#i wish i could interact with everyone but i'm extremely time-limited and right now i'm spread too thin

[austerulous]

My follower count has been creeping up over the past few weeks and I’m starting to feel overwhelmed. This is just a heads-up that another soft-blocking spree is coming.

[accidentally-in-fictional-love]

📖🔧😢🩹🥰

I am literally binge reading all of your DD works and I just have to thank you for your absolutely incredible writing! 😭🙌

There are very few fics of Lonny out there, so is there anyway we could see how he’d react to seeing the person he’s had a crush on (reader) having witnessed what he did to Bud? Like I just want to hug him and tell him it’s okay and that it was an accident. Little baby didn’t mean to! 🥺

Forced Limitations - Lonny Crane/Reader

Warnings: No use of Y/N, gender-neutral reader, canon rewrite (the first half hour for now), lots of panic, canon violence, character death (Buddy 🥺), co-workers to friends to ride or dies, angst, hurt/comfort, mutual crushes, this one is heavy but if you've seen the movie you'll expect it.

Wordcount: 9486

Summary: Today was supposed to be such a normal day. You were even going to maybe talk to your crush this time if he didn't say anything first. So why were you now hiding in the basement of your work while you crush stared you down with a bloodied wrench in his shaking hand and fear in his eyes?

Notes: My first Lonny! Thank you so much for reading first of all 💗💗💗 it's because of you guys and your wonderful support for my writing that I'm enjoying these as much as I am! As requested this is an au of the movie down to the dialogue (forever grateful to mediarips with subs included hehe), get that lady outta here I hate her, but because I left this open-ended I might just have to write a part 2 if I can figure out a way for them to both escape 😏 For now I hope you like this, he really didn't mean to and this has been weighing on me since I saw the movie /)o(\

Today was just supposed to be another normal, boring day at work. 

You didn't have much going on, nothing penciled into your calendar on your apartment wall, no reminders in your phone, in fact it was probably the most normal your day could get. You left on time, grabbed yourself a coffee and a box of donuts to share with everyone you worked next to, and of course didn't forget the separate Boston Creme just for the cute handyman who smiled at you whenever you caught him staring. You blushed already thinking about him, neither of you had really talked, but you knew he was a sweet guy just based on your minimal interactions with him outside of your donut drop off. 

He wasn't very social, he stuck to his partner's side like glue for the most part, and Bud was also a good guy, extremely knowledgeable and able to solve any problem you guys brought to him before any of you could even figure out what was actually wrong, but sometimes you wished you could just have a conversation with Alonso by himself, get to know him a little better. You'd been trying for days now that you knew he preferred the Boston Creme, a popular donut in your group that tended to get snatched up fast from the random assortment you were always gifted. 

You’d been getting the baker's dozen with his as the 13th was your attempted way to start something, but so far he'd just noticed that his donut was there and unsnatched, sent Bud over to grab it before anyone else did, and then wandered off to eat it somewhere he wouldn't make a mess for anyone to step on, like the cafeteria on the ground floor. 

You wouldn't let that happen today you decided as you pulled into the line to get into work, security giving everyone a random check today for some reason to make sure they all worked there. That was odd, but you'd heard whispers that they were thinking of upping security around here anyway, something about attempted break-ins, so you just got your ID ready, popped the trunk when they asked, and kept on driving until you found a place to park. You gave a wave to Bud when you saw him head for the door, Alonso not with him as usual; he always came early before the rush, you could only guess the swarm of people made him uncomfortable, and you had to admit he had the right idea as everyone shuffled towards the door.

‘Weird about those men, isn’t it?’ you asked him as you flashed your IDs again to get inside, one card after the other to allow you entrance. ‘I mean, I get the extra security, but they looked like they were searching for something.’

‘Poor Lonny must’ve had a hard time with them, he’s always here as soon as the lights come on,’ Bud figured, the two of you walking through the lobby until he started to veer away towards the elevators. His place was in the basement, their own special break room down there while they monitored everything whenever something didn’t need to be looked at, and you pursed your lips with a glance down at the box in your arms before chasing after him.

‘Hey! Hey, uh, I was wondering if maybe you could… escourt me down to the break room today, maybe leave this for Alonso if he’s running late?’ you suggested nervously, no one other than those two usually going down there, but the other man just looked you over a moment but chuckling to himself like he’d just realized something.

‘Ha, imagine that; c’mon, gotta get you to your desk before Bossman notices you’re down there,’ he told you before leading the way, and as payment for his tour he grabbed his own donut first on the way down. ‘Never come down here without either of us, this place is a real maze with a ton of hazards, and also be sure to watch your head, you never know what’s gunna hit you until it’s too late,’ he warned as the elevator came to a stop, and you closed the lid of your coffee a little tighter before following him out. 

‘You know I’ve never been down here before, not even when I started,’ you told him as you walked, your eyes taking in everything and nearly allowing you to bump your head just as he knew you would, his hand coming out to protect your forehead before you knocked it off a low-hanging series of pipes.

‘Don’t think many of the people upstairs have, it’s mostly just me and Lonny and the occasional fill-in whenever we call out, that’s not often though, Lonny’s a very hard worker, y’know.’ You were too busy ducking to notice the glance he gave you when he was done speaking, the place indeed a maze as he led you right to the middle where their solitary room to themselves was hidden; inside was a small kitchen against the left wall, a table with two chairs against the right wall, the others folded up nearby since they were unneeded, and four lockers tucked against the far right corner. 

Only two of them had names, the company had only needed them once it became clear that they made a great team and rendered more help unnecessary, and Alonso was indeed in as he sat at the table and ate a bowl of cereal. He looked up when he heard Bud arrive, and he was in the middle of a hello and a wave when you walked into his view; instantly his eyes went wide and his cheeks flushed, and you watched as he turned away from you and tried to swallow the mouthful of cereal he was now choking on a little. You’d surprised him, that much was obvious, but it was blush that had you freezing as your own heated your face right up despite the chill of the room.

‘Well, now that I’m clocked in I’d better check out that problem from yesterday, y’know the one, way up on the 6th floor, you can handle things down here for a bit, right?’ Bud told Alonso as he quickly grabbed his orange uniform and started pulling it on, the other man fumbling his words and dropping his spoon when he received an encouraging rub to the back of his head that messed up his long hair. 

‘Bud!’ he yelped as his desperate cry to not be left alone, and then it was just the two of you, very much alone while his cereal turned to mush. ‘Uh… hi,’ he said after a while, his hands hurriedly straightening his hair back down so he wouldn’t look a mess, and you could only murmur the same before you realized the burning in your palm was actually because of your coffee.

‘Shit, ow, can I set this down?’ you asked him quickly as you rushed for the table, and he nodded as he cleared a space for you, the rest of the table covered in old newspapers and magazines to read so they could pass the time on slow days. ‘Thanks, I uh, I wanted to make sure you got this, you know how the others are,’ you stuttered nervously, his chosen donut thankfully avoiding being crushed by your worried hands only because it was set safely on top of the large box.

‘Oh, thank you,’ he stuttered right back, this was the most he’d ever said to you since you’d started working there, Bud usually doing all the talking for him while he just listened. His eyes lit up when he saw that you’d gotten his favourite and it made your smile grow wide, your hands shaking a little less as he carefully peeled back the paper from the bag in order to save the chocolate on top. ‘I love these ones, growing up it was always the first picked by my siblings, so… I’m glad you keep bringing them to work, I always get here before that place opens,’ he shared with you before taking a bite, and you felt your heart skip a beat at the simple joy of tasting something delicious spread across his face.

‘I didn’t know you had siblings,’ you said as you took the remaining seat, your coffee reopened and your own donut chosen while you took a sip, and he looked at the door before sitting with you, your chairs so close together that your knees touched before he moved away. This was now the closest you’d ever been as well, and you realized you’d much rather risk being late in order to hear more than head upstairs and start working.

‘Four of them, I’m the youngest,’ he told you between bites, his cereal forgotten as he licked cream and chocolate off of his fingers a moment before going to the sink and washing his hands with a bit of embarrassment. ‘You- you’d think growing up in a family that big I’d be able to talk to people better, right?’

You took a bite of your own donut before shaking your head, and he seemed surprised by your answer as he sat back down again. ‘Family is different, sometimes it’s easier to talk to strangers than your own flesh and blood,’ you thought aloud, and he listened intently in genuine interest. ‘But, you don’t have to be afraid of talking to me, I don’t bite…’ Your face lit up and you distracted yourself with more coffee at your choice of words, but he didn’t have the same problem as you as he tucked his hair behind his ear and really thought it over.

‘I- I’ve been trying to, actually,’ he muttered almost to himself, and you set your cup down to listen this time, ‘but every time I see you you’re always surrounded by people.’

You thought to yourself a moment before opening the box again and offering him a second donut, and Alonso looked between them and you before picking another and starting on it. ‘Well, guess I’ll have to stop by here every morning then, so we can talk,’ you offered, and he seemed genuinely happy about it as he flashed you a nervous but hopeful smile. You were smiling back when your phone went off, one of your cubiclemates was asking about her donuts, and you swore to yourself when you saw the time. ‘I’m late, I gotta run back up, but it was really nice talking to you, Alonso.’

‘Lonny,’ he said as he stood, and he towered over you as he handed you the box, ‘you can call me Lonny, everyone else does.’

‘Alright, then it was nice to officially meet you, Lonny.’ His smile was so infectious and wide that it made you wonder why it’d taken you so long to do this, and by the time you reached your floor you were practically twitterpated to no one’s surprise.

‘Finally talked to Tall, Cute, and Silent?’ your friend asked with a knowing smirk, and you made a face back at her as you presented everyone with the treats that were left. They devoured them like animals until only the crumbs were left as usual, and as you tossed out the box you found yourself already planning on maybe inviting him out for lunch today if he was interested. As such, you didn’t pay much attention to your work, just tapping out slowly over the keys while you took in no information, and when the speakers you didn’t even know were above you suddenly crackled to life it actually made you jump you were so distracted.

‘All employees, no matter what you’re doing, please stop and lend me your full attention,’ the announcement began, everyone around you having the same reaction of, ‘What’s going on?’ ‘There are currently 80 of you in the building. In eight hours, most of you will be dead.’

Your blood ran cold, this had to be some kind of joke, but when you looked around you saw that no one was laughing.

‘Your chance of survival increases by following my orders, and excelling at the tasks I place before you,’ the speaker continued, his voice surprisingly calm and almost a bit excited at what he was saying, and you started to feel sick at the thought that this was real, he was completely serious, and that was why security had been so tight when you’d arrived. ‘Your first task is simply this: Murder any two of your fellow employees within the next half hour.’

You spilled your coffee, the dark liquid spreading over your desk and onto the floor, but no one cared between those who were listening and those who’d already decided that this really had to be a joke.

‘How they are killed, or how they are chosen to be killed, is of no consequence. But if there are not two dead bodies in the building within 30 minutes, you will face repercussions.’

‘This isn’t real, right?’ you asked your friend, her face calm but you could see it in her eyes, that doubt that was taking hold of you. ‘I mean, they aren’t really asking us to kill each other, are they?’

‘It’s all bullshit, probably some test to weed out the bad employees, you know there’s a few on the 5th floor who could stand a good kick in the pants,’ she said dismissively, but when she waved her hand you didn’t miss the way it shook.

‘Still, I don’t like this, I’m gunna- I’m just gunna take a walk, see what the others are saying.’ You stood when the voice never returned, stepping through your coffee and leaving tracks of it after you as you headed for the elevator, the basement button staring at you as the urge to press it and see what Bud had to say about all this hit you like a truck; he was a smart guy, and Al- Lonny would be there too, if he wasn't afraid and didn’t believe it then that would be enough for you. You hit the lobby button instead and tried to breathe when the entire building shook, a series of rumbles making the cables shake just enough to scare you. Your hands splayed over the walls to brace yourself until it was over, and when you reached your destination you found not only a gathering already there, but also the cause of the quake.

The front doors as well as the windows were now covered up with what looked like a blast shield, something that was supposed to be for protection now trapping you all inside. Your panic rose even higher, the familiar faces of your co-workers now warped into confusion and worry, a few of them even attempting to break the walls down to get free but to no avail. You started to shake when the elevator beside you dinged, and the relief that washed over you when you saw Bud and then Lonny exit was so strong that it nearly knocked out your legs from under you.

You followed after them as they spoke with someone from one of the floors higher than yours, Mike; he was a nice guy, there was nothing bad you could say about him, but he was serious now as everyone gathered around to whisper, your hand hovering just over Lonny’s back as he concentrated and didn’t even notice you. ‘What d’you think, Mikey? What’s this all about?’ Bud asked him while they stared what was supposed to be the front doors down.

‘I don’t know. You think you got a way to get through it?’ Mike wondered, tensions rising as your superiors tried to take charge and calm everything down in the distance.

‘Blowtorch could do the job, but I don’t know how thick it is,’ Bud offered up, already calculating what needed to be done based on all his years on the job. ‘It could take a while.’

‘What if we try cutting through one of the walls first?’ Mike suggested, his eyes moving to the normal concrete instead. ‘Wouldn’t it be easier to try and get through cement than get through whatever that is?’

Bud shook his head, repeating just the word no to himself with such certainty that it made you finally latch on, and Lonny jumped and turned to see you behind him. You looked up at him, unable to force a comforting smile when you saw his eyes, so he made one for you, his hand over your shoulders and rubbing your arm before he turned back to Bud, he’d have a plan. ‘This metal surrounds the entire building,’ he told them, the other man with you speaking up next.

‘So the whole building’s covered?’ he asked only for Bud to unfortunately confirm it, there was no knocking down a wall and escaping without getting through that metal first.

‘It’s worth a shot, though, right? The blowtorch?’ Mike confirmed before they could lose hope, Lonny glancing down at you and holding you a little tighter.

‘It’s worth a try,’ he agreed with a nod, and you weren’t sure if he was talking to Mike or to you when he said it. Bud then also noticed you were there when he went to pat Lonny on the back and smacked you instead, and he apologized before the two were walking away, your shoulders already hunching up without him there; you’d only just spoke that morning, which felt so long ago now, but you felt safe around him, if this was really happening then you could protect each other, and you went to follow when Bud noticed and held you back.

‘Easy now, just stay with the group, we’ll be back in a minute,’ he told you reassuringly, and you glanced over to Lonny before nodding and going to find your friends. Everyone had run to the lobby with the raising of the shield, and there was now no doubt between you all as you gathered in the corner and watched the others talk amongst themselves.

‘They’re gunna try and burn a hole through the door, see if we can get out that way,’ you whispered, not wanting to spread the plan in case it didn’t work, ‘they just went down to get the blowtorch, they’ll be right back.’

‘You gunna stick to your boytoy when he does?’ your friend joked so suddenly that you felt the need to reprimand her to for saying that first of all, but the second you looked at her you saw that she was just making jokes to hide the fact that she was fucking terrified. So you let it slide, your hand rubbing her shoulder just as Lonny had done to you.

‘I dunno, do you guys have any ideas?’ you asked them, each one shaking their heads.

‘I heard a few people went to the roof, we could try that,’ another suggested, but you didn’t like heights all that much to begin with, mixing that with the current situation might actually make you faint.

‘You can go, I’m gunna stay here, see how the door goes,’ you decided, and your small group split up just as your boss walked into the room along with the two men just below him; one of them was a real asshole, you didn’t bother with him, your focus on Mr. Norris as he spoke.

‘Hey, listen up, everybody, okay?’ he called out over the room, his voice echoing even louder thanks to the shield. ‘I’m Barry Norris, the COO here, for people who don’t know. Listen, I’m very aware that this is a very… hell, to say the least, a very strange situation here. But I don’t believe there’s any cause for panic, all right? We’re still trying to figure out exactly what the situation is, but I’m certain there’s a rational explanation. This is a government building. We think maybe somebody put precautions in place in case of a military event. Obviously these walls. Now, someone has clearly discovered this feature, and they’re having a little fun at our expense, okay? Whoever’s doing this, the object is to get all of you upset. So let’s not play into that, okay? Let’s just remain calm, chill out, and take a few minutes to figure out exactly what’s happening, okay? So, thank you. I’m gunna go work on that. And I'll circle back to you as soon as I can. Thanks, everybody.’

It made sense, it was a long speech but it did make sense, but there was a part of you that couldn’t forget the checkpoint this morning, how everyone had been searched so carefully… no, this felt planned, and when the elevator pinged you grabbed your friend and hurried right on over. There was no time to stop and chat, the men before you were on a mission, and you gave them space to work as they put on their protective gear and fired up the blowtorch.

You’d never seen one in real life, why would you ever need to before this? And the blue flame drew you in as Bud held it against the metal until an entire minute had passed. The two of you leaned in at the same time when they sat back and lifted their goggles to see what the damage was, Lonny using a cloth to wipe away the dark burns. You couldn’t hear what they were saying from there, but you knew it wasn't good when Lonny then touched it with his bare hand despite the heat of the flame. You held your friend a little tighter as Bud then did the same, this wasn't good, if not even a blowtorch could break through this stuff then what hope did you have of getting out even if this was just a cruel joke?

You let go of each other when you realized you were sweating, your comfy work shirt turning into something stifling at your closeness, and when you looked around and saw that everyone else was in a similar state you knew that this wasn't just nerves. ‘It’s too hot, they’re gunna suffocate us in here,’ your friend mumbled as she wiped off her forehead, the sweat starting to bead again the moment her hand moved away. ‘This is bullshit, why hasn’t anyone come for us yet? Screw this, I’m heading to the roof for some air, you coming?’

‘No, no you know I can’t go up that high,’ you said quickly before starting to head for Lonny, you needed to know what was happening before your anxiety started to take over again. She stopped you in your tracks, tried to pull you right back while they kept trying, her grip on you way too tight in this heat.

‘I think you need to get over that shit before you pass out down here, look around, look at everyone right now; it’s sweltering in here, I just saw Willy burn through three bottles of water by himself, so why don’t we grab a few, take the elevator, and get some fresh a-’

She never got to finish her sentence, the back of her neck exploding out and making her fall limp into your arms, the too tight grip she had on you now nonexistent as you stared down and screamed. Everyone turned towards you before it happened again, another person falling before someone shouted, ‘Somebody’s shooting!’ Everyone took cover from your attacker, your body frozen in fear until you felt more hands on you; Lonny grabbed you and pulled you over to the chairs where Bud was already ducking down, your friend falling from your arms and to the floor as you were forced to let go.

Pandemonium erupted all around you as you hit the floor hard, your back pressed to his chest and both him and Bud protecting you when you were still too numb to protect yourself. There were so many screams, no one knowing when they’d be shot next, but even when more people went down all you could do was stare at the lifeless eyes of the person you’d been working next to for the past 3 years. You felt cold despite the heat, Lonny’s panicked breathing right in your ear while you didn’t hold him back, and only when Mr. Norris, or Barry, now, there was no more chain of command after this, walked over to one of the bodies did everyone stop panicking long enough to feel confusion over his bravery at still standing.

‘What the hell?’ you heard Bud whisper above you when Mike ran over to join him, Barry’s voice loud enough for everyone to hear over the ringing silence.

‘That’s not a bullet wound.’

More of them gathered but the three of you stayed where you were, waiting to hear what was going on, but their voices were lower now, they couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Bud leaned away from you a little to listen, but the moment he did Lonny started to panic, and you felt a bit of life come back to you as you weakly held his arm to let him know you were still there. Instantly he looked down and held you tighter, you were his lifeline now that the bullets had stopped flying, and when you looked back up at him you saw the way everyone was touching the backs of their necks out of the corner of your eye.

All at once you felt your hand raise to your own, your knuckles brushing against his shirt as you felt the scar under your fingertips, and the fear replaced everything numb inside you until it was all you knew.

Mike realized something and ran, Bud watching him go before getting up and silently asking the two of you to follow; you did, your fear only spreading to Lonny as you held each other, but Bud remained calm as he opened up his toolbox and reached inside. He pulled out a hammer and large wrench, and the former was heavy when he handed it to you and tried to get Lonny to look at him. He said his name and made him only hold you harder, it was starting to hurt, but you’d rather feel that than the cold wood and steel under your palms.

‘Hey, stop. Don’t cry, okay?’ Bud told the man behind you, and you looked up to see that he was so afraid he was actually crying, his hands trembling as they bunched up your shirt. ‘Take this, and say goodbye, alright?’ He pressed the wrench into Lonny’s hand the moment he was able to get him to let go of you, and it looked even heavier than your hammer as he held it before you. ‘Let them go, and follow me, we’re gunna fix this and I need you to watch my back.’

‘But…’ He didn’t want to leave you, and you honestly didn’t want to leave either of them after losing your friend, and Bud leaned in closer and lowered his voice even more as he met your eyes.

‘Find a place to hide, we’ll find you within the hour, don’t come out before then, you hear me?’ he told you sternly yet carefully, they’d be sitting ducks in the basement if people started actually killing each other as commanded despite the maze, and your safety needed to come first while they worked without worry. So you nodded, Lonny nuzzling into the side of your head with a whimper that any other day would’ve made your heart flutter, but now it could only break as Bud helped him let go. You stepped aside and watched as Bud wrapped his hands behind Lonny’s neck, kept eye contact until he was calming again, and when he asked for something called a duke Lonny just nodded before pressing his forehead to his friend’s.

That’s what made them such a good team, you knew Lonny to be a good worker but it was thanks to Bud being there to keep him level that he was able to shine here, and you hated Belko for ever hiring the both of them along with yourself now now that you knew what they were doing to them. Not everyone who worked there was great, even you weren’t a saint, but Lonny was pure, and you regretted every single morning where you’d only looked but never approached when he met your eye and turned away.

Bud went to lead the way back to the elevator, and you knew as soon as the doors closed that you couldn’t stay up here, not alone with this uncertainty. You watched your co-workers, all of them strangers to you now, run after Mike when shouts came down the hall, but you didn’t follow after them; you needed to hide, just like Bud said, and even if they might be sitting ducks that didn’t mean you had to be in that maze. You hit the button and took the elevator down, making sure to take the long way around to the break room and go from there. You knew something like hiding under the table or cramming yourself into one of the empty lockers wasn't really feasible, but there were a ton of other hiding places nearby it, maybe if you even hid well enough you’d be able to hear them from a safe distance away and get their attention if anything happened.

You kept your head on a swivel as you walked, made sure you wouldn’t bump into them and make them send you elsewhere where anyone could find you, and you were just about to loop around when you noticed a door that brought you even further in. You opened it, a long hallway ahead of you, and you decided on it as you jogged down and found a closed off spot to duck between. It was tight, but you were successfully hidden from view, and it gave you a good vantage point of anyone who might come across you as you curled up and held your hammer close to your chest. 

You’d gotten all of two seconds to strap in for the long haul when you heard the door open again, and you held your breath until you heard Lonny’s voice echo down the hallway: ‘They’re trying to freak us out by shutting down the air-co, man,’ he was telling Bud, and your moment of relief only slipped back into worry when it hit you that if anyone was bound to find you in here it’d be them if they stopped to look. ‘That’s their plan, right, Bud?’ A pause, Bud was silent as they walked, and that was only making him nervous again, you could hear it in his voice when he asked him for confirmation again. ‘Do you think it is, Bud? Do you think that’s their plan?’

‘I don’t know, Lonny,’ Bud said exasperatedly, he was letting his own panic show when he couldn’t give him a solid answer, and a pit landed hard in your stomach when they turned and stopped not 10 feet away from you. They started checking out the machine against the wall, which you soon realized was the air conditioning aka the thing that was currently not working and making everyone overheat in their own skins, of course you’d stop at the one place they needed to be, but it was fine. They were so distracted by it that you could continue hiding and then they wouldn’t have to worry about sending you out there again, so you remained silent and just listened while they tried to figure it out. 

Bud turned on a light and confirmed that it wasn't working right at the source, every breath you took sounding like thunder in your ears when you realized that if he turned then he’d be able to see you, your focus too much on the barrels to your side to protect yourself from that angle. ‘How can you tell?’ Lonny asked as he stood by, Bud crouching down to take a closer look.

‘I can hear it, man,’ he said with a grunt of effort as he sat. ‘The pilot’s off. Everything.’

Lonny looked around to make sure no one else was down there with you, like they’d only just done it and were waiting to make sure they couldn’t turn it back on again. ‘Did they do it?’ he nearly stuttered as he turned back to him, Bud still focused entirely on the large machine in front of him.

‘I don’t know if they did it or not,’ he admitted as he started to flip switches and peek inside with his flashlight, nothing happening as a result, ‘but, we’re gunna fix it.’ 

‘They’re trying to break us down so that we start killing each other, Bud.’ Lonny’s voice was low but you still heard his words, he had the same train of thought as you, and you nearly stood up so you could at least stay with them a while until Bud spoke again.

‘You just need to relax, all right?’ he told him comfortingly, he wouldn’t let him worry about that just as much as you wouldn’t have if you’d stood up right now and went to him, and you decided you’d do just that when the speakers whined to life again.

‘I hope by now we’ve demonstrated that we aren’t blindly bluffing,’ the man on the other end told everyone, and you felt your legs lock up to the point of it being painful just at the sound of his voice. ‘This game’s a real one. Each of you are deep inside it. You can choose to follow our directives, or not. Either way, you’ll be giving us the results we’re looking for.’ You shut your eyes and shook your head, your hammer not nearly as comforting to you as Lonny’s arms had been earlier, you needed to stand, you needed to go to him-  ‘You are mostly free to do as you please. However, you must not dismantle any more cameras. And you must not remove the tag from your body. Next time we will not provide a countdown as we did Mr. Milch.’

You started to pant at the thought of Mike being dead somewhere upstairs because he’d caught on to what was hiding beneath your scars, that must’ve been the cause of the yelling, you needed to get up-

‘If you break either of these rules, your life will abruptly end.’ You felt like stone as you helplessly watched Lonny start to cry, the threat of himself being next strong enough to make Bud stand and try to calm him again, but there was little he could do at this point. ‘There are currently 76 of you left in the building. The time is now 12:47PM. By 2:47PM, in two hours, we want 30 of you dead, through whatever means necessary.’ He started to panic harder, you could help, if you could just open your mouth and tell them you were there you could help- ‘If 30 of you are not dead, we will end 60 of your lives through our own methods. Begin.’

He was inconsolable, his hand on his head as he started to pace over the stranger’s words, and the only reason you weren’t currently doing the same was because as long as you knew the two before you were safe then you couldn’t give a fuck about the people upstairs killing each other anymore. You tried to move but your legs refused to listen, this was your moment to show him how you felt for him and help keep him safe, but every single part of you was buzzing, your head spinning as you repeated those words to yourself over and over instead; you couldn’t get out, you were all trapped inside while tensions rose, and if 30 people didn’t die in two hours then double that would be murdered instead, which made your chances of survival even slimmer. 

If you didn’t help him and then find a way to keep him safe, while also finding it in yourself to kill to protect him, then you would both die, that was a certainty. He was a nobody compared to everyone upstairs, and even then their lives were all weighed the same, what chance did he have going up against someone who fought tooth and nail to get to where they were when he couldn’t even approach you for a donut?

‘L-Lonny…’ you gasped out, your voice lost under his sobs while Bud tried to console him again.

‘Hey, hey, Lonny, it’s gunna be okay…’ he was saying, but the moment he tried to hold him again he lashed out, the wrench given to him to cover Bud now wielded as a weapon to keep himself safe.

‘Get back off me!’ he screamed in his panic, Bud giving him his space as the desperation in his voice made your foot start to tingle as the numbness faded away. ‘Don’t look at me like that, man,’ he pleaded, Bud silent all the while, he wasn't about to upset him while he was panicking this hard. You wiggled your toes until you could move your ankle, your whole foot rolling and kickstarting the rest of you back into action, just a little longer now- 

You let out a shriek when the fire alarm then went off, the sound startling you so hard that the numbness completely faded away from the pure shock to your system. This was good, you were moving again, but the sound was too much for Lonny, your smile of relief falling when you saw the way he was holding his ears. His panic attacks were so much more severe than yours, his anxiety loud and jumpy and raw while yours made you quiet and frozen, but you wouldn’t be still this time when he yelled out loud enough to block out the ringing.

‘What is that?’ he demanded as his pacing worsened, your legs slowly shifted underneath you while you started to rise.

‘Lonny, calm down, man! It’s just a fire alarm!’ Bud tried to tell him but it was of no use, his yelling over the noise was only aiding his own frustration, and your knees shook as you pushed yourself onto them, you were almost standing.

‘No, it’s not! They’re trying to make us kill each other,’ he sobbed desperately, the wrench waved around when he motioned towards Bud and himself.

‘Easy, cowboy,’ Bud kept trying, his eyes following Lonny as his pacing got even worse, and you moved yourself onto your feet at long last. ‘Chill out, man! Hey, come here-’

‘Get back!’

He swung on instinct, a defensive maneuver in his uncontrollable panic, and you felt yourself go numb again right as you got ready to stand; the sound of the impact was louder than the alarm, a sickening crack that made your stomach churn, and Bud crashed into the fence separating them from you as he reached for his head. He groaned as he tried to stand up straight, Lonny staring at him in a deathly calm fear as he silently mouthed his friend’s name.

‘Wait a second,’ Bud mumbled, his shoulder slumped and your mouth going dry when you couldn’t confirm where he was hit with his back to you like this. ‘What just happened? Hold on, uh… wait, wait. Something is happening.’ His voice started to grow soft as he slid down the fence, and when he fell you figured out you were crying when you blinked and felt a cascade of tears roll down your cheeks.

How did this happen? This morning everything was so normal, it was almost boring to you in its simplicity; you’d bought your crush a donut and actually spoke to him, you were planning on inviting him out to lunch even because you’d finally hit it off, how did that turn into this so fast? You couldn’t understand it at all, your attempts to console Lonny now too late as he fell to his knees and weakly crawled over to his friend to apologize. It fell on deaf ears though, even you could tell from behind when Bud stopped moving, the kind man who’d given you your hammer and helped make sure you were safe now gone as Lonny sobbed over him.

The alarm finally quieted as you both kneeled there, neither knowing what to do until he finally looked at Bud’s face, his eyes so sorrowful until you saw the way they looked to the right; he was staring directly at you, your hiding really hadn’t been good enough, and his sorrow turned back into terror when he saw the look on your face. Instantly he was on his feet and that forced you to move as well, he was panicking again because he knew you, you were his friend and you’d seen what he’d done, and now it was your words that went unheard as you held your hammer a little tighter and hurried out of your hiding place.

‘Stop!’ he ordered you, your shoulders hunching and more tears falling at the tone of his voice, so unlike the way he’d spoken to you about his family with smudges of chocolate decorating the corners of his mouth. ‘Bud, he fell down and he hit his head,’ he explained miserably, but you’d seen it all, you couldn’t pretend you didn’t.

‘It wasn't your fault, Lonny,’ you tried to say but he ignored you, moving like a caged animal on the other side of the fence as he stared you down, he needed you to believe him, you were his friend and he needed you to believe all of it.

‘He tried to grab me,’ he moaned next, the two of you inching closer and closer to the opening until he was reaching for you, assuming you were only there to run. You held up your arms and stayed where you were, his own hand pulling back the moment he touched you like he’d been burned but he didn’t retreat, the wrench still in his other hand as he waited for you to do something. 

‘Lonny, Lonny, it’s okay, look, I know,’ you said quickly as you purposely let go of the hammer, his eyes watching it before you kicked it as hard as you could towards him as a sign of understanding. He glanced back at you before scrambling to pick it up, he had two weapons now, a hit from either one would be enough to make you reach the same fate as Bud, and when you finally got a glimpse of him you let out a gasp of misery. His head had been caved in, that’s what had happened, and Lonny waited for you to run again now that you’d seen what he’d done. You didn’t though, you wouldn’t, not when he needed you.

You made a show of getting back on your knees to tell him you wouldn’t run, your hands planted firmly on the cold cement to tell him you wouldn’t grab him, and he looked down at the hammer in his other hand before tossing it behind the machine to his left so it was completely out of reach. You nodded, agreeing with his decision, and he looked at his wrench next, his only weapon but still the thing he’d used to kill his friend, and he looked like he didn’t know what to do next.

‘It was an accident, it’s not your fault, I’m not afraid of you,’ you whispered to him, and he sniffed loudly before tossing the wrench to the ground. He fell to his knees and covered his face as he sobbed heavily, his cries echoing throughout the room along with his apologies to Bud for what he’d done. You waited until you couldn’t any longer, your numbness gone as you crawled over to him, and this time he didn’t bat you away when he peeked through his fingers and saw you coming. ‘I’ve been trying to talk to you for months,’ you told him, more tears spilling over the gaps and down his hands, ‘that’s why I keep bringing donuts to work, I’ve been waiting for you to come over so I could say hi to you; I wanted to do it sooner, but I’m a coward, that’s why I couldn’t be there for you earlier, I didn’t mean to watch I’m just a coward-’

He lowered his hands and wiped his nose with his sleeve, the tears still falling as he inched his way towards you. You were the one loudly crying now, if you’d just called out to him then this wouldn’t have happened, maybe you could’ve helped him, maybe if you’d just invited him to breakfast and skipped work entirely then you’d both be out there right now, and you didn’t realize you were saying it all out loud until he wrapped his arms around you. ‘He just grabbed me, I thought he was gunna hurt me,’ he whispered into your hair, and you finally held him back and sparked his desperation; he pulled you nearly onto his lap with a shuddering gasp, his hands clinging to you as you clung right back, the body of another dead friend staring up at you as all you could do was hold each other. ‘It was an accident, I’m not a bad person I’m not I’m not-’

‘I know, I know you’re not,’ you told him over and over until he was burying his face into your shoulder. You knew it must be hell up there but you couldn’t be bothered to care, all that mattered now was that you both got out of there together, you weren’t going to just sit by like a statue the next time his panic overtook him. ‘C’mere, let’s get out of here.’ You stood and took his hand so he’d do the same, and you cautiously headed back down the hallway with the wrench in hand again, neither of you stopping until he led you back to the break room and locked the door.

You were now technically locked into a room with a murderer, but you couldn’t see him like that, not him, not Lonny as he walked over to the sink and turned on the tap. He let it pool into his cupped hands before splashing it onto his face, he was covered with tears and sweat just like you were, and when he turned back to you all of the water ran down his chest and darkened his uniform. His bangs were soaked and dripping down his face, his eyes just barely showing through them, and you walked over to him and silently asked for permission to touch him.

He flinched at first, but eventually shut his eyes and let you while the wrench lay just within reach, and you were careful as you reached up and brushed his bangs to the side. You tucked them behind his ears and grabbed one of the towels for their dishes before wiping his face off next, just barely brushing the fabric against him so you wouldn’t upset him. It seemed to calm him even more, his shoulders relaxing and his body untensing just a little more with each gentle touch. When you were done you took his hand and got him to sit, it was still too warm in there, and you noticed the old fan tucked into the corner for those extra hot summer days. You made sure it still worked before turning it on, and he let out a sigh as the coolness hit him and allowed him a bit of a reprieve.

‘Here, your shirt’s all wet, it’ll help,’ you began as you reached for his uniform’s zipper, but his hand on your wrist got you to stop fast. ‘It’s okay, look, I’ll do the same, see?’ One-handed you undid your own buttons, your face flushing as you stripped off your very sweaty shirt and laid it over the back of your chair, your body instantly accepting the cold air and making you shiver in such a simple delight that it could’ve made you cry again. He looked you over quickly before doing the same, his blue shirt underneath hanging over his own chair while his coveralls bunched around his hips, his undershirt stained and damp from all the layers and the lack of AC. ‘We can rest here a moment, I don’t think any of them will come down here, so we can talk about what to do in the meantime.’

‘You think they’ll come for me?’ he asked nervously, already panicking over getting caught, but you shushed him softly and kept your hand hovering over his arm resting on the table between you just in case.

‘I don’t doubt everyone is in a similar state upstairs, no one will blame you for that, yours was an accident,’ you said truthfully, but he still looked nervously at the door all the same. ‘I need to find out what’s happening, we only have two hours, less now, and I don’t care if I… if I have to kill someone to do it, but I’ll make sure we get out of this, okay? And we can’t do that if we stay down here in the dark, leaving it up to them and chance might just seal our fate.’

‘If you go out there you’ll risk getting killed yourself, you know that, right?’ he said seriously as he leaned in, and his hand closed over yours and pushed it down onto his arm. ‘We can hide down here, I know all the tunnels, every twist and turn, I even know how to get into the vents; going back up there means that someone else’ll get hurt, that’s what they want.’

‘I know, that’s exactly what they want, and I doubt they’ll stop at 30,’ you muttered right on the edge of hopelessness, but his hand on yours made you suck in a deep breath and sit up straight. ‘But I didn’t spend the past 7 months of my life wanting to ask you out to get killed now, no fucking way.’

‘You… you wanted to ask me out?’ he questioned softly, his voice just barely above a whisper, almost like he was unsure he’d heard you correctly, and you nodded for just a second before he was leaning over the corner of the table and kissing you. Your eyes went wide as his hand held yours in place, the kiss chaste and a bit desperate but enough to make your heart pound all the same, and when he backed away his hair fell free and into his eyes again when his head dipped down to stare at you. ‘I’ve been… trying to get Bud to tell you for me since I first saw you, but he never would, he just kept saying I should do it myself.’ He looked away then, something sad after being so soft. ‘And now he can never…’

‘But you just did,’ you reminded him, your free hand reaching up to push aside his hair again, ‘and I can never forgive them for doing this to us.’

He nodded, his head was a bit clearer now even though he was still upset, the fan and the silence were certainly helping along with your words. ‘I’m still afraid, though…’ he whispered, and you shifted your chair closer to him so that you could pull him back into a hug. His skin was still warm as your chests pressed together, your hug instantly becoming something more intimate when you remembered that you were attempting to cool, but it only bonded you more when you felt his hand leave yours in order to place itself over your back.

‘I am, too, but if they want us to play a game together then I’ll fucking play until I can pay them back for our friends.’ You placed your forehead against his, your hand on his neck and feeling for his scar, and you shut your eyes tight when you felt the line stretching across his scalp, just as your own did. ‘I don’t know how yet, but we’re going to get out of here, and if this ends and I lose you…’

‘Then you’ll keep going, yeah? You said it yourself, we only just officially met this morning, I k- I hurt Bud, you shouldn’t have to give up just because of me,’ he whimpered lowly, another tremble making you open your eyes again, and you hushed him once more before wiping away the first tear that fell.

‘That’s why we need to both get out of here, so I can invite you to lunch and you can tell me everything we never talked about, don’t we?’ you insisted, and he nodded against you and placed his own hand on the back of your neck, the covered spaces starting to heat up again without the fan. ‘We can do this, you’re strong, and smart, and I’m a coward but I’ll help you in any way that I can, we don’t even need to join any of them, we just need to let them tear each other apart and up the count for us while we figure a way to get out, and… and if need be we can protect each other, I won’t let them get to you like that again.’

‘But what if they do? What if I get so upset that I hurt you this time?’ He didn’t want to even think about it, his breathing starting to quicken as he pictured you in Bud’s place, and you kissed him soft and slow until you were all he could feel.

‘Then I’ll know it’ll just be an accident, because you’re not a bad person, and, if I’m being honest, I think you might actually be better than most of the guys in this place,’ you said with a small laugh, and he thought about it a moment before laughing along with you, a small shred of relieved happiness in these hours of pain. ‘Come on, we need to see what they’re doing, do you think you could get us up to the security room so we could check the cameras?’

‘I think so, there’s a maintenance elevator that only Bud and I can use, it’s away from the others so they might think to use it last, they need a key to get it to run,’ he told you, said key stuck to the ring and line attached to his belt, and you nodded and kissed him again real quick.

‘That’s perfect, we can leave in a minute, you stay here and check for anything we can use to protect ourselves, I’m going to get my hammer back,’ you told him as you stood, but he didn’t let you leave at the thought of you seeing Bud again, or never coming back at all. ‘It’s okay, I won’t let anyone take you away from me,’ you promised him, and then he was letting you go and watching you hurry out. You didn’t get lost on the way back, the halls silent and telling you that no one else was around as you ended up at your destination without trouble. 

There was Bud, still slumped where he’d fallen, and you closed your eyes for a moment of silence before kneeling down and closing his for him. You were just about to stand when you saw his own set of keys, and you unclipped them and attached them to your own belt loop before you heard a sound. You stilled, your eyes looking every which way for a sign of movement, but you saw nothing stand out in the maze. You narrowed your eyes and went back to getting your hammer, he’d really thrown it far to the point where you had to lay down and reach under the machine for it, and when you pulled back your hand it was covered in years worth of dust and webs.

You shivered and brushed it all off without a fuss, there were worse things to be afraid of down here now, and you hurried all the way back to Lonny with your own weapon in hand and a fire in your heart; you were going to get out of here, if you had to fight your way through this entire building to make sure no one hurt him again, then by god were you going to rain down hell on all who stood in your way, and when you returned to him and saw him standing there with his coveralls tied around his waist and his wrench in his hand you knew that he was ready to do the same for you.

[savrenim]

Hey mx savrenim its me again and I'm wondering: how you maintain tension in a story with characters with future vision? Especially in a story with no guaranteed future, where seers can ensure the best possible future for themselves

oooooh v v good question, once more under the cut

so there are a lot lot LOT of ways to do this that all depend on the tone that you want your story to go for, and Imma reference a few pieces of media that do this in various ways, but this is pretty much a subset of the question “how do you maintain tension in your story when your character is very overpowered”

1. Just very realistically explore that “in theory able to do things perfectly” and “in practice able to do things perfectly” are very very different things.  Another Faust by Daniel Nayeri had pretty much someone with Seer-like capabilities (namely, the ability to loop back I thiiiink as far as they wanted in time?) that they could use to make sure they always said the right thing, got the right answers on tests, etc etc, and it just.... didn’t work out for them perfectly. Because perfect knowledge didn’t fix everything. If you know how every single play is going to work idk in a baseball game, that gives you an edge, but it doesn’t actually mean you win the game unless you are good enough at baseball to hit that ball and run those bases

In that case, the more effective the Seer wants to be, the more they have to actually train the skills that they care about, so that they can carry out the actions physically that lead to their ideal future. And building physical skills is hard and takes work and practice, and anything you have to work to get better at to reach a goal is the starting point of tension. 

Also to continue the sports metaphor, having perfect knowledge of a baseball game and even being the best player in the world doesn’t guarantee you a win because you cannot play every single position, there are other people on the team who are going to be doing actions that at most can have secondhand versions of your knowledge. Trying to manage the human aspect leads to human error. So maybe there is tension because the Seer aggressively self-isolates so that Other People Will Not Fail Them and tension comes from interacting with other people they have extreme trust issues. Maybe the tension comes from them playing puppetmaster and trying to figure out which people they are willing to sacrifice for their goals, which people will fail them and which people they can and should hold onto, and from nobody really trusting them because everyone is well aware that the puppetmaster is willing to make sacrifices.

And finally -- just knowing the future doesn’t mean you can fix it. I don’t know about you, but even if I had perfect foreknowledge of the future, I would not be truly happy just personally thriving as idk rich and a famous mathematician and physicist and married to my fiance and maybe the books that I want to be published published and enough money to give to all my friends too and maybe can we have warp drives I want to go to space and inventing some solid if not immortality-tech then life-extension tech would be cool -- which, like, is everything I could personally wish for from life and more -- but in the world that we have? like, climate change SUCKS. fascism SUCKS. racism SUCKS. sexism and homophobia and poverty and class wars disguised as generational wars and all of the existing structures that reinforce all of these things SUCK. and even personally having perfect foreknowledge of the future enough to either start with or build up a bunch of political power and money, to try to change any of that would mean going against incredibly entrenched institutions that I honestly have no idea how effective one person could be at changing. Like if B*zos suddenly decided “wait let’s save the world and make a socialist utopia” do you actually think he would succeed? or even get very far? even applying every single resource he commands? or would he just.... lose a lot of his money and power trying to do that and then someone else becomes the richest person in the world who does want to maintain the system. because a lot of that power are things that do not exist, like stocks, it’s imaginary money that the moment you stop playing the game you get kicked out of the game and maybe you can make tiny changes but the game itself doesn’t stop

so baaaasically consider making your Seer a radical anarchist or at least someone who cares about tackling large-scale problems that one individual will never be able to solve, to play the “well if a very powerful individual had a single-minded focus on trying to fight these things could we at least get further than every single powerful person wanting to screw us over or just not caring?” game -- that creates tension because global problems can only be solved by global and communal actions, and one individual, no matter how perfectly they can see the future, cannot do that on their own

2. “Psychic powers don’t make you popular.” This is my obligatory “I just rewatched Mob Psycho 100 and am obsessed with it seriously consider watching it if you haven’t.” I know I keep bringing up MP100 but hear me out my favorite media is where the main character is stupidly overpowered so I don’t have to be stressed at all consuming it and MP100 maybe is the most touching but also well thought out and interestingly plotted version of that I’ve ever seen  But the basic premise of Mob Psycho 100 is that the main character, Mob, is a middle schooler with the most powerful psychic abilities in the world. The tension comes from: (1) Mob is not in total control over his powers and feels really really bad when he loses control and for example uses his powers against another person even in self-defense because that’s a Rule he made for himself that he really doesn’t want to cross ever. Which with a Seer, maybe you have a Seer that Cares Deeply About Other People’s Privacy, or who Cares Deeply About Having Real Relationships That They Do Not Manipulate, or who Cares Deeply About Their Achievements Being Their Own and so they don’t use their powers in everyday life out of moral considerations, except sometimes gods in stressful situations you just want everything to be okay so the tension of “do I fix this right now or is this crossing a line” drives your story. (2) because Mob isn’t using his powers in everyday life, while he is having these giant badass psychic battles with ghosts and evil psychics as a part-time job after school and yeah yeah you know he’s going to win, the tension and growth in the story comes from the gains that he is making in his personal life of, like, “oh he made a friend!!!!! oh he stood up for himself even though that’s really hard for him and he set a boundary!!!! oh he’s working really really hard towards his goal of being better at running!!!!! oh look he’s grown so much at episode 1 he didn’t talk to anyone his own age or have anything to do and now he’s doing things for himself!!!” Having your Seer take the ethics of not using seeing into the future to manipulate the people around them really really seriously, working very hard at tiny life things and then being a complete fucking badass that is putting down world-threatening threats as hobby that they kind of don’t view as that important in defining them as a person or defining their accomplishments or how they feel about themselves means that it doesn’t matter how overpowered they are in terms of their abilities, your audience will care and be invested in the tiny life accomplishments that they are working so hard to do on their own, and will be proud of their personal growth.

3. Blind Spots. Exactly what it sounds like, can your Seer really see everything? Perfectly? And if they do see everything do they know the exact effect that acting differently will cause? Or are they limited visions -- they only come at certain times, they only are about very specific things, the Seer cannot control when they happen, etc. The more specific and limited your visions are, the harder they have to actually work to figure out how to interpret them and best play the cards that they have, so maybe finding that perfect happy life isn’t actually all that easy. 

Alternatively, your Seer can only see the natural future, what would happen if they do not change their actions. If they change their actions, they can’t re-glimpse the new version, so it’s up to their best guess as to whether or not their plans to make things better will actually make things better. You can create a shit-ton of tension there if only because Plans Never Go Perfectly. Honestly at this point you’re just writing a slightly different version of those “MC is a Super Genius” books that instead of them making good plans because they are a Super Genius, it is good plans because they can see the future, I stand by childhood me that the first three Artemis Fowl books are great and honestly I’m pretty sure the plot wouldn’t really change too much if you added “Artemis can see what future would happen if he didn’t take any actions to interfere” and it would just be another interesting trait that was a part of his planning process.

And even if your Seer can see re-glimpse the new version, they are human. They have only a finite amount of time, and a finite amount of brain space. You don’t need to make the rules of Seer powers be that “they can see all of spacetime and all possibilities of the past and future perfectly all the time.” They can miss things by not thinking something is important and looking in a different direction. You can build up tension around they can only look into the future, not the past, they missed something, and now they don’t know what they missed and what to target to fix it. Or play the finite amount of time bit very hard: if they see the effects of deciding one particular course of action, it takes [x] time for the vision to complete, then they need to try to see the effects of one other particular course of action, and they can only effectively run a handful of simulations -- or even hundreds or thousands, but the answer is still a finite number of dear gods is nature chaotic / the butterfly effect is built into every single physics equation that there is that describes the world -- so tension comes from even if they can check that a plan is good, they still have to come up with a plan to change the future, and can only come up with so many plans in the time that they have. 

4. Existential Crisis. You made Seer powers “they can see all of spacetime and all possibilities of the past and future perfectly all the time.” idk I would find life terribly boring and have an existential crisis over that probably? of am I even human? does anything I do matter? does anyone else exist, really, since I can see and control every aspect of their lives? am I a god? how do I relate to anyone? how do I care about anything? 

In this setup, your main character would not be the Seer, it would be a person or group of people who are either trying to Save The World or Accomplish Something Important or even Accomplish Something Selfish who spend the story trying to befriend the Seer and get their help goddamnit because the moment the Seer is on their side, they win. and then the tension comes from the Seer keeps refusing but is ~slowly opening their heart~, jaded older mentor figure adopts tiny adorable hopeful child is the found family JAM and then your main character finally decides they aren’t getting the help and goes off and does the incredibly dangerous thing alone and the Seer realizes too late that oh nooo my tiny son is in danger and at just the last moment decides fuck it and leaps back into the game to try to help and save them and oh both the glorious drama and all the best tropes all of them seriously if you write this book ping me I’ll read it I’m a sucker for jaded old loner adopts Naive Hopeful Hero Who Is Going To Save The World Even If It Kills Them and jaded old loner just spends the entire time going “oh no. oh no tiny child. oh gods I’m coming out of retirement aren’t I. tiny child please. please have you considered just being chill so that I don’t have to come out of retirement” and then just. the SATISFACTION. when they come in at just the right moment and the tension leading up to it when you didn’t know if they were going to or not. it’s poetry.

This can also pretty easily be done without the Seer having godlike powers, just pretty strong powers-- have them have made their life perfect, found it empty, and fallen into a depressive fugue then use the above plot for the same effect. 

5. Make Them Your Villain. The final way of dealing with making tension and having an overpowered character is, uh..... it’s only no tension when your protagonist doesn’t need to struggle to reach their goals. if the antagonist is walking down easy street that only makes things all the more stressful because how do you beat that? and that is all of the tension in your book: figuring it out.

a subgenre of this is Seer v Seer: the best possible future for one Seer is not necessarily the best possible future for another Seer, so if you have multiple Seers, Seers clashing against other Seers that have the same powers which means their powers aren’t necessarily an advantage is a shit-ton of tension. That is.... pretty much the plot of trash novel? So I’d rather not go into detail about how I personally am doing it, but anytime people who have the same abilities fight, they’re on equal ground, you don’t know who is going to win, so boom, tension.

6. Seers are illegal/ kidnapped by the government the moment they are discovered to work for the government only/ targeted for kidnapping by all sorts of powerful groups, so your Seers need to aggressively hide their powers and the more they use them to make their life perfect, the more in danger they are; even if they can use their abilities to avoid ever being captured, they will be on the run their entire lives if they get found out.

[sindrafalcone]

This might be long so please bear with me. I'm sorry you didn't get the response you were hoping for with your latest scenario. I've noticed this with a lot of writers after they come back from a long hiatus. I ask that you consider a few things before giving up hope: recognize that you haven't written in a while (for good reason) and that some of your followers may no longer be active on tumblr. VIP fandom is pretty quiet right now, especially on tumblr. 1/6

I personally don't even search the scenario tags for Big Bang anymore because there is rarely any new content. I'll admit I didn't read your latest piece until I saw your post about being discouraged and felt bad. I'm not crazy about the Nannyverse (please don't hate me it's just not my cup of tea!) and tend to skip updates on it, but after reading it, it could be a standalone oneshot. 2/6      I appreciate that you tackled things that writers typically don't, because I feel like Seunghyun would/does suffer from body image issues. Usually with scenarios involving him it's very one-note and people don't bother to explore anything outside of his domineering T.O.P persona. So thank you for that. And as usual it was well-written and easy to visualize the scene you created so please don't think you've gotten rusty or anything! 3/6Which brings me to notes on scenarios. Fanfic is free & feedback is important to authors in order to keep content flowing, we as readers should know & respect that. I find it easier to give "notes" on sites like AO3. I can read the story & leave a kudo whether I'm logged in or not. I use the Likes system on tumblr as an archive so I don't usually "like" scenarios unless they blow me away & I plan to read it multiple times. That sounds super harsh, but it's how I keep my account organized 4/6On tumblr I prefer to write to the author (like I'm doing now) to let them know what I liked about the story. That way I'm doing my part as a reader, but it's still a double-edged sword because the notes on the post don't change and I know they’re important to authors. I always feel guilty about that, but there's no real anonymity option on tumblr besides writing feedback this way so I feel stuck. 5/6         ANYWAY, what I'm trying to say is that: your writing is still amazing; VIP fandom on tumblr is dead;  maybe you can explore options like AO3 (crossposting your work?) to reach a larger audience. Also, your first 5 tags on a post are the most important so make sure you're hitting active/relevant tags first. I hope that made sense and was helpful in some way. Please don't be discouraged, and I look forward to reading more of your work! 6/6            

Whew! That’s... a lot. lol So, I���ll stick my reply under a cut because it will probably also be a lot.

I realize that I was just being needy and whiny with my post. I know that the VIP tumblr fandom is dead right now. Almost every piece of writing that I’ve put up for the past year has maybe 25 notes max. So, I knew it was coming... I just didn’t expect it to be (essentially) just one note.  

I don’t hate anyone for their reading preferences. That’s why there’s so many different kinds of literature out there... something for everyone! Slow burn, domestic bliss romance is not everyone’s cup of tea & I totally get that. Please don’t feel bad for not reading it if that’s not the type of thing you like. But I do give you credit for trying it out anyway. Thanks for that!

I am working on transferring (most) everything over to Ao3. https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sindra_Falcone/works

Unfortunately for you, I’ve started with The Nanny. (Sorry about that!) But I hope to get it all over there eventually. Although I find that Ao3 seems to be geared more toward shipping fics & less reader fics. (If that makes any sense?) So I don’t know how much interaction they’ll get there either.

And I do understand what you mean about tumblrs notes system. You’re actually smarter than I am, using it to keep things organized.  I’d never thought of that & now I wish I had! lol So, yeah... that makes reader feedback limited, unfortunately.

Thank you very much for your reassurance that I haven’t lost the touch completely. I can’t help but wonder sometimes, ya’ know? I think the next oneshot is going to be Jiyong. (I’ll try posting it both places & see what happens.) I’ve been itching to write him again for a while. It’s just I have a tendency to go back to Nannyverse because it’s familiar... comfortable. I really do need to branch out though.

I want you to know, anon, that I am extremely appreciative for this ask. It’s given me some perspective & encouragement.

[theangrypokemaniac]

@its-whitetomorrow

I appreciate that you take the time out of your day to read my witterings, and respond to them in detail, but I'm somewhat intellectually limited and it takes a while to write an answer.

The final one is a bit of a problem. The original post is long, your bit is long, and my addition is probably twice both put together.

Did you know Tumblr has a limit: no more than two hundred and fifty text blocks per post? I discovered this from experience, unsurprisingly.

I think the only solution is to split it across several posts.

I wasn't going to say anything, but I suppose I should.

I started this blog last May, to relieve the boredom of my main embarrassment, whose only likes (all three of them) were from porn bots.

It wasn't even meant to be about Pokémon. I'd left the fandom years previously. It was odds and ends, but I happened to find a few silly screen shots so wrote a couple of joke remarks, not expecting a ripple of interest.

Within a couple of hours I got more notes than t'other's managed even to this day. I had the idea this was where I was more at home, so I started taking it seriously.

My pseudonym was just daft thing I'd made up previously, to reflect that, whilst still in love with old days, I'm not exactly pleased with how it's gone.

I thought it might stand out as memorable, plus I like acronyms, so it affords me the opportunity to call myself 'T.A.P.'

In the early days the focus was on the 'maniac' aspect. Anger as a description didn't fit at all. The farther back you go, the more stupid and clownish it gets. It's not been like this all the way through!

Seriously, it used to be an entertainment blog, designed to make people laugh. It's all ages: no swearing, no porn, nothing to put anyone off.

(This post under discussion contains the only profanity I've ever deployed. I thought saving it up might add some oomph.)

I mean it, it's was all light-hearted ridicule. Every so often, there would be a slightly cutting remark, but mild compared to now.

Then, last September, someone I spoke to regularly, who assured me we were friends, suddenly cut off all contact.

At first I wasn't aware of it, but by October it became too glaring a silence to ignore.

I thought rifts started because of massive disagreements, but as far as I remembered our last exchange ended normally.

I found out by accident that the reason for it was because I am repugnant and morally inferior and so swollen with my own ego that the existence of others doesn't register. Instead they are but soulless droids built to worship the great T.A.P. mollusc.

Well that was news to me. I had no idea I came across like that. As far as I knew, I was on my best behaviour when we interacted.

I was polite. I tried to be ingratiate myself. I kept talk to the fandom. I didn't pry. I attempted humour when the opportunity arose.

I thought I'd done all I could to be liked, but apparently I hadn't. It was a revolting experience for them, for all of saying they loved me and I was 'honey'.

It really, really, really got to me, and the feeling hasn't abated, if anything it's worse.

As I said, I don't know what I did wrong, and because I don't, I can't mend my ways. If I am this repellant waste of flesh I'd like to change, but if I'm not told my offence, what am I meant to do?

If what I thought was the best I could be wasn't good enough, and instead was so sickening I don't deserve their presence, then I have no idea how to interact with people.

Maybe every time I respond to someone, thinking I'm at worst, civil, is really grotesque conceit, because my arrogance is so extreme I'm not even aware it's there. In my head it sounds normal.

It'd be too easy to scoff that they were the one with the problem, but, given all the arguments that happen in life, it can't always be someone else's fault. It's got to be you at least once.

They obviously think they were justified, so who's to say they weren't?

You may say not to let it worry me, that I should just get over it, and you'd be totally right. Being bothered makes me feel pathetic and petty on top of the rest, but this is me you're talking to, not a sane person. Self-hatred is more instinctive to me than breathing.

I always dwell on the negative. If one hundred people were assembled, ninety-nine of whom declared me the most wonderful being ever to live, and one remarked I wasn't all that special, it's him I'd remember. 

It's called ghosting because that's what happens. There comes a moment when you accept that, no, it's over, rejected again, and it's like realising I'd died, and had been gone for a while.

Except I hadn't noticed the process, so I was always dead in a way, and they spoke to the silvery silhouette left behind, until that too dispersed into untraceable nothingness. Again,  the silence is my fault for dying, not theirs.

I feel there's no point in messaging anyone, because I'll only disgust them too. Some blogs encourage contact, and when I see it I always think:

Yeah, but they don't mean YOU.

If it's another person I already spoke to, I can't shut up. I bombard them with text in the hope they know I don't think they're a menial droid. Every one I immediately regret, and wish I could take back, because that will irritate them until I'm just a sad, nagging past.

The Ghost-Maker used to reblog 99% of my work. This dropped to nothing overnight, so not only am I worthless, but so is everything I do.

Posts G.M. didn't like got 0-5 notes. Ones they did had 20+. Many a time, it took their reblog for anyone else to notice.

It was like others used that blog as a filter to pull the fool's gold from the murk of this one. Once their favour evaporated, so did a lot of the goodwill from elsewhere, so it's was as if Tumblr agreed I was scum.

Saying that above just shows they were right, because it takes one smug bastard to believe their existence registers with anyone else.

Please don't think I'm demanding likes, that my stuff deserves them, although as I'm arrogant I am. It's just that 99% to 0% is a bit of a fall.

Up til then, I held back much of what I thought about the current state of the anime, as they liked it, but now I have no reason to stop.

If I'm to be accused of all these vices I might as well have them. I'm dead, so who cares what I say? No one listens to a ghost.

It's not that I'm unconcerned if I upset anyone, it's just the truth that I don't matter enough for what I write to be valued enough to offend.

As a ghost, I think of this blog as invisible. It's there, but not really, so how can anyone mind?

Incidentally, the first week I was here I got blocked by someone who hates all fans from the Nineties. I don't care about that, as they sound like a cretin, and I'd have to be defective to gain their approval.

I just want to say I find that moronic. I don't hate new fans at all. I wouldn't block someone because we disagreed.

Blocking denies people access to your blog, stating they don't deserve your ART. That's arrogant to me.

Blocker likes Ghost-Maker, but...

Ever since around October, I've progressively become angrier and angrier. Whenever I'm here or Pokémon enters my head, it just reminds that I'm pond slime, about the most crude, malformed half-life freak you can envision.

I don't like being here anymore. I keep intending to leave, the site and the fandom, and set fire to it all before I go, wipe away the slug trail to spare people's stomachs.

I kept quiet until now, but holding it in just made it more intense. If I may describe myself in ridiculously flattering terms, I feel like a shaken champagne bottle, but the cork is welded in, so the only option is for the glass to shatter.

If anyone's reading this, wondering where the fun went, well this is why I flipped. The red mist won't clear. I can't see beyond it.

I won't name Ghost-Maker, because I don't want to start anything, plus most will take their side. They may see this as they still rifle round these parts occasionally for posts that aren't mine.

Well done, Ghostie. You're the lucky one. We'll never meet and you haven't seen me. Pity the poor sods I've encountered. There must be vomit trails across the land provoked by my vile condition. I wasn't aware of this until you let me in on the secret.

There's an English television presenter called Caroline Flack. She killed herself yesterday and everyone loved her. I feel guilty that I'm alive and she's not.

[gurguliare]

DVD: that one scene from your fic about Dirhaval, with the elf lady and the two of them being really intent with each other over the fire. "Do you love me" et cetera. I hope that makes sense I'm on mobile.

omg IT DOES although since that fic barely has scene divisions I’m going to take this excuse to do… a lot of it.

“I have remembered something,” she added, inconsequentially. “My aunt’s husband was Guilin’s steward. Everyone in my family hated him because he always making up to us with stories about the great princes. He said that Gwindor and Finduilas fought much over the Adanedhel’s love for her.”

I… I love this OC. She’s not even a box of rocks, she’s like, a box with one rock in it. Selectively dense; elsewhere, airheaded.

Dírhaval considered the fish with great interest. He had been told triumph lent him a fierce expression. He had no wish to scare his friend off now.

I can’t remember if @crocordile​ and I had a conversation before or after I wrote this about Dirhavel being like, not necessarily a big but an energetic guy who’s frequently seen around the camps doing SUPER WEIRD athletic shit to see if some of the feats he attributes to Turin were physically possible—anyway, whatever the timing, that concept was what I was psychically tuned into when I wrote this description. He has a beard and it bristles despite his best efforts to keep it trimmed.

“Raised voices—he overheard—Gwindor said, ‘Why does he seek you out, and sit long with you, and come ever more glad away?’ And that was true, I remember; they sat together in all kinds of places, on the terraces, in the treasury, and even by the earthworks for the bridge. No doubt he told her much you would be glad to know. But as for me, I think Gwindor a fool; few men would have loved her for listening. It reminds them what they hold dear in themselves.”

It was really hard for me to strike what seemed like a reasonable balance between hearsay and direct observation, but I leaned on the idea that Nargothrond, though huge, was not like, “modern city space” huge, more “sprawling overdeveloped apartment complex and you need a permit to go above ground”—so in five years and with perfect memory, everyone has a decent chance of stumbling on everyone else’s attempts at fresh air.

“That’s true,” he said. The first time he had interviewed her, she had spoken for an hour about the cavern of assembly, like an egg on its side—but so vast!—and with stalactites Finrod himself had sung down into pillars, or was it that he had worn holes in the walls parting small caves, she couldn’t decide; and the window on the river, whence a grey light came, like a shadow thrown on the gliding light of a thousand lamps and torches.

I think this description of the great hall is kind of cute but I have to acknowledge it was influenced, consciously or subconsciously, by the great hall in the Rats of Nimh.

And now when she spoke it was matter-of-fact and with hardly a jibe at her uncle. She was Túrin to him in that moment with her straight-sloping neck, the flushed skin of her neck and jaw with her face as fair as fair could stay at sunset, the cupful of shadow under her chin. He had burned the roof of his mouth. The fish was tender, almost flavorless, flaking between his teeth like a cake of river-flesh; a little muddy, even, as all water here was. He ate the crisped-black skin for a whiff of charcoal, which coated his mouth. “Don’t you love me, your loyal hearer?”

She gave him a startled wink; and smiled, and smiled.

Okay, so yes. I do love this moment, I hope it does a lot of things at once; basically I want 1) Dirhavel to be ironic in a nice way about his elf friend attempting to invent the term “emotional labor,” which reflects both a male impatience with this attempt to generalize everything to men talking women’s ears off, but also some vague species-based edginess about him trying to construct this human story out of testimony from elves, and like, navigating elves’ possessiveness of Turin but also the way they patronize him in the same breath, Adanedhel. And at the same time having to confront the fact that people are people and the elf-human boundary has gotten increasingly blurry with the end times, however much he might want to retain a sense of lofty apartness, whether as a human among elves, a writer among subjects, a man among women, whatever—that tension between observer distance and involuntary empathy is another big theme of this fic. And 2) I want the cook to catch it but not quite get it—like, she knows he’s making fun of her but she doesn’t necessarily interpret it in the same way he does, what she gets is that he’s talking about the limits of different kinds of love, that you can love someone and it can still go just so far: that’s why it triggers her next thought about Finduilas –> Turin.

“I do not think Finduilas loved the Mormegil either. Or, that is, I believe they loved one another as sister and brother.”

I said this in my commentary on an otherwise VERY different LOGH fic but I love when characters are wrong. Every time. Also, I love childish oversimplifications that have good reason for existing—that is, I like when you can really see why a character would with all their heart want to believe x, because the alternative is both messy and depressing.

Trying to lick his fingers clean just spread around the soot. Among the things she had told Dírhaval was that she was an only child. But he was inclined to believe her, almost. To Finduilas Túrin should have been a child. She must have wanted to love him like a brother—it would have been best, by far clearer and finer, to love him as a brother, even when her death walked near. The death he handed her down to; but if they were kin, it would have been her right to love him, blaming him.

“Do you not agree?”

Dirhavel takes this basically as like, confirmation for his thesis that all real love is irrational and unconditional (see also Gwindor wanting Finduilas and Túrin to be happy at his own expense, a few lines down) but only familial love has the “excuse” to be so. So the distinction is not, “would I love him whatever he did to me,” but rather, “do I feel fucked up and guilty about that fact or not.” In a vague way, this is supposed to set up the extremely bleak lines he gives Nienor after she gets her memory back: twice beloved.

“I can’t say.” Up again to pace. She followed him, basket on her arm, and settled onto her haunches when she saw he had no journey in mind. He stood when he performed, which was not hard, but it made him more restless when alone.

See above remarks about Dirhavel’s acrobatics, and also maaybe his ADHD

“I think—by the time—no, Túrin did not love her, and as for Finduilas, well, surely she cared for Gwindor? If they argued. Let’s see. And Túrin pursued her at last and fell in a swoon on her grave, we know that. And he loved Gwindor; how not, when Gwindor was with him at Ivrin? But Gwindor—I suppose—Gwindor must have hated him. No. He must have hoped Túrin loved Finduilas, and that was why he couldn’t be persuaded of the truth. For he would have wanted her to be happy, in the end.”

“Oh, no!”

His mood tipped down at once. “Oh no,” he agreed, and took his sandals off and stepped into the stream.

Again, I just think this interaction is fun. I mean I like the placement of his realization about Gwindor, but I LOVE the cook being like “oh no!! that’s so sad!” I hope other people enjoy “stories about the process of idiotic sadstuck brainstorming” as much as I do.

His mother had said once that both he and his father were happier than other men, but that they had no ballast, to keep steady the craft. If he took on an ounce of grief he’d sink, and yet he felt the flood almost as freedom. It made him more the master than had his dry, feckless race, his high-riding. As long as he struggled he had yet to succumb; that was the rule for a wasted night. He ought to go beg a bowl of sour milk from Linnor, or go and sing a service for the king. He could see as far as a night of stars.

I wanted to communicate a particular kind of mood downturn here where you can still clearly remember being happy, and the rising tide of discontent isn’t overwhelming on its own, it’s just depressing because you know where it leads—but for the same reason it’s also a relief, in that you know where it leads. Whereas joy is weird and easy to get lost in and you never know when the plug will be pulled. But I’m not sure the boat metaphor really works.

But it was day, it was red evening. It was his companion’s grief, filling his mind from above. She crouched and watched the far bank huge-eyed, not a tear in evidence, eyes opened but sealed, as it seemed, against sadness that strove for entry, not escape; she sat with wide mouth cracked, nostrils flared, sucking in great absent sniffs of sea-wind. She was besieged as an afterthought, safe and calm except besieged.

I also wanted to include some telepathy! As always! Dirhaval I imagine to be something of a natural, who probably has had some experience with elf mind-speech at this point—enough to recognize it but not really to manage it. I like this description of the cook in pain, I think it works well with her established personality and also evokes Nargothrond itself, which is of course the thing she’s actually grieving for. I mean, and she identifies it with Gwindor, reasonably enough, and takes unhappy pride in him as a lord of Nargothrond, and in this moment is kind of shot through herself not just with the fact of his defeat but the like, honorable necessity of his defeat, knowing that on some level he accepted it.   

(Gwindor surely wished Finduilas joy. Finduilas, dying, remembered Túrin, and told him where his quest should end. The feathered tops of the reeds glowed on dark stems, like a fire in a field of reeds—there before nightfall he planted for ever the standards of the Noldor and their unsheathed swords, kindling in the dawn.)

I’m so proud of this stupid line lol, it’s just the reverse of Tolkien’s—“The light of the drawing of the swords of the Noldor was like a fire in a field of reeds”—but I LOVE THAT LINE, it’s so perfect for Dirhaval as an author and Sirion as a place of memory/last battlefront/first battlefront for this long war. And its conclusion, still to come.

He washed his hands and greasy beard in the river. “Your fish will be cold,” he advised. He had abandoned hope of dinner until she brought it, but that was no reason to encourage bad habits in her.

Dumb friends. Dumb friends are great because they are attuned to the hazards of stupidity, and can help each other.

Then he had to pick some scales out of his teeth, and couldn’t elaborate, but he heard her uncover the basket, anyway.

He had met her before with a handful of salt, pressing a few grains to her mouth to check their purity. “Dírhaval,” she said wisely, mouth full. “Dírhaval, I have forgotten how to cook.” Meaning she had no spices, witched ovens, and trained assistants—maybe, with her, it really was as though she had forgotten; at least it was something else she had lost.

Yeah… the focus on memory in this is another unexpected link to the LOGH fic uh, an inevitable byproduct of writing about a historian, and it’s also supposed to reflect that loss of separation between elves and men, since so much of what distinguishes elves is… their wealth of resources, psychological and material. And the material resources are essential to and interwoven with the psychological resilience, as noted here, so I really wanted to capture that sense that *not having* all the wonderful things she used to have baffles her as much as a hole in her memory. Because the default is that you keep everything forever, right? Another feeling which is not unique to elves. God I love………………………… “people.”  

[thistherapylife]

I know your mother had untreated BPD & that for awhile you had trouble interacting with people with BPD as a result & it was something you were afraid you wouldn't be able to work with. I'm curious how you got past that. I'm very open about the fact that I have BPD but have found that a lot of people will assume things about me because of it and I've had a couple friendships fall apart because of friends whose parents had untreated BPD. It's frustrating and hurtful because I'm in treatment (z 1)

& dealing with my issues. I highly value self-improvement. I actually find that it seems like I’m working harder on myself than many of the people who are judging me for my disorder. I really believe that speaking openly about mental health is how we remove stigma in the long-run. But in the short-term, I’m finding that people aren’t giving me the benefit of the doubt & are assuming things about me that just aren’t true. I’m wondering how you got past that, so I could get some insight? Thanks!

Oh boy. First, I think it’s very admirable that you are seeking help. It’s hard! And a that’s a lot. 

Chances are you are not going to like my answer. Because you are asking about the personal, I’m asking in the personal. Not in the professional world. Clinically, I was afraid I’d have too much counter transference and I was worried I wouldn’t be able to  separate my personal experience from my professional self. My answer might be hard to read. It contains explicit descriptions of child abuse and suicidal ideation. Again this is the time to get off the ride if you you are in a place where negative experiences with someone with untreated BPD or child abuse. Chances are I’m going to get a lot of hate mail (note: I’ll just delete it) but I hope that this random response is helpful. It makes me nervous to share all of this. It’s not easy for me but I’m trying.

It wasn’t a while. It was decades. Literally, I’ve made this shift in last 3-4 years. It’s new. If someone in my social circle disclosed they had BPD before we come friends, I don’t know if I would stick around which is the exact issue you are dealing with. I would have to overcome a lot of my own responses and it’s a fuck ton of work for me. 

Would my mom have been abusive if she hadn’t had BPD? I can’t answer that. I don’t know. But I know the two are entwined for her. The abusive elements of my childhood that have stuck with me the longest are all around the more typical symptoms of  BPD (fear of abandonment, feelings of emptiness, extreme emotional swings, explosive anger, paranoia, suicidality). I can’t express how bad it was. I can’t express how hard it is was. I couldn’t have emotions or desires. I can’t get comfort or have needs. {Proofreading this made me realize I slipped tenses. I’m leaving it in. It’s hard to talk about it} I wished for death early and often because my life was so painful and frightening. I felt like my mom was going to die and that it was my fault. Why wouldn’t I believe my mom right?  Her attitude and her interactions with me meant that other abuse wasn’t uncovered for years because who could I tell? It was chaotic and terrifying. I’d take her when she was hit me any day over years of psychological abuse. She’s threaten suicide. She left me places as punishment. She drove away when I “didn’t listen.” She told me my chronic pain didn’t exist.

Literally, I remember having a panic attack when I was in elementary school because I couldn’t stop myself from crying on the way home from school because there was no way for me to know what would happen. Would my mom blame me? Try and kill herself? Comfort me only to use the information later against? I got blamed for freezing her out and told that I could “Make your own damn food. I should make you walk home. You don’t know how lucky you have it. You know what? DON’T EVER COME TO ME FOR ANYTHING EVER AGAIN. I can’t believe I have such an ungrateful daughter. What did I ever do to deserve this awful child? You’d be happy if I killed myself. I don’t want to hear your response - I know how you feel. Leave me alone. Go live with your father”  By the morning, she greeted me like nothing had happened. I was no more than 10.

This is the smallest snippet of the first 14 years of my life. When I am in a social setting and start experiencing any of these things, my instinct is to run for the hills because I got out. I’m not getting back in. It takes a lot to swallow those protective instincts and make a different choice in my personal life especially when I’ve worked so hard for those boundaries and have to do a lot of this stuff professionally. I’ve had a ton of therapy. I feel like I’m a pretty good person who had long lasting, nurturing and loving relationships in a lot of different areas. But getting here was so much fucking work thanks to my history. I spent the first year of my relationship terrified to tell my partner when I was really upset with them. It’s still hard. 

Off the top of my head, I have three friends with BPD, one I’ve known since I was 12, one I met two years ago and an online friend part of larger friend circle. I’m pretty close to the first (invites to the house, lunches, etc.) and the second is in between acquaintance and friend. Friend 1 is in recovery, Friend 2 is working on it (ish) and Friend 3 is at the earliest treatment stages. I still have very strong boundaries. I have to limit myself with anyone in my social circle who needs constant emotional or physical needs (obviously I’m not talking about recovering from a loss or a surgery or even a bad year for friends who have I been friends with for a long) because I can’t just give and give - Its work to maintain the close and loving friendships, the mentoring with young people I do, the other kids in my life, my partner AND still take care of myself. And I love my job you know? I have to have space for that and I don’t when I’m getting 3 am phone calls and texts. I don’t hate or judge the folks in those positions. I just can’t handle it in my personal life often. That is 100% on me NOT on them. None of the people mentioned above are abusive towards me. But sometimes I find myself very triggered and have to give myself space. I get that impulse that says that “this is dangerous and someone is trying to use you.” 

This is NOT to say that you, or anyone else, with BPD in treatment, don’t deserve lasting friendships. You do. You absolutely deserve supportive friends. And I bet your work your ever-loving bum off to make changes to your life. I bet you will find them. It just might not be with particular subset of people who have an untreated BPD parent. I can’t speak to anyone else’s experience of an untreated BPD mom - just me. But I can hypothesize that fear and history are a huge part of it. These prospective friends might not be in a place to hear that you are in a different place than their experience. They may be assuming that their historical experience is what will happen now and be afraid. It takes me a while to figure out and I’ve done a fuck ton of work. Everyone gets to make the choices that keep themselves safe. 

Please be gentle with yourself. Keep working, keep trying - you might want to explore some of the issues around the friendships and how to navigate that with your current therapist.