, sorry I do not pay attention to you. Thought you’ve had enough of it today”.

“And what do you mean by that?”

She sighs. “Nothing. Haven’t you got it already? I don’t always mean something by my stupid words”.

Ben knows that she does. He knows exactly what she means; and it is him and that girl in a blue dress. She is jealous – this is something Ben can’t get over that easily. He just wishes to kiss her right now, on the backseat of this cab. He wants to run his fingers through her hair and hear her quite moans as he deepens the kiss. He knows she’ll shiver under his touch; he’s sure her hands will be around his neck as he pulls her closer to him. He knows it’ll happen; it will certainly occur in the future. Just not now.

“Ben”, she suddenly turns to him again, “remember when you humiliated Leah Kay in front of the whole town?”

Ben frowns for a second, trying to remember that exact moment; but then he snorts loudly. “First of all, I did not humiliate her. It’s not my fault that she had never learnt her lines for our plays. That she didn’t know the plot of ‘Romeo and Juliet’?” He looks at Jane, as she smiles. “Not my fault either”.

“Sure thing”, her mood has changed again; Jane really starts thinking her period’s gonna come early. “It’s not your fault that only in her script there was a line ‘Romeo, thy dick is thick’, which got her suspended later”, Ben grins at her words and nods. “Anyways, I never got to thank you for that. So thank you, Ben”, the car stops when Jane says his name, and they sit in silence for a couple of seconds.

Ben takes a deep breath as he looks her right in the eyes. “Don’t even mention it, Jane”.

_______________________________________

hey, tell me what you think please! should i continue or not? btw, thank you all for reading, it means the world to me <3

Tags:

@the-freak-cassie-131  @lilliekrs

[gamearamamegathons]

Trauma Center: Second Opinion: HEART GLASS

[Content warning for surgery and stuff! And also for suicide, a topic that this game handles miserably, so be prepared for that. Actually, let's also add a content warning for verbal abuse towards a suicidal person, just to be safe.]

Circe here! Time to fix more organs! We open with episode 1-6. Angie is really worried about this patient, because his blood tests are off, but Derek just blows off her concerns. This surgey is pretty straightforward, we're treating inflammation and removing tumors, but Derek is continually ignoring Angie pointing out that something more seems wrong. Our protagonist has gone from a newbie doctor to a bigshot episode in the space of six scenes. Amazing. Well, after we finish up the surgery, Derek hurries off to some doctor event thing, but it turns out that the patient had more inside bad stuff that blew up, so he almost died. Whoopsy. We don't actually operate on this patient again, instead Derek basically gets fired for negligence. Angie says that any suspicion, no matter how tiny or inconsequential, should be taken seriously, which is an absolutely ridiculous thing to say, because there were actually quite ample reasons to think something was wrong.

Have I mentioned that this game's writing is...uh...a little strange? The characters react to every surgery basically as if they were operating on someone they know, and while it's admirable to care about people that passionately, this just isn't realistic, because that kind of attitude isn't sustainable when you're treating life or death situations every day. I dunno if this is typical for medical dramas, but I find it a bit jarring. At the very least, though, I guess comments like this help us understand the driving philosophy of the game's narrative.

Anyway, Derek is moping outside, when he hears about a car accident. It seems that one of the victims is being taken into emergency care, and Derek knows that there aren't enough doctors, so he rushes in and is, like, emergency un-fired, I guess. Was he really fired, or did they just yell at him a lot? I dunno, this game's fuzzy about that. But who cares because this guy's got HEART GLASS! That's right, when we cut the guy open, we find that his heart has been pretty much pincushioned with glass shards, which I'm pretty sure would mean he'd just be dead. To make things worse, as soon as we remove all the glass, another huge piece just, chestbursters out of his heart, which

I mean

I'm *pretty* sure that'd kill him.

Just when we think we've got this guy all patched up, another laceration appears on his heart, for reasons that aren't even really clear this time. In a moment of panic, Derek fixes it with magic.

...what? You heard me. This is the point at which we're introduced to the Healing Touch, a rare magic power possessed by only a handful of surgeons that allows them to go into bullet time to do surgery super fast and save people from dying. Have I mentioned that this series is a bit weird?

Anyway, no time for that now. This is the remake, remember, and bit that I'm pretty sure is new to this version is a side story featuring another surgeon named Nozomi Weaver. We don't learn much about Dr. Weaver except that she's a master Japanese surgeon who's currently practicing in America, and also she's shaaaady. In this surgery, our patient's arm bones are shattered, so we do the logical thing and collect all the pieces, jigsaw them back together, and smear some antibiotic gel all over it so it heals real good. Uh, I didn't mention this, but there's a line of dialogue early on about this gel being a cure-all, and I guess they weren't fucking kidding, were they. This surgery also introduced an unfortunate complication to my clever emulated control scheme. To put the bones back together, you have to rotate the Wii remote, something I hadn't really bothered to configure. I had to concede the need to use an analog stick here for precision, so I ended up with the controller sitting in my lap so I could operate the stick and the mouse at the same time. It was, uh, a little less than elegant, but it was the best I could do. I kinda hope they don't require any more of the Wii remote's features in future surgeries.

Back to Derek. Next up, we gotta fix these little blobs that are traveling through a guy's spleen, and every time they go through it hurts him. We're doing pretty good until there's a lot of them going really fast, so Derek once again draws on the power of magic to fix it all in time. Word of Derek's dark magic reaches the hospital director guy, and he explains that Derek has a rare magic power, and that having such great healing power is a heavy burden to bear, so he should give up on it or he'll never be happy. Derek ignores him though, like any good protagonist, so we learn how to activate Healing Touch manually by drawing the shape of a pentagram in the air.

Nope. Not kidding.

Derek explains this away as him concentrating on a simple shape to increase his focus, but also fuck you, you're invoking dark magic with a pentagram. I fucking own it when I use dark magic, Derek, and you should do the same. I should also note, invoking the Healing Touch involves holding B and Z and drawing at the same time, which is a manuever that was definitely kind of a pain to configure so I could carry it out comfortably. Oh yeah, I forgot, we also learned how to use defibrillators earlier! That requires you to use B and Z at the same time also. Gotta be real careful about zapping a guy's heart and stuff.

Aaaanyway. The next patient's got lumps on his organs that keep bursting, so we gotta cut the lumps out and stitch his veins back together. This surgery actually kinda sucks, and I lost several times before I got it, because it takes a massive chunk out of the patient's vitals when his stuff bursts, and they will, no matter how quickly you work. Near the end, there's four of them at once, and you gotta use the Healing Touch to not lose. Unfortunately, this leads to Derek passing out for three days. Whoopsy again. When Derek comes to, veteran doctor guy tells Derek that dark magic places a lot of strain on the body and he really shouldn't overdo it, because if he passed out in a surgery that would be, uh, pretty bad. I gotta side with veteran guy here. Pulling a spirit muscle is *way* worse than pulling a physical one.

So then we get to Linda. Let me tell you about Linda, and how Angie becomes the worst character in the game for all time. So, Linda is a 17 year old girl who comes in with lacerations on her lungs. Which sounds pretty bad. This is a fairly basic surgery, although we also learn that we need to close very large lacerations with the forceps before we can stitch them closed. Where things really go bad is after the surgery. It turns out that Linda was suicidal, and didn't really want to be fixed at all. So Angie does the logical thing, and yells in her face that clearly the surgery was a waste and Linda should just die if that's how she feels about it.

so

uh

hm

So yeah, Angie is total scum. Let's move on and see how it gets worse. After that shameful display, Derek tries to help Linda by giving her a little pep talk, which I don't think would actually help, but hey, the guy's heart is in the right place I guess. Later, we learn a bit more about Linda's home life, and there's some stuff that kinda sucks, but, in Angie's words, 'nothing worth dying over'.

as you can see angie understands suicidal ideation very well

Later we learn that extremely high levels of some kind of antihistamine was in Linda's body, and it's not even on the market yet, nor is there any evidence she was taking it, so her body was just kind of, creating it somehow. Apparently this huge drug overdose caused a mood swing that led to her feeling suicidal, which means

w h i c h m e a n s

which means Linda was feeling suicidal because she was sick. Angie screamed in a sick person's face that she should die because she was sick. Angie should be fucking fired, quite possibly even sued for some kind of negligence, I don't know. She certainly shouldn't be allowed back into the plot as though she just got a little upset and said some things she didn't mean. Angie even has the gall to later whisper ominously about a rumored 'death doctor' who euthanizes patients, and how it's good that Linda was treated by Derek instead of that guy. As if Angie herself wasn't literally saying Linda should be dead fucking yesterday. Fuck.

Okay, deep breaths. I'm getting ahead of things a little. While the plot is getting horrible, the surgeries are getting *amazing*. After all this, Linda suddenly starts complaining of excruciating chest pains, so we gotta treat her again. After we fix up more lacerations, we find out the reason why Linda's body has been all weird and messed up: tiny monsters in her lung! Yes, that's right. We use the ultrasound to detect a tiny winged creature moving around inside Linda's lung, and it's creating more lacerations, so we have to cut the sucker out and laser it to death. A few more of these things crop up, and we take them out one by one, until all of Linda's lung monsters are taken care of.

This is GUILT, the game's made up...disease...monster...thing. It's a little hard to be sure what they are, because the game talks about GUILT as though it's a disease, but they appear to be, like, parasites or something. Maybe it's a visual metaphor? For...something? Well anyway, Linda's all better. Veteran doctor guy whispers in hushed tones about GUILT, and says that nobody outside of this room should talk about what we saw.

So, with that major development, I think this is a good cutting off point for now. I wanna focus on the fun parts, and not as much on how Angie is a detestable human being, so let's review: HEART GLASS, jigsaw bones, and lung monsters. This game is only going to get more absurd from here, and as far as I remember, there is 100% less of characters being absolutely monstrous to teenage girls, so I hope you're looking forward to it.

[topazshadowwolf]

False Hope (Chapter 5)

After the human left the underground, Sans is left trying to piece his life back together with those who remain. As time goes on, decisions are made about what monster kind should do next, and how best to escape to the surface. But if they do get their freedom, what will happen?

Written by: Topaz Shadowwolf Undertale Fan fiction Undertale is owned by Toby Fox

Heads up: Soriel, Sans POV, my goal in writing this is to poke at your emotions Warnings: Major character death, implied suicide, homicidal thoughts, don’t expect a happy ending

AO3 On Tumblr: Ch 1 Ch 2 Ch 3 Ch 4

I almost combined these last two chapters, since they are so short... but I think they are best separated. Anyway, enjoy...

Chapter five: Wrongs

 The question is: is revenge the right thing. Y’know?

In the big picture, no it isn’t. I mean, hurting someone because they hurt you only means the person who originally hurt you will, most likely, hurt you even more next time. Just makes this horrid and confusing circle of pain. And worse yet, it causes more people to get hurt. Friends and family stand by, watching, and they get hurt trying to stop it from happening.

But I can’t help but wonder, does it apply in this case? I mean… trying to force someone to reset could result in an even worse ending. Yet, it could make everything better.

I remember hearing a long time ago that two lefts don’t make a right. Of course, I had to joke and say, “three do.” The words didn’t mean much to me then. Not that the meaning was lost on me; I understood what was meant. Just didn’t see why I should care. It didn’t feel like it applied to me or anything I was doing at the time. It was just this cute little saying that people would say to stop someone from reacting badly to another. But now, I understand it completely. Now it does apply. I’m thinking of my options, considering the choice I must make, hearing the voices of the others, and that little saying is just replaying in my head.

Which, I guess, is why I’m wavering with my revenge plans. I mean, I still want it, but how do I go about getting it without upsetting my friends?

Which is silly, it’s not like they will remember. Even my dear brother won't remember. Heck, how much of this will I remember is debatable too, after all. So, it’s possible for me to go through with this and never feel any guilt from it. And yet, the pure notion that, without knowing it, Papyrus’s big brother will continue to let him down, is painful.

Still, if my research is right…

Well, let’s just say, I have reason to carry out my original plan. I think you know the reason. You’ve got to know, you must understand that there is happiness for my bro out there, somewhere. So, killing a killer to force that killer to reset… Does that make it right?

Is it right to kill a murderer?

They did kill someone, in this case, a lot of someones, but does that make killing a killer the right thing to do? Objectively, revenge isn’t right. I have no right to play judge, jury, and executor. It would be different if I let Undyne do it. See, then it would be the law passing down judgment. That’d be different than me becoming like the killer I hate just to try getting my way.

But normally, if you kill a killer nothing happens other than maybe some guilt or relief. Yet, this killer can reset. So, does making this wrong, after their wrong, make things right if they make things better? Common sense says, “no. killing like this is never right.” My objectivity says “no,” too. Y’know? Since murder is wrong.

And yet…

I don’t want to wait for Undyne.

I’ve been waiting too long for this reset…

I’m losing myself...

  Based on the levels of determination he could extract from this human, Sans doubted the boy could reset. It seemed reasonable to assume, then, that the power still remained with the other, the killer. So, it was just a matter of time, and thankfully it was not long before he had something that would trick the Barrier. It really was all because of Alphys’s help that he was able to make a breakthrough. She had all the answers he lacked, and thanks to his understanding of what she was telling him, they were able to work together to make a contraption capable of simulating seven human souls. It was complicated and took time to make, but still, freedom was achievable.

Revenge was achievable.

Once the project was done, he took it to the castle to finally see if it worked. Undyne didn’t want to just do a trial run. The Barrier could only be broken once, after all, and she felt all the monsters should be there to witness it. She had gathered all of monster kind, informing them that freedom is close at hand, and might be today. She told them that, whether this works or not, freedom will come, and humans will pay for their crimes against monsters. “Today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, it won’t matter. What will be important is that we will be ready, and we will win!” Undyne rallied monster kind. Which put pressure on him, though her speech left an opening for him to not be disgraced if it didn’t work for some reason. Still, with Alphys by him wringing her claws nervously, he couldn’t help but want it to work. So, as he prepared, he took care in making sure everything was right.

After setting the device, Sans started it and then backed up. The Barrier creaked, cracked, then shattered like a window being smashed by a rock. The natural light of the morning sun filtered in, lighting the cavern. It was so beautiful but far brighter and different than anything his sockets had grown used to. Sans squinted his eye sockets as he looked passed the opening to the world beyond. There were more mountains, trees, and sky as far as he could see. monster kind, behind him, cheered and rushed by him into the open air. He felt a hand on his shoulder as Undyne said, “Nice going, Nerd! You freed us! We’re all in your debt for this.”

“heh, it’s nothing undyne.” Sans started to shrug but felt Undyne’s grip on his shoulder tighten. He looked at her and saw she was about to say something when a member of the guard called for her.

The current ruler of monsters sighed while giving Sans’s back a pat that caused him to tip forward, but not fall. “Look, Sans, I’m being serious here. We’d still all be stuck down there if it weren’t for you. So, seriously, let me know if you need anything. Alright?” Undyne asked with a bit of forcefulness behind her words.

“sure thing, boss,” Sans lazily replied. He offered her a grin that she clearly was not satisfied with. She had that look, one that seemed to say she was worried about him, though he wasn’t fully sure why. Okay, yeah, he had started talking to Toriel, Papyrus, and Alphys more openly, but he didn’t make a big deal about it. So, he didn’t see the reason why anyone would think it was. Undyne was about to say more when she was called again. She sighed, turned sharply, and started barking out orders

With that, the Guard was mobilized and the war on humans truly started. Undyne’s wrath was quickly learned by all that were in her path, deserved or not. Monsters attacked the nearby towns in an organized and unmerciful manner. They easily took out unsuspecting humans with few injuries and barely any losses on the monster side. Sans was forced to sit out when it came to the fighting. Undyne reminded him he was too weak to fight, not that he minded. Papyrus didn’t need to see him fight, and it would upset Toriel as well. So, he watched from the sidelines as the attacks happened. He didn’t know if he liked these random attacks though. His wrath, unlike Undyne’s, was more focused on one, while she was willing to attack all humans. But he was willing to let her waste her time on hunting down every human. It gave him the time needed to send the spiders out to gather information, as well as time for them to work.

Once monsters had conquered that stretch of land, Undyne was prepared to track down high levels of LV. Most likely, other violent humans will hinder her progress. Which was fine for him, Sans just needed time to wait for the spiders to report back. With her tracking down every human criminal, he’d definitely get to the brother killer first. It was now just a waiting game, and he had far more patience than the average monster. Though that was fading fast.

The last issue was what to do with the human kid. The boy didn’t want to go back home, he was apparently scared of his parents. It seemed wrong for a child to fear their parents and knowing that bothered him. But, Sans still had no idea what to do with him. He didn’t want to send the kid off to some human town if it was just going to be the next target for a monster attack. Sans considered asking Undyne what she thought when Toriel said, “Why don’t you take care of him. You are both lonely, after all.”

“tori,” Sans started his rebuttal, but he was quickly interrupted by the eager voice of his brother.

“THAT IS AN EXCELLENT IDEA, SO LONG AS MY BROTHER CARES FOR HIM BETTER THAN THE PET ROCK,” Papyrus added with a bright smile.

Alphys went on about the anime they could all watch together, but Sans lost interest in the conversation. Fine, he’ll watch the kid. Not like it will matter in the end. Besides, there was no arguing with them once they got an idea in their heads. Right now, he didn’t have the energy to spare to try talking them out of this.

The next few days, the kid was always a step behind him as he worked on whatever projects Undyne needed him for. And she did come up with something. Though he suspected that some of it was busy work. She seemed to think she needed to keep him occupied so he didn’t just sit around and ruminate. There were a few times, when he turned sharply or took a step back, that Sans nearly stepped on the kid. If Sans were any taller, he’d think the kid was trying to trip him. When they had a chance, they would sit together and watch anime or read books. They seemed to have accepted that Sans either talks to unseen monsters or himself, as the kid never questioned Sans about that odd behavior. In the end, Sans was thankful for his “shadow.” At least it was someone living to talk to, even if he didn’t say much.

Asgore could be seen now and then, sadly trailing after Undyne. As bad as Sans felt for the guy, he had his hands full with the three ghosts, or figments, following him and a kid. So, he didn’t really feel like asking the past king to join his already formed group of spirits. Either way, it was just a game of patience, soon enough, Asgore will be alive again.

Sure enough, after two weeks of freedom, the spiders pulled through and he knew where to find the human he hated so much. He thanked them for their service and promised that things will be better soon.

That night he got the kid to go to bed early and asked Toriel, Papyrus, and Alphys to watch him while he was out. Toriel didn’t like what was going on and she watched him carefully, though she said nothing. If Papyrus or Alphys thought something was up, neither of them said anything.

As Sans started to leave he heard a voice behind him, “Sans?” There was so much worry and concern that it hurt Sans to hear Toriel say his name like that.

“yeah, tori?” Sans replied though he didn’t have the heart to look back at her.

“I don’t think you should be doing this…,” Toriel said softly and she moved closer to him. He saw her reach to put a paw on him. If she did, if he felt her touch him, he might lose his will to do this, and so he moved out of reach.

“it will all be okay,” he muttered, trying to hold back tears, “i’ll make it okay.”

“Sans, you don’t have to be the one to do this,” Toriel again, pleaded. But, Sans quickly left, tears seeping from his sockets as he retreated.

It’s not like she will remember…

No one will remember…

He’ll make everything better…

…

Right?

…

Thanks to the detailed directions from the spiders, he was able to get to the human quickly and undetected by the use of shortcuts. They were living on the outskirts of a small town, in their own house. Everything looked far nicer than the human deserved. Killers like them shouldn’t have all these nice things when others were left struggling with the pain they caused.

He wasn’t going to be careless. He doubted the spiders would give him false information, but he wasn’t about to kill someone based on bad intelligence. He walked up to the house and looked into the windows to check for the human. The first two rooms he saw nothing of interest. But in the third, he saw them.

… and they were not alone.

[schmergo]

SO, because I'm appearing as Juliet in a staged reading of Romeo & Juliet this Saturday, this is my planned post about why I love Juliet and this play. I do think she is one of the more misunderstood literary characters, and R&J itself suffers from a lot of oversimplification nowadays.

(NOTE: This post deals fairly heavily with themes of suicide and other dark topics.)

I get why people are all like “Romeo & Juliet is a terrible relationship, all those people died” and “R&J is not a love story, it’s about kids making stupid decisions” and everything– but I feel uncomfortable with how those people are putting all the blame on the kids themselves.

I think the play makes it pretty clear that the kids were unable to overcome the violence and hatred rampant in their environment in which they grew up, and that the adults in their lives were not supportive or willing to listen or help them. The parents have no idea what their kids’ hopes, dreams, or interests are, and their kids don’t feel comfortable talking to them about their lives. Romeo & Juliet is a great tragedy because every tragic event within it was completely preventable. The lovers may have taken their own lives, but the ‘tragedy’ is that the other characters disregarded their feelings and their words, and ignored them because they’re just stupid teenagers… much like a lot of the more jaded readers of the play.

Yes, the over-romanticization of the play is a problem, but it also contains some of the most beautiful and vivid love poetry in the English language, and shouldn’t be dismissed as 'haha, stupid kids, Romeo can’t keep it in his pants.’ Romeo and Juliet themselves are no more 'stupid’ than Shakespeare’s other tragic heroes (Macbeth and Othello come swiftly to mind), and Juliet in particular is a very well-developed, intelligent, and interesting heroine, one of Shakespeare's most complex.

She is not quite fourteen years old and has had very little freedom in her life. (What were you like at age 'almost fourteen?' I was writing Voldemort's blog on MuggleNet and obsessing over Pirates of the Caribbean.) Up to this point in the play, she's only been seen by others as a daughter of the Capulet family, who talk about her as if she's not there and don't seem to know how to talk to her without the presence of her garrulous nurse. She barely speaks around her family and mostly just obediently listens as they make plans for her. Nobody has ever really questioned what Juliet wants.

This is why she and Romeo connect so quickly. It's not just a romance thing-- it's the first time they've ever met someone who sees them as themselves, not just an extension of their family, not with preconceived notions about who they are and what they want. (Romeo, I'd argue, has the opposite problem from Juliet-- too much freedom to do whatever he wants, and no direction in life. But neither he nor Juliet are taken seriously by the people around them.) She has no friends her own age, no freedom to leave her house. She is STARVED for human connections without even really realizing what is missing when she meets Romeo.

Juliet is the one who keeps questioning whether they should be more cautious. She is the one that tries to slow things down... but though she knows that's what she SHOULD want, that's not really what she wants, and when the time comes, she is the first one to bring up the topic of marriage. She is such an eager, earnest portrayal of young desire, without it being vilified.

For the first time, the future opens up for Juliet, and no wonder she is radiantly happy to rush into marriage with Romeo.

But for the entire second half of the play, Juliet experiences a narrowing of her future, from a broad horizon to a single point. When she thinks she and Romeo are finally bound together, she learns about his banishment-- the human equivalent of buying an ice cream cone and dropping it on the way to the car before you can enjoy it. Then she learns that her parents want to marry her off to Paris immediately. She had a glimpse of a future that she could control, and now it's being taken away. And it's not just that she doesn't love Paris-- it's that she's already legally married, and she fears she will be damned forever if she gets married a second time. She's from a very Catholic background. I can forgive her theatrics.

Her father doesn't just order her to marry Paris. He screams at her for a long, protracted, disturbing scene in which he says he wishes she was never born and that he doesn't care if she hangs, begs, starves, or dies in the street if she doesn't marry Paris. He threatens to physically harm her and the nurse for defending her. When she begs her mother not to make her marry Paris, her mother tells her "I have done with thee" and leaves her. Even the Nurse finally counsels her to listen to her father and marry Paris. Juliet is shattered, and she sees that her family doesn't REALLY care about her or what she wants-- they only see her as an extension of themselves, and all of the jolliness that Lord Capulet usually displays is conditional on how good she is at living up to his expectations, nothing else. She really believes nobody else in the world loves her except Romeo, that her life is not important to anyone else.

If Juliet's father hadn't been so terrifying, if Juliet's mother hadn't sided with him, if the Nurse hadn't resigned herself to capitulating to Lord Capulet's plan, none of this would have happened. If Juliet trusted Tybalt enough to tell him about her love for Romeo and if he cared about his cousin to support her choice, none of this would have happened.

Her future narrows again when she wakes up in the vault, Romeo dead beside her. The plan didn't work. Somehow, through confused messages, Romeo is dead BECAUSE of her. The Friar tells Juliet to leave in haste, that he'll conceal her in a nunnery. That is the LAST thing that she wants after being locked away and forced to be quiet and obedient her whole life-- not to mention never being allowed to love again. When she tells the Friar to leave without her, she hears the watch coming and panics again. If they catch her, it'll be worse than if the Friar takes her to the nunnery-- they'll take her home, and she's already seen her father at his worst. How can she bear to go home to him? Neither of the futures that present themselves give her enough room to move freely. The only way to fight against them is the worst thing that a person can do to herself. Suicide is NEVER pkay and is never the answer, but I think Juliet's is oversimplified into being 'over a guy.' It is a little more complicated than 'over a guy' to me.

This play is so special to me because it is one in which teenage lives, male AND female, are portrayed as valuable, and one in which the 'tragedy’ in question is the loss of ordinary young people, not a great kings or war heroes.

Juliet is witty, imaginative, innocent, sometimes a bit of a brat, hopeful, sensitive, and loyal. She is a dream of a character to get to play, even in a staged reading, and I think she deserves to be taken seriously. I only hope I can do her justice.

[rockislandadultreads]

Coming Home: a reading list in which characters return to their hometowns for adventure, mystery, and renewed relationships.

Someone Knows by Lisa Scottoline

Twenty years ago, in an upscale suburb of Philadelphia, four teenagers spent a summer as closest friends: drinking, sharing secrets, testing boundaries. When a new boy looked to join them, they decided to pull a prank on him, convincing him to play Russian roulette as an initiation into their group. They secretly planned to leave the gun unloaded—but what happened next would change each of them forever. Now three of the four reunite for the first time since that horrible summer. The guilt—and the lingering question about who loaded the gun—drove them apart. But after one of the group apparently commits suicide with a gun, their old secrets come roaring back. One of them is going to figure out if the new suicide is what it seems, and if it connects to the events of that long-ago summer. Someone knows exactly what happened—but who? And how far will they go to keep their secrets buried?

Before We Were Strangers by Brenda Novak

Something happened to her mother that night. Something no one wants to talk about. But she's determined to uncover her family's dark secrets, even if they bury her. Five-year-old Sloane McBride couldn't sleep that night. Her parents were arguing again, their harsh words heating the cool autumn air. And then there was that other sound--the ominous thump before all went quiet. In the morning, her mother was gone. The official story was that she left. Her loving, devoted mother! That hadn't sat any better at the time than it did when Sloane moved out at eighteen, anxious to leave her small Texas hometown in search of anywhere else. But not even a fresh start working as a model in New York could keep the nightmares at bay. Or her fears that the domineering father she grew up with wasn't just difficult--he was deadly. Now another traumatic loss forces Sloane to realize she owes it to her mother to find out the truth, even if it means returning to a small town full of secrets and lies, a jilted ex-boyfriend and a father and brother who'd rather see her silenced. But as Sloane starts digging into the past, the question isn't whether she can uncover what really happened that night...it's what will remain of her family if she does?

Darling Rose Gold by Stephanie Wrobel

For the first eighteen years of her life, Rose Gold Watts believed she was seriously ill. She was allergic to everything, used a wheelchair and practically lived at the hospital. Neighbors did all they could, holding fundraisers but no matter how many doctors, tests, or surgeries, no one could figure out what was wrong with Rose Gold. Turns out her mom, Patty Watts, was just a really good liar. After serving five years in prison, Patty begs her daughter to take her in. The entire community is shocked when Rose Gold says yes. And Rose Gold is no longer her weak little darling... And she's waited such a long time for her mother to come home.

The Flood Girls by Richard Fifield

Welcome to Quinn, Montana, population: 956. A town where nearly all of the volunteer firemen are named Jim, where The Dirty Shame—the only bar in town—refuses to serve mixed drinks (too much work), where the locals hate the newcomers (then again, they hate the locals, too), and where the town softball team has never even come close to having a winning season. Until now. Rachel Flood has snuck back into town after leaving behind a trail of chaos nine years prior. She’s here to make amends, but nobody wants to hear it, especially her mother, Laverna. But with the help of a local boy named Jake and a little soul-searching, she just might make things right.

A Madness of Sunshine by Nalini Singh

Anahera Rawiri left New Zealand at twenty-one, fleeing small-town poverty and the ghosts of her childhood with no plans to look back. But eight years later, she returns, seeking familiarity as respite from the shattered remains of her new life. And despite the changes brought on by a bump in tourism--the shiny new welcome sign at the town line and a decidedly less shiny new police presence--Golden Cove appears much as it ever was: a small settlement on the savage West Coast of the South Island, populated by all the remembered faces and set against a backdrop of lush greenery, jagged cliffs, and crashing waves. Detective Will Gallagher knows all about ghosts; his own chased him out of a promising career in Christchurch, landing him as the sole cop in a quaint town where his most pressing concerns are petty theft and the occasional drunk. When Golden Cove resident Miri Hinewai goes out for a run and fails to return, Will finds himself heading up a missing person's search that rapidly escalates into an official investigation after this case is connected with similar ones from the past. As an outsider, Will begins to rely on Anahera's knowledge of the area and its residents to help him delve into Golden Cove's secrets, and to determine whether it shelters something far more dangerous than just an unforgiving landscape.

On Turpentine Lane by Elinor Lipman

At thirty-two, Faith Frankel has returned to her claustro-suburban hometown, where she writes institutional thank-you notes for her alma mater. It's a peaceful life, really, and surely with her recent purchase of a sweet bungalow on Turpentine Lane her life is finally on track. Never mind that her fiancé is off on a crowdfunded cross-country walk, too busy to return her texts (but not too busy to post photos of himself with a different woman in every state.) And never mind her witless boss, or a mother who lives too close, or a philandering father who thinks he's Chagall. When she finds some mysterious artifacts in the attic of her new home, she wonders whether anything in her life is as it seems. What good fortune, then, that Faith has found a friend in affable, collegial Nick Franconi, officemate par excellence . . .   

Synopses from goodreads.com

[how-to-disable-your-text-blog]

HtDYT Guide: Writing Borderline Characters

Hi all, Mod Amaranthe here with another guide. I only recently accepted that I am borderline and I don’t have some of the most notable traits of BPD, so I’m sorry if I miss something here.

What BPD is

Borderline personality disorder, also called emotionally unstable personality disorder, is…well, it’s a personality disorder, so I will describe what a personality disorder actually is. Personality disorders are inflexible patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that are inherent parts of the people who experience them. Like with any mental illness, personality disorders have to cause significant distress and difficulty engaging with society in order to be diagnosable.

The borderline community is fairly split (ha; I’ll tell you why that is funny later) on whether or not “emotionally unstable personality disorder” is a respectful or even accurate label, so I’m going to stick with “borderline”. Whether or not borderline people use “borderline person”, “person with borderline/BPD”, or both mostly depends on the person, and I polled some of the Facebook groups for borderlines that I’m in and found out that most borderline people say “I have BPD” and “I’m borderline” interchangeably. (I am usually a fan of identity-first language. I might do a post on why later.)

What being borderline feels like

Being borderline feels like you don’t know who you are and everything around you has the potential to change, especially for the worse, at any time. Half the time you hear a friend or family member—especially someone you care about—sound disinterested, bored, or, powers that be help you, angry, you become paralytically terrified that they are going to leave you alone forever. You spend a lot of time desperate for others’ approval, seeking validation by any means necessary, because if you don’t have proof that you deserve to live, well, you deserve to die. You may feel like there’s nothing to you that doesn’t change; you can’t pick a career or a fashion style or a favorite genre of music. You find yourself imitating fictional characters or acting entirely different based on whom you’re interacting with. You might fill what feels like a vacuum where your soul should be with impulsively spending tons of money, getting high, or overeating.

I also wrote a song about how it feels to be borderline. I’m the enemy of my own mind. Always walking on the borderline. The void in my head has me paralyzed. Behind my eyes, there’s no one inside.

I paint my face up like a mask so you think there’s a person behind it. Don’t tell me about that time I cried it off, I don’t want to be reminded. There’s nothing you can do to me I haven’t done to myself. Don’t tell me I’m on my way there; I’m already in hell.

I’ll put you on a pedestal Then smash it and laugh at your funeral. Bathe myself in high-end perfume Or seal my wallet; who knows what I’ll do.

I paint my face up like a mask so you think there’s a person behind it. Don’t tell me about that time I cried it off, I don’t want to be reminded. There’s nothing you can do to me I haven’t done to myself. Don’t tell me I’m on my way there; I’m already in hell.

I’m the enemy of my own mind. Always walking on the borderline.

I paint my face up like a mask so you think there’s a person behind it. Don’t tell me about that time I cried it off, I don’t want to be reminded. There’s nothing you can do to me I haven’t done to myself. Don’t tell me I’m on my way there; I’m already in hell.

That is a fairly extreme version of what it’s like to be borderline. Some borderline people experience this kind of instability almost all the time, some just enough to cause a significant disruption in their life. I am led to believe that it doesn’t always suck this much. My borderline traits are exacerbated all to hell by my comorbid conditions.

Common borderline traits

Here is a long list of traits a borderline character might have or behaviors they might engage in:

-Fear of abandonment -Splitting (to be explained later) -Self-hatred/feelings of worthlessness, possibly suicidal ideation -Self-harm -Unstable sense of self/being easily influenced by other people’s ideas -Fear of the future -Frequently changing appearance, hobbies, and jobs -Constant feeling of being mistreated, misunderstood, or victimized -Unstable interpersonal relationships (neediness, mistrustfulness, anxiety in interpersonal matters) -Extreme perfectionism -Unusually intense emotions, especially rage; this usually happens in response to outside stimuli, not semi-randomly like bipolar or cyclothymia (I get deeply annoyed when people call borderline “bipolar lite”) -Underreacting when you’re not overreacting -Disordered eating patterns -Using sex as a coping mechanism/to prove to themselves that they’re desirable -“Favorite person” attachments (to be explained later) -Impulsive behavior, especially when it comes to spending money or doing dangerous activities -Substance addiction -Constant need for validation, especially proof of other people’s positive feelings about them (I literally forget that people care about me if they’re not actively demonstrating it; yes, it sucks) -Dissociation when under stress -Difficulty retaining information about people and events -Lack of awareness of how their actions may affect others -Crappy executive function, especially if you have no idea what your feelings are doing and have to spend all that time you should be spending cleaning the apartment wrestling with your brain -Dermatillomania or trichotillomania as a stress response

Favorite person attachments

A favorite person, or FP, is someone a borderline person is obsessed with. Borderline people may think their FP is better than everyone else. A borderline person would walk to hell and back for their FP (well, unless they’re splitting on their FP; more on splitting in the next section). Having an FP is also sometimes called “imprinting” on someone.

Having an FP is simultaneously the best and worst feeling. It’s the best feeling because when they smile at you or say they care about you, it’s like everything is right with the world and you feel amazing. But you’re also constantly afraid of your FP abandoning you, and if your FP isn’t actively demonstrating that they care about you, you are probably wringing your hands about how they probably actually hate you. You also may be jealous of or even hate the other people that your FP interacts with.

Another downside to having an FP is that, most of the time, a borderline person will forgive their FP even if their FP is seriously hurting or abusing them. Mentally ill people are more likely than mentally healthy people to experience abuse (and not more likely to be the abusers), and the borderline tendency to forgive your FP for anything is definitely a predisposition to experiencing abuse.

A borderline character may spend a lot of time thinking about their FP and seeking their approval, and even more time worrying that their FP hates them now. The fear of abandonment will get especially strong when the character reaches out to their FP and their FP doesn’t respond right away, e.g., if the character calls their FP and the FP doesn’t pick up. A borderline character may or may not have romantic feelings for their FP. A borderline character will also be also quick to passionately defend their FP to other characters.

Many borderline people form FP attachments, but not all.

Splitting

Splitting is best described as black-and-white thinking about people. To a borderline person, most other people are either perfect or completely terrible. When a borderline person says they’re “splitting on” someone, though, that usually refers to thinking that that person is The Worst. Borderline people can split on anyone, including their favorite person and themselves. (I spend most of my time splitting on myself, thinking I am The Worst and don’t deserve to continue breathing. It’s very irritating.) Splitting on someone ordinarily happens in response to something the target of splitting does; it isn’t random. Splitting on a favorite person often happens because that person has already been on a pedestal, and when the pedestal gets shattered, a portal to hell opens under it. (Yes, borderline people can either split on their FP over practically nothing or forgive them for abuse. You read that right.)

Splitting on a person and feeling like they are The Worst is often accompanied by feelings of intense rage and hatred. If a borderline person is splitting on their favorite person, there also may be feelings of betrayal. Splitting may often include fantasize about being angry and violent; these thoughts are usually cathartic and help the borderline person calm down without actually lashing out. (Borderline people split; assholes lash out. Sometimes assholes are borderline, but not all borderline people are assholes, and BPD does not turn someone into an asshole.)

When a borderline character splits on someone, don’t write about them acting on their feelings of anger and hatred. Keep it in their head. As I said above, splitting is a borderline trait; assholery is not. If a borderline character’s splitting-related thoughts extend to violence, make sure to clarify that the character would never actually act on these thoughts. They may also feel guilty after the splitting goes away (I know I do). A character will probably only be splitting on someone for one scene; it doesn’t last long. If a character is not splitting in the “I hate you now” sense at the moment, they still are likely to categorize other people as “overall great” and “overall terrible”.

Splitting is a very common borderline trait, but not all borderline people split.

Self-harm

This isn’t exclusive to borderline people, of course, but self-harm isn’t just white high school cis girls cutting their wrists with scissors. Self-harm can take the form of cutting, of course, but here are other forms of self-harm:

-depriving oneself of food or other necessary things like medication -unsafe participation in extreme sports -scalding/burning oneself -banging or hitting body parts -ingestion of toxic substances

A borderline person may self-harm when they are splitting on themselves or otherwise suffering from feelings of self-hatred.

Unstable sense of self and relationships

This has already been touched on a little bit in the list of common borderline traits, but it’s likely to come up when writing a borderline character, so I will go into more detail.

A borderline character with unstable sense of self may have a good amount of trouble deciding what they want to do with their life. They may job-hop or have a hell of a time deciding what they want to study in college, vocational school, or whatever equivalent of tertiary school exists in your setting. A borderline character may throw themselves wholeheartedly into new studies or career paths, love it at first, and then rather suddenly find themselves disliking it. They probably also get varied results on personality tests and those aptitude tests that are meant to help people decide what career to pursue.

Another thing I mentioned earlier that a borderline character might do is change their appearance. Your borderline character may go through many different hair colors and styles and have a giant wardrobe because they rapidly cycle through fashion phases. Characters with facial hair may do many different things with it. When writing this kind of behavior, it’s good to point out that the character isn’t doing it just for the sake of trying new things, but they feel like their new look is an accurate reflection of how they’re feeling.

A borderline person may also frequently change their political stances, religious beliefs, diet, taste in music, etc. These changes may be influenced by the people they are spending time with, but not necessarily. But your borderline character may go through a lot of changes. Expect criticism of your character being inconsistent from people who don’t get it.

Unfortunately, the unstable sense of self in a borderline person can result in them being taken advantage of, because shady and manipulative people might see how a borderline person is easily influenced. (Said shady and manipulative person doesn’t have to be an FP.) A borderline character might end up spending most of their time with someone who is controlling and isolating them. What I’m saying here is that borderline people are susceptible to being abused because of our unstable senses of self. Because of that tendency, we may have unstable relationships with people who hurt us but we aren’t secure enough to permanently leave.

On a slightly less depressing note, unstable sense of self can also result in a borderline character frequently changing the crowds they hang out with because they feel like they have less in common with their former friends. This can also happen with romantic and sexual relationships and QPs, and even with the borderline character’s FP. The people a borderline character interacts with may point out this behavior or how different they seem/how frequently their likes and dislikes change.

What to avoid

When referring to borderline people, avoid saying “borderlines”. That’s kind of like saying “the gays”. Also, it’s language that people who are actively engaged in perpetuating saneism use. The safest language to use when discussing a borderline character is to say “person with BPD”, since borderline people who are okay with using identity-first language for ourselves may not like someone else referring to us as such, and few borderline people object to “person with BPD”.

Don’t write criminals with BPD if you aren’t borderline yourself. I’m writing a story about a vigilante who kills rapists and whose identity is so subsumed by her vigilante/superhero identity because she is borderline and had an extremely unstable identity to begin with. But I can do that because since I’m borderline, I have the knowledge and experience required to separate the character’s disorder from her actions.

Don’t write about “toxic borderlines” or how being borderline affects how an abusive or toxic person acts. Do personality disorders affect pretty much everything about how a person with a PD acts? Yes. Should people without the disorder in question write about that in terms of abuse? NOOOOOOOOO. (This is especially relevant to NPD—the idea of “n*rc*ss*st*c abuse” is an extremely ableist one that floats around abuse survivor circles and drives my abuse survivor cluster B ass up the wall—but BPD gets that kind of crap too.) If you write a borderline character that ends up accidentally hurting someone, you should 1) have them understand what they’ve done wrong, apologize, and not do it again and 2) get a sensitivity reader to make sure you’re doing that right.

Final notes

There’s a lot of diversity among borderline people. There’s no one right way to write a borderline character. However, there are a lot of wrong ways, and since borderline is so ridiculously stigmatized, I would be tempted to suggest that anyone who isn’t borderline and wants to write a borderline character get a sensitivity reader.

*crickets* Erm…yeah, that’s all I have.

-Mod Amaranthe

[kunalkarankapoor]

The reason of my smile : Kunal Karan Kapoor

Truth be told, I don’t know how to write anything except petty fiction, but the urge that I need to pen down my thoughts has been pecking at my brain, nagging me for a while now, so here I am. And all this is about someone who is much more than just a TV celebrity to me, someone who brings a huge grin to my face everytime I think of him, inspiring me in many real life situations. No guesses, he is none other than the dashing and the most amazing actor I have ever come across, Kunal Karan Kapoor.

Honestly, I had seen Kunal on screen long ago, but never noticed him. I do not really remember the days of Maayka as I was too young but the flashes of me being disgusted by Angad in Pratigya is still fresh in my mind. Such was his portrayal of the character Angad! He made me hate the character to the core, but now when I watch the same scenes on YouTube, I actually smile and blush. I mean, I smile at a local goon teasing a girl. Seriously? I laugh at myself for doing so, but then I realize the reason behind it, is, of course, the magic of Kunal Karan Kapoor

I went back and watched a few scenes of Yudi in LRL and believe me, he’s beyond cute. It was especially super-duper fun to watch him as Madonna. Can’t explain in words! Take a bow, Kunal for portraying Madonna so amazingly and for sure, playing the role of a glam doll was not easy but he did it with ease. The suicide attempt scene of Yudi gave me the shudders – goosebumps, brought a wave of sadness that remained with me for long. And then came Pratha and Amreek… The MOST adorable character EVER! Kunal and his Punjabi accent made me smile so much in awe that it hurt my cheeks. Trust me, I can sit all day, hear him speaking Punjabi and keep grinning. No doubt as Amreek, Kunal created wonders as always.

So when did I start noticing him and falling for him is something I ask myself. It was during Na Bole Tum. It just happened. I only know that I began to admire Mohan during Prateek track, which continued increasing until the end of Rashmi track when I finally realized that I have fallen head over heels in love with this television character.

TThe lone tear from Mohan’s eye after he joked about his confession during Rashmi’s engagement shattered me so much so that realization dawned and I knew that I just so cannot see tears in the eyes of this guy. I clearly remember the episode after this when Mohan sitting by the window said,

“Waah Mohan Bhatnagar! Mazak mazak mein jo serious tha, woh bhi mazaak banke rehe gaya. Khud hi apne dil ke sachchai pe hasna padha tujhe”.

Sigh! That’s all I did when I heard him saying the lines. I then saw his eyes. So pale and somewhere moist. My heart turned heavy, overwhelmed with emotions, of pain and hurt, and at last when he mockingly chuckled at his fate, trust me, something inside me… died!

There are MANY beautiful moments in the show that made me love the actor’s natural performance. The off-screen segments, the interviews and the impact it had on me nailed down the fact that there is no other actor on TV that I have ever adored the way I do Kunal Karan Kapoor. It all started with his down-to-earth nature, smiles and laughter, way of talking, genuineness in every segment, obsession with his hair, moody nature, passion for traveling, attitude of putting heart and soul ito his performances… the list simply goes on. I do not know whether I even make sense or not, but in a nutshell, I would say that… I love Kunal Karan Kapoor as a human being and an actor.

As days went by, my love for him kept growing. I started admiring and respecting him for the way he is. He inspires me truly. I remember the first time I got a job, I was irritated because I was too lazy to handle my school and work together. But then I thought… Doesn’t Kunal work for all days and even until midnights? So why can’t I? I should be motivated by my favourite actor and at last, I was. In fact I still am. Currently I am doing my second job and believe me, whenever I feel tired of handling it, I just need to remember Kunal’s struggle to reach where he is today. Nothing is easy, but he overcame every hurdle in life to establish himself in the midst of the crowd, and so I decided that I should take inspiration from him and do the same. But to be honest, most often I do feel that I won’t be able to do it anymore, but the next moment, Kunal comes in my mind and off I go!

I don’t know what else to write. Coming back to the show, another power-packed performance was from the episode when Megha tries to commit suicide, thinking that she was a burden on Mohan and Mohan gets angry…

“Ek kaam karo na.. Nanhi ko maardo, Addu ka galaa ghotdo, main phir se truck ke saamne khadha ho jaata hoon. Phir jo karna hai karlo….”

I was speechless and had goosebumps. My eyes went teary and my heart seemed to be ripped apart really badly. All the emotions together. Trust me; I never felt that way ever while watching any character portrayals on screen. Another heart-wrenching yet super amazing performance by Kunal was just before Mohan left home post Addu went missing. He did not have any dialogues, but his eyes and the tears in it said everything. Especially the moment left me in awe when he held the photo frame of Nanhi and Addu close to his heart and looking helplessly at Megha, trying to make her believe in him and his love for his kids. Throughout the scene I wished I could just get into the screen and hold him tight, making him believe in himself and support him while he is vulnerable. Sigh!

One more scene of Mohan that stands apart in season 2 is his imagination of Younger Nanhi at Awaaz India corridor after he finds out that Navika is his Chawanni. To be honest, the entire episode right from him protecting his daughter from Daddaji to his provoking her to speak up against him just to be sure that she was his Chawanni was bang on. He did not have so much of dialogues in the latter scene, but his teary eyes spoke so much… Sigh! To express happiness of meeting his daughter after 12 years and on the same time, the pain to see hatred for himself in her eyes is NOT easy at all, but he did it flawlessly as always. Followed by, the corridor scene ended up making me cry. Mohan helplessly tries to make Nanhi believe in himself but he fails, so he just looks on painfully. No dialogues yet again his eyes did the magic and at the end, when he burst out into tears, trust me, I broke down too.

Another scene of Mohan that stands apart is his conversation with Beera after he asks Navika to consider him dead. In a drunken state, he said that he hates his name and existence. My eyes immediately turned moist and all I wanted to do is to get inside my computer screen and hug him tight. I so wanted to tell him that he’s not wrong, instead the ones he loved did not deserve a gem like him, which shows how Mohan Bhatnagar had become a certain individual for me by then, someone I love and cared for. And this is certainly not easy. Making the viewers relate to the character is only possible when the actor works hard. Kunal did much more than just working hard. He breathed the character and put all his heart and soul in it and thus making it relatable and surely an important individual in my life. Mohan was never perfect but Kunal made me love his imperfection

. I fell in love with Mohan’s nature and emotions because perhaps somewhere I started seeing myself in him in some cases. I love and respect his attitude of loving his family with passion and devotion, so much that it eventually destroyed him but he never ever complained about it. So much feelings for just one TV character – not an easy task for an actor to make his viewers do so, but Kunal did it with ease, perfection and flawlessness. Even as Mohan, when he flinches, looks on, says nothing at all, thinks about something or just smiles for any reason – I can feel everything. In his every single scene, he blew me away to a different world of Mohan Bhatnagar which was full of happiness, laughter and pain.

Days went by, and my admiration knew no bounds. Everything was good until I found out that Mohan was going to “die”. On one side, I was depressed so much that I was quiet the entire day, but on the other side, I was super excited to see how Kunal would perform in this scene. And as always he didn’t disappoint me. Forget about disappointing, he did much more than what I thought. I still remember the moment when I watched Mohan falling off the cliff. I just could not cry as I always would, watching any emotional scene, but honestly I felt as if one of my closest persons left me for the time being, of course because I had a firm belief as well that he’s not gone. But even after knowing that he will come back and not would not be a different person but Mohan only, I was still depressed and feeling low.

Then Vasu entered the show – a personality completely contrasting from Mohan Bhatnagar. His attitude and intensity are the two things that made me love him. Kunal made sure to make both characters completely different in every way, and he did it too as always because the mannerisms of both the characters were poles apart. On one hand, Mohan was a soft and caring person. On other hand, Vasu was cruel and intense with a mysterious aura around him. Kunal did both the roles with perfection. Period.

Finally came the day when I heard the show would end. I did not react, perhaps because I was too busy with my family commitments, but when the D-day arrived, I had no words at all. I was numb because I knew that I won’t be able to watch Kunal on screen for a very long time.

That’s my journey as a Kunal fan, experiencing his magic and continuing to love him more and more. Yet wondering if I have said everything. Honestly there is much more about him that I feel which I cannot express, but for sure that he’s the first TV actor I felt for, like this. I remember the morning of 4th May 2013 when I was checking live updates of ITA in a half-sleepy state. Since I live on the other side of the world, it was morning, I could not wake up but I could not afford to miss the live updates either. I was so desperately waiting to know who the best actor winner was and when I heard that it was Anas Rashid, I was upset, but then I realized that I never expected anything good from any award shows. Suddenly I saw a picture of Kunal holding the ITA trophy in his hands. I was shell shocked. My half-sleepiness flew out of the window. I jumped and literally started bouncing on bed, shivered in sheer joy, pride and happiness. I don’t know what else to say to express my feelings, would just say that I felt as if I was the winner and won something great myself.

Now when he is not there, I would just say that I miss him loads. Just a glimpse of him makes me happy these days, and it was simply proven today when I was feeling low as there was no updates of him in the event and ended up getting mad at everything, but when I saw his picture, my heart calmed down and I felt happy again. In the midst of all, I even tried distracting myself, watching and getting into something else but all my attempts failed miserably and ultimately I came back to where I belong… the task of loving, admiring, respecting and missing Kunal Karan Kapoor. I would not lie if I say that the other reason of my smile and happiness besides my mother and few close friends is HIM. Even when I am depressed and feeling very low, he cheers me up and brings me back into the world of happiness in some way or the other. Just a thought of him and hearing his name would make my lips curve immediately. Everything reminds me of him, e.g. the books on the shelves at my workplace. I definitely sound crazy I know but all of this is true. Kunal Karan Kapoor has become one among the most important people in my life. And..I dream to meet him, hopefully someday; Hope afloat even after a decade.

— Bidzie Meghan — (December 16 2013)

https://happenstanceee.wordpress.com/2013/12/

On the day of party  (Happy 2nd Anniversary of NBTNMKK )

"what's up Saumya, put that lazy bum of your's to work " Bidz shouted."I thought Bidz had given up in organising", Saumya said flabbergasted."She can never give that up. Instead I have given up on her", Amanat sadly told Saumya who laughed it off. The first to enter the Party hall was KKK who was elated to see the preparations. With everyone around drooling over him , he silently took a seat in the corner where Amanat, Sonali, Bidushy, Lakshmi & Poo clustered around him. Saumya was receiving a courier which read " for kkk" Sonali was peeking in and asked... "kkk ki kiran? " Saumya started laughing and said " No Dumbo, Kunal Karan Kapoor"  Sonali :"Oh yeah! My bad " It turned out that the production house had arranged another party and everyone was there. Amanat was disappointed because all her hard work would go in waste so she stayed back and rest of them left. Everyone was confused as to how they would go when KKK came in with his car and everyone jumped in it. As soon as the engine roared , Bidz said "why would you buy a car, you like bikes , you said that in an interview" Poo objected, " No, he never said so " and just when this was going to turn into a catfight, KKK interrupted, " yes I like bike more but does that mean I can not have a car... stop it you guys. I loev you both" Well that was enough for them to get lost in their dreams. Amanat was sitting at the steps in tears and thinking how her friends went with KKK to production's party when two tiny little hands closed her eyes and two caring hands took her inside the hall. Who took her inside the party hall where everyone was enjoying the party and Amanat was amazed. She had tear in her eyes, happy tears this time that her friends persuaded the PH to shift the party to this hall. She looked at Ashnoor, Jayshree and Akansha who had brought her inside the hall.Ashnoor said , "apne itne efforts kiye the, hume toh ana hi tha." Aakanksha intervened, " ha dadi amma bilkul sahi keh rahi hai " KKK added, "aur na wo party bahut fiki bhi thi tum jo nahi thi" flirtingly. Amanat blushed . Others (Siddharth, Asya, Manish, Reem, etc) pushed all of them on the floor where everyone was dancing. And that night everyone rejoiced and danced their asses off.

https://www.indiaforums.com/forum/topic/3874067