#tw just everything every fucking thing in the book jfc

[ringmaster-jack]

Lore

♠️ The wayward ringmaster had gained many a title over the passing years(both boastful and infamous), but only one name held any permanence-- and that name was Jack.  A common name, simple, yet among those who had the misfortune of dealing with him, it held a weight to it.  ♠️

Note: Lots of triggering content in the following expansion related to mental health, abuse, suicide, drugs, etc.  Be warned.

♠️  Born in the dregs of Dawnhold to an ex-aristocrat and a Shuriman immigrant, Jack was the second oldest of ten; proceeding his sister by a mere two minutes. Though his first three years of life were relatively unremarkable, everything changed after the mysterious passing of his father.

Coming from highblood society, his mother, Harper Farrowthrone, had been excommunicated from her family inheritance when she'd chosen to follow her heart, instead of adhering to the tradition of an arranged marriage. Pregnant with their fifth child, her husband's passing left her emotionally and financially crippled. It was the beginning of a long and miserable life-- for her, of course, but even more for the multitude of children she brought into the world.

His twin was provided a formal education, trumped up to be the one who would excel and provide for them in her later years-- but Jack and his younger siblings were not so lucky. Jack spent most of his formative years taking odd jobs and stealing what he could to help care for his family.  They never settled in one place for too long, as his mother's growing reputation as a courtesan often preceded her.

Jack was an obedient boy, quiet, if only to mask his stutter.  But his unbridled sense of curiosity would get him into trouble more often than not. He spent what free time he had teaching himself to read-- and after that, absorbing as much knowledge as he could through any means available. He had a interest in many topics.  Music, animals, magic--especially magic. It was forbidden in their homeland, after all, so like any overly-inquisitive child, he would seek it out--forbidden or not.

Unfortunately, it was this curiosity combined with an overabundance of childhood trauma that led him into a tumultuous teenage life, filled with excessive amounts of rebellion and a rapidly growing criminal record.  In and out of detainment for any number of reasons, it was rare for the youth to ever be home, except to aid his younger siblings whenever their mother was being particularly neglectful. 

His 16th birthday was marked by a suicide attempt.

Rather than addressing what were some glaringly obvious mental health issues, his mother--now only known as Harper by his word, had opted to take a more tough-love approach to dealing with her unruly son.  He’d barely been given time to heal before he’d been cast off to the military, deemed fit for battle if only because his seemingly unstable mannerisms were clocked as fraudulence, an attempt to dodge a duty that most able-bodied citizens of Demacia were fated to live.  

It came as no surprise that he only lasted a year or so before he ended up exiled from the nation entirely, a dishonorable discharge, and then some.   

Jack didn’t mind.  If anything, he found his newfound exile freeing; no longer bound by the walls, laws, or a system of belief that never did anything but bring him suffering.  He took to the lands to pursue a lifelong dream of becoming a famous musician, adopting the title of bard and performing for any and everyone who might care to listen.  Though he held a raw talent for music, and a captivating energy that earned him many a free drink or sordid love affair, he never gained much in the way of wealth.  He spent a couple of years bouncing from city to city, his starry-eyed conjecture and youthful determination quickly stifled by the harshness of the world outside the myopic views of Demacian society.

Beaten down by a vagabond lifestyle with little to show for his efforts, Jack’s luck seemed to change when his sister stumbled upon him.  Grown and graduated, Tabitha had followed her own path; though unlike her more creative sibling, she held an ambition for science.  With a bit of arm twisting, she convinced her twin to follow her to Piltover-Zaun; and give up on his childish pursuits so he could make a ‘real life’ for himself in the city of progress.      

Jack settled quickly into Zaun, though perhaps not for the better.  He’d dappled in the use of mind-altering substances in the past, and in violence-- but it was Zaun where he truly began forming habits that he’d later become known for amidst the shadiest districts of the city’s underbelly.  

His first feat of homicide had been justified, an act of self-defense over a trick turned horrifically sour. The following 14, however, not so much.  It hadn’t taken a lot to ignite his untapped bloodlust.  Sat on years of surplus trauma and a developing affinity for stimulants, he was selective about who he took down, however the personal code of morality in which he followed was deeply askew. He’d thought himself a vigilante of sorts; but more than one of those who he’d killed had earned their deaths for as little as a particularly offensive insult.  Getting away with murder in Zaun was surprisingly easy; so long as you were smart about it.

By the time his 15th victim met their gruesome demise, Jack had earned himself two nicknames in the local papers.  The first, ‘The Nightwalker’, which wouldn’t have been so bad had it not implied he was a female prostitute thanks to his penchant for killing mostly men.  The second, and one he proudly embraced in privacy, was ‘The Jackal’, a title he’d been dubbed in reference to the jackal-like gasmask he tended to wear on many of his ‘outings’, ever the stylish sort.  Neither of these personas were linked to that 15th murder; one of the only others where self-defense could have truly been claimed.  And it was; successfully, when his sister turned him over to the authorities. 

 It was an extreme act of betrayal in Jack’s eyes; he and his sister had always been close, and she already knew of his so-called ‘habits’.  Her streak of sadism was perhaps more vile than his own, merely cloaked beneath a thin but legally passable veil of ‘scientific progress’.  Little did he know how deep her betrayal ran, fueled by years of a lust for something greater than herself.

Jack’s follies had landed him in what was perhaps the most notorious asylum in the city, if not all of Valoran.  Incidentally his sisters place of occupation, Jack had never pieced together the direct connection between her and the two and a half years of ‘treatment’ he received; a colorful term for what was in essence torture. 

Rumors of the experimentation and abuse that patients suffered were commonplace among the denizens of Zaun-Piltover, though there’d never been any formal investigation into such matters.  Most of those forced to live among the padded walls were criminally insane, the lowest of the low in an already corrupt world that didn’t give a second thought to what happened behind closed doors. Many horrors took place in the iron penitentiary for those unlucky enough to dwell there, and the Demacian was no exception to that rule.

  Where Jack sought pleasure, his sister sought power--something she intended to achieve by any means necessary.  Obsessed with studying an ancient entity she’d attained from a generational blood bond, Jack had never thought much of the strange black bottle his sister kept with her throughout their childhood. A sentimental trinket she'd been gifted by their father before his passing, where he'd been left with nothing-- it was just another demotivational tic in an already lengthy list of family dysfunction.  Tabitha had convinced her employers to fund her experimentation with the promise that if successful, the eldritch being could be used as a powerful weapon for Zaun, much like Targon's incarceration of the star dragon Aurelion Sol. 

 Though there was some truth to this promise, the woman had much greater ideals. Rather than upholding a centuries-long duty to guard and confine this creature in secrecy and silence, Tabitha sought to directly bind herself to the beast instead, and ultimately gain access to what was a potentially limitless well of celestial power.  An attractive and intelligent woman, Tabitha had all the charms and wiles of her less fortunate brother, and she executed them to her advantage at every given turn.  Countless lives were lost in her quest to find a way to anchor this dark deity to a living human before she’d administer her unethical practices onto her own brother; an act that, much to her surprise, actually proved to be successful.

Successful to a degree, that was.

While the beast accepted Jack as it’s host(unlike those unfortunate souls who she’d tried to bind it to in prior times) Tabitha found difficulty in actually controlling it-- or her brother, who had, understandably, not taken well to being used for such horrific experimentation.  But Jack hadn’t the slightest idea that it was his own sister who had orchestrated these things, as well as the following attempts to brainwash and psychologically manipulate him.  

Always a stubborn man, Jack resisted the conditions he faced with fervency.  The power that came with being bedeviled by a dark god wouldn't have been so bad.  Though he was terrified of the creature, they eventually formed a symbiosis, a sympathy given to what he came to realize was merely another being that had undergone it’s own sequence of horrors prior to his arrival at the asylum.  

What had driven Jack past the breaking point was being told these things were a product of his own mind--that the people who ended up dead around him had been taken by his own hand, that he blacked out and had no recollection of it--that he was indeed, totally, utterly insane, and needed to be treated if he ever hoped to be anything more than this.  Jack knew he had some issues, but hallucinations and murderous blackouts had never been a part of that equation.  Almost constantly medicated and forced to undergo an assortment of studies which did more harm than good, it was inevitable that escaping became top priority.  At times, this notion extended to the prospect of escaping by means of death-- never successful, though it did land him in isolation for long periods of time.

With an intense fear of being alone, and a strange dynamic to the creature he was told didn’t exist, Jack found solace in speaking through the walls.  Often times he wasn’t certain if anyone was even there--but on rare occasions, he’d earn a response or two from the patrons on the other side.  He formed what he assumed to be a one-sided friendship with a very particular fellow--a man to whom he later found out to be a notorious murderer himself, and one that Jack held a bittersweet envy for in his own time on the streets.  When they’d first met face to face, it was in the medical ward, and incidentally the first time he’d made a successful attempt at escaping with aid from the other killer, who had unfortunately not been so lucky to reach the outside world.

He was free for only a few weeks before he returned, despite all common sense and the adamant disapproval of the being still bound to his mind. Jack had made a promise to his friend behind the walls, a promise to get him out of there, too-- and he couldn’t shake that thought from his consciousness.  Unsurprisingly, his shoddy attempt proved unsuccessful, landing him back in his own confinement and exposing him to tortures that far exceeded anything he’d experienced thus far.  

Unable to successfully control the man or the beast that inhabited him, Tabitha ordered their separation.  It was an incredibly painful experience, and one that didn’t go quite according to plan, as it ultimately resulted in nearly killing her brother, and later on, the escape of the creature who she tried to manipulate.  Though Jack survived this particularly gruesome procedure, it left him physically and mentally scarred, blocking out memory of the incident entirely-- though that could have been in part the brain surgery.  This worked in Tabitha’s favor, as several months after losing her prime subject, she’d sent her brother back into the world as a form of bait. Though no longer physically bound to the entity, Jack still held remnants of it’s essence inside him-- which she’d hoped would serve as a lure.  

For a short time, he’d occupied the home of one of his sister’s partners, Seraphina, to whom she had arranged his living-- but soon found himself at odds with her over any number of things.  Their personalities clashed, but it seemed the woman was rather persistent in staying with him-- especially after his sister’s untimely death in an accident that he never really did get much information on.  

Even when he took to the streets, Seraphina was persistent in her effort to keep him out of trouble, though more often than not he ended up dragging her into his shenanigans too.  Ever the astute charmer, it didn’t take too much effort for Jack to convince the woman to follow him into the world of showmanship-- an idea that had come to him and stuck there after a particularly eye-opening night witnessing a small but impressive sideshow.  Seraphina was an animal behavioral therapist by occupation, having formed her thesis on the language and habits of fire drakes after several years of living in the wilds, and the thought of being able to work with creatures like this again was an irresistible temptation-- not to mention she’d be given the freedom to use her elemental abilities without the risk of being patronized or imprisoned.

Though their act started off small, it only took a year for them to make their mark.  Coming from wealth, Seraphina provided the funds that got them off their feet, and did most of the paperwork and partnering needed to establish their place in the sideshow circuit.  Though Jack, with his natural charisma and assortment of talents(A Jack of all trades, as it were) had taken the title of Ringmaster, the firebreather ran things behind closed doors--something that the ringmaster all but forgot the more his own popularity grew.  He developed a small fan base who would follow them when they went on tour, something that only emphasized his already bolstered ego-- his dream of taking an almost rockstar persona realized in the performing arts.  

  By the third year, they’d made themselves known among Zaun and otherwise-- with a wide array of ragtag performers and freaks, many of whom were taken off the streets and welcomed in to their caravan with gusto.  Having formed a family of sorts, Jack and his posse opted to take base in the underground catacombs of Zaun, a place he’d frequently explored in his previous years on the streets but never fully realized the potential of until he brought others with him.  Styling it into their home, it wasn’t always the safest lifestyle, but they’d managed to cultivate and furnish much of the area enough to be quite comfortable.  For Jack, it was also a brilliant means to continuing pursuing his less acceptable hobbies without fear of persecution, carving out an entire sector for him and him alone.

Things continued like this for a couple more years without too much turbulence save for the usual array of misbehavior that Jack was prone to-- everything had finally started to fall into place.  He finally had a purpose in life, a calling, and he embraced it with the utmost passion-- perhaps too much at times, but it was a far cry from the life he’d led before, all but forgotten with the passage of time.

Until their 5th year.

[ekkorn]

hi there, just saw in the tags that you didn‘t like endgame. would you like to expand on that? i am curious to know other people‘s perspective. personally, i liked it. it has flaws, yes, but to me it was enjoyable. if you don‘t feel like answering, that is fine :) have a great day!

oh wow. you really wanna know? okay, but on your own head be it. :o

i’m just joking, i’ll go easy, or at least give you the digest (a vicious lie) version. if you want to see the full extent of my derision and vitriol, you can go to @lowkeysebastianstan, which is the blog where i’ve tried to limit this too. but to give you the not at all short and not so sweet of it, here goes. (endgame spoilers obviously).

the first thing that really set me off was the ending, more precisely, what steve did. it made absolutely no sense whatsoever, and hit me closer to home than most of my followers here since bucky and steve are my fave characters, and the only ship i really have. now, i never thought stucky would become canon, not even a little, i didn’t even hope for it. sure, the representation would’ve been awesome, but there’s no way marvel could’ve done it justice, so it was just as well it was never gonna happen. what i hadn’t prepared for was to what extreme extent they were terrified of the ship and the effect it would have if they were to let it be even a hint that could be interpreted as some emotional connection between them, for 3 films they’re built bucky up as the most important character in steve’s life, he’s risked his own life to save him, he basically eradicated hydra during wwii fueled by grief for him, he was prepared to die for him in tws, he fought his friends and gave up everything for him in cacw, and then he just? leaves? to be with a woman who died of old age and natural causes after a long fulfilling life with another man and family of her own. who specifically told him to fucking move on in tws? yeah, sure. and do not get me wrong, i adore sam wilson, after bucky, and the real steve rogers, he is by far my fave in the cap verse (saving a few spots for my bp and cm peeps in the mcu, but we’ll get to them), and he is the superior choice to pick up the mantle, no doubt about it. (okay, a little doubt, they teased sebastian with that shield for 8 years, they based bucky on the brubaker storyline where he becomes cap, and so i do feel a little torn bc no matter how happy he must be for his friend, and him and mackie are good friends, he must be a little disappointed? but who knows, maybe they’ll do something with that in the series, which would be stupid af bc that would negate the positive leap in representation, and mackie deserves it too, so who the fuck knows, i’ll probably not be around to keep track anyways, and can you tell im rambling), but for steve’s last words to be to sam? while bucky stands and watch in the background? like??? i could go on in (more excruciating) detail, but that was why i linked the blog, there might be a point or two about this on there.

but that was just the start. all through the movie i felt disconnected and uneasy, they made some really weird choices, but i don’t think it was until nat took the plunge that i knew i had an absolute dud on my hands. 

the mcu has done a lot of things right, but their treatment of women is NOT one of them. and oh boy did they go out with a bang. first is the obvious implication, he got to live bc he had “more to live for”, and she didn’t have a family, and ye gods we know she can’t have kids, so why should she live? 

(see, if the bw movie wasn’t in the books, i’d completely get it, if it was to give scarjo her life back, and she wanted nat to be good and dead, sure. actually, when i first watched it, that’s what i thought tbh, that the bw movie was cancelled, so. but it’s not, so she will return. and since that the case it’s just fucked up that they yeeted her off the roster. and sure, some of the bw movie was always gonna be set in the past, but tbh? i don’t see much point in prequels for dead characters, you know that whatever happens won’t affect the outcome for the character at all, and i usually find them completely void of meaning. that might just be me though). and of course the fact that she died the same way gamora went didn’t help. (gamora’s death was maybe the single worst thing in aiw, she was fridged, not for the advancement of one man, but for two (thanos and quill) and it.just.shouldn’t.have.worked.thanos.cannot.love! again, mcu and women? not a good match.) 

then of course, it comes back to steve and how much he doesn’t give a crap about the people close to him in the present, we never see him care or grieve for anyone but peggy, and he could barely spare two tears for nat before it was all business again. and the rest of the team? i think clint cared a little, and banner threw a chair, but that was it. no memorial, not burial, no nothing, it was like she never existed, and she died saving the world just as much as tony, he couldn’t have done jack shit without the soul stone. 

and speaking of women, shuri and okoye? before the trailer dropped i was sure shuri was in this, that we’d get to see her lead in her brother’s stead. i actually did a short lament on this already, here.

carol was terribly underused, after all the oompf about her being there she was barely a blip. but the haircut was fantastic, and the best part of the movie was when she returned at the end.

then there’s nebula and gamora (again). at first i was actually quite pleased that they sort of found a loophole to bring gamora back, but then i thought about it (yes, sometimes i get seduced by the flashy colours too) and yeah. sure. a gamora is there, but she’s void of all the things that makes her interesting and all her development is just gone, everything “our” gamora achieved and experienced is gone, three films worth of arc is worthless. so what then is the point of getting “her” back? i don’t care about this person, i don’t know her. are we gonna see quill just harass her the next film, bc you know, she’s been with him, so why shouldn’t he expect her to just do that now? tbh i wouldn’t be surprised, but now that gunn is back maybe he can save it? not that i’ll be around to keep track though.

then nebula. nvm that time paradox, that’s a whole other fuckfest i’ll get back to, but we had to get to see her get killed too, didn’t we. by her sister, the only person in the world she loves. fucking fantastic, i cannot control my enthusiasm. 

and no, cool as it was, the a-force surrounding parker is not enough to bring this home. it was a cool sight though. (see? i can see the good.)

then of course it’s peggy. a woman he knew for a few months back during the war. (sure they knew each other longer, but i’d say, even if you’re very generous, they can’t have spent more than a couple of months in each other’s company, and they kissed once). who they stripped of all character development and autonomy so that steve could go back and get his “damce”. everything she achieved, every good thing that happened to her, her husband, her family, her advancement in shield, all gone. bc steve must have his happy ending, no matter that she told him to move the fuck on in tws, who cares. 

and then there’s sharon. yeah, they forgot about her, didn’t they. i mean, i was never really on board with that, the whole aunt/niece thing was a bit too weird for me, and this was way before i shipped stucky, but that doesn’t matter. bc they did that, they had them kiss within days after peggy’s death (oooh, look how he cared for peggy), making it clear that this was the beginning of something. (also marvel and several of the actors treated emily like crap, oh yeah, i remember, doesn’t help either.) 

(gods i said this would be short, didn’t i? imagine if i could’ve spent all the words i’ve spent ranting about endgame on my latest chapter? good grief.)

then there’s their so called lgbt representation. 30 seconds of a character that had a total of 60 sconds of screentime in tws lamenting his dead lover? well. i. they wanted credit for that. i just.

then there’s thor. they negated every ounce of development he had in ragnarok, this also goes for aiw, wasn’t happy about that, and made him completely ooc, he just spends his time drinking ab\nd playing fortnite of all things? bold of them to assume that will still be a thing in 5 years, but also? thor? THOR? neglecting his people? his friends? the world? thor? then they of course made him fat, haha, so they could add fat-shaming to the list while they make light and fun of his drinking problems, his grief and his ptsd. awesome. the funniest. 

then there’s clint. that they just randomly made a killer? just, like a straight up murderer? okay then. and still nat deserved to die. excellent.

then there’s banner. okay, i don’t think they fucked him up as bad as the others, but it’s still strange he would risk his intelligence to become hulk full time, but you do you.  

rocket and rhodey were the best things about this damn disaster, just putting it out there.

then there’s tony. i mean, we knew he was the main protagonist, and im not objecting that, (even if i think it’s really strange he’d be born in 1970) but idk. that was strange’s plan? all that for that? and pepper just went, eh what the hell, just die, i can raise this kid you wanted. (i know, i know, she’s her mom, she cares), but it was just so flat. and idk. i mean, rdj wanted his life back, just as evans, but i’d want to see that switched, that tony get to retire and steve sacrifice himself to save the world. tony could still be the deciding factor in strange’s plan even if steve delivered the coup de grace. at least he cared enough to show an emotion™when peter came back, which was more than steve bothered with. jfc they fucked up steve.

then there’s the time travel. okay, a few things about the 2012 thing. they put him in the elevator, and then, instead of having him just kick the crap out of the agents, they reference hydra!cap? the biggest shitstorm in the comics in the last two decades? like what the actual fuck? then of course there’s the americas ass thing, which, again, that’s steve, cares about his ass but not his friends! (but at least 2012 steve cares about bucky, maybe he’ll save him a couple of years early, back to the future steve will just live out his life knowing bucky is getting tortured somewhere in siberia, good times.) oh! and i guess they have their loophole to get loki back too, great, they’ll probably just forget that he’s not in the main timeline, bc who cares. 

and the fun just keeps coming with the time travel. oh they tried with some crap explanation that no one can make sense of, but here’s the kicker. they can’t either, they don’t even want to try, they don’t even agree with each other. 

+ +

how did they know to meet up in wakanda or wherever, the dustees? did strange send a memo? not just the ppl in the soul realm or wherever they were, but all the others too, like valkyrie and hope. time and place just magically popped into their heads? and what happened when they all came back? or some came back, bc obviously a shit ton of ppl died at the dusting, like the pilot of a 747 gone? plane goes down and such, ppl really dead. and where do they reappear? where they disappeared? aka those passengers that got dusted comes back mid flight? fun! and what about the ones that moved on in their absence? what happens to the ones that come back when their wives and husbands are remarried, when there’s no place for them in their old lives. did all of peter’s classmates get dusted, or did the rest of the class graduate without him, i must assume that all of those in s:ffh did, otherwise some would be in college by now, yeah?

and that’s another reason their watertight time travel is leaky af, there’s no way to get the logistics to work. the only option as such would have been to go back to 2018 and fix it, to reset time, bc otherwise there are just too many holes, it’s just not possible. but they can’t do that bc then they’ll undo all the things that happen in the future that the characters don’t want to lose, like tony’s kid. 

oh, i know, it’s a superhero movie, but im strange like that, i expect a modicum of internal logic in all my movies, the bitch that i am. 

okay, im gonna leave it there, ive run out of steam, and i want to gif a set. there’s a few things more, but i think you’ve gotten the gist, that i’m not a fan of this movie and a short (lol, so sorry, nothing is ever digest with me, i should’ve warned you) list of reasons why. honestly this is the first time i’ve really don’t a more general account, ive pretty much stuck to steve and that crapshute, there’s a lot of other blogs that concentrate on the other characters, i’d list a few, but i don’t have it in me rn, pop me a msg if you’re interested, also if you’re interested in some real meta, this rambling rant isn’t something that people should be exposed to honestly. 

avengers: endgame was a shit movie and no amount of “he’s worthy” and “avengers assemble” is going to fix that, BUT if you enjoyed it, i don’t think less of you, obviously everyone is different, and i envy the hell out of you, i sorely wish i could’ve liked it too. the russos directed what is by far the best movie in the mcu imo, tws, and they had us all fooled, even if we probably should’ve seen it coming after iron man 4: civil war.

hope you’re having a spectacular day, sorry you had to read this if you did, and and thank you for making mine better, i really had a rant in me needing out. (you’d think i’d run out of hate for this by now, but nah.)

thank you for the ask :) 

[movedto-dazaipositive]

one guess where this started. couldn't have done it without @taggianto 💜 you.

CW: rape and resultant pregnancy; severe self-worth issues; mentally ill character with wrong ideas about what constitutes mental illness.

so, I've got a running headcanon that Kent's mom is alcoholic and she has ptsd.

rape & pregnancy TW // she was raped in college and that's how she got pregnant with Kent. she kept him out of choice, but she loves him no matter what

but that doesn't change the fact that she has ptsd and for many years while she was working 3 jobs to keep them alive and Kent on the ice, and she had to get through somehow. so she drank at home

and she wasn't ever really there for Kent. she couldn't be, between drinking and working. does Kent resent her? I don't think so. I don't think he knew it was even an option until he met the Zimmermanns and Jack

and saw the way they behaved with each other. but he loves his mom and he'd do anything for her. it's why he sticks with hockey even when it hurts–his mom worked hard to get him where he is, and he can't let her down now

but she crashes around the time Kent is 16/17. she's no longer got Kent around to survive for, and it really messes her up. and Kent watches Jack and his mom crash and burn, up close and from afar, and it fucks him up

like, bad. he can't stop thinking that it was him, that he's the reason they're the way they are. that he's the only thing they have in common and they're both–the way they are, and it must be him. it must be Kent

jack's OD breaks Kent, pushes him over the edge of a cliff he was already clinging to with his fingertips. he shuts down completely and only surfaces to a) send his mom to rehab with his first NHL paycheck b) and play hockey

he withdraws completely. cuts himself off from human contact at the exact time he needs it the most. he spends his rookie year with the Aces Captain, Patty, his wife and their two kids, barely holding on to his humanity

it's a good thing the team forces Kent out regularly, because otherwise he'd turn into an Actual Hockey Robot. it's not that he isn't friendly with them–he plays beautiful hockey and laughs and chirps with the rest of them, but there's something off about it. he's skittish and awkward, and he gets this look in his eyes sometimes, like he survived something awful but not really.

like he isn't all there. they worry about him. he's too small and too good at hockey and he needs someone to watch out for him

the first year, it's the whole team. all how-many-ever of them, looking out for Kent on and off the ice. the second year, Jeff comes to them

Jeff is...good with Kent.

Jeff's been playing on the NHL for a couple years, got drafted third or fourth to the Seattle Schooners. he's a good teammate, dryly funny, chirps that take a second to sink in. he plays good hockey, not as good as Kent, but good.

but he seems to know, instinctively, what Kent needs at any given moment

Jeff drags Kent into being social and actually, y'know, forming meaningful connections with other people by giving Kent puppy eyes until Kent agrees to hang out with Jeff and teammate of the week

and Kent, horribly unused to being someone people want to spend time with and nearly incapacitated by loneliness after a year of next to no human connection, says yes every time

and Kent is a person? under that weird obsessive hockey robot exterior? he's fun to hang out with. he's even funny. he's a bit a total dork and likes helping people and he always knows a good place to eat

so people on Kent's team start to seek his company even without Swoops around and Kent goes ? but he doesn't like to let people down or say no

Kent is still like, messed up inside. he doesn't sleep well and there are a lot of days when he won't get out of bed of he doesn't have to. but he's still trying

except... he's not trying to be better at Humaning for himself. he's doing it for Jeff and the people who depend upon him to show up and entertain their kids for two hours so they can go on a date

the only thing that's changed is the manifestation of Kent's chronic self-sacrificing and the people who receive it.

and Kent is honestly trying really hard and overcompensating for a year of not being a good Human Person so he swamps himself in helping people and overworks himself

and it's Jeff that picks up the pieces of Kent's dumbassery. it's Jeff that calls people to let them know that Kent has the flu, no they haven't been to the doctor yet, yes he's mostly okay he's puking right now, so no he can't come and take care of your kids Patty find a fucking babysitter you're a millionaire jfc

(Patty is kind of a dick)

Kent: [in between puking] but I promised

Jeff: shut the fuck up

Kent's bedridden for almost a week. he misses two games, both of which the Aces lose

it's during this week that Jeff realises just how fucked up Kent is, because in the middle of puking his guts out and shivering under six blankets he still finds time to blame himself for everything that goes wrong in that week. e v e r y s i n g l e t h i n g. it's not really Kent's fault, being sick pulls down all walls that keep him from airing the constant internal monologue of self blame and loathing, but Jeff calls his cousin Rashmi and has a slight breakdown

well, I say slight. he nearly cries

Jeff needs to talk about how much Kent is hurting and omg I never knew im a terrible friend eeeee

she tells him to a) calm the fuck down b) don't take this so personally, you can't help him if you think you're the one to blame, he's doing that already c) here's a bunch of helpful links on how to deal when you think your friend might be mentally ill

Jeff tries to be subtle about bringing up the 'you might be mentally ill thing'. Kent, however, is not dumb. he catches on to this really fast, and panics hard. his only experience with mentally ill folks is his mom and Jack, and they are not a good place to start–both addicts who've been unintentionally emotionally abusive to Kent. Kent draws the best conclusion he can with this data pool. the conclusion is I am a horrible person who will soon be drug addict and hurt the people around me, whoops time to Shut Down

Kent [shutting down] I am a horrible person that deserves nothing good, ever. Jeff: nO Kent: I can't hear you over the sound of my self loathing Jeff: N O

and Jeff does not know how to deal with a Kent who's gone straight back to rookie year levels of skittish I-am-a-virus-don't-touch-me. the team, on the other hand, knows perfectly well how.

or, at least, they know how they dealt with it. but they're hockey players, with the combined emotional intelligence of a nail clipper, and when they tell Jeff about it he's horrified. so he figures out his own methods–he sticks as close to Kent as possible while not overwhelming him, and he does his best to be Supportive

it is difficult to be supportive when the person you are Supporting does not want to be supported. so he does his research, and hits upon the perfect solution

he goes to the local pet shelter and asks for the most unlikely to be adopted kitten, because he knows that Kent has a soft spot for hopeless things

they give him a three month old Calico, blind and almost certainly headed to a shelter without a no kill rule

Jeff: ......I'll take it

Kent is baffled and enchanted. Jeff really thought it'd be harder to sell this to Kenny, but Kent's holding squirmy, curious little kit, already babytalking to her, asking her if she knows what a pretty princess she is, yes you are, aren't you and Jeff has a second where he thinks Oh, shit

bc this more humanity and interest than Kent has shown in almost a month, and then Kent is turning to Jeff to ask him questions about raising cats that Jeff didn't even know were a concern, but clearly this is making Kent happy, so Jeff gives him a book he'd picked up at the recommendation of the volunteer at the shelter, and drives Kent helplessly to the pet store and watches as Kent buys cat shit off Amazon

Kent doesn't realise she's blind, at first. kit (Jeff named her) has large golden eyes that are permanently dilated. Kent only figures out she's blind when he's sitting on the floor watching her toddle around, and she keeps walking into his outstretched legs. Kent calls Jeff in a panic, asking him if he knows what's with kit's eyes, and Jeff thinks I knew I was forgetting something

and then he explains the situation to Kent, and Kent reacts exactly the way Jeff expected him to–with a sudden fierce dedication to kit, even more so than ten minutes ago when he would have died for her

Kent cat-proofs his house–he pours a lot of time and money into getting everything exactly right so Kit needn't suffer more than necessary. he lavishes Kit with all the love he's capable of–and he's always capable of a lot more love than he thinks–and makes sure that everyone coming to his house knows that one move that frightens Kit is more than enough to get them banned

so Kent pours himself heart and soul into loving kit. he spends every second he isn't on the ice taking care of his beloved baby princess

and it's incredibly healing. he knows he has to get up in the morning and come back after runs (not walk into traffic) and that he has to get done on the ice so he can come back to her

and it's incredibly healing. he knows he has to get up in the morning and come back after runs (not walk into traffic) and that he has to get done on the ice so he can come back to her

there's a period of like, six months, where the only reason Kent does anything at all is because kit needs him to. and he won't let himself think about how Jeff could also maybe take care of her. he won't.

his mom's rehab clinic is expensive but ridiculously intensive and extensive. it's almost 14 months of rehab and therapy and relearning hire to be a person without addiction, as well as working through whatever led you to seek addiction in the first place

Diana Parson comes out of it changed. she feels more like a person than ever before in her life. she feels whole, healed still, but so much better

so she goes back home, and Kent is in Vegas depressed as fuck, and his mom is in New York living for herself, and doing things she loves, and discovering herself outside of therapy

she comes back home at a time when it's incredibly difficult for Kent to do even basic things like have a conversation. so all through the season, he doesn't visit her and he can't even summon up the guilt.

and her therapist tells her it's okay, that he needs time too. and she loves him and she gives him the time she needs, but she also decides that she's stable enough to foster a child

which goes well! Lydia is 7 and slightly untrusting but Diana has patience and love and she's been reading and she's financially stable and she has time (ask things she didn't have with Kent). she has time to ask Lydia how her day went. time to play and talk and do bonding activities with just the two of them

and soon enough she and Lydia love each other so much! and they have rough times but they get through it.

the season ends. and the aces lose. and Kent is probably even worse than before. and someone suggests that since the aces will no longer be in town to make sure that Kent buys groceries/stays a person, hey you should go visit your mom!

so Kent, depressed and hating himself, gets to watch his mom get her big second chance

and he tries do hard not to be bitter but it's killing him. he keeps wondering what his life would be like if he were Lydia. if he had a financially stable supportive mom. and he can't blame his mom so he blames himself

he blames himself for needing more than she could give him. because she did her best and she raised a pro NHL player and he doesn't have any right to expect more

and one night it gets so bad that drives himself to Jeff's place

this would be okay but Jeff actually lives in Canada

he's just. in this place where Jeff is the only person that Kent knows won't hurt him

and he's so, so tired

and Jeff, chilling with his family, suddenly has an armful of distraught sleep-deprived Captain

and he's just like ......sorry I gotta take this

Kent knows where Jeff lives bc he's been there at least once before

and Kent just. breaks down. he cries for hours. and Jeff can't do anything except drag Kent up to his room and cuddle him while he cries and pet his hair. Kent cries himself to sleep, but he wakes up with Jeff wrapped around him and there's like, 14 seconds where he just feels safe and good because Jeff's there and hugging him in bed so something somewhere must have gone right

anyway Kent wakes up and gets dressed with Jeff hovering gently over him, knocking into him once in a while to make sure he's okay

(like when cats wind around your feet because they're excited to see you. except they might trip you up. the issue w Jeff is that he is Big)

he finds his phone in some weird corner of his car and plugs it in. and finds out that he has 200+ missed calls from his mom

because his mom doesn't have the numbers of any teammates she can call and she's been so worried and he feels Horrible for Being This Way

so he calls her. and she picks up on the second ring and she's been having panic attacks and flashbacks for 4 days and she doesn't remember parts of her therapy

so she yells at him. and Kent is still way too fragile to handle this but he also has to do this? and he just. panics

mother-son bonding via hyperventilating to each other on a phone line

but Jeff gets so mad on Kent's behalf, and pulls the phone out of Kent's hand and cuts the call.

but then he feels guilty so he sends her a quick text message to let her know that Kent is safe and he'll call when he feels better

and the next few days are just Jeff hugging Kent and Kent wearing Jeff's clothes everywhere because he didn't bring his own

and when they kiss it's just so natural? Kent stops hiding how much he wants Jeff. it's too much work. and Jeff is close to Kent almost all the time. and they're so stupidly in love that Jeff's older brother walks into them making out against the kitchen counter and moon walks back out

they make out for so long that every member of Jeff's family sees them and walks back out.