#for being a good friend

[julieverne]

Jane married Dean. He stationed himself in the Boston office when he could, but he spent a lot of time out of town when he could.

The first time Jane showed up with a bruise Maura barely noticed; she was used to the way Jane managed to get injured at work. But then, with chilling certainty, she remembered that Jane had been in the office all day.

"It's late, Jane," Maura said, when she finally followed a yawning Jane through to the kitchen, flinching when her bruised muscles were pulled by her slack jaw. She rubbed her hands through her hair.

"It's just... it was so pointless. She had cancer, and he killed her anyway. If he hadn't, he'd have gotten the insurance, but he hated her that much he couldn't wait a few more weeks." Jane shook her head. Maura knew Dean was in town; Jane had kept her name. Jane didn't come over as much when he was home unless something was wrong and it was written on the bruise on her face exactly what was wrong. "But when he saw her in the morgue - he wasn't acting. He was genuine - he'd loved her. If it had been morphine because he couldn't stand to see her suffer, wanted to let her go weightless, something slow and easy, I wouldn't have blamed him. But strychnine for days..." Jane rubbed her face, then stopped abruptly when she met the tender flesh of her bruise. "We hurt the ones we love, I guess."

Jane had never hurt Maura. A little, emotionally, now and then. But Jane was always the first one to get between Maura and danger, even if that danger was Maura's own biological family. Jane had only ever hurt her by pushing her out of the way of greater danger. And Maura had taken time to get used to touching Jane at all, and even then the worst she could do was pinch her elbow or tap her shoulder to get her to behave herself. Constance and Arthur had never hurt her. Hope and Paddy and Angela hadn't either, and one of them was very, very skilled at hurting people.

"You can stay," Maura said, yawning, glad she'd worn the green satin sleepwear tonight because it always had caught Jane's eyes. Tonight they caught on her mouth too, and neither of them mentioned that, or the bruise on Jane's face.

"You have a one guest policy, and you already have my Ma."

"You're not a guest. You're family. All five of you." Jane did the math, her nose scrunched. "TJ, not..."

Maura remember the last time Frank had been in town, and it made sense a little more. Why Jane acquainted being hurt with being loved. Jane's face softened unbearably into that smile she gave when she thought Maura was being incomprehensively sweet. It had always made Maura's hands tingle, made her chest ache. Maura looked away.

"Dean's gone back to HQ," Jane said quickly. "And I don't know I want to be alone after a case like that."

"You're always welcome here," Maura said quietly. She'd liked Dean at first, as a match for Jane. But he hadn't aged well - it sounded so superficial - and he usually looked like a wet dog when she saw him.

"I know," Jane said, in the voice she only used when they were alone. Low, a little husky but very soft. "Thanks."

Jane pushed herself away from the kitchen counter with her hip, flinched again at some unseen injury. Jane had her badge and gun; she'd clearly been hoping to stay. Maura waited for the shower to turn off, then another few minutes for Jane to climb into the flannels Maura kept in her room. She didn't live here, but Maura kept a room for her. It was strange, it was silly, but on nights Maura couldn't sleep she would go to Jane's room and bury herself in the lavender scent that remained in Jane's wake. She did launder the sheets, of course, but pillows held a scent and Jane's was too comforting to simply wash away. Besides, she'd been in Jane's house. A few weeks between washing pillows wouldn't hurt her.

Jane was tucked into bed, subdued when Maura sat beside her.

"Tell me," Maura said, her voice unexpectedly harsh.

"It's silly, he opened the bathroom door while I was reaching for it." Jane was a good liar, but she wasn't selling it. Maura's fingers brushed hair back from Jane's face, then she pressed a kiss over the bruise. They didn't kiss often, and never anywhere but the cheek or forehead, maybe onto the others head if they were sitting. But Maura wanted to kiss this better, and she couldn't. "I can't stop thinking about her. She knew she was dying, and she knew he was killing her anyway."

Maura lay carefully beside Jane, giving the air of getting comfort rather than preparing to sleep. She tucked her right arm behind her head, let her left hand find Jane's on the covers and hold it. "It was clever of her, to unplug herself and preserve us a sample."

"Clever of you to think of testing for it, when we all know how many poisons there are to test for."

"He wasn't smart. Rat poison." Maura shook her head. She turned to look at Jane. "You know I'd never hurt you, don't you?" Maura asked, concerned.

"You never have," Jane said warily. "Never deliberately. Besides, I don't have anything you want. And you know I'm leaving it all to TJ anyway."

"And you have never hurt me," Maura said. "Well, my feelings, but you always look so guilty when you apologise."

"Yeah, I forget you're not one of the boys, sometimes. You've seen how I was raised." Jane sighed and rubbed her thumb across Maura's knuckles. "But I try. I'm trying."

"I know," Maura said mildly. "I'm just saying that I love you, and I'm here if you want to talk, or if you don't want to talk." Jane's thumb froze at the word 'love', then resumed its path across Maura's knuckles, slowly and reverently.

"I know. And I wouldn't kill you for your money." Jane sighed. "Nothing would be worth losing you for."

It wasn't a reciprocation of love, but it was as close as Jane got. Maura moved to sit up, but Jane's hand squeezed hers.

"Stay," Jane whispered, and Maura's heart broke with everything she didn't have, with everything that wasn't being offered. Jane felt safe with her. Jane loved her. But Jane was married, and Jane would never say that the way Maura wanted her to.

She stayed anyway, and woke with Jane's head on her chest. She kissed the bruise again - so much worse in daylight, and Jane groaned. Maura extracted herself.

"Maura," Jane called when Maura made it to the door. She touched the doorframe and turned. Jane's hair was a mass of unruly curls, and her face was scrunched up to protect her eyes from the light coming through the windows, but she looked magnificent nonetheless. "Thanks. And, I - you know. I do."

Jane looked so vulnerable that Maura came back and pressed another kiss to Jane's forehead, examined carefully the bruising around her eye. When she brought up coffee, she would bring some aspirin and an ice pack. Jane looked up at her so trustingly, so lovingly that it caught Maura's breath in her chest, make her throat ache for everything she couldn't say.

"I know," Maura said, giving Jane a tight little smile and heading downstairs to start the coffee.

---

The second time Jane showed up bruised, Maura started planning. She let Jane inside, and this time she took Jane up to the bathroom, carefully helping her undress the spectacular body she couldn't help but notice even as her attention was drawn to Jane's injuries.

"I tripped over the couch," Jane said. "Nightmare, didn't want to turn the light on." Maura nodded, her mouth tight and closed as she evaluated the injuries. She knew Jane knew she could see a defensive wound a mile off, and her forearms were littered in them. She wondered if Dean knew that she knew, wondered how far he'd go to keep this secret. He was a federal agent. He could have Paddy killed and make it look like an accident. He could get Hope on laundering charges. He could even hurt Cailin, or TJ. Maura breath hissed out of her, and Jane flinched.

Jane never flinched when Maura touched her. She had to calm down. She took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry," Jane said, her voice small, a voice Maura had only heard around Jane's father.

"There's no need to be," Maura told her, trying to smile, trying to lighten the mood. She could see blood caked at the edges of Jane's underwear.

"I woke you up, didn't I? Dean got a call, while I was trying to clean myself up," Jane said when Maura saw a bandage on Jane's ribs. From the curl of it, it had been there longer than it took Jane to get over here, and it had been used frequently, starting to fray. "He's gone again." Jane breathed out.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," Maura said gently, too gently, because tears shone in Jane's eyes and she looked away. "You have nothing to be sorry for." Maura repeated herself, and Jane blinked away tears as she nodded, not looking away from Maura's face.

Maura pulled out her first aid kit and used swabs to clean up any bleeding. When she looked down at Jane's lap she flushed.

"Period," Jane said, her voice low and strained. Maura didn't like being lied to, but she couldn't - she knew the truth but she didn't want to hear it. But she owed Jane that much, didn't she. She looked Jane in the eyes until she gave one short nod, her breath catching in a sob.

"Do you need stitches?" Maura asked, her voice low and professional as she catalogued the rest of Jane's wounds. Jane shook her head numbly, her body relaxing under Maura's fingers again from the tension of the unasked and unanswered question. "I'll run you a bath, then dress these," Maura said. If Jane had expected privacy she was sadly mistaken, Maura watching with an intensity she almost couldn't bear. She dried Jane gently, using antiseptic on the open wounds and handing her a laden swab of her own. Marital force was hard to prove, even with this kind of battery, and Jane worked at the precinct. Her colleagues would know. It would hurt her career. She used a new ace bandage on Jane's ribs, feeling the intake of breath as her fingers trailed the underside of something impossibly soft. She bandaged the wounds, and then she held Jane.

"I'm getting your pyjamas wet," Jane said, muffled against Maura's hair where she'd nuzzled in against her.

"They'll dry," Maura said absently. She slid her hand over Jane's back and held her closer, expecting Jane to object on account of her injuries or on account of her nudity but her own arms pulled Maura closer too.

---

The third time Maura saw a bruise on Jane, she left the precinct for half an hour, discarding the disposable gloves she'd let build up in her bag in the lab bin. She hummed, and smiled grimly at Susie when she asked what was wrong.

"Everything, but only for a while," Maura said, then touched her forehead, blinking. "Must be dehydrated," she added, excusing herself.

---

Dean didn't make it back to HQ when he fled Boston, he and his car being found in the harbour a few days later, a bloated mess. Maura recused herself from the autopsy; left it to Pike.

He was a federal agent; he'd been working an organised crime case. He'd made enemies. Jane had half thought he'd left her, half thought he'd gone under cover. She'd reached out to his boss, who said he'd turn up, and then he had.

The autopsy ruled his death accidental, and Jane was relieved. She'd half thought Maura might have hired someone, might have told Paddy, or Tommy. But Maura just sat by her side at the funeral and held her while she cried.

---

"You've never hurt me," Jane said, a few years later. Lucy and TJ were playing some toddler game together, and Maura kissed Jane's forehead. "I think that's why I couldn't let myself believe that you loved me for so long." Maura smiled and leaned back into Jane's arms, Tommy and Frankie watching the kids. Jane kissed her cheek. "And maybe why I couldn't let myself love you for so long. I never wanted to ever hurt you."

"You never will Jane," Maura told her.

People like Dean hurt the ones they loved, because they loved power more than what they perceived to be their belongings.

People like Maura? Well, she hadn't loved Dean. Hurting him served no purpose.

That was why she'd simply killed him instead.

Maura hummed as Jane's hands tightened around her. "I've been thinking Lucy looks lonely," Jane said quietly. "Like she might want a little brother or sister." Her voice was hopeful, and Maura chuckled, resting her wedding ring on top of Jane's matching one on the hand beneath hers.

"It's my turn, isn't it," Maura said ruefully. She looked over at Lucy; she was half Dean, but no less loved for it. Maura of all people knew that nurture outwon biology. Paddy might be a serial killer, but Maura was not.

She just had one little murder. As a secret. As a treat. She didn't need another one because no one was ever going to be stupid enough to hurt Jane again.

[neonbuck]

“No one wants to look at art of OCs” I don’t think that’s true at all…I follow people specifically to see their OCs literally all the time. Bring back being curious about people’s OCs, asking questions about them and hyping them up like we did when we were teens

[spitblaze]

I don't see people gas up gnc and butch transfems nearly enough, can we get a fuckin round of applause for gnc and butch transfems

[rubikor]

they were her people

[mumblesplash]

i know it’s like years old at this point but i love that one collab mumbo and grian did with tommyinnit bc it’s like the single most concentrated example i’ve seen of mumbo’s Chaos Nullification Powers

you get to see a bit of it on hermitcraft, mostly via his interactions with grian, but until seeing that collab it didn’t really hit me just how completely mumbo can no-sell other people’s attempts to control a situation. tommyinnit is possibly the single shoutiest, most chaotic minecraft youtuber out there, and in most videos i’ve seen he pretty much overwhelms everyone else and sets the tone for interactions because of this. but mumbo just. doesn’t let him. no matter how much tommy escalates in intensity, mumbo reacts with *exactly* the same energy he always does. grian largely comes across in the whole video as annoyed and reluctant to engage with the whole thing, but mumbo’s not even affected. he just rolls with anything he finds funny and basically ignores anything he disapproves of, only seeming more and more unflappable the harder anyone tries to get a rise out of him.

AND imo, this is the key to my favorite interpretation of him as a character

see, when the people around him are being more reasonable/calm, i think mumbo often comes across as anxious and a bit easily overwhelmed. the thing is, his nervous wet cat vibes do not scale. he has one setting. his responses to the last life ‘ah-ha!’ jokes and to hermitcraft 8 starting to crumble to pieces under a falling moon are almost identical.

mumbo jumbo is inexorably and eternally Just Some Guy, but that gets stranger and stranger the weirder his surroundings become. the giggly incredulousness that makes him an easy target for goofy puns looks Very different when it’s also his reaction to the impending end of the world.

[quadrantadvisor]

Imagine if the GIW started gunning for Jason without the Batfam ever meeting Phantom. Like, Bruce has to figure out on his own that the guys in white suits with Lazarus guns are 1. a legitimate government agency, and 2. are perfectly within their rights to hunt Jason like an animal, because 3. there's secret government legislation that says that since Jason's body processes ectaplasm, he's classified as non-sapient and has no legal protections.

Bruce calling up Clark like

Bruce: I am currently in the process of breaking into a government facility in order to dismantle their operations.

Clark: Okay? Do you need... help?

Bruce: Yes.

Clark: Sure, I'll be right there.

Bruce: Not that kind of help. Oracle is sending you the files now. I'd like you and Ms. Lane to make these people wish they were never born.

Clark: [speed-reading the documents] Oh yeah, can do. This is truly disgusting. If the public is half as outraged as I am, we'll get this sorted as fast as the courts can manage.

So Clark Kent acts as a whistle-blower, the Justice League publicly condems the Anti-Ecto Acts as inhumane, the GIW is disbanded, and Batman gets pardoned for all of those crimes that he technically did by assaulting federal agents. And after all that gets sorted, some white haired kid pops up in the Watchtower like "haha thanks for that I really didn't want a war between Earth and the Infinite Realms" and the League are like "wait what"

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF movie Mike meets Jeremy Fitzgerald

[ionomycin]

wild strawberries

[calvinandhobbes]

[nedlittle]

genuinely i think it's important for adults, especially in the plague times, to play pretend in our day-to-day lives. when i rub my back down with tiger balm so i can sleep without pain, i imagine i am a valiant knight tending to an old injury i received from a dragon. when i go to the store to pick up eggs and milk, i am a lone cowboy riding into town on a mission. when i turn my collar up against the wind i am a femme fatale who's killed 4 husbands and is scoping out a 5th. when i stomp around in the snow i am a doomed polar explorer. if being a little bit silly about my walk to the pharmacy helps me remember that life can be full of joy and whimsy, then so be it.

[birdmenmanga]

I think there's no greater indication that disco elysium is sympathetic towards communism when it literally says "communism is failure" and then the literal gameplay itself rewards trying and failing. The most obvious one being the Shivers check at the FELD mural, which is an Impossible 20 check BUT opens itself up again and again the longer you spend in the world doing things, but even just looking at sheer probabilities, for any given white check, rolling first and THEN putting a point into that skill upon failure is more likely to grant you success than putting a point first and then rolling, but that would require failing first.

Other things too: Precarious world saying you'll 100% fail red checks no matter what (not necessarily a bad thing, btw!! throwing the boule into the sea is a success but like. in some other ways one would want a perfect petanque throw instead. but people wouldn't typically assume that failure is desirable sometimes from the start) persuading you to accept that you'll fail some things that is irrevocable, for a world where everything is just a tiny bit easier.

The faux game over screen when you faint after reading Dora's letter— emulating a sense of failure on the scale of the entire game. When it rolls up most people go "What?? Game over?? No way, what did I do wrong!!" and waking up after that, with no huge or lasting impact on Harry's health or morale really tells the player, "Sometimes things will seem so bad that it all seems like it's coming to an end, but it's not the end, it's really not the end, go drink so water, you can still go on despite this failure"

I'm sure there are other things as well that are eluding me but like. The literal gameplay rewards failing and succeeding far more so than simply succeeding every single time, and I think you get a fuller experience of Elysium that way too

[b0nelessdoodles]

tfw you're three deep in anchordeep and you get the notif that you're baby has been neglected so you turn into a speedrunner to get home

[heph]

Unstoppable Force VS Immovable Object

[stil-lindigo]

the machine.

a comic about being a 'creator' online.

creative notes:

[thevoidstaredback]

How To Balance Your Daytime and Nighttime Activities So That You Don't Burn Yourself Out More Than You Already Have

It had been a long few minutes since he'd opened the door and there were a lot of questions running through Dick's head. Most pressing of which was how this kid seems to have information he should not have.

"How did you..?" he asked, but the words wouldn't leave completely. There's so much he wants to know, so much he wants to ask.

"How do I what?" Danny tilted his head like the child he seems to be is.

"How do you know?" Dick knows he sounds weak. There's no hiding that, but there are a lot of implications in what the kid has said so far and none of it is painting a very happy picture for him.

"Oh!" Danny had the audacity to smile, "You want to know how I know you moonlight as a vigilante!" And of course he knows. Dick knows he knows, but he'd held a little bit of hope that the child Danny was mistaken. Danny's smile softened a bit as he explained, "Your hair and voice match up in both jobs almost perfectly. Not to mention your build and how you hold yourself. There's also the matter of your overall vibes, but that's not something living beings can normally pick up on." Excuse him? "Well, not living humans, at least, so no worries on that end!"

"Excuse me?" Dick was fairly sure his heart just stopped beating for a moment there.

"Anyway, I was a hero back home for a while, too. I know what it's like to have to walk the tightrope between maintaining a civilian cover and a hero persona. I know how it feels to have to keep secrets from everyone because anyone who knows will be in danger." he rambled, Though, admittedly, our circumstances are quite different. I was working as a hero all hours of the day as well as going to school. You only have to worry about properly balancing between day and night jobs. Either way, me having more to bounce between just makes me al the more qualified to help you!"

Oh. Oh he did not like that. He didn't like a single thing that just came out of the kid's mouth. Because that's what he is, a kid. "Are you...Are you alright?"

"Not in the slightest," Danny admitted with an even smaller smile. Then, it brightened, not quite to a grin, but to something similar, "But I'm here to make sure you are."

He gets points for being honest, but Dick felt his heart shatter. He knew for a fact that he'd never worked with this kid before. He also knew that the Justice League didn't know about him. If they did, he would've been picked up and dropped with either the Young Justice team or the Titans.

Dick wasn't going to ask why he became a hero because that's not his place. It's more of a 'third mission with the team' kind of questions, anyway. Most of the heroes didn't have many options when they took up the mantle. Asking what Danny can do is a more appropriate question, but he wasn't going to ask that, either.

"Now that that's out of the way," Danny turned a few pages from the table of contents to another one that was topped with 'Why Sleep Scheduling Is Important' in the blue glitter pen that Dick was starting to suspect he favored. "You're not getting enough sleep. Following you around - no one's been able to find me for a while, so don't worry about that - for the last two weeks has given me some really worrisome information on you."

Dick was worrying. He was worrying a lot and even more questions were coming to the forefront of his mind.

"Your dayjob is as an officer on the Bludhaven Police Force, or BPD for short." He was looking over the page he'd turned to very aptly and Dick realized that the kid had notes written on him. "The average hours per week for police across the country is forty hours. Gotham and Bludhaven are the exceptions. As a member of the BPD, you work a solid two days and two hours. Six nights a week, you work as Nightwing from eight in the evening to three in the morning. The last day, you take off, which is good. No deserable pattern, so good on you for that. Regardless, that's seven hour nights and ten hour days, with one day off and one day on call as an officer. Seven hours are now left in your day for personal time, eating, and sleeping. That's not a healthy way to live."

Oh, god, the kid had honest to god notes on him! What the hell!

Danny didn't even skip a beat as he pulled Dick's attention back to him and his binder. "I've drawn up a schedule for you to follow." The back of the page had a meticulously drawn schedule, complete with blocks of time to eat, sleep, work both jobs, travel, personal time, and still have a bit extra left over. It was titled 'Ideal End Result' in green marker. "Drastic changes right away will only affect you negatively, so we're starting off smaller." The next page over had another schedule titled 'Where To Begin'. "I've only pulled one hour from your Nightwing hours because I know important that time is to you and the city. I am, however, going to be having you submit an appeal to your boss to cut back your hours from fifty a week to forty a week. That way, you'll only be working eight hours a day and not ten. You'll still be on call for one day, and you'll have that last day off. Altogether, you'll be going be going from working seventeen hours a day to fourteen hours a day. Nine in the morning to five in the afternoon, and eight in the evening to two in the morning. Not including breaks at work or travel time. It opens up a few more hours for you to sleep!"

"You really think the chief is going to pull back my hours?" Dick raised an eyebrow in question.

"He will if he knows what's good for him."

"You know I can arrest you for that threat, right?"

"Yeah, but you won't." And, damn it, he's right.

Although, there was now another thing he had to know. "How to you plan on enforcing this schedule of yours?"

Danny seemed to have been waiting for this. He got a gleam in his eye as he pulled a black folder from his bag, not breaking eye contact with Dick. He placed it on the table and pushed it across. "Congratulations, it's a boy."

Part 1 Part 3

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Bonus 8: How met your mother (CSSR design by @qourmet!)

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