#she doesn't tell sam

[starstaiined]

tara had never been good at grief, has never quite learned to let go fully. even with all the experience she's had with it.

she pauses every day at wes' favorite spot by their tree. touches the old friendship rings they had gotten from some stupid bookfair a million years ago. she carries him in her sardonic wit, in jokes she cracks and turns to see his reaction only to remember he'll never have one again. it guts her just as much as the first time, every time.

and dear, sweet liv. the guilt that never stops haunting her. to blood staining her hands. liv waa only in the friendgroup because tara dragged her in after a summer working shifts together. tara recognized something similiar in her eyes: the same sense of pervasive loneliness that she saw in the mirror. liv's woes are as much an open secret as tara's. parents who only ever care about finding the bottom of bottle, who don't blink when their daughter doesn't come home in days. or when she starts bringing vince around. liv is floundering, and it's a feeling tara knows all too well. so she folds liv into their group.

at the party, she's hiding behind amber's arm when she pulls the gun out and splatters live against the wall. tara can't help but think if she'd processed faster, moved faster, reacted faster, then she could've done something. she could've saved liv. she pulls herself together enough to throw herself at amber to save sam, why couldn't she have done it for liv?

when ny comes and tara realizes it's a chance to reinvent herself, she models herself after the girl who always understood more than tara said. her haircut, her wardrobe, the personality: she's holding onto all the pieces of liv she can.

and then there's amber. oh god, amber. where does tara even start there? amber killed. (amber killed for her.) amber lied. (amber lied to reveal the truth.) amber never cared. (amber always cared, maybe a little too much.) amber. amber. amber. amber, who cradled her face after tying her up and shoving her in a closet. ("sam won't put you first, but baby, i always will. i promise. just trust me.") tara hates her for the way everything went to. tara misses her more than anything.

it's amber who once said things only have as much power as you give them. words tara chooses to live by in six.

she over indulges her vices. she's had a little too much to drink when she hears it. put. it. down. you're better than this. wilting fingers lose their grip on the cup, and it tumbles all over some unsuspecting victim who scowls at her. but tara doesn't care, she's too busy searching for the voice. the voice she would know anywhere.

but amber isn't tucked away into the crowd, and tara is more than willing to blame alcohol for a momentary lapse in judgment. she draws in a shaky breath and refills her cup. and she hears it again. baby doll, you know better. this isn't you.

this time she catches sight of those dark dark eyes glaring disapprovingly. the breath leaves her lungs in one ragged move as she stumbles towards amber. but the vision is gone as quickly as it appeared.

tara starts seeing and hearing pieces of amber when she makes reckless decisions amber would never approve of. and, god, does it spur her to make more.

after all, tara's never been good at letting go

[clairenatural]

okay but you see sam has ALSO fallen for dean's act. sam also believes dean to be the macho, daddy's soldier, beer boobs cars guy he presents himself as. this is why sam makes fun of dean whenever he even lightly steps out of that mold and thinks it's harmless banter instead of attacking an insecurity. it's why he laughs when john talks down to dean in the early seasons and it's why he seems surprised when dean is more comfortable with himself in the later seasons. it's why he just scoffs but doesn't push it when dean puts up a front and refuses to talk about his emotions and just accepts whatever excuse he makes at face value. it's why he offers dean a strip club to make him feel better when cas dies. and this isn't his fault!! dean has spent a very long time perfecting this image in front of everyone and ESPECIALLY to sam because along with it comes safety and security and stability and the only person. who has consistently been able to see through it. is castiel

[confessedlyfannish]

DP x DC Prompt

Batman grunts a greeting at the boy Selena has introduced as "Danny" as if it's totally normal for a kid to be hanging out on a rooftop with her, kicking his legs out above the edge as if he's not 20 stories up.

Selena shares an equally amused glance with Danny that has Batman scowling harder than his usual as the boy gets up, stretching out from his hunch to reveal a 6 foot 2 build not unlike Jason's.

"Wow, spot on," Danny whistles, grinning at Selena. "I owe you a twenty."

"Darling," Selena purrs, hand finding purchase on his upper bicep. "I never exaggerate."

"Looks like Catwoman's got a new scratching post, B," Nightwing cackles in his comm, which is probably why Batman finds himself gritting out a--

"Little young for you, isn't he?"

The kid--in a hoodie and jeans, seriously, where did Selena find this guy--stares at him incredulously before his mouth stretches into an uncomfortably wide grin, revealing fairly sharp canines. He strides forward.

"What can I say, Mr. The Batman," he says, placing a hand on the man's shoulder. He must be around the same age as Dick. "I've got a thing for powerful women in black."

"See you for dinner tomorrow Lena," he says, hand lifted in farewell as he heads for the edge. He pushes himself over the wall with one hand, dropping over.

Batman clocks Selena's lack of alarm and doesn't flinch. Thirteen seconds later, there's no resounding thud when Danny's body would've met the pavement and she's still smirking at him.

"No metas in Gotham," he growls.

Selena throws her head back and laughs. "If I see any, I'll be sure to call. Now," she kisses his cheek, "I better go. I've got a date tomorrow."

[shadystranger]

Even he was weirded tf out x2

[starry-bi-sky]

I am of the DPxDC belief/headcanon that any variation of Danny who grew up poor in Gotham during his formative years before moving to Amity Park would not be friends with Sam without friction at first. It makes things more interesting and imo allows for more exploration of different themes plus character growth for Sam that she doesn't really go through in canon.

(this doesn't only apply to a DPDC au where Danny grew up in Gotham poor, but it was the first thing that I thought of where this might happen considering my Childhood Friends au.)

Now Sam's a compassionate girl, it's one of her defining character traits, but so is her hypocrisy and judgy-ness. She's the Not Like Other Girls' girl. This is in part of the show's narrative framing that makes her out like this, unfortunately though its still showing how she is as a character since its consistent enough to be part of her character description. There are also times where the show's depiction of her activism makes it look like she's performative about it. All of this makes her dynamic with a Danny who grew up poor in Gotham very interesting.

Anyways, Sam is aware of her privilege to an extent, but still has her blindspots - glaring ones, in some cases. Her self-righteous attitude would not go over well with a crime alley kid Danny. He'd like her, at first, but then she'd do something to make him mad - personally I think her judging people for not being vegan would annoy him the most, or at least would be the breaking point for him, because it was only recently that his family started actually being able to consistently put food on the table at all, good food nonetheless. And being vegan is expensive.

Any other behavior he noticed from her he'd slowly stop tolerating - her judging conventionally attractive girls and automatically assuming they're vapid and shallow for being feminine. Her anti-capitalist beliefs start coming off as superficial at worst, and Danny would eventually figure out that Sam either came from a family that was well off, or that she wasn't aware if her family was experiencing financial struggle.

He would still be friends with Tucker, but since Tucker imo is still friends with Sam, they'd still run into each other often enough to butt heads. Sam's got a nasty habit of refusing to take responsibility when she's wrong, but when Danny is arguing with her, and counterpointing her with stuff she can't retort back at without compromising her own beliefs, then forces her to start reflecting on herself. Especially when Tucker eventually starts siding with Danny and agreeing with him.

Does sam genuinely care about her beliefs and philosophies? Survey says yes. However that doesn't mean she's not ignorant, and she definitely is at times throughout the show (like when she released the purpleback gorilla thinking it 'wanted out of its enclosure' despite the fact that it was endangered and in an urban area) and I think it'd be a real fascinating dynamic between Danny and Sam to explore.

This isn't Sam hate btw, nor am I trying to make her out like "the worst person ever" bc she's not, i wanna make that explicitly clear. Sam Manson has a lot of positive traits about her but she also has an equal amount of negative traits that I think should be explored, she is not immune to the character development.

[brekitten]

The Therapist

There's a new therapist at school.

Normally this wouldn't really bother Peter at all, since he's never gone to see a shrink in his life and doesn't ever plan on it, but there's something... off about this woman.

She seems unassuming enough at first glance. Red hair, green eyes, bright red lipstick. But there is something in her eyes, something that Peter can only describe as a predator looking at its next prey, when she looks around the school at all of the teenagers milling about. Heck, even the way she walks makes her seem as if she is a predator stalking her prey.

It could always be some kind of power move, Peter reasons. He's met people like that before, who try to intimidate everyone around them into thinking that they are superior, that they are the apex predator and anyone who dares to cross them would pay for it dearly.

But his Spidey Sense went crazy around her.

He tries to brush it off as paranoia. He'd pulled an all-nighter last night in the lab with Tony because neither of them had been able to sleep, and he hadn't been sleeping well even before that. (Funny, how it had all started the night after he first bumped into the new therapist in the halls.) So his Spidey Sense is probably out of wack because he's tired. Simple as that.

But it seems like everyone in the school is depressed. Even Ned, who can't even muster up the energy and enthusiasm to talk about Legos or Star Wars or even the weather. It worries Peter.

Because it all started when that therapist came to the school.

He can't ignore it forever, he knows that. There is only so long his Spidey Sense can tell him that she is danger danger danger before he finally listens. He has to do something to help everyone.

So he researches.

And he falls into the rabbit hole of ghosts and ectoplasm and secret government organizations and the little, unassuming town of Amity Park, Illinois.

He doesn't sleep that night.

When he comes to school the next morning, Dr. Penelope Spectra looks him dead in the eyes, and smiles.

[utilitycaster]

you are hoping Liam and Sam play lovers in the upcoming Candela chapter. I hope their characters can't stand each other. we are not the same.

[xanas-eye]

Earth did nothing wrong.

That's it. That's the post.

[lionydoorin]

Do you think Tara eventually starts forgetting Amber's details? The sound of her voice, the color of her eyes, her favorite song.

Obviously you don't just forget someone you loved that much, but it's been a year since Tara has seen or heard Amber, plus all the traumatic memories she has attached to her.

Could you imagine if Tara's brain started blocking Amber out as a trauma response?

WEEPS.

eough. totally. tara's brain altering some memories or blocking them as a trauma response. EOUGH.

it starts with simple things, the kind of simple that tara wouldn't worry about at first. a song that would always make her think about amber suddenly not making her want to cry as much. that story she told her once during a sleepover suddenly fading away from her mind. amber was allergic to something in this meal, what was it?

forgetting these things gave her a certain relief, somehow. amber was a complicated subject. she didn’t know how she was supposed to feel, and the thought of her was always too painful, too scary. so, maybe these small details weren’t meant to be stored in her mind, the ghost of her best friend (the person who tried to kill her) finally deciding to rest and let her be.

so, if tara couldn't remember the name of amber's childhood pet, she wouldn't bat an eye. if her tumblr username didn't cross her mind, it would be fine, because it meant she wouldn't wanna check it out once more, like it's amber's own personal diary.

even if it the idea of forgetting it made her anxious. even if not thinking about her hurt as much as thinking about her.

her dreams became more and more jumbled after that, psychedelic counterparts to the very real memories her brain decides to play on repeat as soon as she closes her eyes.

amber seemed more strange with every night: hands a little rougher than what she remembers when her mind replays her choking her neck, face more, and more, and more distorted as she burns alive. sometimes she was taller than she actually was, other times, she seemed shorter than tara. she never used these rings, and what was that pendant on her necklace? her eyes didn’t seem her own, her hair was somehow not right. didn’t she have a beauty mark somewhere on her face? i could swear her smile was different. why does everything seem so wrong?

i’ll make it quick, the person in her dreams would say as it places tara in the closet, voice just not quite right, tying her body instead of just her hands. wasn’t it different? is this what actually happened? i promise, tara. i'll end her and come back for you. i'll take care of you.

(she never said that.

did she say that?

what did she say, anyway?)

[mzannthropy]

Youtube randomly recced me this.

[raedear]

.

[starstaiined]

as a kid, tara had a really long stetch of being non-verbal. the only thing she would say was sam? in different intonations

[smallishdoggo]

The idea that Dancer didn't and couldn't have known that FCG was a person, and is thus absolved of any responsibility for treating them like an object comes up every once in a while, and, like. Folks. She knew FCG had enough capacity for thought to be worth lying to. She lied to him about having made him. She cannot have considered them basically a toaster. Like, are we imagining that Dancer is out here lying to Pussy the Second to make herself seem smarter?

She bought FCG and restored them, and knew from that restoration that a lot of the technology behind FCG was beyond her understanding. She knew FCG could talk and reason, which is something no automaton we've ever encountered is capable of (excluding aeormatons). She spent four years with him, watching him be very very noticeably different than other automatons. She didn't need to know that he was an aeormaton or what aeormatons were historically capable of; she had all the evidence she needed to understand FCG as a person, and she just didn't.

Like, I can fully believe that she understood all that, that FCG has the capacity to think and feel on some level, and just decided that none of that made them a person. Cause that's the way FCG has thought about themself since their introduction. They think, they feel, they want things, just not how a person would. Not important, not weighty enough to matter.

And I think that matters when thinking about her! Specifically when thinking about her relationship to FCG. Dancer fucked them up! She raised them, he didn't know any other life than the one she built for him till murderbot mode. And I do think she has some responsibility for that. I don't think you can just say that she didn't know any better. She knew a lot! And she could have sought out more information on ancient automatons and their capacities. And she didn't! She knew enough to know she didn't understand FCG and how they worked, and she just. Decided not to do anything about that. She just decided that the thinking feeling robot that she bought should just be a thing that she owns and makes use of, and who cares where it came from or what it might do in the future.

I don't think she's a monster or anything, but it's wild how allergic this fandom is to considering her to have profoundly hurt the person she BOUGHT AND OWNED. Particularly given how gung ho this fandom tends to be about characters having the right to enact bloody vengeance on anyone who has ever made them feel bad.

[krikeymate]

Double whammy of the Sam with a 10 year age difference having a conniption cause Tara is trying to go around sleeping with random guys

Sam was NOT prepared for handling a teenager, let alone a teenager with PTSD. She's barely feels like an adult herself, and only two years after finally getting her mother out of their lives, her little sister is nearly killed, all because of her.

Tara's 14 (&3/4) when Amber and Ritchie try to kill her in this AU, so let's not try and make that too 😬... hmm, got it.

In the aftermath, she does not cope well.

Tara's always had moments where she's chafed against Sam's authority, where she's been distant, especially since she became her legal guardian, but nothing like this. Sometimes it feels like Amber had managed to kill Tara after all, and she's left trying to care for a ghost. Sam wishes she could kill her all over again... and again, and again, for the rest of eternity, for the anguish she's caused her girl.

The attack at the hospital and again at Amber's only makes her injuries worse. In the end, it takes her leg 4 months to heal, and she was confined to the bed full-time for a month, with another month of being confined mostly to her bed. Needless to say, she doesn't cope well. Tara's not a baby anymore, and she can't stand to be coddled, can't stand the reminder that she isn't like the other girls in her class. She can't stand the fact she can't even dress and undress herself in this state. Can't stand to think of Amber.

And the pain, it's constant, it's everywhere, in her body, in her heart, in her head. The only time she's somewhat happy these days is under the influence of the painkillers that leave her floating between awake and asleep, where everything is fine and good. Sam can't bear to see her sister in this state, drugged up and absent. It's the only time she sees her sister smile anymore, and it hurts. But it's the only thing that keeps her going, and Tara's constantly in pain, so she keeps refilling the prescription. Later, she'll wish she was stronger, she'll wish she had listened to the part of her that said something was off. But Sam's never listening to herself, to anyone, over her sister.

Tara takes painkillers long after she needs them, and eventually, they stop providing the void she's always searching for. So she finds other options. Tara's newly 17 and lying beneath some guy, drugged out of her mind, in the basement of someone's house. They'd been making out for what felt like hours, when she felt his hand slip down her trousers, and then her sister had stormed into the room, throwing fists. What happens after that is as foggy as what came before that.

They move to New York.

Apparently, Sam is best friends with Gale fucking Weathers these days, because Sam gets a job with her, and that job apparently comes with an apartment. Tara finishes her school career online, in the corner of a studio or in a dressing room or the back of a news van, wherever Sam or Gale go, Tara is stuck being dragged around by them. She knows why. She's not stupid. She kind of hates Sam for it. She hates herself more for thinking such a thing, for being so weak.

She still has her vices, despite it all Sam never took her privacy from her. So Tara still has seedy chats and pictures and videos to distract herself with when she's feeling empty. It feels good to be loved, adored, for a little while. She can't bear to expose the emptiness inside of her to Sam, can't bring herself to talk about what happened to the therapists, to talk about Amber. Or the things she said, the things she did.

She's nearly 18 when they're attacked again. Ethan, Sam's clumsy assistant with the sweet smile and who always had a kind word for Tara, and their neighbour, Quinn, who liked variety in her men. Some of those men had little brothers she would introduce to Tara. They're Ritchie's family, and they want revenge.

Tara begins sleeping around as a coping mechanism after that. She won't go back to the drinking, and the drugs, she doesn't want to do that to Sam again. Her sister already has so much going on, she doesn't want to add to that. It doesn't even occur to her how much this would hurt her as well.

[ectonurites]

SUPER DARK TIMES (2017) DIR. KEVIN PHILLIPS

[freakwiththeknifecollection]

It's kinda laughable to me when people bring up Meg telling Jo that Dean only saw her as a little sister as like, definitive proof that's how he felt. Like demons never lie just to fuck with people