#okay i am rereading this and i might have been very much medicated and sick while writing this in july but i was so right

[florenceisfalling]

the villain/bad guy/enemy/abuser is a person! they are a person! you can call them demon/monster/devil/beast but evildoing is a uniquely human trait! father abused daughter, touched her and hurt her -> daughter abused me, touched me and hurt me. does the daughter being a victim make her less of a monster to you? does the daughter being an abuser make her less of a human to you? or was she just a person who did bad things because of her surroundings? she has a wife now and they are happy and do good things and charitable things and lovely things. if i had met her now we would be friends. would you call her demon/monster/devil/beast now, would you wish death/prison/abuse/karma upon her now? is once-a-bad-person always-a-bad-person? was she ever-a-bad-person? is there a such thing as a bad-person? or just a person?

much worse than stripping a person of their morals because they have done something unkind to you is stripping them of their personhood/complexity/motive/depth. you do not have to forgive the abuser but as soon as you assume upon yourself the right to make the abuser no longer human is the moment you fall into the cycle. you say you're a good person/hero/victim, you think you can't do anything wrong. you will do things wrong and you will become a self-fulfilled prophecy monster.

they say victim = soft/scared/small/shaky/sad, abuser = rough/proud/big/mean/cruel. they say you can't be mean & a victim, cruel & a victim, big & a victim. they say the person who abused you is not an abuser because he's too nice, he's too kind, he doesn't act like a demon/monster/devil/beast. this is what happens when we strip "bad people" of personhood til they are just "bad people." because people have sides/angles/souls/depth/hearts/complexity/feelings/soft spots/loved ones/memories that the demons/monsters/devils/beasts are not allowed to have or else we are romanticizing/endorsing/apologizing/glamorizing/supporting them.

and then victims/heroes/good people go around hurting others and denying it because- look at them! they are good! they have been hurt before so they automatically gain superiority like a martyr on a cross because suffering = value and victimhood = moral high-ground and pain = justification and good people = people who don't cannot do bad things

but if the villains/bad guys/enemies/abusers were killed/jailed/abused/brought the karma we all claim they deserved then poor victim/abuser/hero/monster/daughter would never have married her wife and had the chance to be good. how unfair for victims/heroes/"good people"/people who think their slate is clean/people who think they have the right to strip others of what makes them human/people who think they are the main characters in a life story that has very little to do with them/martyrs to appoint themselves gods on judgement day

[here-its-kayla]

Writing g/t one piece? *^* how about Law finding an injured/sick tiny?

Here! :D I'll be working on the other request soon :]

(also I might changed a bit the story a bit; Law doesn't find the tinies, one of them comes to him; Sorry that I changed that :'])

It's a bit short though (+ a drawing to see how my oc's actually look like), btw now Law knows how to cook UuU

Anyways enjoy this :)

It was a day like any other on the Polar Tang, the crewmen were doing their thing while Law was in his own room rereading his medical books. And although it could be his imagination, he had spent several days listening to small noises that the submarine usually didn’t make.

If that wasn't enough, every day around the same time, a shiver ran through his entire body. At first, he did not give it much importance, but when it began to repeat itself daily at exactly that same time, he thought that it was not a coincidence.

He put the book aside, ready to leave his room and talk to his crew, he heard a little tapping on the highest shelves. He slowly approached, his hand on his katana for good measure, looking up only to see a small head peek out. 

Law stares at it for a moment before speaking. “What the hell? There is no way this is part of my imagination…” “I am very real, mr. human.” Said a small voice of a little girl that seemed to belong to that little head that peeked out.

“I have also heard that you are a doctor, is that true?” the girl asked as she peeked a little further over the edge of the shelf. Law frowned. "Yes, I am the doctor of this submarine, why do you ask and how did you get into my submarine?" 

The little girl simply put her finger to her lip and answered. "I don't know how we got in or how long we've been here... But, I was wondering if it was true that you were a doctor, because my older brother's skin is very hot but he says he's cold and I don't know what to do."

"Hmm, it's very likely that he just has a fever, could you tell him to come over?" The girl seemed to hesitate for a moment before nodding and disappearing from sight. “What did I just get myself into…?”

About fifteen minutes passed before two small figures appeared walking across his desk. The so-called brother glared at him coldly before heaving a sigh and sitting down. "Here he is, although it took me a while to convince him, he made me promise that you wouldn’t touch me in any way if I wanted him to come."

Law heaved a sigh as he sat down across from them. "It's okay to be cautious around strangers, so that condition is fine with me." He answered looking at the two. The girl had brown hair tied into two pigtails and was wearing a light blue t-shirt with a blue skirt and brown boots, while a green scarf covered her neck.

The other had short hair the same color, was wearing a baggy white T-shirt, baggy black pants, and brown boots. Like his sister, he wore a green scarf wrapped around his neck. “Are you going to be watching us this whole time or what?” the brother said in a rather rude tone. 

The girl looked at Law for signs of anger before saying. “I'm sorry for my big brother, mr. human, it's just that he doesn't like humans…” Law just nodded as he got up from his seat. "I'm going to make some soup for you two, it'll help you warm up a bit."

Half an hour passed before Law returned to the room with two small lids filled with soup. He placed them in front of the little ones as he sat down again in front of them. The brother was the first to take a sip of the soup "Thank you... I guess..." The little girl smiled broadly. "Yeah, Yeah! Thank you very much! By the way my name is Kyoko and his is Kyo, I am seven years old and he is seventeen!”

"Trafalgar Law..." Who knew that now he would have to deal with two little people in his submarine?

+ Oc reference drawing :]

[wowbright]

I just wanted to let you know that I've been thinking about you! I'm sorry to hear you've been sick, and I'm so glad you are feeling better and hope you continue to! 🥰 Also, it's been fun to see you go on a OFMD bender; you seem to have loved that show! As a huge fan of your Mormon!Klaine verse, I wanted you to know that I've been rereading it all, and it's incredible. It's in my top 5 Klaine stories of all time. Thank you for the gift that it is. Wishing you a wonderful weekend.

Thank you! I think you sent this a few days ago but it's been a tough week. Our beloved kitty Russ went into end-stage kidney failure late Sunday and died on Tuesday. The good thing is that my spouse had 17 good years with him and I had 15 good years with him, and he had a good life. He was the most affectionate of our kitties and my spouse's Friday night drinking buddy (Russ only drank water) so he will be sorely missed.

The other cats are doing okay. The one who is his litter mate has wanted extra attention but otherwise does not seem very sad and definitely not distraught. I have dealt with distraught grieving kitties in the past and that is no fun. The other cat, as expected, does not seem to give a flying fuck one way or the other, which I am happy about.

I am so glad to hear that Mormon!Klaine is a fave of yours. It warms my heart. Work has been busy so I haven't had as much energy to work on it lately, but I enjoy daydreaming about it lol. Been working on a quilt as my downtime creative project and have become a wee bit obsessive about it. Me? Obsessive? Who would have thought?

I am feeling better from whatever allergies or cold I had. Got the covid booster too and did not get the sore armpits this time! Migraines have been getting more frequent which is disheartening but not more intense, it might be time for another medication switch but they definitely are not as bad as when I'm not on a preventative medication.

Oh, and OFMD! I've never been a pirate, but I relate to them all so much. Nice to have a show to fawn over that's mostly about people my age :)

[theflagscene]

Okay so I have a few messages in my inbox as well as comments on AO3 (which I will get to over there since I know not everyone has Tumblr or followers fic writers) and I didn’t want to reply to one or two anon messages explaining things and make that/those person/people feel like I’m like info dumping directly at them because they just happened to ask, that’s not fair. Also I didn’t want to reply to the non anon messages in private for the same reason, cause like, it’s a lot and a couple y’all just asked a simple question, it’s not your fault that the answer isn’t simple.

As for wether I am working on more chapters for Do I Ever Cross Your Mind, or is it abandoned? It is absolutely not abandoned, none of my fics are ever officially abandoned, even if I don’t update it for like months or even years (side eying a unfinished SPN fic I have from 3 years ago)

I am working on the fifth chapter of DIECYM, as well as all of my very late prompt fics and continuations and one shots, etc. Chapter five does take precedence obviously, so that’s the one I try to get the most done on as often as I can, I know waiting for a fic to update sucks, especially if you really enjoy it and I love hearing about people rereading it while they wait, it truly warms my cold lil heart. Also asking about updates never makes me feel pressured, I’ve mentioned this before, so please, never apologize for poking at me about possible updates or sneak peeks, etc.

Now to the info dumping, I’ll be frank and as blunt as possibly. A while ago I suffered a mental breakdown, some shit happened, it sucked and I couldn’t take it. I managed to power through a lot of it, I still wrote a ton, I actually wrote the first four chapters of DIECYM mid breakdown. Things have gotten worse recently, I am under psychiatric care and my support system is, I’d say pretty damn decent. Right now we’re just working on keeping me at home and out of the hospital, which is proving to be a difficult thing because to be completely honest, I’m not always this cognizant. I have a history of dangerous behaviour that we’re not looking for a repeat performance of tbh. And while all this is going on, I’m also looking for new housing as well as dealing with an chronically ill dog that needs to see a new veterinarian because her last one moved and I do not have the means to pay for that. It’s gonna cost me 100 dollars for the visit, 400 for the bloodwork and 180 for her medication. So nearly 700 dollars is needed for me to keep my dog well and that is basically my entire monthly income, I already use the food banks near me every couple of weeks to try and supplement the lack of groceries I’m able to obtain, but being a vegan, they don’t exactly have much that I can use. Which I know isn’t their fault, they help how they can with what they can and I’m grateful for their help every single day.

So between my dwindling mental health, heavy medication, housing stress, food shortage, money issues and an sick dog, I’ve been writing at a snail’s pace. I spend most of my days barely able to interact with people, online or irl. I mostly just sit, staring, my mother has more than once checked on me and thought I had just gone fully catatonic. I hadn’t, I can just focus very very deeply, like not even on the same plane of existence kind of deeply lol. Space cadet, that’s me! Point is, I physically can’t make myself write. Like the spirit is willing, but the body is weak. Oh, and I also might have fractured my left arm, so that also doesn’t make typing any easier. Just trying to get this all written out on my phone has been hell. I need to go to the doctor to get my arm scanned but I haven’t left the house in nearly 3 months at this point, so it’s like, yeah, just, ugh, not going great.

But to reiterate, none of my fics are abandoned, they are all going to get finished and are all currently being worked on. It’s just going to be way way slower than you’re used too, someone once commented to me that “the devil works fast but you work faster” lol. Well not anymore, the devil may win this time, my slow and steady tortoise progress will have to do for now 🐢🐢

I hope you can understand 🥰

[hintofelation99]

Sick day headcannons!!!!!!!

Hell yeah, I do have a post on this already (linked here) but sick day headcanons are some of my favs so let’s do some more! (Just btw there will be some repeats but that just means I rlly like that headcanon)

Dick

Dick: Oh no, god no!

Wally: What’s wrong?!

Dick: I’m dying!

Wally, suspicious: Okay…

Dick: Please Wally this is serious, I need help!

Wally, deciding to take Dick seriously: Okay, what’s wrong? What do you need?

Dick: Just a coffin. Made of maple- no oak! And roses, preferably white, oh or blue! With baby’s breath. And-

Wally: Dick, what’s wrong?!

Dick: I burnt the roof of my mouth.

Wally leaves.

A good rule of thumb for Dick is the more dramatic he is the less serious the situation. The less dramatic he is the more serious the situation.

He will go into work with a cold and complain the entire day.

If he has something serious that’s contagious he’ll call in sick but just say it’s a slight stomach bug.

If it’s not contagious he will act like everything is completely fine.

One time he did this after getting an injury on patrol and ended up passing out and spending that night and the next day in the ICU.

He has become a bit more responsible over the years, mainly bc he thinks it’s adorable how sweet and cuddly Damian gets.

His favorite sick day activity is eating junk food and watching rom coms under a fuzzy blanket .

Babs

Dick: Please go to bed!

Babs: I am, I am, just one more line of code.

Dick: You’ve said that for the last three hours!

Babs tries to relax when sick but she has trouble actually taking a step back to rest.

Most of the time she’ll take a nightquil then get distracted by something and ends up falling asleep in front of her screen.

Usually Cass or Steph will come over and take care of her.

Steph always makes the best comfort food. And usually Cass will tuck Babs into bed.

Babs loves dozing on the couch to the sound of Cass and Steph laughing in the kitchen as they make her soup.

If Cass and Steph can’t come over she loves talking to them over discord while eating take out. Usually she and Cass just listen to Steph babble or she watches on of them stream something.

She also usually ends up falling asleep.

Jason

Bruce: Are you sick?

Jason: I’m legally dead.

Bruce: That doesn’t-

Jason: So,legally, no. I am not sick.

Jason will forever and always argue that he can’t get sick since he already died.

When he was little he was rarely able to get extra rest when he was sick. Because when he was really little he wanted to go to school to avoid Willis. After Catherine died he was too busy just trying to survive to focus on being healthy.

But when Catherine was alive and Willis was away Jason would stay home from school, and if Catherine was sober she would read to him and sing lullabies. This only happened like twice but Jason cherishes those memories of Catherine.

As a kid if he was ever sent home for being sick he’d get in huge trouble with Willis.

After being adopted the first time he was sent home with a fever he begged Alfred not to tell Bruce and hid in his closet until he stopped crying being sad. Alfred sat by the closet door with soup, a grilled cheese, and tea, reading The Princess Bride aloud until Jason came out. It took two hours.

Jason’s favorite sick day activity is drinking tea and rereading The Princess Bride (with the movie playing quietly in the background) while wearing his Wonder Woman hoodie.

Cass

Steph: Cass why are you patrolling while sick?!

Cass shrugs.

Steph, with a sigh: You’re allowed to take a sick day, okay?

Cass looks unsure but nods.

Steph: C’mon, let’s get you a bath and fuzzy blankets.

Cass forgets that she’s not just a weapon/tool. She forgets that she’s allowed to rest when sick.

Because of this she will keep going no matter what and tends to view ‘taking a sick day’ as a failure.

Steph, Tim, and Babs have been working on this with her. She’s improved a lot now that Tim lost his spleen and gets sick easily.

Now usually Steph cooks for her while Babs lays with her.

Cass isn’t against taking medicine but she never feels like the situation is severe enough to require medication. So someone in the fam has to convince her to take her meds.

She becomes extremely cuddly when sick and will cling to anyone near her.

Her favorite sick day activity is watching old horror movies with Steph or Babs.

Steph

Steph: I’m fine.

Steph: I’m fine.

Steph: I’m fine.

Steph: I’m- I have a fever of 104, I should rest.

Stephs mom is a doctor, so she’s used to being told “it’s just a cold, you’re fine”.

Usually she keeps going until she can’t then sleeps for like three days.

But it’s less out of stubbornness and more out of habit. So if someone tells her to rest she’s immediately like “okay!” and takes the sick day.

Babs always calls or comes over to check on her every day that she’s sick.

Cass has been learning how to cook and loves making Steph food when she’s sick.

Tim used to come over but now he always calls.

Stephs favorite sick day activity is sleeping with an ice pack or heating pad, depending on the sickness, with a giant cup of ginger ale and Cass curled up beside her.

Tim

Jason: Tim, are you sick?

Tim, tiredly staring at case files: No I-

Tim is interrupted by a violent coughing fit.

Tim: Oh, I guess I am?

Growing up Tim loved getting sick because it meant the house keeper would come over and take care of him and he might even get a hug.

But she stopped coming over when Tim was ten, his parents thought he was old enough to handle being sick on his own.

Sick days in the manor were a shock to him because he was rarely alone, there was always one family member by his side.

Now that he’s immunocompromised he’s always surrounded by people, he pretends to get annoyed with it but really he loves how much they care.

Dick always sings Romani lullabies and runs his fingers through Tim’s hair. Jason, Duke, and Steph will cook for him. Damian stay by his side and bring him tea. Babs will play video games with him. And Cass does a bit of everything, at least everything other than sing to him.

The family also takes Tim getting sick very seriously so if they here one cough he’s immediately being interrogated and getting his temperature checked.

Tim’s favorite sick day activity is laying under a weighted blanket with a cup of tea and playing video games with Babs, Steph, Duke, and Cass.

Duke

Dick, knocking on Duke’s door: Hey bud, why are you still in bed? I thought we were training together?

Duke: Sorry, I forgot to cancel. I’m sick and don’t think I can handle training today.

Dick: You’re sick?!

Duke: Yeah, but don’t worry I’ve been disinfecting and cleaning so no one else should get sick.

Dick: I’m not worried about getting sick, I’m worried about you!

Duke: …oh, okay.

Growing up sick days were spent at home either resting alone or with one of his parents.

He had to do some fending for himself (like cleaning and making food when his parents weren’t home with him) but nothing extreme or unexpected. So, overall he had pretty normal sick days.

After he parents went missing he was so focused on getting them back and saving them that he never stopped to rest when sick.

Now as a member of the Wayne family his sick days are always spent with someone by his side, at least they are if he tells the family he’s sick.

He’s gotten in trouble several times for not telling Alfred/the family that’s he’s sick. Not because he puts Tim at risk, he like all the family is very cautious about that, but because everyone worries about him and wants to help take care of him.

After several lectures from Alfred he’s finally getting better about telling the family when he’s sick.

His favorite sick day activity is reading Jason’s copy of The Princess Bride while having a bowl of Alfred’s chicken noodle soup.

Damian

Jason: Are you sick?

Damian: N-

Damian sneezes like a kitten.

Damian: No.

Cass, smiling: Sick baby brother, cute sneeze.

Damian tries to be offended but ends up having a sneezing fit.

Steph: That’s so adorable!!

Damian has the most adorable sneezes. He literally sounds like a kitten and the entire family and hero community finds it adorable. Damian hates it.

He used to try and pretend he wasn’t sick and just work through it.

Then he sneezes in front of Harley and Ivy and they cooed over him for an hour.

Now he grumpily secluded himself in his room when sick.

Usually the family will check on him and find that Jon flew over and they’re cuddling on his bed watching cartoons.

When Damian’s sick he really craves spicy food. Like everything he eats he’ll add hot sauce or pepper to. His food is so spicy that only Cass can handle it, like it makes ghost peppers look like child’s play.

His favorite sick day activity is drinking masala chai under one of Tim’s fuzzy blankets while wearing Dick’s old hoodies and surrounding himself with various soft things he stole from his siblings. This is preferably done while eating spicy tomato or lentil soup and watching cartoons with Jon.

[isabellaflynns]

Liveable | Self Para

“The worst of it is I am perpetually being punished for nothing; this governor loves to punish, and he punishes by taking my books from me. It is perfectly awful to let the mind grind itself away between the upper and nether millstones of regret and remorse without respite; with books my life would be liveable – any life.”

– Oscar Wilde: His Life and Confessions, by Frank Harris

The therapist sits on a chair opposite Isabella, on the other side of the glass wall. She’s wearing a white coat, just like the other doctors, and a name-tag which reads DR. SHORE. She has red hair, just like Kristen Kringle. This is the third time she has come to see Isabella, and Isabella has yet to say a single word to her.

“What are you reading?” she asks. She always tried to engage Isabella with a question, and it’s incredibly irritating.

Isabella silently turns the page of her newspaper. She has read it twice this morning, but she knew that Doctor Shore was coming today, so she times her reread perfectly with the other woman’s arrival. Her eyes scan the lines of text listlessly, not actually taking it in.

“You know,” Doctor Shore says in a thoughtful voice, “I’m sure I could speak to the guards about getting you a book.”

Isabella goes still. This is clearly bribery, but she wants a book so badly that her chest hurts. She wants to touch its cover, to flick the pages and hear the familiar sound of them sliding against one another, to inhale the scent of paper. She misses books so much.

“They told me there were a lot of books in your home,” Doctor Shore says.

She is the first person who called it that. Your home.

Isabella looks up sharply and doesn’t say anything.

“You obviously like to read,” Doctor Shore says. “I’ll see about getting you some books, okay?” She stands up, leaving more than half an hour before the session is supposed to end. “We’re not all bad guys, Isabella,” she says with a small smile.

Sleeping here is almost impossible. The screams and cries of the other inmates go on and on throughout the night, and Isabella puts her head under her pillow. She hates loud noises. But the pillow isn’t thick enough to block out the sounds, and she sings to herself softly.

“Moon river… Wider than a mile… I’m crossing you in style… Someday…”

She pulls her bedsheet tighter around herself and imagines that Edward is right beside her, holding her close the way he used to, stroking her hair.

Christmas Day drags by as any other day does. Isabella only knows it’s Christmas because they serve her a roast for dinner. Pale white chicken and soft potatoes and thick brown gravy, slopped into a plastic prison tray. Isabella looks at it when it slides through the small rectangular hole of her cell, and she wants to vomit.

The dinner of kings, she thinks, and then she walks over to retrieve it. She sits down on her bed with the tray on her lap. “Merry Christmas, Isa,” she says to herself.

She hopes the letters made it to her friends on time.

Every morning a copy of The New York Daily News is delivered through the small letterbox in the wall of her cell. She is usually awake before they deliver it. She reads it as slowly as possible, savouring every article, staring at every photograph, even going as far as to read the job adverts. Anything to make the first reading last as long as possible, she does.

And then she rereads it, this time checking for grammatical errors, and mentally proofreading it. Sometimes, if she’s so bored that she can hardly stand it, then she drags this task out, and pauses with her editing to do something else, only to come back to it in an hour or so. But, usually, combing through the entire paper takes about two hours.

Finally, she tears the words out one by one, carefully, and lays them on the floor of her cell. She rearranges them into stories or poetry. She makes collages from the pictures, carefully tearing figures from adverts and photographs. And, for the rest of the day, she makes new sentences from old ones, and appropriates facts to make stories.

By the time they turn the lights out, that day’s paper has been completely cut up and rearranged. And, the next morning, Isabella sweeps the words into a pile in the corner of her cell to potentially reuse when the next paper arrives.

On her eighth day in Arkham Asylum, Isabella writes to Edward again. She knocks on the glass of her cell until the guard comes over, and then she requests to be taken to the rec room. It’s the only place they’ll let her use pens.

She sits at the metal table and holds the pen to the paper. She writes Dear Edward, and then stops. She has no idea what to write to him. Everything she wants to say has already been said in the previous two letters she has sent. She loves him, she misses him, things are terrible here, she’s sorry. There is nothing left to say. Edward hasn’t been to see her for over a week. He never replied to her last letter.

Her hand shakes a little. I miss you very much, she writes. There is so much white paper left to fill. So, she writes about how her day was, and how the food is here, and how the therapist said she might be getting a book for her cell. As she writes, it gets easier, and she pretends she’s telling him this to his face, sitting right across from him, holding his hand, talking to him.

She signs it, Forever yours, Isabella.

The medication they give her in her food makes her tired and distant. She sleeps a lot. Doing anything is so much effort, and everything feels so far away, separated by a thick glass sheet that she cannot break. Her emotions are so dulled, like she’s living in a fog. When she wakes up, her first thought is I am in an insane asylum.

There are so many sickly colours here. The walls are pale green, and the doctor’s coats are white, and the lights are anaemic yellow. The food is watery and beige. Nothing is bright. When she catches sight of herself in the reflection of her glass cell, she looks washed out and pale. As if she’s fading.

For a long time, Isabella thinks. There are so many hours to kill in here.

She thinks about Harley giving her the friendship bracelet with a small, silver, mouse charm. She thinks about Oswald telling her know thy enemy – the first piece of advice he gave her. She thinks about Edward saying he felt like he’d found his partner for life.

I love you too, obviously, he had said. I love you. Isn’t it strange though?

She remembers the sweet scent of apple pie drifting through the farmhouse, barely masking the unpleasant smell of decay and sickness – the aroma of chemicals and medicine and body odour and closed-off rooms with no air.

And she thinks about everything she’s lost.

“Are you going to talk to me today?” Doctor Shore asks with a smile. Isabella is staring at her paper, so she doesn’t see the smile, but she can hear it in the doctor’s voice. She doesn’t move.

“I’m still working on getting you that book,” she continues. “If it could be any genre, what would you want it to be?”

The question is so tantalising. It’s not about Edward, or the farmhouse, or why she’s there. Isabella opens her mouth before she can stop herself and says, “Classic children’s literature.” She looks up from the photograph she was staring at.

Doctor Shore doesn’t react to her speaking. She just nods understandingly. “Yes, I like children’s literature. I feel it gets a bad rap, because it’s for children, but I love it anyway.”

Isabella closes her newspaper. She’s so bored of reading the news. All she wants is a book to hold, but it will come at a price. It will mean cooperating with this woman. The discussion about children’s literature is a ruse, and she knows it. The real questions will come any moment now, and Isabella wants to control the conversation as much as possible.

“You called the farmhouse my home, in our last session,” she says in a flat voice.

“Well, it was, wasn’t it?” Doctor Shore asks. “You lived there for a week.”

“It wasn’t my home. It was our home.”

She expects Doctor Shore to raise an eyebrow at that, or disagree, or make a note of something, but her expression doesn’t change. She looks calm and politely curious, as if there isn’t a pane of bulletproof glass separating them.

“Yours and Edward Nygma’s,” Doctor Shore says. It is stated as a fact.

Isabella feels a shiver run down her spine at the sound of his full name. She always shivers when she hears his full name. “Yes,” she says softly. “Ours.”

Doctor Shore is quiet for a moment. And then she says, “Do you think he feels the same way?”

Isabella hates that question. She hates that everyone thinks she’s some sort of idiot. Harley and Edward and Oswald and even Iris West all seem to think she doesn’t realise that Ed doesn’t feel the same way. She knows he doesn’t. That’s why she had to drug him and handcuff him.

“That’s a ridiculous question,” she says. “I know he doesn’t feel the same way. But he would have. In time.”

She doesn’t want to talk about this anymore, so she picks up her newspaper and stares at it pointedly, not actually reading a word. And she hears the scrape of metal on the floor as Doctor Shore picks up her chair and leaves.

The worst part isn’t the drugs, which make her groggy and slow, or the food, which is insipid and practically inedible, or even the lack of books. No, the worst part is the loneliness.

There’s a thick pane of glass between herself and everyone who comes to see her. Harley hasn’t come back since Isabella sent her away, and she didn’t reply to her Christmas letter. Daisy visits, but she feels distant and separate. There’s been no word from Edward.

Even when she goes to the rec room, she stays away from the other inmates and doesn’t speak to anyone. She just writes her letters and then returns to her cell.

She hasn’t made physical contact with anyone besides the guards for ten days.

Yes, the worst part is the loneliness.

Isabella wakes up to the sound of something sliding through the small letterbox hole in her the wall of her cell. She sits bolt upright in bed and stares at the book on the floor. It’s very thick – probably around six hundred pages – and paperback. It landed face-down onto the floor, so she can’t see the title or author’s name.

She stands up and walks across the cell, and then bends down beside the book and picks it up. It wasn’t damaged in the fall, thank goodness, and she turns it over. The Complete Chronicles of Narnia. Beneath the title is a picture of a lion’s face, with its mane surrounding its head like fire. It’s beautiful, and clearly been read several times, because the edges of the pages are thin and rough.

She strokes the cover with her fingertips and closes her eyes.