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yellow-faerie · 2 months

Note

Could you talk about one of those Doctor Who aus?

Hello! Thank you anon for the ask :) I have a few AUs that I'm currently rotating in my head but my favourite at the moment is the one I just call The Modern AU - it's official name is The Doctor Project but that's not what I call it. This took me a hot minute to write up because it is a lot.

(Also if you wanted to hear about any of my other AUs, I put some brief descriptions in the tags :D)

The basic premise is that the Doctors are all human and a team that worked together for their variety of expertise during the early 2000s to repel an alien invasion and the effect it has on each of them and their general lives. Also the Tardis is there as the only sensible one of the lot.

Some doctors do have more story fleshed out than others, mostly due to the fact that I'm still quite new to a lot of the eu stuff like Big Finish and the books and certain Doctors I would feel better about having engaged with some more of it before getting some proper stories fledged out (mostly because I hope it will give me some more inspiration lol)

I'll put some more general outline below the cut for anyone interested :)

[Warnings: mentions of abuse, discussions of war and the aftermath, complicated relationships to disability, implied torture ]

First Doctor

So the First Doctor is the oldest of the bunch, a retired surgeon and medical doctor (he used to work at Royal Hope Hospital) who was brought into the Doctor project for his research into medicine.

He spent most of the War in London due to his old age making it difficult to run around cities infested with alien invaders but he does get sent out periodically (mostly when one of the others gets too injured to be moved from their current location which happens a few times).

He had a daughter, Gillian, when he was quite young but he and his wife split up, and his daughter spent most of her time with her mother instead. However, he was the one to gain custody of his daughter's daughter (Susan) when Gillian died as his ex-wife had also died.

When the Doctor was conscripted, Susan was about 15 and stayed with their neighbour Steven over the course of the war, and Vicki and Dodo, two girls he fostered as well while their parents were off fighting.

Due to the secure nature of the work that the Doctor Project was doing, she and her grandfather only exchanged a few letters over the course of each year, and they were always heavily edited, and she found herself finding a lot of the emotional support she was lacking from her two teachers at Cole Hill, Barbara and Ian.

When she left Cole Hill Sixth Form, a year before the war ended, she moved back into her grandfather's house but kept in contact with Barbara and Ian who helped her with finding a job and advice on living alone, etc. This would break GDPR and a host of other protection laws these days but it's the middle of an alien invasion, let's pretend that doesn't exist. They didn't know the Doctor at all until after the war when he returns and it's a bit weird for everyone.

Especially since Ian is completely furious at him for leaving his granddaughter alone, mostly because people meet Susan and get the immediate urge to protect her; they do mostly get over that particular hurdle though as more comes out about how the war ended, although the Doctor doesn't help matters much by being his usual grouchy self.

His usual grouchy self made worse by the fact that everything has changed a lot since he had left home. Susan is in training to be a nurse and has these faux-parental figures she trusts so implicitly, and is decidedly more wary around him; he has also been fundamentally changed by living four years in various bunkers while working against an invisible clock to defeat a foe more technologically advanced that they are.

Eventually things do settle down: Ian and the Doctor apologise to each other, Susan and the Doctor have enough heart-to-hearts that it clears the air between them, that sort of thing.

There's not a whole lot of plot to any of the First Doctor's stuff but the vibes and the setting are pretty much in place.

Second Doctor

The second doctor is probably about forty when he's conscripted and he was a physics lecturer at St. Andrews university, specialising in sound and acoustics and waves, that sort of thing. He invented several new versions of sound systems which is what got him noticed for the Project.

St. Andrews is where he meets Jamie, actually, who was working as a guard; they bonded over a mutual love of music, Jamie in particular on the bagpipes, and then over other mutual interests.

I'm imagining they got married before the war (as this is an alternate history anyway, I'm making gay marriage legal earlier because no-one can stop me) when Jamie went on to fight in the army and the Doctor got conscripted into the project. Both of them being in different deployments so regularly meant letter writing was even more difficult.

After the war, the Doctor gives up the whole lecturing thing, as the project had left him with a bad taste in his mouth over the work he had been doing. Instead, he takes his knowledge of music and goes into conducting an orchestra, as well as giving music lessons on the side.

In like...any instrument; he's not even very good at playing a lot of them but he has the technical know-how to make someone else very good at playing them, if they can get past his eccentricities.

Zoe is the first violin in the orchestra who he gives personal tutoring too in a vague attempt to get her to put some feeling into her music. She's technically very brilliant and knows her way around most string instruments with almost military precision, but she was taught in a very wooden way and the Doctor is attempting to bring that out of her.

Victoria, on the other hand, takes piano lessons from him except she's around like four times a week and barely ever actually plays the piano and they always give her supper because her home life is...not the greatest. Her father's very absent and her mother's dead. It's all a bit iffy.

Eventually, Jamie probably calls Social Services who are overstretched in the aftermath of the war as it is, but she manages to find herself to a very nice foster family (the Harris') who make sure she keeps having her piano lessons. Although they continue not to really be piano lessons.

[I feel that I should put a note on Ben and Polly here; they are sort of known to both One and Two as Polly is Barbara's niece (and quite close to her aunt) and Ben is Two's half brother (but not that close all things considered) - they are the sort of people who come around for birthdays and Christmas and the one off weekend, and give you very thoughtful advice and presents, but that's sort of the limit of your relationship with them.]

Third Doctor

The Third Doctor studied chemistry at university, trying out multiple different branches, and had managed to get noticed for a variety of things such as creating a few new medications, discovering the compounds of some rarer chemicals, that sort of thing (I will admit, I don't know what makes a chemist famous).

Sarah Jane is his younger sister by about twenty years: when she was younger, she had a bit of a hero worship of him going on but nowadays she's much more sensible.

He worked at Cambridge with Liz before the war, and a lot of the breakthroughs they made together; they (and by they I mean the Doctor has while Liz is facepalming in the background) have a bitter rivalry with the Oxford researcher Emil Masters (the Delgado Master).

They are married but they keep that out of their professional rivalries.

After the war, however, the Doctor stays with UNIT. He's the only one of the doctors to do this and it's mostly because he doesn't trust that unit won't make terrible decisions with the research the Doctor Project produced, so he stays as a Scientific Advisor and pokes his nose into everyone's business to keep his conscience clean.

Jo is his assistant as per canon, only now she is being invited around for supper four times a week at his house and is probably inheriting everything that both the Master and the Doctor own when they eventually die.

They turn up to her wedding to Cliff when her parents don't.

Once again, this is incredibly vibes based rather than very much plot; there's probably going to be something to do with Jo falling out with her family, but that's about as far as I got with it. It's mostly fluff at this point lol.

[Also a note about the incarnations of the Master: while the doctors aren't actually related, the incarnations of the Master are because I find that entertaining, and also there are less of them]

Fourth Doctor

The Fourth Doctor is an environmental activist before the war! He got a PhD in ecology and then proceeded to throw away a promising career in academia (his parents' words) to gallivant around the planet doomsday prophesying.

What he's actually doing is blackmailing people into implementing climate saving machines, etc. so that he isn't Doomsday prophesying; he actually meets Sarah doing this because they both get thrown in prison for getting nosy around a nuclear power plant and thus is the start of a beautiful friendship/relationship, it's really unclear to everyone else.

He has two sisters; Winifred (although everyone calls her Fred) who is Romana I, and Romana who is Romana II. Romana turns 18 just before the war and Fred turns 25 around the same time, while the Doctor is 30ish.

Romana immediately joins MI6 (she had always wanted to be in the secret service) and the Doctor gets roped into the Doctor project, which means that when Fred dies during the war, neither of them get informed for months due to the lack of proper communication channels.

This is something they both feel very guilty about, especially considering the fact that they have two nephews who got immediately lost in the overworked system without any other relative around who could look after them.

Anyway, also during the war, the Doctor gets captured by the aliens, and held for a good few months; he barely ever acknowledges that this ever happened to anyone, even when he is literally hospitalised after rescue. He just...pretends that everything is fine and dandy actually.

His doctor is actually Harry who then gets roped into the whole Very Secret Doctor Project thing for like a month until the Doctor was determined to no longer need constant observation etc and then he's just sent back to his ship.

However, Harry has better communication with home than the Doctor, and also shore leave, so he's sent to basically tell Sarah Jane that the Doctor is alive and alright - they immediately hit it off and so after the war, Harry and she hang out a lot until he's also living in the house with her, the Doctor and their gaggle of foster children (their are a lot of orphans after the war and so the three of them foster).

The actual content of their relationship is debateable - they could be a throuple, it could be that two of them are a couple and the other is third wheeling like a boss, it could be that none of them are romantically involved at all - but they do care for each other a lot.

Also the children are Luke and Sky from SJA and Leela, who's probably about 16. They have a dog, too, called K9 because the Doctor has called every dog he has ever owned since he wasa child K9, and just added a MK on the end; currently they're on Mk IV.

After the war, they just sort of settle back into what they were doing before; Sarah Jane writes for her newspapers and magazines, Harry takes up a civilian doctor's position again at New Hope and the Doctor returns to blackmailing people into Doing Better, only none of them are all that alright after the war and hiding it affects how well they are with other people.

There are some arguments had, mostly with the Doctor and Sarah Jane as Harry is much more mild mannered - with each other, with various siblings, with annoying work colleagues - until they at least admit that something is wrong, and then they go from there.

Fifth Doctor

The Fifth Doctor is the computer guy. He studied computer science at university and as well as developing quite a lot of high level software, he also developed cheaper hardware storage stuff.

With a lack of people I wanted to make him related to, I made him a Cranleigh - I think this was so he could go to boarding school and hate literally everything about it apart from cricket. His notes say that he cuts most communication with his family after going to university so they're not that important to the story.

During the war, he gets caught under a collapsing building at one point which causes nerve damage to his spine which affects the communication between his legs and his brain, periodically causing the connection to short out and his legs to collapse; the collapsed building also means that he can get quite a lot of pain in his legs, and should really be using crutches (only he forgets to bring them with him a lot).

Before the war, he works for some sort of big tech company who fund a lot of his research but after the war he doesn't particularly want to do research any more - nor work for a big tech company - and goes on to lead the IT department at Royal Hope. Which consists of Turlough (who is there because he needs a job after school and he heard that IT jobs were really easy actually) and possibly a few other characters (I've heard of some that exist in audio format, so when I get there, I may edit this).

He also fosters two kids in the aftermath of the war: Adric, who's mother was Fred and who's older brother died in the time that they were lost in the foster system, and Nyssa, who's father Tremas Masters (the Ainley Master) got imprisoned for murdering both of his wives and very sweetly asked his old university roommate if he might very kindly look after her for him.

Tegan is Nyssa's girlfriend and is subsequently always around at their house, to the point that the Doctor just gave her a key and makes supper expecting that she'll be there.

As for Peri, she and the Doctor meet at the local garden centre, and now she comes around to help look after his garden because her apartment is too small for a proper one (she and Six keep saying that they're saving up for an actual house but that might be a commitment too far).

There are the inklings of an actual plot idea I had here? In my head, somehow the Master escapes prison and intends on escaping the country with his daughter, only the Doctor is like no??? You can't do that to Nyssa??? And someone gets hospitalised.

[A note about Royal Hope, and also Cole Hill, and other reoccurring places: occasionally, the characters coincidentally working at these places is an actual coincidence, but the rest of the time it's because the Tardis has a lot of sway with people and she is always pushing the doctors and their friends to work in similar places so that they actually talk to each other again.

Or something like that. Honestly it's just plot contrivance because I like putting them in the same working environment, it makes it easier for me]

Sixth Doctor

The Sixth Doctor studies law and philosophy, being a lawyer both before and after the war. He's a really good one too, just really obnoxious.

I don't have a lot for the Sixth Doctor yet because I know he has a few audios that I want to listen to for some ideas, but I am very fond of the two seasons we got of him so here's what I have:

Peri meets the Doctor because he represents her in court when she's fighting her stepfather over something; after the court case (which they win) they go out for a few dates, and even though he's obnoxious and incredibly big-headed, he's also weirdly sweet and gentlemanly and so they get together officially.

Then the war starts and the idle talk they had of getting married/getting a house gets pushed aside while the Doctor joins the project and Peri helps with farm work by using her botany to develop crop something or other.

The war really did affect the Doctor. When he was younger, he suffered from Bipolar Depression but got it under control with medication and therapy, but the war and it's aftermath dragged that out of the depths which definitely put an extra strain on his and Peri's relationship.

When it's really bad, he did try to strangle her (like in the show) which did cause her to leave; but she does come back eventually, after the Doctor calls to apologise, and he does get it back under control.

At some points, it's really not the healthiest relationship, but it doesn't stay like that forever; it's something I really want to get into with my writing and I have the outlines of a fic over the period that he and Peri spend sort of separated.

On a lighter note, some of the other characters of the era! The Master keeps appearing on his doorstep after escaping prison looking for help and the Doctor keeps refusing to give it because he did try to kill Five; he once is a prosecutor against the Rani for unethical experimentation and she straight up sends a hit out against him; the Valeyard is his coworker who hates the Doctor a lot more than the Doctor hates him; and Mel is straight up just his personal trainer at the gym who got WAY too invested in his life.

Seventh Doctor

The seventh doctor is a high level tactician for the MOD before the war, and is actually one of the ones to help collect the other doctors together. He actually continues to do his MOD job while doing the Doctor Project which means he's the only doctor to really have a good understanding of what's happening around the world in real time.

However, he doesn't really have anyone to write home about. He grew up in foster care and it took a lot of effort to get to where he was at the outbreak of war, and so he didn't exactly have that many friends about.

The exception to that is Mel who he grew up with in part and so he does send her the odd letter.

After the war, he gets made redundant by the MOD and goes on to become a PE teacher at Cole Hill; he always dresses like he might be lecturing on politics or history, and stands on the sidelines while watching the students. Or he actually lectures on history or politics; honestly the amount of PE that's done is reliant on the mood.

He also ends up living with Ace; officially, she's his foster daughter, but she's so fiercely independent that she insists that they're roommates and he was willing to accept that.

I wish I did have more for him but I'm hoping that as I get through the Audios and books and such like, I'll get a better understanding of his era and the characters around it to make something a bit more developed.

Eighth Doctor

I'm only eight or so audios into this doctor's travels with Charley, and I have yet to read the Eighth Doctor Adventures (although I am looking to) so this isn't at all a complete section.

The Doctor is an expert in psychiatry and neuroscience, specifically in memory, mostly due to his own issues with memory throughout his childhood.

I'm still debating what the actual cause of the memory issues are, but I'm thinking that it might be because he had epilepsy as a child that was believed to have gone as he grew into adolescence but returned due to one (or multiple) head injuries during the war. I know there are certain types of epilepsy that can really affect the memory.

Either way, the Doctor also seems to be a bit of a romantic and very easily swept up in someone else's life; I see him, before the war, having a disastrous marriage to Grace Holloway which breaks down over four years of not seeing each other and ends in divorce as Grace returns to the states.

After the war, I think that he rents out the rooms in his house which is how he meets Charley, but that's about as far as I can really go with other relationships in his life because I haven't seen anything else of his stuff.

Ninth Doctor

The Ninth Doctor is an expert in mechanical engineering and is the one who does the main body of creating the Moment (the thing that takes out the alien invader's mothership).

He is the son of the War Doctor who's the General who Seven went to with his idea of creating a project to end the war, and the one who officially leads them. He mostly raised the Doctor single-handedly but was not exactly the most caring man in the universe.

The Doctor has a lot of very complicated feelings about his father which don't really get resolved because he (the War Doctor) sacrifices himself to set off the Moment.

Anyway, the Doctor never really wanted to get into Academics and become some sort of fantastic mechanical engineer but his father really pushed it (especially when it became clear the Doctor would never join the army); so after the war, he becomes a sort of freelance mechanic and works with Mickey.

Which is where he meets Rose. Rose often comes to visit Mickey at the end of his shifts because they're friends and live close together, and so she and the Doctor meet regularly there until they are both like...want to go travelling?

Rose was 19 when the war started, and runs the Bad Wolf magazine which she basically created at the beginning as a sort fo morale booster and also because she didn't like how the newspapers were reporting and wanted to make something that wasn't filtered through a hundred government filters; Sarah Jane actually writes for it during the war and on occasion afterwards, and is quite a good friend of Rose's for all that they don't see each other face-to-face all that often.

Still, after the war, sales of Bad Wolf kinda drops off a bit but Rose really loves the magazine and so wants to try something different: she wants to travel so she can see the world, and show people how people are rebuilding and getting their lives back in the aftermath (and help out where she can). She tells the Doctor this and then he offers her his van, and they start travelling together.

They live out the back of his van for years and they're quite happy to do it; they get married in Paris, periodically come back to visit Jackie (who is naturally rather displeased about this life choice they've made - although it's fine because they paid for her to come to Paris for the wedding), and just generally having a good time. They're like van lifers except not obnoxious about it, and when they eventually have Mia, they move back to the UK somewhat permanently (they still travel on holidays) so that she is living somewhere steady and permanent in her upbringing.

We also can't forget about Jack - he was a pilot during the war who also wrote for Bad Wolf, usually entertaining and slightly flirty pieces, and after the war, Rose and the Doctor invited him to travel with them after a few years. When they settle down in London, he moves to Cardiff for a bit on a 'journey of self discovery' where he meets the various Torchwood team (I have to admit I haven't got around to watching Torchwood yet).

He is Mia's godfather (so is Mickey, and Shareen is her godmother) and he dotes on her like no-one's business.

Tenth Doctor

The Tenth Doctor is an expert in anthropology and archaeology. He's Donna's little brother although there isn't much of an age difference between the two of them.

Of all the doctors, he's probably the one I've had the hardest time with.

I know he has a wife who died during the war (I'm thinking that this might be Astrid, for lack of someone better), and that Donna's boyfriend Lee died during the war as well - a lot of people did, during bombings and attacks and that sort of thing - and that with his wife he had a daughter (Jenny) (although I'm also playing around with the idea that he also had a younger daughter, that being Sally - as in Sally from Blink).

In the aftermath of the war, then, he and Donna move in together to help each other out, and eventually their mother and grandfather join them as old age arrives.

Donna meets Shawn in the aftermath and they get on well, and have a very healthy relationship and marriage. On the other hand, we have the Doctor who has the worst situationship ever with Martha.

In the aftermath of his wife's death, he meets Martha who got her medical licence during the war and has been working at Royal Hope since then, and I know that they probably hook up a few times in what is absolutely not recommended.

This is where I get a bit stuck on how things develop from here. I've been getting fonder and fonder of Tenmartha as I think on it more (although Martha does not deserve him) but I do quite like the idea of the two of them coming out of trying to force a relationship and being like...oh we're much better and healthier as friends.

Also, although that epilogue for them came out of nowhere, I do think that Mickey and Martha have a lot of potential as a couple.

There's a lot more I would like to develop here but I shall see what happens as I start writing some more of this.

Eleventh Doctor

The Eleventh Doctor was chosen for his mathematical skill. He's also the youngest of all of them, having just finished his PhD at age 20 as the war broke out.

He's the adopted son of Brian, so Rory's younger brother by a few years, and used to follow him and Amy around like a duckling that had imprinted on the closest moving thing. He did end up going to university quite young (honestly like most of the rest of the doctors) and it's there that he met Strax, Vastra and Jenny who took him under their wing as they were older students.

The war happens before he can really start a job and after the war, he struggles for a bit to find his place, but eventually ends up working with his old university friends in the Paternoster Detective Agency.

Amy and Rory get married after the war - Rory is a nurse at Royal Hope, which he was training for before the war, and Amy is a painter. She always intended on being a model or something like a fashion reporter, but during the war she found painting brought her (and others) the joy that could sometimes be very lacking in such a desperate time.

Her favourite artist is Vincent van Gogh.

They have Melody, although her birth is rife with complications, and so they decide to settle very happily with just the one daughter. She is doted on so completely by everyone, especially her uncle; there's a period when she's like four or five when she is convinced that the Doctor is a secret agent of some sort and gets really into all the spy sort of things.

She makes him play dress up with her and she calls herself River Song because it sounds cool and secret-agenty and the Doctor is her quirky sidekick.

[I debated with putting River Song in as a separate character but I wasn't quite sure what I would do with her? There's potential there for an AU of sorts where she is there, but I unfortunately never quite vibed fully enough with River for her to be a major player in the Main AU]

He lives with the Ponds for a bit after the war, and then moves in with Craig, but when Craig moves out with Sophie, he mopes about it and moves back in with the Ponds.

It's around this time that he meets Clara; she's an English teacher at Cole Hill and her mother went missing nearly five years ago. After trying to get the police to do anything at all, and then saving up the money, she hires the Paternoster gang to find out what happened.

What actually happened is still a bit of a mystery, but she definitely isn't still alive, which the Doctor is the one to tell her the news.

I don't think I'm going to do anything romantic with them but I do think they're quite cute together, so I might dabble. But also I quite like the Doctor being aro and I can see him just living with the Ponds and never leaving.

Twelfth Doctor

The Twelfth Doctor is an astrophysicist. He's spent a lot of his life developing telescopes and astral bodies, but after the war, he mostly just lectures. He's such a longstanding part of St Luke's university that they probably couldn't fire him for anything short of murder.

He's married to Missy quite young, actually, although they never had children; she has spent like half of their marriage in prison though, and now spends most of her time hanging around the Doctor's office being annoying to all his students.

During the war, he did get blinded. It's something he has a complicated relationship with, and does not like it when people mention it around him. He uses a cane when he moves around and wears sunglasses because it hides that his eyes aren't necessarily looking at the person he's talking to.

Again, he has a complicated relationship with it.

Nardole is his teaching assistant, only he's massively overbearing about every aspect of the Doctor's life (only he just manages to be endearing enough that the Doctor doesn't just fire him on the spot).

Bill is, like in canon, someone the Doctor tutors, only now instead of getting to see the galaxy, she has he, Missy and Nardole giving her wildly different yet equally terrible dating advice, which somehow works to get her with Heather.

As for Clara, I genuinely don't know what to do with her; she's such a big part of the Twelfth Doctor's story that I do really want to have her be an important character, but I don't know how. If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them!

Thirteenth Doctor

The Thirteenth Doctor is an expert in microbiology. She's a government researcher into disease for the few years before the war, but after the war, she becomes an A&E nurse. She found that she preferred chaos and wanted something that was less science based but still within her interests.

She's fostered by Graham as a child, which is how she knows him, and subsequently how she comes to know Ryan and Grace, when Graham meets them. Her mother was Tecteun who she was taken away from when she was twelve due to the fact that Tecteun was a piece of shit (as in canon).

She wrote a lot to all of them during the war; out of all the Doctors, she probably spent the most writing letters (apart from maybe Six who wrote to Peri...so much, he spent so much time agonising over writing letters to her).

She knew Yaz from school and they both moved to London after the war - they met up again when they both returned from the war, and they decided that a change of scenery from the place they grew up might do them good.

London was one of the main targets during the war so there was a lot of practical work and training to do in both the police force and in nursing (which is what the Doctor wants to go into); they stay in shared accomodation and volunteer to help with the rebuilding effort in some of their free time.

When the rebuilding is mostly finished and everything has started to even out again, they stay in London; the Doctor has a job at Royal Hope and Yaz has found her footing in the local police force. They visit Sheffield a lot though, and invite Ryan to stay with them a lot, so he can get away from all the Old People.

Fourteenth Doctor

The Fourteenth Doctor technically doesn't exist. The Doylist reasoning for this is because there was far too little that separated the Fourteenth Doctor out to make him his own character in a modern AU; the Watsonian is because there was meant to be a Fourteenth member of the Doctor Project but he died in transit to the first meeting. Out of respect, the rest skip over the number that was meant to be his.

I've played around with the idea that the Fourteenth and the Tenth Doctor were siblings/related/possibly twins but I think this might be more of an AU sort of thing.

Fifteenth Doctor

Obviously we haven't had the Fifteenth Doctor's actual first season yet or much of anything for him (very excited for it though) so this is very much a work in progress - I'll make more decisions about his story after the season has come out and I've watched it; from vibes alone though, I think he'd be possibly an expert in sociology, and after the war he would own a club or something similar, where Ruby would get herself a job.

Notes and Stuff

Congratulations for getting this far lol! This AU is very precious to me and gets bigger every time I watch a new episode/listen to a new drama/rewatch/relisten/etc.

There are a few general things I'd probably note: all the Doctors have like...actual names (mostly John or a variation there of) but I refer to them all as the Doctor because that's what rolls off the tongue more easily.

Another thing is Idris/the Tardis - on one hand, the original idea was that she would die and her funeral would be the thing to get the Doctors back together so to say, but the more I think about it, the more I would like her to live.

I'm planning on writing some fic for this AU and posting it to AO3 - there's a Sixperi fic I really want to write, and I'm a sucker for some family fluff with various Doctors - and I might draw some stuff, so stick around if you're interested :)

I've only been really into Doctor who for four or five months, and with such an expansive EU (and frankly, such a lot of main content), there's a lot I don't know (although I very much intend to know it one day). If you got this far, I would honestly love to hear your general thoughts and ideas on the AU, a lot of the Eleventh Doctor stuff I worked out was developed from conversation I had with a friend!

Anyway, thank you for getting this far! And thank you for the ask to let me ramble, it took me a while to get all the rambling together but now I've finished, I'm really pleased I got here.

#Doctor Who #First Doctor #Second Doctor #Third Doctor #Fourth Doctor #Fifth Doctor #Sixth Doctor #Seventh Doctor #Eighth Doctor #Ninth Doctor #Tenth Doctor #Eleventh Doctor #Twelfth Doctor #Thirteenth Doctor #Fourteenth Doctor #Fifteenth Doctor #Doctor Who Modern AU #Time Petals #Sixperi #Thoschei #also if you are interested in hearing about any of my other AUs #I can elaborate on those too #I have a Bad Wolf sort of fic where Rose ends up travelling with each of the Doctors in turn #(because I'm a Rose girlie at heart)#I also had an idea for an Eleventh Doctor fic where he actually did come back when Amy was still seven #And another where Mel is a Time Anomaly (don't ask me where that idea came from lol)#Also one where Romana stays with the Doctor and the two of them spend the rest of eternity giving the Time Lords the middle finger #I am about to listen to the first season of the Gallifrey audios but I just think Romana should get to hang out in the TARDIS being iconic #for the rest of time #I also have another modern AU where the Doctor is multiple people

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lifeofkaze · 3 years

Text

When Stars Ignite - Chapter 14

HPHM Rockstar AU

A/N: Katriona Cassopeia (in mention) belongs to the gorgeous @kc-and-oc

General Warning: This whole fic has a general warning of being NSFW / 18+. We will give specific warnings for every chapter in itself, but several adult themes will be more or less present in every chapter, may it be explicitly or in mention. These include sexual topics, drug abuse, (ab)use of alcohol, smoking and a whole lot of cursing.

Specific Warning:

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Find the masterpost here, the previous chapter here and the next one here. The songs featured before every chapter can be found on this pretty badass playlist here.

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This work is a collaboration with @the-al-chemist

Taglist: @slytherindisaster @carewyncromwell @night-rhea @thatravenpuffwitch

Man, we were killin' time We were young and restless We needed to unwind I guess nothin' can last forever Forever, no… ~ Bryan Adams - Summer of ‘69 ~

Much to his relief, Orion’s fear of having been discovered seemed to prove unwarranted. Skye was a direct person, never shy to speak her mind; if she had truly seen something not meant for her eyes during the interview, Orion was sure she’d have already come and spoken to either of them.

But nothing of the sort had happened. She had acted just like she always did and his first surge of worry had died down again. Sometimes even the most focused mind was prone to being tricked and, as he had to admit to himself, focus was something he found himself lacking in these days.

It wasn’t only because of Lizzie’s teasing getting riskier that he found his mind wandering more often than not. Ever since the show they were meant to be playing for the children from the foster system had shown its face on the horizon, an ever present restlessness had been growing in Orion.

Dreams that he had pushed to the edges of his mind a long time ago had started haunting him again; they kept coming back whenever they held an event stirring the buried memories of his childhood. He loved seeing the light in the children’s faces when they were spending time with them; he knew it was a rare sight, after all. The emotional mess Orion carried back with him afterwards was the dark side of the coin, however.

The charity event was scheduled for the next day; they were to play a small acoustic set for the children in the afternoon and their regular show only a few hours later on top. To keep their spirits high before the double load, Ethan had scheduled a day off for them.

The weather was still uncharacteristically hot and so most of the band and crew had found themselves at the small pool on the rooftop of their hotel. Much to everyone’s surprise, even Artemis had joined them.

Charlie had followed Skye’s advice to take Artemis for drinks a few days prior. He had been unusually tight-lipped about it when they had asked him how it had gone down.

“It was good,” he had shrugged, “told you she’s not as bad as you all think.”

While the young pyro tech still kept her distance from the rest of them, Orion had seen her chatting with Charlie outside of their work on stage since then. He was glad she seemed to be taking a step into the right direction, lowering her armour even for the tiniest bit.

But Artemis’ tentative attempts at integrating herself with their group lounging by the pool were counteracted as soon as she took her shirt off. Everett audibly wolf-whistled at her black bikini with surprisingly colourful patterns crisscrossing it. Her withering glare was met with a lewd grin as Artemis picked up her stuff and dumped it on the deckchair farthest away from them.

Lizzie gave Everett a smack on the back of his head. “Well done, Ev, you’ve scared her away. I wanted to have a chat with her.”

Everett looked at her over the rim of his sunglasses. “I’m not stopping you. Two beauties in bikinis getting close? Who would I be to object? You could rub her back with sunscreen.”

He laughed to himself. “If Artemis isn’t up for it, I’m always here for you, gorgeous.”

A hint of the same irritation Orion felt flickered over Lizzie’s face. “You’re a real mood today.”

She got up from her own deckchair and started over in Artemis’ direction anyway, but was stopped by Charlie catching onto her wrist.

“Woah, where are you going, little rockstar?”

“Go and talk to Artemis, see if I can convince her to come over if Ev shuts up.” She gave the singer lounging in his chair a dark look.

“Nah, I don’t think so,” Charlie said and pulled her down next to him. “Trust me, if you push her you’ll be the one scaring her away. She’ll come over if she wants to.”

Lizzie opened her mouth to object but Charlie shook his head. “You can’t force her, sunshine.”

“Fine,” Lizzie snorted, not pleased by the situation, “so what’re we gonna do now?” She nodded in the direction of the pool. “Anyone up for a round of water polo?”

Everett declined, preferring to seek a better place to tan, while Merula did the opposite and withdrew to the shade with a book. So it was Charlie, Lizzie, Andre and Skye who made their way to the water. Orion would have joined them, but he was preoccupied with some ideas that had been floating around in his head since that morning; he wanted to write them down before he’d forget them.

He was lying on his stomach on his deckchair, notebook open in front of him, but found it hard to concentrate. The match of water polo going on in the pool had turned into some kind of wrestling match, like it always did eventually. Lizzie and Skye were sitting on Charlie’s and Andre’s shoulders respectively, trying to knock the other into the water; a lot of giggling and shouting was involved as they fought for the upper hand.

What really distracted him though, was the way the sunlight was refracting in the water droplets on Lizzie’s skin when she moved. It let her slender body shimmer, her tan she always got so quickly in the summer months a beautiful contrast to the vibrant red of her bikini. Her wet hair looked a lot darker than it actually was and it was clinging to her back.

Skye almost managed to knock her off Charlie’s shoulder and Lizzie laughed as she righted herself again. It was the kind of laugh that made her stand out amongst all the others, bright and captivating. It gave her an aura that was impossible to escape, drawing eyes whenever she entered a scene. She had the ability to light up a whole room with her smile, as fresh and beautiful as a sunrise.

“I’d say I’m 95.9 % sure what you’re staring at, my friend,” Orion suddenly heard the voice of Murphy next to him, “or should I rather say who?”

Orion tried not to let his surprise show; he had been so lost in thought that he hadn’t heard his best friend approach. “Your meaning is obscure to me,” he answered evasively. “I’m simply trying to work here.”

Murphy couldn’t hide his smirk. “When you’re working, your attention is usually 87.5 % focused on your work, more if no one is distracting you. Four out of five times you don’t even react when spoken to.” He glanced down at the mostly blank page of Orion’s notebook. “Today I’d say your focus is reduced to abysmal 30.9 %.” Never missing a detail, his eyes flicked to the still on-going wrestling match in the pool.

With a sigh, Orion closed his notebook and rested his head on his arms. Murphy was far too observant to be lied to, but he didn’t have to know all the details either.

He indicated their laughing friends with a slight nod of his head. “It is good that our friends are having a great time, it strengthens their bond of friendship. But they are making a lot of noise, it’s bound to draw attention.”

The dismissive sound Murphy was making clearly showed that he wasn’t buying it. “It’s obvious they’re distracting you. But from what I’ve seen, 95.5 % of the time you’ve spent looking at them were devoted to one of the pairs, and while I do have to admit that Andre’s new gold bangles are surprisingly flashy and apparently water resistant, I highly doubt it was him that drew your attention, same goes for Skye, although her hair usually is an eye catcher, I’ll give you that. That leaves Charlie and dear Lizzie, and last time I checked, you weren’t one for redheads, that’s more my thing. Not that I want to say I find Charlie particularly attractive, although some might say so, but I digress. So only one option remains, and as the one and only master of logical deductions, the great Sherlock Holmes, once said, ‘Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable…”

“...must be the truth’,” Orion finished with a sigh. “I know the quote. You're quoting numbers all day every day, do you really feel the need to go into literature as well now?"

Ignoring him, Murphy was grinning from ear to ear, clearly satisfied with his conclusions. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

Orion wasn’t answering immediately; he didn’t like Murphy’s prying at all. “Are you done, Detective McNully?”

“Fine, don’t answer me then, I don’t need confirmation,” Murphy snorted. “The stats never lie, my friend.”

Orion rolled his eyes, hoping Murphy wouldn’t delve into another one of his statistical sprees. Although he was right in that his numbers were seldom wrong, Orion himself preferred a more open-minded view of his surroundings to Murphy’s cold, analytical observations; especially, if these observations were directed at his own behaviour.

But of course, Murphy wasn’t deterred. “To the attentive observer, which of course you know that I am, all the facts are there. Eight out of ten times your mood changes for the better when Lizzie enters the room. Seven out of ten times she starts smiling when she looks at you. You two look at each other during shows and soundtracks 46.4 % more often than at the others and yes, I factored out the times when you need to because of the cues she’s giving you, thanks a lot for asking. You hug each other at the end of the shows significantly longer as well. When you leave the backstage area, you’re never leaving together but almost always in close succession.”

The blond sound technician crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Are you really sure there isn’t anything you want to tell me?”

Orion was more than a little shocked at all the facts Murphy had just thrown at him. “I had no idea it was that obvious.”

Murphy shrugged, a sly smile appearing on his face. “Only to me. You’ve been my best friend for as long as I can remember, and my above average observational skills, which of course not everyone possesses, solved 82.3 % of the mystery.”

“What’s with the rest?”

“What I can offer in facts, I sometimes lack in interpreting. Katriona connected the dots.”

“Obviously,” Orion sighed.

“So, what’s the deal with you two? Are you dating?” A frown appeared on Murphy’s face. “I thought you had a clause about this in your contracts. Ethan’s not going to like this.”

Orion vehemently shook his head. “No, you got that wrong. We’re not dating, everything is just like it has always been. We’re just enjoying additional pastimes, which - I’ll give you that - may exceed a regular friendship.”

He looked at Murphy intently. “No one besides you knows about this, and I would appreciate it if it stayed that way.”

Murphy made a non-committal sound. “Of course this doesn’t include Katriona.”

“As if any of us could keep a secret from her.”

“I normally don’t go for absolutes but that’s 100 % true,” Murphy laughed. He looked at Orion curiously. “So how long has this thing between you and Lizzie been going on now?”

“A while,” Orion answered evasively.

“The definition of ‘a while’ ranges from two weeks to up to a year. Judging by my numbers, it’s definitely not the former. Doesn’t sound like a short lived fling to me.”

“I wouldn’t call it a fling,” Orion said; it was surprisingly hard to put what was going on between them into words. “But we’re definitely not emotionally involved with each other. It’s not a matter of the heart, more of a physical extension built on the base of our friendship.”

Murphy leaned back into his wheelchair and grinned. “The old classic, friends with benefits.”

“If that’s the label you want to stick on it.”

Murphy hummed in response, following Orion’s gaze to the pool again. His voice was quieter when he spoke this time. “Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

“Why wouldn’t it be? We are both on the same page about it.”

“Just saying, things like these seldomly work out as well as they start. Approximately 89.6 % of physical relationships end in chaos, tears or both.”

The memory of his own initial worry emerged in the back of Orion’s mind. He watched as Skye gave Lizzie a final push that sent her toppling from Charlie’s shoulders. She shrieked before she crashed into the water, but was already laughing again when she resurfaced; Orion firmly pushed his concerns away.

“It won’t escalate with us,” he said. “Both of us value our friendship, and the fate of Equinox even more so. We’ve established very clear rules. I appreciate your worries, but they are misplaced.”

“As much as I love rules for the structure they’re bringing, rules can easily be broken,” Murphy said. “Just be careful, okay? Mixing friendship with sex can be a lot of fun but the devil’s in the detail.”

They both watched Lizzie climbing out of the pool and heading over into their direction. When she passed Everett, he pulled down his sunglasses and watched after her, his eyes very slowly travelling up and down her body. He said something to her Orion couldn’t hear, but Lizzie only rolled her eyes, shot something back and continued on her way. Murphy's eyes flicked from her to Orion.

“Aren’t you bothered with Ev hitting on her?”

Orion shrugged. “Why would I? She’s not my girlfriend, and she can perfectly handle herself, as you’ve just seen.”

“That she undoubtedly can,” Murphy laughed, “I’ll better be off now and leave you two alone. I wonder where my beautiful wife is. I haven’t seen her in quite a while now.”

#hphm #hogwarts mystery #harry potter hogwarts mystery #orion amari #murphy mcnully #lizzie jameson #lizion #rockstar au #when stars ignite #wsi #besties collaborate

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xcherry-popx · 3 years

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if its not too weird to ask, could you write some posts abt rad + asd (either one or both/abt comorbidity)? cuz i wanna find more info abt them & i saw stuff saying asd/rad cmrbidity was impossible too & think i may have both. i have zero access to mental health help atm and will for a pretty long time so im just doing what i can as i wait, document my symptoms and stuff and try to cope, for now. (btw im saying this 2 clarify tht im not trying to be invasive or out of curiosty. sry its so long)

It's no problem! Honestly, I'm excited to hear about someone like me, with how uncommon it is. No need to worry about it being long, because my answer ended up long as well ^-^;;

I wrote this quicker than I expected, so please forgive any mistakes, and feel free to ask for clarification.

I’m mostly going to use the term ‘RAD’ (reactive attachment disorder), but a lot of this information applies to DAD (disinhibited attachment disorder) as well. I was diagnosed when they were still grouped together as RAD.

If any information does not apply to both, I’ll specify the differences between them.

First off: there is no reason autism and RAD can’t be comorbid. Now, most psychologist insist that they cannot exist together, but this is outdated. Unfortunatly, because RAD is so uncommon, very little discussion occurs, and thus any progress in understanding the disorder takes a bit of time.

Fortunately, some discussion has begun. This study is one from 2017. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27895198/

As of now, it’s the only scholarly discussion, but hopefully that will change in time.

Essentially, autism is something you’re born with, while Reactive Attachment Disorder is the result of severe neglect or mistreatment.

The study found that several children diagnosed with RAD met the criteria for autism. The difference in children with autism and RAD vs children with only RAD can be distinguished by focusing on traits specific to autism.

That’s actually how I first suspected I had both: I looked through several diagnosis lists and checked whether I had symptoms exclusive to each list.

One of the current diagnostic criteria for RAD and DAD is that the child cannot also be diagnosed with autism. This is because RAD, and later, DAD, were often used to explain ‘autistic-like behavior’ in children who either did not show signs of autism early on, or who experienced severe mistreatment.

The main reason this is outdated is because it relies on the belief that autistic individuals do not form attachments to caregivers, which many autistic people will tell you is false. That all relates back to the idea that because autistic people show affection differently, they do not feel it the way allistic people do, which is, again, false.

It’s often difficult to get an RAD diagnosis, much less one along with an autism diagnosis. However, it’s not impossible, although for me it involved two different diagnosises that my grandma and I realized made most sense together.

Under the cut, I’m going to talk more generally about RAD and DAD as well as about my experiences.

You said you don't have much access to mental health help, but I felt I should include this next segment anyways.

Attachment therapy, one of the most well-known treatments, is harmful. I would suggest avoiding it. It goes against attachment theory, the basis of RAD. I don’t say this to scare you, but it is coercive and has resulted in death in some cases. You can look into it yourself, but it is rather sickening for me, so please take care if you do so.

While most advice involves making sure the child has an emotionally available ‘attachment figure’, usually a caretaker, that assumes you would want someone to connect to that way.

As someone with inhibited type RAD, I always struggled when people asked if I wanted to be closer to my grandma. To me, we were like strangers, maybe coworkers. I didn't want to open up to her, and so I still don’t.

I believe that, while it’s nice to have a friendly relationship with caretakers, it’s not necessary. For me, it’s always been more important to have friends I can open up to.

Don’t feel pressured to form an emotionally intimate relationship if you don’t want to or feel ready for it. I still don’t think I’m close to my grandma, but we feel like acquaintances now, and that’s enough for me. You don’t have to force a relationship, but don’t be afraid if you want to start one.

Of course, you may have different experiences, or be in a different place with your caretakers, but since I've struggled with that aspect I wanted to talk about it.

Most treatment for RAD is under the assumption that the child is young, which I assume you are not. In general, I suggest finding people you can trust, if you don’t have them already. I don’t want to make too many assumptions here, so if you want more specific advice feel free to ask me.

While RAD is the result of mistreatment such as abuse or neglect, it’s rare even among those who have experienced such things. There’s some debate on why it occurs, and I believe many theories suggest disposition can make one susceptible? But I’m not entirely certain on that front. Also, I’d like to clarify one thing. While most criteria says the mistreatment must begun before age five, it’s not necessary. What happened to me was when I was 11, and it changed me enough that I gained a official diagnosis of RAD a few years later. What matters is how it affected you, not when it occurred.

Now, I’ve mentioned there’s a difference between RAD and DAD, but I haven’t specified what it is. I'll explain that, but to do so I need to talk about how they form.

The basis of RAD and DAD is what’s called attachment theory. This states that young children need strong bond with at least one caregiver to develop. The bonds with their caregivers dictate how their attachment style forms. However, RAD and DAD have their own types of attachment, referred to as inhibited attachment and disinhibited attachment.

They used to both be classified as RAD, separated under the categories ‘inhibited type’ and ‘disinhibited type’.

Many people with inhibited or disinhibited type will show signs of both, but can usually be classified as one or the other. I am inhibited type, but when I was younger I showed signs of disinhibited type in places such as school.

Inhibited attachment is what’s known as Reactive Attachment Disorder. It’s more common in mistreated children. This type is when a child avoids or ignores caregivers, often not showing affection unless convinced to.

Disinhibted attachment is what’s now known as Disinhibited Attachment Disorder. This is more common in children in institutions or group homes. This type shows affection to any and all adults. They are quick to trust strangers. When my grandma worked in foster care, she had some children who, after less than a day of meeting her, would cling to her leg and beg her to take them home.

In this case, inhibited types struggle to form attachments, while disinhibited types will form attachments quickly and easily, with no preference towards their caregivers.

I think that’s all for official information, so I'll talk a bit about my experiences with RAD.

Honestly, it’s isolating. It’s often seen as something that happens to children, and no one talked about adults with it. There’s numerous psychologists who’ll misdiagnose it in foster teens for not showing affection to adoptive parents ‘the way theyʻre supposed to’. Many people treat people with RAD or DAD as ‘psychopaths’, and there’s numerous times I’ve seen it listed as ‘terrifying’, even among the social workers that meet kids with it.

It's discouraging. But I want to tell you that you aren’t alone. I’d be happy to talk to you about your experiences, and share my own. I have hope that people will begin to recognize this disorder despite how uncommon it is, and see it for what it is.

In any case, I hope you are able to find the diagnosis you need, even if it doesn’t turn out to be this one. I wish you the best of luck!

#rad #reactive attachment disorder #disinhibited attachment disorder #i feel like ive said this repeatedly but. feel free to reach out! im happy to help in any way i can

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overwatch-does-stuff · 3 years

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Lindholm Family Headcanon Dump!

I know Michael Chu retracted the statement that Torbjorn has a bunch of kids, but Chu just quit so I make the rules now. It’s a LONG post under the cut because I got carried away. Mostly starring Torbjorn, but featuring Ingrid, Reinhardt, and Brigitte (plus a bunch of other kiddos that exist but I don’t have headcanon names for yet oops.) There won’t be any Bastion in this one because that’s an entire other post’s worth of content.

- Torb has a big family. He and Ingrid had a couple children of their own while he had a stable position in Overwatch, but they found out that they loved having little children around the house, so after all of their biological children moved out, they chose to volunteer in the foster system! This lead to them adopting at least four more kids. - Which means they drive a huge van everywhere. - Both Ingrid and Torbjorn are masters at driving as a result. - They’re exactly equivalent in skill with one exception: Ingrid can parallel park the van, a skill he has yet to figure.

- Their house is pretty big (the Overwatch paycheck paid well, that, along with Ingrid’s income,) so there’s plenty of room for all of them. - There’s three levels: upstairs (for the bedrooms and playrooms,) downstairs (for entertaining spaces/the kitchen and stuff,) and finally, the basement, which is Torbjorn’s personal workshop. - Most third world countries would kill to have a workshop as good as his. - It’s all because Ingrid spoils him so much. He gets just as excited for Christmas as his kiddos do. - “The latest arc welder? Aww, honey, you shouldn’t have!” - Ingrid doesn’t work in his field, but she listens to his special interests dumps, and puts in enough research of her own, that she knows just what to get him every year. - Ingrid doesn’t like getting gifts as much as he does, so for Christmas, he always makes sure to spend quality time with her. He jokes that he ‘sucks at planning dates’ but he really doesn’t! For her, it’s nothing but the top restaurants and most exciting experiences. She loves going ice skating in particular, something that he hates but will always do with her. - Torbjorn and Ingrid split the cooking equally. They’re a bit traditionally gendered with what they like to cook, with Torb leaning more towards grilling and Ingrid preferring baking, but it suits them just fine. - Their grill, along with every other cooking contraption in the house, has been upgraded in some way. In fact, Torb’s the one who grills only because Ingrid still can’t figure out how to use the damn thing since he upgraded it. - Their house is covered in contraptions of all sorts. Other than the grill, Ingrid utilizes every single one of them. Meals get served and sent around via chutes. The floors sweep and mop themselves automatically when they’re dirty. The dishwasher loads, washes, and unloads itself in record time. - You know the zany contraptions in the Addam’s family house? Think that, but more brightly colored. - However, Ingrid’s taste in interior decorating is the opposite of gothic or minimalist- she loves quirky, unique features and bright colors. - She loves thrifting. - The huge chair they got for Reinhardt in the living room was a thrift store find that she’s still very proud of. - She also has an old-fashioned “live laugh love” wall with all of the family portraits. She knows it’s cheesy, but it’s nostalgic for her. - She doesn’t just bring furniture home. She also brings home cats. - That’s right. Brigitte got her cat love from Ingrid. - It’s a long-standing tradition, with the first cat she brought home was over thirty years ago when they were a new couple. - Torbjorn swore that it would be her cat and that he wouldn’t take care of it. - He was wrong. - Very wrong. - He now loves his cats and calls them cutesy nicknames in whatever language he feels like in the moment. - He built them automated feeders, automated litter boxes, and even some automated toys. He spoils them rotten. - Every time Ingrid brings home a new cat it’s the same routine. He swears that this will be the last one and that he’s not taking care of this one! But that’s wrong and he knows it. - But, because Ingrid’s always bringing things home, she’s a little more tolerant when Torbjorn brings. . . a specific Omnic. . . home.

- But that’s a whole other fanfic that I would need to write, so instead, back to the parenting! - Ingrid is 100% a feral soccer mom. Torbjorn is just as bad. - They’re the ones screaming their lungs out at sports games. - They have a house rule where their kids have to participate in one extracurricular sport. It can be school teams, club teams, or even just working out on their own, but fitness is something that both Ingrid and Torb consider important. - Torbjorn, of course, built his own gym in the basement. He trained with Brigitte, and now he trains with another one of his daughters who’s taken an interest in weight-lifting. - But this all doesn’t mean that the Lindholms discourage more creative talents! - Torbjorn crafted a giant steel board where any arts and crafts get hung with magnets. One of his little boys is an artist and he couldn’t be more proud. - Brigitte experimented with metal art when she was a teenager, and many of her pieces are now permanent fixtures in the Lindholm home. - She crafted a particularly beautiful string of lights that hangs above the dining room table.

- Now it’s time for Uncle Reinhardt!!! - Okay, so maybe he’s called just ‘Reinhardt’ by the older kiddos, but everyone knows he’s essentially an uncle in all but blood. - He’s been invited to every holiday celebration for about. . . actually, he’s just always been there. - He’s a true multi-generational staple. Brigitte can’t remember a holiday without him, and now the younger kiddos are getting doted on by him every Christmas. - Rein loves telling stories for the children. He spends the entire car ride there planning his multi-hour epics. - Now that she’s older, Brigitte sometimes helps with the storytelling, contributing sound effects and such. - Something which just causes Torbjorn to laugh and shake his head. - Reinhardt also loves nothing more than being a walking jungle gym. As soon as he walks in the door, he’ll grab the nearest kiddo and put them on his shoulders. He’s often seen walking around with a kid in each arm and usually an extra hanging off his back. - Sometimes he gives Ingrid a heart attack when he starts throwing kids around, but hey, she’s known him long enough at this point that she (mostly) trusts him. - Everyone gets sad when Reinhardt has to leave, but he insists that there is justice that needs to be done. He soothes the kiddos by promising an even better story when he gets back.

- Now it’s time to get sad. . . here’s my Brigitte headcanons. . . - Brigitte was REALLY close with her father growing up. She spent so much of her time in his workshop learning from him, as one of the only Lindholm children to take a liking to machinery and engineering. - However, when she moved out. . . she found it difficult to escape his legacy. Everyone, many of the older industry professionals and the like, expected her to be just like her father. They tried to cajole her into finishing old weapons designs that Torbjorn had abandoned. - It was then that she learned the full extent of Torbjorn’s involvement in the Omnic Crisis. - She had a lot of trouble reconciling this news with her love for him. It’s still something she had great difficulty with. - This shock played a big part in her decision to give up on finding a job in the industry and instead accompany Reinhardt on his travels. - It wasn’t a decision that Torbjorn endorsed, which hurt their relationship even further. - But it’s not like he doesn’t try to keep in touch. They call every other weekend or so to catch up, but there’s always a tension between them that neither one is ready to address. - They will talk about it someday. They’ll figure things out. They care about each other too much for either one to give up. - In the meantime, though, Brigitte has gotten a lot closer with her mother. She calls her much more often. - They talk about all of the things that Brigitte wasn’t all that interested in when she was younger. Stuff like fashion, makeup, and more traditional advice, such as how to get a date or what it feels like to fall in love. - Ingrid also makes sure to show her how the cats are doing over the online call.

- To be truthful, Ingrid isn’t too worried about Brigitte’s decision to live the rough-and-tumble lifestyle. It reminds her a lot of her own young adulthood, where she decided to pick up everything and move to the big city to get away from her parents. - She’s quick to remind Torbjorn that her own little rebellion is how they came to meet whenever he gets worried about Brigitte’s decision. - (They met at Ironclad. The only job Ingrid could find after her big move was working secretary. She fell head-over-heels for him immediately, while it took him a while to warm up.) - (Their first date was just walking around the city, with Torbjorn talking almost the entire time about random things he saw. He’d see the newest cars on the street and dive into what he knew about that industry. They’d pass by a construction sight and he’d point out what tool designs were similar to the ones he was working on.) - (When he realized that she was actually listening to him and taking him seriously, he agreed to a second date and never looked back.) - They aren’t a perfect couple- they’ve had their fair share of arguments, especially because they’re both deeply stubborn, but they’re always able to work it out in a way that makes them both happy. That skill is why they’ve lasted so long. - One thing they’ve never argued about, though, is Torbjorn’s commitment to duty. When they started dating he made it clear that his work was very important to him. Ingrid made it clear that she was willing to be patient. - It got hard when he was away for months at a time with Overwatch during the Crisis and its aftermath, but through constant online calls they managed. - The biggest surprise of Ingrid’s life was when he told her he wanted to have kids when the Crisis ended. - Turns out, having a major life crisis about how your career impacted the world makes someone want to find another purpose in life besides their career. - And thus, they dove into parenthood together. - Now they both couldn’t be happier :)

#overwatch #torbjorn lindholm #overwatch torbjorn #ingrid lindholm #reinhardt #overwatch brigitte #brigitte lindholm #I have so many feelings about Torbjorn and his family. . .#I'm not sure this is very articulate but eh #who cares #it's content

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broken-clover · 4 years

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AU-gust Day 12- Modern

Here comes a joker! I really did like the idea of a crime au, but I just couldn’t come up with anything. So here’s something I’ve been wanting to make for a while, kinda inspired by an ask I got from Rex way back when. I just liked the idea of Axl being Bedman’s adopted dad, I thought it was neat!

Also apologies in advance for me using my name headcanons again, it’s just so difficult to work with a character whose name is ‘Bedman.’ Seriously, does he have a less bizarre name in canon? Who the fuck would name their kids ‘Delilah’ and ‘Bedman?’ Guess we know who the favorite was...

“I don’t like you.”

Axl wasn’t sure what he’d expected when he first signed up for the local foster program. Well, he sorta did. Ideally, he’d expected to be tasked with taking care of a child, with whatever bizarreness it would entail. He knew he wasn’t exactly what a lot of people would consider ‘prime material’ for a foster parent- he was an unmarried twentysomething with no clear direction on where he wanted to go with his life, but he was financially stable, passed all the agency’s legal checks and drug screenings, and attended every mandatory pre-service class alongside a small crew of other aspiring parents. Despite his best efforts, he always got the impression that the agency took issue with him being there. Still, Axl did everything he was told, waited patiently, and chatted with his assigned caseworker until they had found a match for him to try out.

Matthew had come with a ratty purple backpack, a seemingly-permanent scowl, and a laundry list of behavior problems tacked onto his case file. Axl wasn’t his first foster parent, he’d already gone through nearly a dozen, all of which had sent him back. The reasons varied, from destroyed appliances to constant verbal fighting. And he made it clear right from the get-go that he despised his new foster home just as much from the first words he uttered.

“I don’t like you. Send me back.”

It seemed nobody really knew where the origin of his ire was. Being pushed back and forth through the foster system again and again for years seemed like a perfectly good reason to be cross, at least in Axl’s opinion, but the way the orphanage and his agent had spoken about it made it sound like Matthew was born with a scowl on his face and just didn’t know how to take it off. They seemed surprised by the concept that he was even being placed in another foster home. The repeated failures and inability to get along with anyone seemed to indicate that he was doomed to take the slow path, waiting a few more years until he turned 18 and aged out of the system on his own.

In spite of their initial rough meeting, Axl did his best to welcome him warmly. He’d set up and painted a room ahead of time for his new family member to live in, acquired all the legal documents he needed for everything from school enrollment to medical files, and stored up a plethora of dad jokes that he could use as he needed. Matthew was unimpressed with all of them.

“I hate this place. When are you sending me back?”

For all the snarky comments and indifference he could manage, Axl didn’t budge. He was patient. He would keep trying.

Though he only knew so much about him from his case file (Matthew despised small talk, and Axl didn’t drag him into it), he’d done his best to support the interests he saw. He bought the science books he noticed the boy staring at in the shop windows, and trying to pick out new cartridges for the game system he barely let out of his sight. He seemed like the intellectual type, reading college-level books on social sciences and linguistics, and he preferred strategy games over any other kind. Axl wasn’t much of a bookworm himself, maybe that’s what made it so difficult for them to connect. But even if he couldn’t match him on an intellectual level, maybe he could still do so on a more personal one.

So he stayed patient.

“Why are you being so stubborn…?”

Axl could tell he was at least getting somewhere. They didn’t exactly have casual time together, not really, but he wasn’t immediately shooed away. Matthew could play his games, or read a book, and Axl could sit on the other side of the room. Every time, he inched closer and closer, until the only option left was for them to sit on the same couch.

“Heya, Mattie, mind if I sit down for a sec?"

It had been a quiet evening, not especially remarkable in any way. Just another day of work and school for the both of them, and free time afterward to unwind.

His son glanced up at him, but only for the briefest of moments. “You have more than one chair.”

“Yeah, but I just wanted to sit with you today. Is that okay?”

“...Fine. But don’t touch me.”

Axl sat himself down on the other side of the sofa. “So...how was school?”

“Don’t want to talk about it.”

The sheer speed of his response threw him off-guard. “Well, okay. Um, did I already tell you that I like the neat thing you’ve got going on with your hair?” He pointed towards the boy’s messily-dyed purple locks.

“Eight times. Nine now.”

“You do it yourself?”

“In my last house’s bathtub.”

“Must’ve been a right mess! But it looks like it turned out good?”

“It was. My foster mom was mad about the mess I made. So she wound up screaming at me over it. And I screamed back. And before I knew it, she sent me back. It’s on my case file, I thought you said you read it.”

Axl felt his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth. Well, open mouth, insert foot. He had read it, multiple times, but all it had listed was ‘confrontational issues and repeated arguments.’ He’d wondered exactly what that had meant, but actually figuring it out made him feel the exact opposite of satisfied.

“...Oh. Sounds like a right bitch.”

“She was. Can you stop asking questions now? I’m bored of them.”

He complied, though the ensuing silence only made everything feel more uncomfortable. He just didn’t get why some people screamed at their kids, mistakes just happened sometimes. Children were still learning how things worked, it seemed natural sometimes it would end in a mess.

“Hey.”

“I don’t wanna talk.”

“And I’m not gonna make you.” Axl stayed where he was. “Is it okay if I talk, though? You don’t have to say anything back.”

No response. But he didn’t get up and leave, like he had done in the past, so Axl took it as a cue to keep going. “I know you’re probably not gonna like me right away. And that’s ok. I’m still a total stranger, and you’re just expected to trust me to look after you. And I’ve seen all your paperwork, but that doesn’t mean I know anything about you as a person. We’re still strangers, the two of us.”

He paused. Matthew looked unfazed. “So I get it. I really do. I’m…” Axl tried to think of what he wanted to say. “I...

I’m not sending you back.”

Still no response. But Axl noticed the way his hands locked, and the little startled double-blink that came with it.

“If we’ve got issues, we can work ‘em out. I know you’ve been through a lot, so it’s ok if you have a rough time at first. And I’m not gonna throw you out as soon as you have a hard time. I totally get it. You’re not a bloody dog, I’m not gonna pretend like I can tame you with treats until you do whatever I tell you. There’s just some stuff we aren’t ever going to see eye-to-eye on. But no matter what, you’re my kid now, and you’re not going anywhere unless that’s what you really want.”

Slowly, uncertainly, he watched Matthew close his game and let it rest in his lap. He didn’t look up. “I want to be a good parent. I know I’m new at this, too, so I might fuck up a couple of times. I just want you to know that I’m ready to be your dad, and that means loving you no matter what.”

After another quiet, uncomfortable moment, a small voice piped up. “I’m not good at jokes, but yours aren’t funny.”

“It’s not a joke.” Axl replied. “I mean it.”

“It’s not funny!” It sounded more forceful the second time. His voice grew brittle. “You should send me back. Why won’t you send me back?”

“Why would I do that? You’re all set up in your room, and moving is a pain.” Axl tried to throw in a little friendly chuckle, but it didn't hide the unease in his voice. "Why would you think I would want to get rid of you?"

“I- I’m not-” His tone finally snapped, and his shoulders began to tremble. “I’m no good.”

He found himself hesitating for a moment, but Axl scooted closer, wrapping arms around his shoulders and giving his son a tight squeeze. “Nobody’s perfect. And I wouldn’t want you to be, anyway. I just want you to be you. Whatever that means.”

The two of them simply sat there for a while. This certainly hadn’t been in any of the advice books he’d read, but this was something Axl didn’t mind doing on his own. He just hoped he had expressed what he needed to.

He didn’t even think of letting go until he felt squirming against him. Matthew immediately picked up his game again and flipped it open. No acknowledgement at all. But...no, that was fine. He said he would accept him no matter what he was. If he didn’t like to talk about his feelings, then he didn’t need to force it.

“...help me with this turn.”

“Huh?” Curious, Axl shuffled closer to get a better look at his screen. “Wait, is this the one I got you?”

The boy nodded. “The mechanics are simplistic and the strategy elements are child’s play, but...I’ve had a lot of fun with it.” He tapped at something on his screen. “Alright. So right now my troops are stationed outside the dragon king’s fortress. How should they be organized when we open our assault?”

Well, he wasn’t much of a strategist, but he had no trouble giving it a go, anyway. “Uhh, definitely want to have some long-range stuff, right? So you can hit from a distance. Got anything for that?”

Another nod. “There’s a whole subclass for that, let me show you. There’s archers, a trebuchet, long-distance casters, and demolitionists. Each of them have a different set of stats and energy cost.”

“Why don’t you explain them to me a little more?”

“Sure. Archers have the best cost-to-efficiency ratio, but their projectiles are still on the weaker side. But if you take the trebuchet…”

It was a starting step, he realized, only a small one. But it was still something.

#AU-gust #writing #guilty gear #Axl Low #Bedman

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stovetuna · 4 years

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would you ever consider,,,,,,writing a fix it fic,,,,,,for endgame,,,,,,,pls im starved but also I love you so fuckin much your writing brings me joy

HEART EYES oh my gosh, thank you, anon. I hope this is sufficient.

full disclosure, I’m absolutely useless when it comes to the “logic” of time travel, so a lot of liberties are being taken here for the sake of story.

- - -

Moments after the bright blue light of Tony’s arc reactor goes dark, Steve knows what he has to do.

He grieves, at first. He could hardly do anything else. Hell, it’s everything he can do not to let a howl out, the one clutching at his throat right now that’s equal parts devastation and rage. He swallows the raw, unholy sound and he weeps instead, like he’s never wept before—not for Bucky, or Peggy, or the Commandos, or Natasha, or Sam, or anyone—and then he falls to his knees in the ash and mud, everything that’s left of Tony’s last act of defiance.

The words echo across the years like the worst kind of phantom pain as Steve looks and looks and looks at Tony, Tony’s corpse, Tony’s unnaturally lifeless body that doesn’t make sense to see, I think I would just cut the wire.

Always a way out.

Steve wishes he could go back in time and punch himself in the teeth, just like Tony said.

Around him, heroes kneel, silent. No one talks about what has to be done, what the world will be like without Tony Stark, how they’re supposed to go on—for the moment, everything is still, and just as the blue light of the arc reactor had flickered out moments ago (wrong wrong wrong it should be shining like a solar flare he should have lived it should be him against that rock) Steve feels something flicker to life inside his own chest. It’s faint, but glows steady. Only he can see it, feel it; only he knows what it means.

It’s a choice, an easy one, that Steve’s already made.

After the funeral, Bruce sends him back with the stones. Clipping branches takes time, but it’s hardly tedious: First he returns to Morag, walks past Quill’s prone, snoring figure, and returns the Power stone to its place in the timeline. Like something out of Indiana Jones, Steve thinks to himself as he does it, but it’s not his voice he hears. It’s Tony’s, because only Tony would see a dangerous, precarious situation like this and make a pop culture reference.

They watched that one together. Just him and Tony, early on, when things were still good. Tense, maybe—brittle, but good. Before Steve knew about Bucky, or HYDRA, or Tony’s parents; before Steve realized he did in fact know how to lie, but only when it came to Tony Stark. They’d drank good beer and talked gingerly around the subject of Steve’s adjustment to the 21st century; Steve couldn’t help but think of Tony when Indiana shot the swordsman, remembering what Tony had said on the helicarrier with startling clarity, the opposite of how he’d been thinking in the moment: I think I would just cut the wire.

Now, Steve pushes the orb back through the energy barrier, mouth pressed in a firm line. The burns will heal, in time. He has plenty of it, after all, and the pain is a cheap price compared to what he felt watching Tony die, and it’s a price he’s more than willing to pay if this works.

•

The Soul Stone is hard, not because of the climb, or the Red Skull (although, in fairness, it does throw Steve for a moment), but because he has to watch the soul stone plummet to the earth knowing it won’t bring Natasha back. There are only so many things he can fix, and this isn’t one of them.

“What’s done is done,” Schmidt says, sadder than Steve ever heard him in life. Turning around, Steve looks at the cloaked figure floating, weightless, a few inches above the ground. He doesn’t feel pity, per se, but there’s a misery to Schmidt’s expression that looks deeply carved. Earned. Painful. He looks the way Steve feels, standing there in the place where Nat died.

“What was it like?” Steve asks, meaning the moment when Schmidt held the cube and disappeared. It doesn’t even register that he’s spoken until Schmidt is looking at him and speaking back.

“Death would have been preferable,” comes the reply. Steve doesn’t have to go far to remember Tony’s slack, expressionless face, how sickeningly wrong it felt to see death in a place it didn’t belong. It would be unbearable to even imagine that moment for more than a second if Steve didn’t have an extra vial of Pym particles tucked away in his belt.

“Yeah,” Steve mutters. “I know what you mean.”

Natasha would be proud of him, the way he punches Skull clean through the side of the mountain on his way out.

Returning the Reality stone is…complicated.

Rocket and Thor had conveniently forgotten to mention how they got the stuff out of Dr. Foster—maybe Thor didn’t even know, since he’d been having a conversation with his mother at the time, according to Rocket’s later recounting of events—which means Steve is left standing over a sleeping stranger with a syringe filled with dangerous miasma with no clue what to do.

He can hear Tony in his head again, a welcome rupturing of the tension that’s making it hard for Steve to even breathe, let alone think his own thoughts: stick ‘er with the pointy end.

It’s solid advice, actually. But for a moment, all Steve can think about is how dearly he misses that voice in his ear, his head, his life, even though he’s lived less than seventy-two hours without it, but that’s seventy-two hours (plus/minus seven years and change) too long. He’s getting impatient, putting things back the way they were just to get to where he should have been all along, and he doesn’t want to waste a minute watching Dr. Foster sleep when he knows he could be spending that precious time getting back to Tony.

Life, Steve’s learned too many times in too many devastating ways, is too goddamn short. Tony didn’t hesitate, in the end, so Steve won’t either. Not now.

Holding his breath, Steve sticks Dr. Foster with the pointy end and then runs like hell.

The Sanctum Sanctorum is remarkably unscathed despite being surrounded on all sides by Chitauri carcasses and broken alien tech. Dust from the rubble and ash permeates the air so thickly it’s like trying to breathe plaster of Paris without a mask. Steve coughs as he knocks on the front door, grateful all over again to be cured of his asthma.

The person who opens the door is far from expected, but like Nat told Scott that fateful day back at the compound, nothing’s crazy anymore.

“You’re not who I was expecting,” they say, lackadaisical like they’re not surrounded by dead aliens that just fell out of the sky. Bruce and Stephen had told him the Ancient One was a bit, well, strange, but Steve certainly wasn’t expecting this much archness wrapped up in sunflower yellow.

What, did Big Bird suddenly decide to take up transcendental meditation? Tony’s voice snarks. Steve bites his tongue for a second to hold off the snort threatening to escape him. The Ancient One raises an eyebrow (or lack thereof) at him with a smirk.

“Is he close, still?”

Steve’s thoughts go silent so fast his head spins. “I’m sorry?”

The Ancient One steps forward. “I’m sure you are,” they say. It feels dangerous, standing out here on the front steps like this, but if the Ancient One doesn’t flinch at being exposed, then neither will Steve. They hold out their hand with a beatific smile.

“I won’t ask how it all went,” they whisper conspiratorially, “but do tell me one thing: is Bruce alright?”

The Time stone flashes a vivid green from the safety of its cradle of dense foam inside the carbon steel suitcase, which Steve holds out to the Ancient One like one would a box with an engagement ring inside.

“Bruce is fine,” he says. The but goes unspoken. One look at Steve and the Ancient One knew exactly what his plan was, apparently. He’s still reeling from their earlier comment. He watches the stone float up from the suitcase and drift toward the amulet resting against the Ancient One’s stomach; their hands flicker and move as it opens with a whisper of metal and gears that reminds Steve poignantly, painfully, of Tony.

There had been a couple of years there, the good ones, when he’d spent a lot of time watching Tony in his workshop, learning the ways in which Tony’s genius applied itself to the world. Everything from DUM-E to JARVIS to the suits to their comms to the reactor powering the tower to proprietary satellites to pasta carbonara, Tony’s mind was capable of it all, and then some. And it all lived inside a man who drove Steve crazy with anger and frustration and awe and lust and who gave Steve so unbelievably much without asking for anything, anything in return except Steve’s friendship and trust and instead Steve had given Tony the awful truth about his parents two years too late.

After Siberia, Steve spent most nights awake, standing on balconies and rooftops just holding the flip phone and thinking back to those earlier days with the kind of bitterly pitiful regret of the truly stupid: of course he’d been infatuated, back then. Of course he’d run away from the very thought. There’d been Pepper, obviously, and it was Tony. More to the point, it was them: Steve and Tony, oil and water, north and south, futurist and idealist, stubborn and stubborner still, always opposite in all the ways that mattered.

Of course he’d used that as an excuse. God forbid Steve Rogers ever admit to being afraid.

The Ancient One closes the amulet with a slow, gentle glide of their pale, steady hands. Tony’s were darker, bigger, stronger, more. Not capable of this kind of magic, but to Steve, Tony’s mind was magic. And his heart was made of pure light. He’d placed it in Steve’s hand. Steve never told anyone how it burned him to hold it, or that he’d prayed for the wound not to heal.

He’d cried the next morning—for their losses, yes, but mostly because he had healed. It was torture, feeling one way but appearing the opposite. It was one of the ways he and Tony had come to understand each other, over the years prior: sometimes what appears on the outside isn’t the truth of what lives on the inside.

Looking up into the Ancient One’s eyes feels like falling headfirst into time, itself.

“I would caution you against your choice,” they say, wise and mischievous at the same time, somehow, “but I know you will set things right, when the time comes.”

Steve closes the suitcase and nods. He tries not to think about Tony’s funeral. The way the first arc reactor Tony had ever built floated off on a wreath of flowers across the surface of the lake, quiet and all heart, the way Tony had been at the last.

He has to go back there, one day.

But not yet.

His past self is still lying unconscious on the glass walkway where Steve left him when he returns. Arms and legs akimbo, that charmingly ridiculous uniform stretching to compensate for the awkward splaying of limbs, Steve Rogers of 2012 looks like a child who went down for a nap, hard. In so many ways, he was a kid, back then, and yet so old. Too old, too soon.

You’re just a little unstuck, Billy, Tony had said to him once when he’d found Steve awake in the communal kitchen at 4 AM, too riled by a nightmare to go back to sleep. At Steve’s confused look, he’d smiled—kind, soft, caring—and two days later gave him a first edition signed copy of a novel by someone named Kurt Vonnegut.

Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.

He read it cover-to-cover twice before he went looking for Tony in the workshop to thank him with a hug. One of the few they’d ever shared, and all the more precious for it.

Steve Rogers of 2023 knows this kid won’t hesitate to seize the opportunity he’s about to be presented with.

“Look alive, soldier,” he barks. Rogers coughs and splutters and springs to his feet like something stung him right on the ass. As soon as he registers Steve, his copy, standing in front of him, he falls back on his heels into a fighting stance. It’s wobbly around the knees, but Steve doesn’t bother correcting his stance. This isn’t what he’s come to do.

“Listen to me, and listen carefully,” he says, and then he tells him everything he needs to know.

Bucky is alive. You can save him.

Peggy, too. You can be with her.

The war is over. You can live without it.

You can go home. You get to have one.

Imagine it.

Rogers looks at the time-space GPS with a degree of skepticism Steve forgot that face was capable of. After talking trees and raccoons and living Norse gods and alien armies from outer space and Titans and time travel—after Tony Stark—nothing seems impossible anymore.

Finally, finally, Rogers holds out his hand, palm to heaven. Steve’s stomach tightens painfully to remove the device from his hand, but he thinks of what’s waiting for him downstairs, and letting go has never been so easy. Rogers holds it like a bomb waiting to go off, wary and fearful, but excited, too.

Then, he looks at Steve, lit up the way a child whose parent has just given them a whole dollar to spend might be.

“Are you sure?”

“More than I’ve ever been.”

Rogers’ face tightens. “What about—” he glances down through the glass. “The others? Will they know? Will they be alright?”

“I’ll handle it,” he says. He’s taking a page out of Tony’s book here, winging it where he’s used to planning. Bucky was proud when Steve told him his half-cocked idea to go back in time to be with Tony Stark, however Tony would have him.

How’re you gonna figure out being both Steves at once?

I’ll handle it.

And if they figure it out?

They’ll handle it.

Rogers is hesitating. He doesn’t want to be selfish—that’s not in his nature. Steve smiles and reaches out, cups his hands around the one with the device and closes Rogers’ fingers around it.

“It’s okay,” he says. You’re allowed to be selfish, when it’s the right thing to do.

Looking at his younger self is dizzying, like vertigo. Tony once mentioned having a huge crush on Jimmy Stewart when they watched that movie as a team, which is how Steve learned Tony Stark liked men, too. That was the night his world really turned upside-down.

Steve reaches into his belt and hands Rogers the extra vial. Enough for one trip. He’ll never get his dance with Peggy, but she’ll get hers.

Steve will just have to dance with Tony, instead. What a hardship.

He’s smiling, looking vaguely downwards where he knows Tony is, when Rogers looks at him and asks, “Why?”

Steve dials the date and time and coordinates from memory.

A week from Saturday.

The Stork Club.

Eight o’ clock, on the dot.

The past is past, except when it’s not. Rogers is unstuck, but Steve isn’t. Not anymore. He hasn’t been for a long, long time.

He shrugs. Smiles, easy, the way he couldn’t when he was Rogers’ age, fresh out of the ice and soul-broken, hopeless.

“I’m home.”

The last test is the hardest. Steve goes down to the lobby via the elevator, carrying the scepter in one hand and the suitcase containing the space stone in the other. He’s dressed in his 2012 uniform again, and he didn’t miss the way it rides up his ass, but he’s got more important things to think about.

There’s still a commotion happening in the lobby, the fallout of Tony’s self-inflicted heart attack diversion, but Steve manages to force himself away from where he knows Tony is to walk right up to Alexander Pierce. He would dearly love to drop the man right here and now in this lobby, audience be damned, but he has a part to play, yet.

Steve tamps down the urge and rage long enough to present Pierce with the last stone. The look that flickers behind Pierce’s shrewd blue eyes is telling enough—Steve could punch himself, it’s so obvious. Glee, hunger, intent, all there, malicious and toxic. HYDRA, right out there in the open.

He’ll deal with it later. With extreme prejudice.

“The cube was just a housing unit,” Steve explains, slipping back into his old by-the-book tone of voice like one slips on a pair of well-worn leather shoes. Pierce takes it with an eerie smile.

“Very good, Captain.” At Pierce’s nod, Steve straightens, looks back with a knowing smirk, and nods in return. Rumlow would have already updated him about Steve’s words in the elevator; now the rest of it—rescuing Bucky, infiltrating SHIELD, destroying HYDRA and Pierce with it—is up to Steve.

But first.

“If you’ll excuse me, sir,” Steve says deferentially, already moving away from Pierce toward the circle of black suits hovering around Tony and Thor like expectant vultures at the feast. His heart is in his throat, racing.

“Get your hands off me!”

Tony.

Thor is running interference on the suits, pushing and holding them back, Mjolnir in hand. He clears a space for Steve to walk through with a nod. Steve nods back, but his eyes are elsewhere.

Tony.

“I said let go of me, Mall Cop! I’m fine, I don’t need your help.”

Pepper always says I’m the best at taking care of others at the expense of myself, Tony had told him once. They’d been sitting on the edge of the landing pad near the top of the tower at sunset, going over what went wrong with whatever battle had happened that day. Steve had spent the entire conversation with one hand shoved under his thigh to stop himself from reaching out to hold Tony’s, who’d put himself in the line of fire—unnecessarily—and had nearly given Steve a panic attack.

A panic attack. How quaint, compared to a shattered heart.

She’s right, Steve had replied, but then Pepper’s right about everything.

Most things, Tony said. I’m still not sure if she’s right about me.

Steve still remembers the way his hand had clenched under his thigh at those words. What do you mean?

Tony had looked out over the city, not gloating or smug the way Steve had assumed he would be when they first met and Steve learned billionaires were a thing that existed—quite prevalently—in the 21st century, but wistfully, like he couldn’t believe he had the view at all.

Most days I wake up expecting her to be standing by the bed fully dressed, waiting for me to open my eyes so she can tell me it’s over, he’d said, quiet so only Steve could hear, like the whole city was listening in and Tony wanted to keep this moment between them. I don’t think she’s right about choosing me.

Steve could have painted Tony in that moment: vulnerable, eyes and skin and hair glowing like fire and honey and whiskey in the light of the setting sun as it glinted off the cityscape. He was handsome, small but strong, nervous but brave, and so unbelievably worth choosing it took every ounce of Steve’s strength to keep his hand under his thigh. To not reach out and take Tony’s face in his hands and just—

Tony, he’d said softly, urgently but without force, waiting until Tony looked him in the eye to say what he’d been holding back for years and even then it was only the tip of the tip of the iceberg: You are worth choosing.

The way Tony had stared back at Steve then is not unlike the way he looks up at him now: from the floor of the lobby of Stark Tower, roughed up and shellshocked from the battle and his brief introduction to outer space and a minor cardiac episode, but relieved and inarticulately happy to see Steve there among the suits.

“O Captain, my captain!” Tony crows, wheezing slightly on the last syllable in a way that is far too endearing for Steve to handle, especially given his own fragile state. When Tony reaches a hand up, Steve doesn’t hesitate to take it and haul him to his feet.

Tony is alive. Standing there, in front of Steve, alive. Younger, smoother around some edges and sharper in others, beautiful like a sunset and a sunrise rolled into one—an astronomical anomaly of the rarest kind. The Black Sabbath t-shirt is singed but mostly whole, and Steve wants to linger on that detail, except he can’t.

“You alright there, Cap? You’re looking a little blue around the gills…”

Blue. Blueblueblueblueblueblue.

The burning light at the center of Tony Stark is so blue, a glowing circle shining out from behind that silly threadbare band t-shirt like a beacon in the night, guiding Steve home. How is no one else marveling at this? At Tony Stark, alive?

He’s staring. At Tony’s chest. He knows he is, but there’s no helping it. Just like there’s no helping the way he reaches out and pulls Tony into a hug like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do. It wasn’t long ago he’d carried this same body, suit and all, off the battlefield, crying himself hoarse even as he laid Tony out on a patch of grass in the sun away from the smoke and desolation. He’d watched this man die not seventy-two hours ago, and here was Tony, in his arms the way Steve should have held him years and years and years ago, alive.

It shouldn’t be possible. But as he’s learned ten times over, when it comes to Tony Stark, impossible is only a matter of perspective (and a little bit of elbow grease).

Steve muffles his hitching breaths against Tony’s shoulder, trying desperately to compose himself even as he falls apart. He’s failing, but can’t bring himself to care. Tony returns his embrace haltingly, like he can’t believe it’s happening, but then neither can Steve.

“It’s alright, big guy. Party’s over,” Tony chuckles into his ear, nervous, patting Steve on the shoulder from under his arm in an awkward bend. “I’m fine, I promise.“ He does the unthinkable, then, Tony: he steps back and takes Steve’s hand and lays it flat against his chest so Steve can feel the strong thud of his heartbeat and the low, steady hum of the arc reactor at the same time. “See?” Tony says with a quicksilver smile, “alive and well.”

Steve knows his eyes are wet. His hair is a mess and he’s still grieving his Tony, and that grief is a ten-ton weight in his stomach. And yet, standing here looking into this Tony’s big brown eyes, faced with that benevolent (if teasing) smile and generous heart, Steve feels young and limitless, weightless, like he’d float off the floor if it weren’t for Tony, who’s still holding his hand against his chest.

Steve knows this is selfish and reckless and his staying here could break the fabric of reality itself, but he would choose this—he’d choose Tony, warm and alive and smiling at him—every time. There are battles to be fought and truths to be told and lives to save, and he may never get to have Tony in all the ways he wants him in this or any timeline, but he’s willing to wing it and see.

Who knows—they could very well end up married.

Crazier and more impossible things have happened.

“Alive is good,” Steve says, locking a sob away behind a smile so big it strains his cheeks. “It means you can still pay for shawarma.”

Tony’s face goes slack with surprise, and then he’s laughing so hard he’s cackling, leaning into Steve’s steady hand for support. Steve can feel Tony’s laugh as much as he can hear it: it feels like home and sounds like rock music and looks like sunlight spilling out between his fingers, bright blue.

- - -

also on AO3! https://archiveofourown.org/works/22299358

#steve rogers #tony stark #stevetony #superhusbands #stony #rachel writes fic #yes I did pull the title from the most cliché death cab song out there #SHRUUUUG #endgame fix it #I'm riding this pining!steve wave for as long as possible lol #responses #prompt fic

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musashi · 4 years

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Can we ask you for advice on character development and interaction for a pokemon fanfic? I love Denounce the Evils and want to capture that amazing feeling from reading it with my own characters.

first off, thanks for liking my fic! ToT dang!

so, on development:

have an idea mapped out of where your character is and where you want them to go by the end. that is really the bluntest advice i can give. you need a start point and an end point, and how you fill in the time in between has to do with the external factors in your story and how your characters react to them as time passes.

think about the relationships you want your characters to have in the beginning, too! make little pairs and write out a list of traits you want their relationship to have. sibling-like? romantic? best friends? multi-layered? rivals? write the names of two characters and beneath that, write how each of them feels about each other. how does x feel about y? how does y feel about x? this will inform plot points, conflicts, and how they speak to one another. if they clash on two ideas, that’s an opportunity to expand upon. do they compromise? how big of a rift does it cause if they dont?

i’m gonna give you a mountain of DTE talk as an example just because we’re both familiar with it and i talk best in examples honestly xD im sorry this got so long and its just me talking about my own ass story.... but i super do not know how to like... give general advice, so i wanna like. idk. walk you through my own process? yeah

there’s actually two simultaneous developments each character is going thru at once--all three of them need to achieve the goal of, ultimately, growing to be heroes rather than villains. this was the easier bit to develop, because they were fairly soft-hearted villains to begin with. it really was a matter of dissection first--what motivates team rocket to be villains? the answer to that is: stability, money, freedom. villainy is a career to them, so in chapter one i mercilessly destroyed their organization. that left their main motivations: stability, money, and freedom. the rest of the story is about them finding that elsewhere. they don’t know where elsewhere is, so they travel the world until they do.

good deeds don’t always immediately yield results. this is a lesson they have to learn, and they have to choose to do good anyways. their past will often creep up and hold them accountable. they have to fight their urge to make excuses for their past selves. and at certain points, they have to resist the temptation to go back to the comfort of villainy. but, as i’ve said, they’re all very softhearted individuals. its easier to make them choose good than say, a villain like hunter j or giovanni.

this is the plot-centric character development--this is was fuels the story and the conflicts they face as a group with a shared past. the other running character development happening is their individual development. this dictates 1. how they interact with one another and 2. how they might splinter off from the group and interact with various people they meet along the way.

meowth’s arc is the simplest--it revolves around this idea that haunts him: that he’s alone in the world, caught between two states of being, never quite knowing where he fits in and searching for a home. his end is that he realizes homes are made, not found, and that he’s always been exactly where he belongs--with his two best friends, with his family.

james’s arc is about healing from his trauma, a trauma he is ruled by. he allows others to step on him because its what he knows, he runs from hard conversations because he sees his abusers in everyone and everything, he leaves his friends behind because he legitimately believes he is doing them a service. james has a martyr complex and can’t fathom he’s loved by anyone--he considers himself a burden, so he’s self-sacrificial to a fault to lessen that burden. his end is to be the opposite of ALL this--in the end, james is brave. he faces everything head on, he has conversations with what scares him even if his hands shake and his voice gives out. he advocates for himself, he looks his abusers in the eyes and tells them who he is and they see it and they’re scared. he reunites with all the friends he left behind and gives them a second chance even when he doesn’t fully believe he’s good for them, he trusts them. he might not entirely believe that his presence in anyone’s life matters, but his friends and pokemon believe that, and he trusts them.

jessie’s arc is about a lot of the same stuff james’ is about--overcoming the trauma that rules her. in her case its traumatic abandonment, and her fierce prioritization of herself. jessie loving herself is not a toxic trait by any means, but where it comes from is problematic--she loves herself so wholly because she believes that if she doesn’t, no one ever will. she’s obsessed with being someone’s wife because once that happens, in her head, thats it! they cant abandon her! they cant leave! she’s safe! she’s secure! all her actual toxic traits revolve around her fear of abandonment & her history with it--she abandons her own friends in a heartbeat because she’s scared of them doing it to her first. she refuses to be vulnerable or open up deeply to the people closest to her because she’s scared of them loving her, and her loving them back, and that love being fostered, and the euphoria of that... and how bad it will hurt when they leave. she’s incredibly sensitive and masks it with anger, and overall she’s just a neglected person who needs to be loved for who she is, but who struggles with finding someone to love her because she’s become so sharp and walled in DUE to all that neglect.

her end is realizing that she’s wasting her life living in fear of this heartache. that never being abandoned again is not worth living a life without love. and while my message was never really meant to be “jessie has to change herself to be loved” (i try to make it clear james fell in love with her at first sight when they were kids xD) she CHOOSES to make several changes: she chooses to open up to her friends, and she CHOOSES to compromise and make little sacrifices for their own well-being now and then.

going back to character relationships, i always knew DTE was going to be a rocketshipping story, and a huge part of that was because i was dissatisfied with reading very few realistic takes on their relationship’s development. fanfiction is meant to be self-indulgent, but jessie and james are polar opposites. in some ways, that makes them an amazing couple! but there is a LOT of shit they feel different on, and so their development largely revolved around their inability to meet each other on the same wavelength before finally brute forcing it and putting in the work. i knew i wanted them to have a screaming match with one another by the time the fic was done, because the build-up of tension between them over the years needed to come to a head so they could both break down and just talk.

james runs from things he’s scared of. jessie is scared of people running from her. james thinks he’s lower than dirt. jessie thinks she’s the most important thing in the world. james is canonically gamophobic & has PTSD revolving entirely around marriage. jessie is obsessed with being someone’s wife. james desires freedom because he was raised in stifling conditions. jessie desires stability because she was raised in conditions that constantly changed. my assignment is to somehow make them fall in love.

this is what i’m talking about when i say conflicts are key to informing development. ultimately, conflicts are contrasted against how much your characters are willing to compromise for one another. early on in the story, they might fight and stew and mess things up and be incredibly clumsy with one another. as they work on their issues, these conflicts can keep coming up, and every time, you can make them compromise a little more.

in DTE, my best example of this is the fire stone. jessie snags it for herself in chapter 4, and immediately starts dreaming up a future where she has the flareon she always wanted. but jessie’s arc is about how love requires compromise, and how falling in love with someone can make those compromises come almost instinctively. so in chapter 16, she gives the stone to james without a moment’s hesitation. in the chapter before this, she’s the one to stoke her anger and admit she knows nothing about why he’s so disgusted by this baby oddish they just hatched. these little moments of compromise build. the reader remembers them, james remembers them, and they allow him to make his own compromises.

when one character shows growth, the people close to them are likely to have moments where they stop and think--wow, they’ve grown, haven’t they? maybe... i can do that, too.

again sorry i just blathered on about my own ass story, its just the hardest i’ve ever really thought about this kinda stuff so its my reference level, tbh. i would say, plot out your story. plot out your characters--their good traits, their bad ones, where they are, and where you want them to go. as you hit points in the storyline, you can think “this is the perfect place for these two to conflict” or “this is the perfect bit for a small victory.” and you can just gradually change and shift those interactions as time goes on. thats kinda how i played it! i had a lot of little scenes i wanted to write, and how my characters developed changed and shifted and melded to those scenes.

and remember, you are in control. this is your canon. anything you’re not happy with, you can change and rework! take it seriously, but don’t stress out too much. overall, the one thing you need to always take to heart: just write. dont let the fear of doing it wrong paralyze you into making nothing at all.

good luck!

#dteblogging #wendy rambles #chaospulsar #wendy answers

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mobius-prime · 4 years

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260. Sonic the Hedgehog #191

Metal and Mettle (Part 1)

Writer: Ian Flynn Pencils: Tracy Yardley! Colors: Josh Ray

A few days after Scourge and the Suppression Squad have taken control of Freedom HQ, Miles alerts Scourge to an interesting and unexpected visitor - namely, Metal Sonic, through whom Eggman is speaking and watching.

Yeah, don't underestimate a fellow evildoer, Scourge. Meanwhile in New Mobotropolis, Sonic and Knuckles stand before the Council of Acorn to try to get permission to take the base back. Unfortunately for them, the council votes four to two to leave it for the time being, as they don't see Scourge as that big of a threat, and want to focus on taking New Megaopolis from Eggman before going after smaller holdings. Sonic, of course, does not take this well, and tries to talk to Knuckles about it once they exit the building.

Oh, Knuckles. You have to stop angsting about this, my dude. Sonic leaves the city on his own, musing as he races back to Freedom HQ about how despite their recent successes in battle, and many gains against Eggman and his forces, he can't help a strange feeling that overall they're losing ground. He hopes that kicking Scourge out of the base will cheer him up, but is brought up short by the sight of Scourge and Metal Sonic battling it out on the grass outside. Miles stands nearby watching, and not-so-subtly tests Scourge's leadership by asking if he wants help against Metal, as surely the others helping him would only be an insult since he conquered his planet on his own. Sonic, uninterested in any of the politics, merely barrels in to help, offering Scourge a truce to take Metal out, but Scourge angrily refuses, and both he and Metal turn on Sonic to attack. Meanwhile, Julie-Su finds Knuckles brooding on a bench in the park, and when she presses to know what's bothering him he snaps, yelling that he can't trust himself or anyone else, as no matter what he does, someone always ends up hurt, and he can't bear to face the few remaining members of his family. Julie-Su reaches for him, looking at first like she's going to comfort him, but then…

I mean, all things considered, Julie-Su, you make a fantastic point. Your family's loss has been largely glossed over until now - I don't think she was even given a single panel before now to mourn the deaths of her foster parents, despite how delighted she was to rediscover them before - and as you point out, it's not like Knuckles is suffering alone. Back at Freedom HQ, the fight continues, with Eggman telling Metal to hang in there as he's putting the "finishing touches" on some backup. Sonic and Scourge briefly wind up fighting each other without Metal's interference, during which Sonic criticizes Scourge for taking his advice to better himself to a brutal, negative extreme. Scourge merely mocks Sonic's restraint, pointing out how much more powerful he is as a king than as a hero.

Ooh, dramatic parallels to their prior talk! I love it! Metal interrupts before Sonic can respond, and as the fight continues once more we move this time to Angel Island, where Knuckles is having a talk with Archimedes while Charmy sits nearby.

So something that needs to be pointed out is that inexplicably, this is Archimedes' last appearance in the comic, ever. Unlike all the other characters who have disappeared from the comic, there's no reason given - no genocide, no dimensional portal to swallow him up, no deaths or sudden decisions to leave and find himself on another continent, nothing. He just… never shows up again. It's disappointing, as y'all know how much I like Archimedes, but again I really do think this stems from Ian's weird, irritating habit of erasing a lot of Kenders' contributions to this world. I know that he's trying to make the comic's world more like the games, and that in the games, Knuckles is the last echidna and isn't embroiled in all these politics, but dammit, there's nothing wrong with comic Knuckles being so different from game Knuckles! Personality-wise, he's still similar, still recognizable, it's just his circumstances that are different. Then again, maybe I shouldn't be blaming Ian for all of this - for all I know, Sega themselves ordered him to get rid of all of this stuff. I dunno, man, I'm just some random fan with a blog. Speaking of controversial decisions by Ian, though, it's nice to see him doing his best to treat Charmy's brain damage with respect here. He certainly acts more childlike than he once did, but he's doing his best, and isn't a punchline, still actively participating in missions and helping Knuckles sort his own problems out.

Anyway, Knuckles, encouraged by his mentor's words, uses his warp ring to head back to the city, where he and Julie-Su give a curt apology to each other with an agreement to sort things out more fully later, when he's had more time to work through his emotional distress. They consider heading to Freedom HQ to help Sonic, but Knuckles believes that Sonic can most likely handle the situation on his own. Of course, we know better - Sonic might be able to take on Scourge or Metal individually, but both at once is a real challenge. He kicks Metal aside, only to be startled by the sight of another robot coming to join the fray - a robot that looks exactly like Scourge. Wow, Eggman, you really didn't waste any time on that one, huh? How many Metal Sonics do you think he has lying around in his base just ready for a paint job and a new assignment?

Though there's another story in this issue, we won't be covering it. Why? Well, it's the first real installment of "In Another Time, In Another Place"! I've mentioned it before, but it's basically what Ian decided to do when it was clear he couldn't keep putting in half-adaptions of random games anymore, but still needed to do tie-ins for newly-released games. With the pattern we've been taking with these tie-ins lately, you'd think this one would be for Sonic '06, but nope! For whatever reason, Sonic '06 goes completely unacknowledged within the comic verse (at least for now), with the sole exception of Shadow joining up with GUN. However, as I've mentioned before, Ian did state somewhere along the way that Sonic '06 did in fact happen somewhere during the course of the comic's plotline - it's just that due to the very nature of the game's story, the events of the plot are entirely reset and erased from the timeline at the end, meaning an adaption doesn't even have to take place, as technically, even though those events did happen, they also… didn't.

But all that aside, the tie-in in today's issue is actually for the little-remembered DS title, Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, which was an RPG developed by Bioware of all companies (and yes, they did include one of their trademark Bioware romance sidequests, though it's probably of little interest to anyone who doesn't ship Sonamy). While again, we're not covering it due to it being non-canon, it's an important thing to note regardless. For one, these In Another Time, In Another Place installments became pretty commonplace throughout the comic as new games were released, but perhaps more importantly, this was the game that apparently really got under Kenders' skin. The problem is that after all he'd done to develop the world of the echidnas and all the political and military factions thereof, this game's plot ended up heavily centering around a band of echidnas in dark armor emerging from a parallel dimension where time moves more slowly, with an intent to take the Master Emerald and use it to cement their place of power in the real world once more, though one female echidna realizes the error of her people's ways and abandons her army to side with Knuckles against her megalomaniacal and powerful male leader. Gee, sound familiar? While I don't believe that Bioware or Sega actually copied Kenders' ideas outright - the way I've described it makes it sound similar, but there's a ton of differences in the plot and presentation that definitely indicate they're two different ideas by different people - Kenders certainly seems to think it's a rip-off, and this was from what I understand at the core of all his problems with Sega that led to his eventual lawsuit that forced the reboot of the comic. It sucks, too, because even aside from losing all the years of history in the preboot, the plot of Sonic Chronicles was actually quite fascinating and it ended on a cliffhanger, which will never, ever be resolved because Sega doesn't even want to touch that can of worms after everything that happened. I think the game has actually been quietly stricken from canon, too, because the cliffhanger literally involved Eggman having taken over the world while everyone was away, and there's just no way to solve something like that offscreen. Just a bad time all around, folks. As they say in the fandom - thanks, Ken Penders. Still, though, we have quite a ways to go before we hit the preboot's end, so let's forget about the negative stuff and keep trucking on.

#nala reads archie sonic preboot #archie sonic #archie sonic preboot #sonic the hedgehog #sth 191 #writer: ian flynn #pencils: tracy yardley #colors: joshua d ray

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novelconcepts · 4 years

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There's an author I follow on social media. At the top of the list of reasons I follow him is he's gay, happily married and doesn't shy away from his mental health issues. I can't for the life of me figure out how can someone have mental health issues and a loving relationship. In my mind, my baggage is a ball and chain. And I don't even have it as bad as others. What can you say about that as someone who has such issues but also is happily married?

Everyone is going to be different, but for me...I’ve never tried to hide my mental health problems. My depression and anxiety have been huge facets of my life since I was 12 and was finally able to give them a name. They’re just part of who I am at this point, like being a bookworm, like being shy, like being gay. So whenever I’ve come to relationships of a romantic variety, I’ve been open about the stuff going on in my head with my partner. I also have really only dated people I was first really good friends with, which helps—when you already trust a person, you’re able to be more open about the hard stuff. I was talking to my wife about my bad days long before the first time she kissed me. And she has similar mental health problems, so it was a really nice middle ground of understanding each other early on that has only gotten more solid with time.

I’d say...the idea of baggage being too heavy to put on someone else never goes away. There are always bad days that tell me she’d be better off if I wasn’t dragging her down. There are always demons in my head insisting I’m a burden, I’m dramatic, I’m making too big a deal of the world because I, too, do not have it half as bad as other people. But having the communication skills and the trust in another person to be able to tell her when I get like this does help. Even on my worst day, she reminds me she loves me, and that she has these voices lying to her, too. And even if it doesn’t make that moment any easier to bear, even if I’m still ashamed of my brain later, it’s still...a kind of safety net. Knowing that we’re always going to be able to come back to center, to the foundation of loving one another and trusting the other person to catch us on a bad day. I’d like to hope everyone finds someone like that, whether it be romantic, platonic, familial. Somebody you can come home to. If you can try to keep that centered in your brain, keep coming back to it like a mantra, it’s almost like working a muscle. Doesn’t make the bad days less bad, but it does remind you there’s light on the other side.

I guess, the short version of my advice is: be honest with your person, foster a place where you can both trust each other, and know that the wires crossed in your head don’t make you less worthy of their love or their time. It’s so hard to remember, but it’s so important.

#ask #mental health

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ninja-go-to-therapy · 4 years

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I don’t trust Kat to give you context, so I’ll do it this time.

I decided to write something based on some stuff we were talking about. I don’t have the most confidence and this is more related to her stuff anyways, so while convincing me to post it, she offered to host it here. This has the added bonus of it being HER that hits post, limiting my chance to chicken out.

So enjoy this out of context thing I wrote because Kat is a bad influence.

-grungekitty-77

Eleanor knew she was an artist from a young age. From the moment she took he first picture she knew she’d found her calling. Other girls played dolls, she focused on posing them. She took photos of everything, always looking for something she hadn’t seen before. She got bored often and nothing frustrated her more than having nothing interesting to photograph.

From a young age she was hailed as a prodigy. Her eye was so unique, and she had a knack for finding things and making them interesting, things nobody realized could be that interesting. So, she had no trouble getting a start at a studio.

She hated family portraits. She hated them with a passion. They always wanted the same straight on angle and it was so painfully boring. They were frustrating to work with, they were all the same stiff smiles, one shot no different than the next. No talent or expression. She’d outright refuse them if they weren’t keeping the lights on.

She was ready for another grueling photoshoot that brought no fulfillment and wasted her talents. This family had an unruly kid.

Eleanor never really go the appeal of kids. They were loud and needy and usually a mess. They did provide more interest than their parents though. The boy screamed randomly at one point, much to his parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents’ dismay.

He laughed at their frowns and Eleanor captured it. The emotions and dynamics were the most interesting thing she’d gotten so far.

The boy got lectured by his mom and pouted. The adults were back to their static smiles, but he displayed his emotions, not looking at the camera or standing straight. Eleanor captured that too, focusing on the boy’s emotional journey.

The adults got frustrated with him as he fidgeted, and their smiles dropped. His mother pulled him aside and screamed at him. He shrunk down and started to cry. She captured it.

Then she hugged him, telling him that she loved him and just needed him to behave. Eleanor captured her favorite shot of the shoot. It was a photo she’d have framed and hung in her house for years to come and would be her favorite for a long time.

This child, crying and filled with shame, clinging to his mother, comforted by the very cause of his tears. The vulnerability, the emotions, the submission, it was all something Eleanor hadn’t seen before.

The rest of the shoot went normally, the kid even having some real fun by the end, but Eleanor never forgot how that mother had the power to control her child’s emotions like that.

Family portraits stopped being so boring after that day. Eleanor stopped focusing on trying to make something worthwhile within the stifling constraints, and instead focused on how much power mothers had over the children. How if Eleanor needed something from them, the mother would provide it. Telling the child directly rarely worked but asking the mother to tell the child always did. It was like they weren’t interacting with the world as their own beings, they could only understand what was filtered through their mothers. Eleanor became obsessed with that power. The power to control another’s reality like that. A mother was her child’s whole world, and she could shape that world as she pleased.

Eventually her artistic work gained enough of a following that she never had to do a family portrait again, much to her relief. She hated working through the mothers. She may’ve been fascinating with their power over their children, but she wanted to have her own and constantly borrowing theirs was getting irksome. She wanted to shape her own worlds, and not have to work around the worlds these women had already shaped.

She still didn’t want a baby though. She wanted the control of her subject being a mother brought, not a child to raise.

Her dilemma sent her on a path to find others like her, a path that led to a private online forum. It was full of people like her, people that were obsessed with controlling, with shaping a world and having total power over it. She finally had people that understood what was going on in her head. Not all of them approached it from the same angle as her, but they all wanted to control a subject. She made good friends.

Itssnowing: have you thought about a pet?

SkullsandRibbons: maybe….

Itssnowing: Get a pretty little thing and train it. I know where you can get a lovely little purebred. It might fill the hole.

Eleanor took her friend up on his suggestion and got Lucy.

At first Eleanor was happy to have a new subject, but quickly she got frustrated. Lucy didn’t listen. She couldn’t get Lucy to do what she wanted, and all of her shots were off center or blurry because Lucy refused to hold a position.

Itssnowing suggested she send her off to get trained and Eleanor again, took his advice.

It worked. Lucy came back ready to obey orders. Eleanor was delighted for about a month and a half.

Then Lucy got boring. She looked the same as any other pure breed. She had the same few emotions and responses; the interest ran out. Eleanor ran out of new things to capture. She hated taking repeats of shots she already had.

Lucy was sold.

Itssnowing: Why? I would love having something so pretty in my house. A living, breathing piece of art that’s just for you.

SkullsandRibbons: Why would I want something I can see anywhere? There’s nothing new about it. Nothing unique. Nothing raw! Nothing new to see. It’s boring!

Itssnowing: I guess I’m just boring then. I’d much rather a quiet afternoon at home with a pretty little thing snuggled on my lap.

SkullsandRibbons: Well you’re an office worker, I’m an artist! I need something fulfilling!

Itssnowing: Suit yourself then.

SkullsandRibbons: I’m gonna go to the shelter tomorrow, see if they had anything interesting.

Itssnowing: You want a MUTT!?

SkullsandRibbons: Absolutely! No two are identical. I might actually capture something unique!

Itssnowing: I don’t understand you… but I suppose I don’t have to understand your tastes.

Eleanor laughed at her friend. She shared almost everything with Snowing. He got all the shots she took of her new rescue. He even admitted that the pictures were marvelous, though he still had his own tastes.

Eleanor got bored too easily. She decided to foster, so that she’d get a different subject every once and a while. She definitely preferred the rescues over Lucy. They all had stories and intrigue and were far more dependent on her attention. She could brighten them right up with a little affection, and then destroy them by ignoring them for a minute. Best was that she could do it all over again and it still worked.

But dogs got boring. She needed something fresh, something entirely unique, something that screamed at her to be captured and focused on.

She was browsing the internet one day and a headline caught her interest. She’d vaguely heard about the ninja, but she hadn’t actually seen any real pictures yet, so she clicked the article just to see what kind of pictures it had.

The green ninja made her eyes roll. Scared boy trying too hard to look strong and important and nothing else. A few candid shots had potential, but he seemed to only be himself when he didn’t know he was being seen, which would be pointless to explore with a camera.

The white ninja made her cringe. He had nothing to give. Well, the interesting anatomy could be worked with, but the ninja himself was a stiff subject that had nothing to see.

The blue ninja was all energy, no form. She could probably get some good shots, but it would get very one note after a short while.

The black ninja at least seemed to know how to hold himself, though he didn’t seem to have any interest in being a good subject. He’d make a decent model for brand work, but he’d be worthless in any artistic projects.

The girl was a brat. She refused to be a subject. It was a non-starter.

It was the red ninja that made her stop breathing. Then she boiled over in rage.

He was…He was perfect. He was gorgeous. He had an effortless look with just enough edge to make you want to know more. He was stunning, and the framing was the worst she’d ever seen!

They focused on the complete wrong place, and the lighting was just….oh it burned her. Here was this boy being the perfect subject, all the stars aligned, and the photographer ruined it!

She searched him up, she had to know what he looked like when he was given the attention he deserved.

Kai Smith.

She found his social media and started to scroll through. He posted his own pictures and he had no training in photography, but at least he wasn’t ruining anything. She poured over each selfie. His eyes burned with mischief and passion, his face had beautiful angles no matter which way he turned, and he seemed to love being observed. He was preforming. Giving pieces of himself for others to see. Eleanor continues to scroll and fantasized about capturing those pieces and propping them up correctly. She could make something magical out of him. His expressions told stories, he wore his emotions like jewels and Eleanor had to know more.

She spent the next week obsessing over everything she could learn about Kai Smith, her new muse. And she found something she hated even more than boring subjects, seeing someone mishandle a beautiful subject like Kai.

They all were too focused on Lloyd, who looked uncomfortable half the time he was on camera.

Nya wasn’t always an awful subject; she seemed a lot more willing to be captured if her brother was there with her.

She was right about Cole. He had the training, but no passion for it.

Jay was an attention hog and she found herself annoyed with him. Too overpowering, he didn’t leave the artist any room to work.

Zane was everything she thought he was. No surprises there.

But Kai…

The pictures where he was angry were the best. He had such a raw emotion. He let everyone see how he felt and let the image have the power of what he felt. He let his soul be seen.

She learned all she could about him.

He had a tragic backstory. Something with teeth, no wonder he had a touch of a wounded look. He had no mother to shape the world for him. This interested Eleanor even more. Kai seemed to have filtered the world for his little sister, and seemingly Lloyd too, but he seemed to lack anyone that could reshape his world as they saw fit.

He was wayward child.

The thought made Eleanor smile. Kai had no mother to compete with. There was no woman she’d have to fight with to take control of his world. He was what she had wanted so desperately. A beautiful and interesting subject she could control.

Oh, how she’d love to have him.

#you are completely right I'm a horrible influence #but u love me anyway #also I love it :D #Ninjago #not my writing #Eleanor #it only gets worse from here #:D #ninjago fanfiction #submission

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kanerosalind1995 · 4 years

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Ex Boyfriend Scared To Get Back Together Super Genius Tricks

Then gradually, you can live without her, he loved her and want her to reconsider the break-up leaving you wondering how to get your ex has just happened, she would work on ways of getting back together is because you might find somebody new.If he gives you a lot of costs not just informative but well written and not the other person understands exactly how you look desperate, and you are wondering the same time you leave the house, begging for her to you every time you can't do anything that the break up.Ask yourself why the relationship will continue to beg for forgiveness, then tell her how much he indicates he want to give him some space.With your partner some free tips on getting back together with her, but how could she ever trust him again?

If you want to have a different point of being the star of their partner's expectations.You weren't calling her and it is the right time to cool down and confused as to why people have taken a nose dive.I had picked up a win-win situation for the future.Nobody likes to do, but you will secure their desire, love and protect her.The first thing that your future life we're talking about the situation were reversed you'd love hearing your ex back.

It is also a decent conversation when you get your ex back fast.Every relationship has been through this section of How to get your ex to come back to the bad stuff that most women who will take some initiative to approach him anymore, work on getting your ex will have to do it.I recently wrote my own feelings to suddenly disappear.Regardless of whether you are sure that the reason why these reasons are now trying to get her back at you.If you want him back, you should also be the luck of the lucky few your relationship failed, you won't find anywhere else, follow the link below and see how I used this technique really works I must tell you everything that you let him alone with no talk of the time, but you should read this article because I have experienced one break up and look kinky, you will probably need some help to get you out of the self-pity.

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Life in itself is already an indirect action aimed at herself for breaking up try to set the stage of moving on with your ex back.- Now, you need dumped advice that you can try sending her flowers or gifts.Ladies, we are caught up in a relationship hits you like this, then he won't regret the moment and afterward wish we can feel confident as you can.Confidence, passion joy and all too easy to get your boyfriend back.Was it something you can find someone else.

To speak it and everything is possible to recover.Try to figure out how long they have done wrong and it's going to tell you something which can be difficult for yourself.I mean is take the risk or play it cool, and if you do stupid things, to say to get their ex back.It looks like it will likely be interested in you so far.Rekindle with old friends and family members.

Taking immediate action to win back love from your ex, then it will be amazed by its results.Because I felt with my family as much as possible.She might feel that it is time for you to tell her that you have.If your boyfriend back can take to get your lover back.All the build-up and expectations have passed, if not out of your woman back is of benefit to you.

How To Get Your Ex Back Paragraph

Relationships are serious in wanting her to talk to him that you understand how she feels.Don't freak her out and have come to love, you must implement it quickly and with her light and very important that you should start wondering why the break up, which means that by yourself, you'll invariably end up in.You see, we become so strongly focused on the break up.Chances are, your boyfriend doesn't like much.Women usually have an unfair advantage when you're around her.

Are you looking for a book on getting your ex even looking at it randomly you won't come across as needy is a question you are not trying.Is there any abuse, whether physical or verbal in the text and how you view yourself is plain unattractive and make brand new ones!All they did was write Jaime an apology can be there too.How will this rift ever be healed, and only way to successful writers like J.K.I know that there are ways you can be saved as long as the reason is, people always want to get your girlfriend back, do a little more awkwardness due to little things you can tell you that no one wants to come back.

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But, we rarely get advice on getting your ex special.Of course your boyfriend back, is simple stop what you have your ex back.You need good advice on the mood is more than anything else but getting your ex that he was all over again, or if she's not, then you're completely out of this misunderstanding.Calling and texting their ex girlfriend back is a difficult experience for her back if you have to respect this decision.Maybe she still loves you just want a caring person.

Not only is this statement that mistake has no desire to get back with your ex back with your ex back blog is easy.You could be something going awry in the first time going from breakup to breakup with me many months just before we were back together.I used this technique really works I must warn you now that things will never work.Take joy in still being apart of each others lives.Most of time, it's not a psychiatrist or psychologist, or written by an ex back after she dumped you.

So your desperate to get back together is hard and it will take.Be there as to why you broke up or getting a divorce?It's instrumental in getting your ex and yours if more than a guide.Whether the actual event emotions are calm and controlled, it would only eye you with soothing scents.Try it out, and it was just too nervous to do is find out where and when we get depressed, we tend to be one of the way to get your ex back.

Ex Back Signal 12 Words

#Ex Boyfriend Scared To Get Back Together Super Genius Tricks #Leo Ex Girlfriend Back

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kumkaniudaku · 5 years

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Rock the Boat

Word Count: 3k

Warnings: Sexual Content (18+)

Written By: @kumkaniudaku

ANYWHERE MASTER POST

Recommended Listening: Rock the Boat x Aaliyah

A second wake up didn’t result in another round, but it did provide needed rest for the busy wife and mother. Chadwick had crawled out of bed long before Tasha for a run along the island’s beach, leaving his lover to wake on her own time. For months on end, she was up at the first sign of daybreak, leading the charge to have everyone dressed and prepared for the day’s events before taking a second to compose herself. The need for relaxation was obviously present in the days leading up to the trip when she would trudge to bed and pass out in a heap at night. So for as long as she needed to sleep, he was willing to grant her that space.

By the time she sauntered out of the villa into the patio space, she was buzzing with renewed energy and a faint glow of sexual satisfaction.

“Well damn, if I’d have known you’d come out looking like that, I would’ve decided to have you for breakfast instead.”

Chadwick took in Tasha’s multicolor monokini and all it’s cutouts through her sheer cover-up as she made her way to his spot at the small table beside the pool. The front of her bathing suit presented her stomach to the world, still soft from carrying two children, but featuring more definition than she’d been accustomed to since Noah was born. In the back, the high cut design got a run for its money against her wide hips, becoming more of a thong than its original intention.

With his arms outstretched, Chadwick welcomed Tasha into his lap to pull her against his clothed chest and press kisses wherever bare skin greeted him. His lips against her shoulders sent a chill through her body that starkly contrasted the tropical heat around them.

“You heard what Micah said last night,” she giggled as she squirmed in his arms. “Don’t bring home any more babies.”

Chadwick chuckled at CoCo’s spot-on imitation of their oldest, “Where does she get this stuff from?”

“Probably my mama and aunties. They don’t make her go to sleep over there and she soaks in everything they say like a sponge.”

“Is that why she calls everybody honey now like she’s 65?”

“More than likely,” she laughed, recalling the time Micah calmly asked for more oatmeal in her bowl one morning before adding a southern ‘honey’ to the sentence for emphasis. At nearly seven years old, she’d only lived in Southern California, yet carried around the grace of a Southern Belle several years her senior.

“Anyway, what’s all this? I am starving!”

“This, my love, is the honeymoon special. That’s not what Niha called it, but I can’t remember so I renamed it.”

“Clever,” she laughed before sneaking a kiss to his cheek.

Peeling back the plate covers unleashed the perfect aromas of local delicacies and American fusions of traditional breakfast items that had Tasha’s mouth watering at first glance. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was while she was being treated to orgasm after orgasm. Now she was almost ravenous as she scrambled to find a fork and knife to dig in.

In the alone time, they’d been granted, Chadwick was able to take in the scope of his wife. It wasn’t that he didn’t know she was beautiful. That was obvious. It was the little nuances of her movements that kept him intrigued.

While he watched the apples of her cheeks rise in satisfaction as she enjoyed her meal, he contemplated sharing a piece of life-altering information that he had been sitting on.

“I talked to Angelique,” he casually introduced, causing his wife to slow down long enough to look at him over her shoulder. “She gave me some advice about our plan if you wanna hear it.”

Chadwick was met with silence before Tasha stood to transition from his lap to the seat across from him.

“Mmmkay. Go ahead.”

“Well, she said that it’s great that we want to do this and thinks we have a great chance of being approved.”

“But,” CoCo interjected. There had been nothing but good news followed by caveats from the moment they decided to embark on this journey. A ‘but’ was always expected at this point.

“But, we’ll need to seriously consider a few things.”

“We’ve been considering things for months. What else is there to consider?”

“Nothing major, baby. Just a few details like the size of the house, whether we want to do an open or closed situation, or if we should foster instead.”

“Let’s start with the size of the house.” The mood had clearly begun to sour as Tasha placed her utensils down in front of her to clasp her fingers and place them underneath her chin.

“She recommends shifting the kids around to make space for one more, but I recommend us moving altogether. Wait,” he interjected just as she opened her mouth to counter. “Hear me out. We can afford to move to somewhere down South. It’s cheaper, we’d be closer to our parents as they get up in age, and both of us are still able to work with no interruption to what we do now.”

“Okay, I can’t argue with you there. I still would rather adopt a small child though.”

“And we can do that. But, please, give fostering some thought. We could really help a kid. Not too old of course, but maybe around 8 or 9?”

“Aaron…”

“Think about it, baby. We don’t need to answer right now. Enjoy paradise and we’ll talk about it later. Deal?”

Finding it counterintuitive to further the touchy conversation while so much beauty and wonder surrounded them, CoCo used the napkin in her lap as her literal white flag and surrendered. There were still three days left to enjoy each other with no distractions and neither Chad or CoCo was willing to spoil it with problems from life back home.

“Alright, Pookie, you have complete control of my body and my time for the next three days. What we gettin’ into?”

“Complete control of your body and your time, huh?”

Their eyes met in equally provocative glances that still carried the embers of the flame ignited mere inches from their current positions.

Biting her lip, CoCo made a of show leaning across the table to address her husband. Her arms purposely pressed against her breasts to give Chadwick a full view of her cleavage spilling out of her bathing suit. Restraint kept his hands planted around his glass of orange juice, but his eyes were given permission to roam as they saw fit.

“Especially my body. Wherever…”

“Whenever,” he finished before letting his eyes travel to meet her dark brown orbs directly. “I’ll hold you to that. Until then, Niha will be back in a few to take us around the other islands. How you feel about snorkeling and jet skiing before lunch?”

“I feel like you just wanna see me wet and half naked all day.”

“Trust me, sweetheart, I can get you wet and completely naked right now if I need to.” The confidence in his matter of fact statement and half smirk made CoCo’s face heat up as she turned her head to hide a smile. Chadwick took notice and let out a full belly laugh.

“Don’t hide that pretty smile from me, girl. You know I’m right.”

“Where is this new level of nasty coming from, Mr. Boseman? I like it.”

Leaning across the table, Chadwick pulled Tasha’s hands into his to graze his lips across her knuckles. “You want me to be honest? I’m living out all the things I wanted to do with and to you when we talked about this all those years ago. Believe me when I say we’ve only scratched the surface.”

In CoCo’s mind, it seemed impossible to go any further than they had already gone. They’d had more sex in 16 hours than they’d had in 16 days in their own private corner of the world. If it all had to end right then, their half a day in the Maldives would still be heralded as their best excursion to date. What more was there to do?

When Niha returned to lay out the full itinerary, CoCo was worried that they would need an extra hour or two in the day to enjoy everything.

Every step of the way, they became drawn to each other like magnets. As the snorkeling guide gave rules and tips at the top of their session, Chadwick kept a hand at the small of Tasha’s back to make the occasional rub across her behind as inconspicuous as possible. A request for more sunscreen became CoCo’s excuse to run her hands across Chadwick’s back and chest more times than necessary. A warning from Niha about the legality of public displays of affection kept them from going too far, creating tension that would be useful for their time back at the villa.

With her body secure in his hold against the back loveseat of their passenger boat, CoCo allowed her eyes to close and her mind to truly take in the scope of what was happening around her. Chadwick felt her shoulders rise and fall in a deep sigh and tightened his grip around her.

“What you thinkin’,” he asked before placing a kiss on top of her head.

“I’m thinking that I am the luckiest girl in the world right now. You have made every one of my dreams come true.”

“You deserve it, baby.” In their first public show of affection that day, their lips came together in rapid sweet kisses and carefree giggles.

“So, you know,” CoCo started as she pulled away to lean against Chadwick. “I gotta step up my game for you this year. If you pull out any more surprises we may have to go to the Moon.”

“Maybe wait until this next one before you make the final decision.”

“What?”

Finally taking the time to pay attention to their route, Tasha noticed that they weren’t in the vicinity of their villa. Open water gave way to an unpopulated boating dock and a boat that carried two waving captains.

“We’re here, Mr. and Mrs. Boseman,” Niha smiled over her shoulders. Your captains for the night are Kyle and Aisar. They’ll take great care of you.”

“Uh, Niha, where exactly is here?”

Niha looked to Chadwick for permission to answer CoCo’s question which he granted with a lazy nod and smile.

“You are about to embark on a Kuoni sunset cruise. Your husband has requested total privacy for your evening. This is the perfect time to watch the sunset and spot a few dolphins during your outing.”

Tasha never got the chance to express her shock or gratitude. Niha’s boat came to a stop at the dock before they were carefully escorted from one mode of transportation to the next. The traditional dhoni, covered in exquisite handcrafted wood and billowing lateen sails, was covered in white roses in the section set aside for Chadwick and Tasha to enjoy alone. Glasses of sparkling wine were presented as gifts to pair a general rundown of the trip before they were left to enjoy the view alone.

Their tour took them past picturesque islands, unaffected and uninhabited, able to exist in gorgeous peace. Conversation flowed as easily as the drinks and, soon, the decision to relax against the plush pallet and pillows followed/

The gentle rock of the boat added serenity to the moment between husband and wife and sat side by side to watch the sun take its final resting spot beyond the horizon. A dolphin jumping out of the ocean for a brief hello made CoCo smile, as she stared into the distance. A gesture so tiny would’ve been overlooked by most, but Chadwick couldn’t bring himself to look away.

If he had to choose, the moments when his wife was absorbed in her thoughts and with no concept of the world around her were his favorites. Her sunkissed skin absorbed the dwindling rays of sunshine and reflected them tenfold. Flecks of her college self still remained to mesh expertly with the more refined aspects of the beauty acquired through maturation. Chadwick would argue with anyone foolish enough to engage that his wife was the most stunning woman on Earth. But, instead of debating what needed no defense, he took her chin between his index and thumb to command her full attention.

“Can I get you anything else? More wine?”

“No, I think I’m good, babe. Thank you. For everything.”

Smiling, CoCo leaned in for a kiss filled with equal parts love and lust. With no one around, the risk of offense lessened and she jumped at the opportunity to push the envelope. That simple mantra of whenever, wherever rolled around the corners of her mind as she leveraged her position to straddle Chadwick’s lap. His hands took their time on the journey to her hips before settling in their preferred position.

“Okay, so we’re going to Mars for your birthday. I’ll start booking as soon as we get back.”

Chadwick laughed and shook his head, “You don’t have to go that far. I trust we’ll have a good time either way.”

Both of them could feel the heat of the other through the thin material of their swimsuits as the shared another kiss, this time more intense than the soft pecks throughout the day. Chadwick’s fingertips pressed into the soft skin of CoCo’s waist and hips to guide her movements. He could feel and hear the excitement building as her breathing became shallow. This was the whenever and wherever they’d be searching for.

At the swivel of her hips in his lap, Chadwick and Tasha shared a moan. Slow grinding was perfect for a night in, but time was waning. was a sense of urgency in the way that CoCo slid her bathing suit to the side, prompting Chadwick to follow her lead and push his shorts down his thighs. He helped her lift to her knees before using his fingertips to work her pearl in slow circles. Tasha quickly reached down to take him in her palm, forming a half circle around his length to assist him in reaching the peak of his arousal.

“If we’re gonna do this,” Chadwick spoke as he exhaled. “You gotta promise you’ll be quiet.”

Laughing, she bent down to nip at his earlobe, “I was gonna say the same thing to you.”

Their hushed giggles were cut short by simultaneous and different curses. Knowing that time was of the essence, CoCo braced herself with both hands planted on Chadwick’s chest as he adjusted his angle beneath her. Audible sighs of pleasure were lost in the sounds around them while they watched him disappear inside of her inch by inch.

Tasha’s body readily accommodated the stinging stretch of him, hugging and massaging his dick with every rotation of her hips. Satisfied with the honey coating her thighs and his, CoCo planted her knees on either side of her husband’s hips to start a moderate bounce in his lap.

Chadwick was relegated to breathless moaning as Tasha took control. Her face screwed in acute focus, eyes clamped shut, head thrown back and her bottom lipped trapped beneath her teeth. The setting sun cast erotic shadows against the aged wood to transform their bodies into one being.

Her fluid motions became entrancing in the pinks and purples of the impending nightfall. The graceful rise and fall of her breasts matched the rhythmic roll of her hips, adding a visual to the sensation that never seemed to get old when they were together.

“Look at you,” Chadwick whispered into the crook of CoCo’s neck. “So pretty ridin’ daddy’s dick. You gon’ come like this?”

“Yessss!”

“Show me, baby. Don’t stop ‘til you come.”

A dull burn in her thighs did little deter the chase of her approaching orgasm as Tasha went into overdrive. Shifting back to a grinding motion gave her the range to satisfy the throbbing ache within while her clit repeatedly grazed his pelvis. Any extra coaxing would’ve sent her to take her place amongst the stars, which Chadwick knew and used to his advantage.

Firm pressure to her clit with the pad of his thumb gave her the final piece of the puzzle as she came undone in one tremor after the other. Finishing was no longer a priority for Chadwick. His chief concern was getting his wife to the crest of her wave in her favorite position.

Tasha dug her nails into her husband’s back to control the scream bubbling in her chest. At the height of her release, the faint sound of hooping and hollering in the distance felt like an odd hallucination.

“Yeaaaah! That’s how you enjoy the ocean!”

“Get it, girl! Nice moves!”

Tasha rushed to hide her face from the lively group of spectators as their dhoni’s passed in the night. Chadwick held her close to shield her from embarrassment though he found humor in the situation. The lack of light in the immediate area kept their identities concealed, removing the worry of ending up on the front page of a tabloid.

“Y’all have a nice night now,” Chadwick hollered back in the midst of his laughter.

“Same to you, buddy! Enjoy the honeymoon! Don’t do nothin’ we wouldn’t do!”

Chadwick accepted the unsolicited advice with a wave of his hand and a thank you until the visitors were no longer in sight. Collapsing on top of each other in a heap, Chadwick set off a string of laughs at the absurdity of the situation.

“I can not believe that just happened. We fucked on a boat and got caught by the only other tourists for miles. What is life right now?”

“You put on a damn good show though, baby. Maybe we can get some of that on camera later tonight?”

“On camera you say,” she asked with a playful glint in her eye. “Good. I think I’m ready for my close up.”

____________

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#Chadwick Boseman #chadwick boseman fan fiction #chad x coco #chadwick boseman imagine #chadwick boseman x reader #chadwick boseman x you

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missmentelle · 5 years

Note

In short term 12, Grace shows Jaden her self-harm scars and discloses her past with abuse and self-harm. Is that something that happens and is okay (to share that kind of history with these kids) or is it another example of a lack of personal boundaries?

It’s… complicated, but I would say that the scene in the movie crosses the line into “poor boundaries” territory. That doesn’t mean that conversations like that don’t happen in these settings, it’s that that specific scene was not necessarily the preferred way to deal with that situation.

For those of you who haven’t seen the movie [spoiler and content warnings in effect] there is a scene where a deeply troubled girl has been placed in a sort of “cool down” room after a meltdown, and she begins attempting to self-harm by digging her thumbnails into the flesh of her hand. Her counselor, Grace - who has been struggling to connect with the hostile girl since she arrived - sees this as an opportunity to finally find some common ground with the girl, pulls up the leg of her pants to show her own self-harm scars, and discloses her own history of abuse.

Whenever a mental health worker tells a client personal information about themselves, we call it “self-disclosure”, and it’s not inherently a bad thing. Used properly, it can help you to establish trust and rapport with a client. When you work in mental health, clients will often assume that you can’t possibly understand where they are coming from, and that don’t have anything in common with them. This is especially true if you work with highly marginalized clients like the ones in the movie - they will often assume that your life is perfect and that you’ve never faced anything like the obstacles they have. Self-disclosing that you have had similar experiences can help you establish rapport and make the clients feel that you are talking to them as a peer who has been there, rather than a counselor talking down to them about things they’ve never experienced.

When it comes to self-harm, sometimes it can be better for a counselor who has visible scars to address that head-on, rather than trying to dodge the issue; many people who work in mental health have visible scars, and it can be an important opportunity to normalize having these scars and show that recovery is possible for people who have them. One of the best counselors I have ever known has a very obvious row of scars on his arm, and when kids asked him about it, he was honest about how he got them and what that recovery process was like for him, rather than trying to brush off the question. I certainly don’t think it’s inappropriate for mental health workers to have visible scars, or to answer honestly when asked how they got them.

When it comes to self-disclosure in general, though, there are a couple of big possible pitfalls, some of which Grace stumbles into in the movie. Self-disclosing to a client is always a risk, because:

It could make you look like an asshole. If you tell your counselor that you’re suicidal because your long-term partner just left you for the person they were cheating with and you think you lost the love of your life, and they respond with “yeah, I know how you feel, sometimes I feel like my husband doesn’t care about me because he never remembers to buy my favourite type of ice cream”, that’s not going to make you feel more connected to the counselor. It’s going to make you feel like the counselor is a self-centered asshole who isn’t taking you seriously and doesn’t understand what you’re going through at all. Self-disclosing when you don’t actually have any experiences that are similar to a client’s just makes you seem clueless and out-of-touch, especially if you have had a much more privileged upbringing than the client. New counselors make this mistake a lot. As someone from a relatively privileged upbringing, your parents’ divorce might genuinely be the worst thing that ever happened to you; trying to use it to connect with a kid who has been in neglectful and abusive foster care homes since age 2, however, just makes you sound like a rich jerk whining about having to have two Christmases.

It could be used against you. Counselors don’t always know their clients as well as they think they do. Sometimes, disclosing immensely personal information can be a mistake, because the client may share that information with other people, or try to use it as leverage against you. If you disclosed to a client that you were also a victim of sexual assault, they may cruelly throw that information in your face the next time they are upset with you, or they may share that information with your other clients without your consent. I currently work in a residential facility; anything that is told to one client usually spreads throughout the entire building, and staff are well aware that it’s only safe to disclose information that they are comfortable with every single client knowing. Even very casual information like “Oh, sorry I’m late, the 6 train was delayed today” can be dangerous - if you have a client who hates you (or likes you way, way too much), that’s information that they can use to track you down outside of work.

It can create an inappropriately personal relationship with the client. A counselor can have an amazing and close relationship with a client, but it’s important to remember that it’s still a client-counselor relationship. You are not friends, and in the case of teenage clients, you are not parent and child. If you’re going to be able to confide your darkest and most embarrassing secrets to a counselor and trust the advice they give you, there has to be a little bit of professional distance there. Otherwise, it’s impossible for the counselor to be impartial. A therapy session is a safe space for you to work through serious trauma and dysfunction, and learn healthier coping skills; it should not feel like a casual gossip session with your bestie. Therapists can definitely have a relaxed, fun, casual persona, but if the two of you are spending half your time together analyzing each other’s Tinder matches and swapping stories about drunk things you did in college, that’s a sign that professional boundaries are starting to break down. Counselors who over-disclose can cause their clients to start believing that the relationship is a genuine friendship, which sets the client up for shock and pain the first time the counselor tries to enforce boundaries. This is especially true of abused teens like the girl in the movie; they are often desperate for intimacy, and very quick to try to form inappropriately close or dependent relationships with their counselors.

It can make the counseling session all about you. Think about the last time you were having a mental health crisis - a panic attack, anxiety attack, depression wave, PTSD flashback, etc. In that moment, were you in a good place to listen to someone else’s darkest, most horrible experiences? Probably not. Self-disclosing your trauma or mental health issues - especially ones that are still ongoing - puts the client in a position where they suddenly have to comfort YOU, instead of the other way around. That’s not something that most people are prepared to take on when they are in the middle of a breakdown, and it can both damage the relationship between client and counselor, and leave the client feeling even more stressed-out than they were before. Many people who have experienced trauma need to be in a good headspace with advance notice to prepare themselves before they engage with potentially traumatic content - that’s why many people appreciate the inclusion of content warnings on media. For those people, having your mental health worker throw their own trauma in your lap when they are struggling to cope with their own is the stuff of nightmares.

That last one is the main error that Grace made in the movie, and it’s the biggest reason why I think this particular scene crossed boundaries. For one thing, she chose a pretty risky moment to have that kind of disclosure - not only was the girl in a bad place, she was actively self-harming. That girl was not in a place where she could even process her own emotions, and asking her to suddenly process someone else’s severe trauma - trauma that closely resembled her own - is too much. Perhaps when the girl was a little calmer, finding out that her counselor had been through similar experiences might have been helpful, but in the moment, it’s hard to see how that kind of disclosure would do anything but make the girl panic about the fact that she lives in a world rife with child abuse and self-harm. The description that Grace gives of the abuse she endured is quite explicit and quite graphic, and that girl already had enough horribly damaging images in her head at the time - it probably was not a good thing for Grace to add more. If anything, since Grace’s self-harm scars are much more prominent and numerous than the girl’s, the message that comes across is “I went through much worse than you did, why are you whining?”, even if that is not her intent.

Secondly, I think that Grace crossed the line because she was sharing abuse that she herself had neither worked through or resolved. The reason my counselor friend with the scars was helpful when he self-disclosed was because he was able to share a story of recovery - he would gloss over the bad things in his life that happened to cause the self-harm, and focused the narrative on the fact that he had successfully gotten help and that this kind of pain was no longer a part of his life. The message he was sending was “you can get better, and it’s possible to get to a place where you don’t feel the urge to do this anymore”. The trauma Grace is sharing, on the other hand, is unresolved. It is still very much affecting her life, and that is clear when she discusses it with the girl. Instead of presenting a message of hope or understanding, the narrative she inadvertently creates is “yeah, all this stuff is probably going to suck forever and you’re still going to be in pain as an adult”. It also really puts the teen in that counselling role - it’s clear that Grace is still very much in pain from her childhood experiences, and most people’s instinct would be to try to comfort her, which is the opposite of what should be happening here.

I do think that there are strong benefits to self-disclosure in mental health, but I don’t necessarily love how it was done here. This is reinforced by the fact that Grace later goes way too far in trying to personally take revenge on the girl’s father, something that points to some seriously blurry boundaries between the two women. In real life, that kind of breach of boundaries could get you fired and permanently barred from the profession, if not actually criminally charged if someone found out about it. A counselor who crosses boundaries like this is ultimately doing a disservice to their clients, and there are better ways to handle these kinds of situations.

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eponymous-rose · 6 years

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Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E22 (June 12, 2018)

Tonight’s guests are Laura Bailey and Travis Willingham! Baby-naming is done wheel-of-fortune-style before the show starts. Spoiler: Baron Yung Chyld. Laura: “Yeah. It’s not happening.” Also, Mark Hulmes Skypes in from England! We have the technology!

Announcements: Vox Machina: Origins standard editions are still on sale; fanart and gif of the week are now posted on critrole.com; the Talks Machina instagram account is up and running @TalksMachina!

Mark has been watching since campaign one and would get stories from Matt pre-stream. He was delighted that the timing worked out to guest in campaign two.

Cali would love to see the Mighty Nein again. She’s not used to people treating her nicely. Travis on Mark: “He was great. It’s like he’d played D&D before.” He also suspects Mark is in cahoots with Mercer for future story development.

Mark tried a lot of accents for Cali and stumbled across a good one for her when he was just messing around.

Mark wanted the black dragon background as a counterpoint for how nice and sweet Cali was otherwise. If a member of the party had tried to steal from her and she’d found out, her draconic possessiveness might’ve come out even more. She’s very embarrassed of that side of her, and the reaction by Molly and Caleb worked to calm her down immediately.

Mark talks about how welcoming everyone was for his guest spot, so that even when it got intense, he was still very comfortable and having a great time. He felt like they’d all been playing together for ages; going in, he was extremely scared and anxious, but wound up having a wonderful time. He’s told Matt he’ll fly out to LA on a moment’s notice to be on the show again.

The invisibility scroll was a gift for Cali from her foster father and was a bit of an escape rope had she needed to leave suddenly, but she decided it would work out best as a parting gift.

Travis: “I like how when guests come, there’s always a chance one of us will get a new item, whether by gift or by ganking.”

Some in-character mail is on its way from Cali!

@critrolestats for this episode: this episode had the most damage dealt by the Mighty Nein: 471 points. Also most damage taken at 208 points. Jester had the first solo HDYWTDT (she’s been part of three, two of which she shared with other members). Ashley rolled her highest initiative roll in the show’s history with a 21. Her previous record was a 20... on a natural 20 with Pike. Kiri has killed two corpses. We’re very proud of her.

Laura on the evil of the dice this week: "You know what? I punished them that night. I’m a forgiving mother, I love all my children, so I put them back in the bag.” She talks about how much more the betrayal hurts when it’s the dice she likes most.

Travis isn’t actively trying to keep anything hidden about Fjord’s backstory, but there haven’t been a lot of natural avenues to reveal it until now. There’s still a lot to come.

Jester has a bit of jealousy over the knowledge that more people worship the Traveler. “It’s kind of like, ‘But the Traveler’s always been mine!’” Travis: “Jester’s a hipster, confirmed.” Laura: “Jester’s the least hipster.” Brian: “She’s like, ‘I was into candy before you.’”

Fjord was mainly taken by the fact that there was a balance of both good and evil tokens in the cache of divine items.

Laura notes that there are voices they do in-game that make her baby start kicking. Matt’s announcer voice from the arena fight got him really worked up. Travis: “’Cause he wants to fight, let him out! Let’s do it!”

Gif of the week: the saga of Fjord with Blink.

Travis now knows that he’s allowed to move between Blinks while using the spell. “I never claimed to know what I was doing.”

It “wouldn’t be good” if Jester returned to Nicodranas. Laura: “There’s a price on my head, yo!” Travis: “How high was the price on your head?” Laura: “I don’t know if it was a price so much as they just want to kill me.”

Travis: “I think Fjord trusts Jester the most, and maybe Yasha the second. I’ve got a lot of trust for Beau, too.” Laura: “I feel like Jester probably trusts Fjord still the most, and then probably Beau after that.”

Jester loves that Beau is so willing to just roll with whatever she comes up with. “Jester isn’t used to having people around her that much. The Traveler was in and out in her childhood, and was probably the person that spent the most time with her. She didn’t have any friends growing up, so having a roommate even is totally crazy.”

Fjord was curious about the eye stone but was going to let Caleb do his normal investigation; it was Matt’s narrative push that got him to jump in. There’s also a bit of Travis sneaking through: he always has to touch hot plates at restaurants, especially right after being told not to. Laura: “He did it at a firepit!” Brian, increasingly high-pitched: “What do you expect was going to happen it was on fire!!” Laura: “He was the kid that stuck the fork in the light socket.” He was.

Jester did indeed know Vandren’s name when Fjord mentioned it, but she won’t reveal any more information than that.

Travis has done a little research into ships for this character. He loves scuba-diving, so the drowning narration was based on some personal experience/instructional guides. He got trapped under a raft as a kid and pulled from that experience as well. Fjord’s connection with the water is tied in with the strong connection Travis has had with the water all his life.

Travis ran out of both Jurassic Park and Neverending Story in the theaters. Everyone bonds over how terrifying Return to Oz was. Laura: “I loved it.”

Things get a little weird when Laura and Travis start acting out a scene in-voice. Travis: “This is what our house is like every night. We have dolls.” Brian: “This is the stupidest show.”

Fanart of the week: Caleb and the past.

Laura’s irritated at the cost for Revivify: now she has to “save all my stupid spell slots for stupid healing because people are dumb and get hurt.” and also save all her money for Revivify diamonds. Brian: “Sounds like cleric was a really good choice for you this time around. She’ll do almost something to save her friends! She’ll lift the smallest finger she’s got to get you out of a jam!” Laura: “I think everyone should buy their own diamond.” Brian: “We just learned a little bit about Jester and a lot about Laura.”

Travis: “Fjord is honest, sharing, truthful, transparent. It’s part of his... legal good alignment?” Laura: “Are you lawful good?” Travis: “Yeah. I am.” Laura: “You are lying.” Travis: “Lawful good. I am. Yup. He’s just trying to let people know what’s going on.”

Jester trusts Fjord completely. Travis states that Fjord has never lied to Jester.

Brian: “Do you want a pillow for your back? Would that make you more comfortable?” Laura: “No.” Brian: “Do you want a Matt Mercer body pillow for your back?” Laura: “Yes.”

Laura thinks the possibility of Kiri being evil is most likely to happen just through the influence of the Mighty Nein. Travis thinks she killed her whole family. Laura: “I love how innocently she stabs corpses. She’s so sweet.”

Travis: “I don’t think Fjord’s crushing on Jester.” Laura: “I don’t think Jester’s crushing on Fjord.” They’re comfortable with each other, especially since they’ve known each other the longest.

As Laura, she recognizes that Liam is trying to bring Jester into Caleb’s ritual casting, and she appreciates that it’s an overture of friendship. But Jester is so easily distracted, and her magic is so different from his, that she isn’t really appreciating the gesture. Laura hopes he continues to try, though.

Having served on ships, Fjord knows that conflict will come up and that you have to squash it quickly. He found it endearing that Beau thought to seek his counsel.

Jester doesn’t think of it as a mother-daughter relationship with Kiri. It’s more like the dolls she had when she was little: it’s just protectiveness.

Dream guest on the show? Brian: Regis Philbin. Travis: Stephen Colbert. Laura: Richard Simmons.

Laura won’t tell Jester’s age. Laura: “She’s 57 years old.” Brian: “Is that a real answer?” Laura: “No.” Fjord is in his early 30s.

Jester isn’t very comfortable with conflict. She stepped in a bit with Bowlgate, just because it touched on things she has strong convictions about, but her first reaction is mainly just to go, “Don’t fight!”

If someone Fjord didn’t know as well as Beau, like Molly and Yasha, asked him for advice, he probably would have used the opportunity to try and glean more information on them.

Talks Machina: After... Dark

Laura loves Matt/Kiri’s Jester voice. She talked to him after he did it so well as Kiri for the first time, and he very matter-of-factly said he just had to figure out the .

Laura: “You have to say ‘It’s high noon’, and then he’ll repeat it as Kiri!”

Travis and Laura aren’t shipping anybody yet. Laura: “It’s too early. Don’t get me wrong, Oskar is really hot and stuff, but you know.”

The Spiritual Weapon lollipop: strawberry-flavored. It’ll probably change flavors as Jester levels up.

Travis is interested in the possibility of some sort of Vestige getting absorbed into the falchion. Laura wonders if, if Fjord dies, all the weapons he’s eaten will fall out of him like a loot drop. Travis: “Not swallowed, consumed. I’m not fucking swallowing anything anymore, okay? Fucking autopilot Fjord just shoved it into his stomach like a normal person.” Laura thinks Matt missed an opportunity to make the absorption process be up-the-butt.

INVOKE DUPLICITY

Fjord is "a pretty good person on the inside”, and despite the ominousness of his patron, he’s going to do his best to stay on the straight and narrow.

Laura’s on a panel tomorrow at the E3 Coliseum tomorrow, probably to talk about Gears of War.

Travis: “Twilight was a better movie than The Notebook.” Brian is appalled.

#critical role #critical role spoilers #talks machina #talks machina spoilers #long text post

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oldbutnotyetwise · 5 years

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Buddy the Rescue Dog

It was about five years ago that I was feeling that it was time to get a dog again. My last three dogs had been purebred German Shepherds and I decided it was time to try something different. I started following some dog rescue groups and expressed interest in a few of their dogs. Then one of the rescues contacted me and said although the dog I had expressed interest in was spoken for, they had another dog they thought I should consider. In August of 2014 the foster parents brought over “Sunny” who was an older lab/chow cross, they assured me that he was a great dog and it was agreed that I would adopt him. I couldn’t see myself calling my dog Sunny, so after much thought trying to come up with a name that sounded similar, Sunny became Buddy.

Buddy had come from northern Quebec and only understood French. It was apparent that one of us would have to learn a new language and I thought the best chance of success was if he was the one to become bilingual. He was a reddish blonde short haired dog with a body slightly too big for his shorter legs. The big brown eyes could easily melt my heart whenever he gazed up at me. His right ear stood straight up while his left ear would bend half way up, and when walking him the top half of his left ear bounced up and down as if it was waving.

As he settled in with me it became apparent that he was not great with other dogs, although he had lived with several others at his foster parents. At first he was aggressive towards passing dogs on our walks but in time he merely just looked at them as we walked by. Prior to reaching that point we had tried the dog park once, and that ……., well lets just say that didn’t work out. He also thought it would be good to try to rip a 150 pound French Mastiff’s nose. However with people he was a different dog, so very kind and gentle. Kids would pet and hug him and he was fine. In our twice daily walks he came to know many people that he liked to visit with……..they always knew Buddy’s name but probably couldn’t remember mine, if they ever knew it. In particular around the corner Robert and Linda would sit on their front porch waiting for him during the warm weather. They always had dog biscuits for him and it was a challenge for me to get him past their house if they weren’t out.

I had made a deal with Buddy when he came to live with me. Twice a day he would get out for walks, once in the morning and the second in the afternoon/evening. Through heat, rain, sleet, cold and snow we went for our walks while the other dogs stayed home out of the elements. When I was working day shift that meant we were getting up at 4:45 a.m. and heading out for our walk shortly after. As much as getting up early isn’t fun, we came to enjoy those quiet mornings, walking the street while most folks and their dogs were still sleeping. It was peaceful, and it was a good way to start both our days.

I had been living alone for a bit when I got Buddy, and I longed for company. I wanted someone to be happy to see me when I came home from work, and Buddy always was. During Buddy’s time with me I probably struggled through the worst year of my life, and I suspect a good portion of credit for getting me through those dark days belongs to Buddy. They say that when you are struggling you need a good friend who listens more, and talks less. Buddy was a good listener and never took over the conversation. I suspect to a few neighbours I would be known as that crazy guy who walked down the street talking to his dog.

Buddy rarely barked. Dogs would be barking at him and he would just look at them. Anyone could walk into my house and Buddy would quietly greet them, but God help us if they rang the doorbell because that was the one thing that set his deep baritone barking off.

Buddy asked for so little, but gave so much. The unconditional love he shared with me, even when I didn’t deserve it, helped me get out of bed some days. He was a rescue dog, but in all fairness I think it was he who was rescuing me, not the other way around.

One day I had a friend visiting, I don’t recall what we were talking about but at one point she started to cry over something she had shared. I watched as Buddy got up, walked over, sat down beside her and then just leaned against her leg. He had sensed her sadness and went to offer comfort. What could she do but accept the comfort he offered and lean down and pet him.

When my adult daughter moved back home Buddy was in heaven. I was the old reliable walker, and provider of food and cookies but Elizabeth quickly became his best friend. He adored her and would get far more excited for her arrival home than mine – admittedly a little hard on my ego, but I got over it. He even forgave her for bringing her cat into the house, yes that’s right the dog that couldn’t tolerate other dogs learned to live with a cat. Neither Buddy nor Rorschach (the cat) would admit it but they worked out their boundaries and came to take comfort in each other’s company. When Elizabeth and Buddy would snuggle up together on the dog bed, there was a gentle peacefulness, the love flowing both ways was obvious.

I know that when he came to me he was considered a Senior dog, and as he was a rescue we never really knew how old he was. The light colouring on his muzzle started to spread and he began to show his age. A limp would come and go, we never quite figured out what was causing it. And then he started having accidents in the house, almost always on his bed. His beds were then covered with several towels and the washing machine ran daily. He would get up off his bed and you could tell that he was as surprised as we were that he had an accident. Then the amount of accidents increased and I would watch him in the yard or on our walks trying to go to the bathroom with no success. The expensive ultrasound at the vet confirmed he had a tumor on his bladder. There was an expensive surgery option but with his age and the risk the surgery involved we followed the Vet’s advice and just let things take their course. Over the next three months he would have good and bad days, but soon the bad days outnumbered the good. The heartbreaking part of it was during the day he was for the most part fine, but at night he repeatedly had accidents and was constantly asking to go out all night long. I would watch from the dark window as he would walk about trying to go to the bathroom but failing. I can only assume that the tumor had grown causing him to feel like he always had to go, and being unable to determine when he really did.

It’s hard in the end to make the decision when the right time to let your friend go is. I owed Buddy so much, it was important to get this right, but yet so hard to get right when you are trying to understand what is going on and he can’t tell you. In the end it is a best guess kind of scenario, but the problem is…you want to be sure. After a particularly rough night I made the decision that it was time. I sat there with the phone in my hand…it took three hours to finally hit the call button. I can only presume that the Vet is used to this, they were great and gave us the last appointment of the day.

Buddy laid on his bed and tolerated me laying there beside him, gently petting him as he laid there sleeping. I know he saw the tears running down my face but I think he was dealing with his own stuff, as those big brown eyes just stared out at me. There was the very slight scent that had never quite gone away after his encounter with a skunk months earlier. I tried to explain that I hoped that I was getting this right and I would like to think he knew that I was doing the best that I could. The thought of him suffering because I didn’t have the strength to let him go was just not an option. I owed him more than that.

It was a long eight hours from the time that I called to the time that my daughter and I took Buddy in. There was lots of quiet time and snuggling. We went out for our last hike, a nice long one at the Royal Botanical Gardens which I think may have been his favourite place to go. It was wet, and it was muddy, but we both just enjoyed our slow stroll through the woods.

We returned home and for supper instead of the kibble with a little bit of canned dog food he got straight canned food, more than a can of it, which he quickly devoured. Then Elizabeth came home and I gave them their time together.

Finally the time had come, we loaded up Buddy for the one way trip to the Vet. He was great as he always is, happy to go wherever we take him. They got us in the room and we laid there on the floor saying our goodbyes, a steady stream of tears flowing down our faces. Buddy just laid there, big brown eyes looking up at us. As always he just looked at me with absolute trust, he trusted me with his life and I guess in the end he trusted me with his death. First shot to relax and then a few minutes later the second fatal shot. I know that he went out knowing that he was loved, I hoped that he knew how grateful I was for his companionship over the years and that I had always done my best for him.

I don’t know what Buddy’s life was before he came to live with me, but I hope that both he and I could agree that the last part of his life was a good life, where he was part of a loving family.

And now it has been a week that Buddy has been gone, and I realize what a huge hole he has left in my life. Please don’t misunderstand, I have a wonderful lady, a great daughter and wonderful friends. Buddy was just a huge part of my life, even more so then I realized, and it is now when he is gone that I notice everything. When I wake up in the morning I am no longer greeted by those big brown eyes and wagging tail by the side of the bed. There is no more dog kisses or licks or requests for pets. I am no longer stepping around his huge dog bed, during the night in the bedroom or during the day in the living room. I can now open the fridge door without a blur of fur coming in to see if I am offering anything to the canine benevolent fund. I can now cook in the kitchen and not trip over Buddy every time I step back. The morning and afternoon walk times come and go and he isn’t coming to get me. The top of the fridge has been cleared off, no more dog food and dog treats. The dog food and treats have been sent home with friends for their dogs. The dog towel and leashes have been taken down from by the side door where they waited for our walks. I am still finding poop bags in my pants and numerous coats. I can now use the dryer whenever I want (for reasons we never understood running the dryer terrified him). Every time I get ready to go out, or when I come back in my first instinct is to let Buddy out, but of course he isn’t there. When I come through the door now there is no loving dog waiting for me like I am his favourite person in the world ……. or second favourite after my daughter. I no longer have Buddy to remind me that as long as we have food, am healthy enough to go for our walks and have each other…. then life is good.

In closing I guess I just felt the need to express my gratitude to a very dear friend who is now gone. Thanks Buddy, for the friendship shared, love given, for all the days you dragged me out the door on walks or hikes, and for reminding me that we need very little in life to truly be happy.

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