#tw repression

[beauburrowsystem]

the aftermath of repression

(I know I already said this in the comic itself but I wanna make it so clear that the violence was not real and was happening in our head for emotionally fueled dramatic effect lol. everyone’s safe and okay they’re just imagining beating the shit out of each other for fun. as you do. lmfao)

[aliennopossumm]

Be Brave For Them

A little oneshot based on this concept by @kiddiesides !!

CW: fainting, crying, general sickness, hospital mentions, small mentions of repression Characters: Thomas, Patton, mentions of the rest of the sides/Nico Summary: It’s been a long and stressful few days for Patton, he just wants his dad. Wordcount: 1366 words, 7,599 characters

It had only been two days after the initial fainting when Thomas was allowed to be released from the hospital, his parents happily driving him back home whilst Nico took care of their kids. Once he had walked through the door, around 6pm on a Thursday night, he was immediately swarmed by all of his kiddos, hugging him tight and mumbling how they missed him. Of course, throughout the time he was admitted to hospital, visits were allowed, but this time, dad was home!

Nico chuckled softly at the cuddle pile, giving Thomas a quick kiss on his cheek and offering to make them all dinner. He insisted for Thomas to rest, asking Patton to help him with making the pasta for dinner that night - of course, Patton was fully allowed to say no, but the oldest of the six happily accepted.

It did not take long for the food to be finished, Patton silently plating the table with a neutral expression on his face. Nico assumed this was simply tiredness, prompting him to sit down once the meal was finished and placed in the centre of the table. Without question, Patton did as he was told, half-listening to Nico announcing dinner being ready.

The remaining six family members came quickly to the dining area, Virgil still refusing to let go of Thomas. A familiar chatter dissolved over the room, Thomas sharing silly stories from the hospital and the kiddos catching him up on the events that occurred in his absence. However, Patton seemed distant from the conversation, determined to keep his head down as he ate and only speak when spoken too. It did not take long for Thomas to notice this, especially since Patton would often shoot worried glances in his father’s direction, looking back down when Thomas seemed to make eye contact.

Once everybody had eaten their dinner and cleaned up after themselves, the younger kids needing help from Thomas or Nico, the former of the pair gently announced they would all be going to bed a little earlier tonight. Whilst Thomas was in the hospital, he was told that the kids were not sleeping well with their dad gone - now he was back, he wanted to make sure each kid caught up on their lack of sleep.

A few of the younger kids protested this early bedtime, but Patton just quietly took Virgil to help him get ready for bed. Being so young, he hardly understood the concept of when and what bedtime was, happy to have some time with his older brother. Together, the two got changed into the pyjamas, and Patton assisted Virgil in very gently brushing the few teeth he had. Patton did not brush his own, though, too focused on cleaning up Vee’s mouth and bringing him to bed. Silence fell across the smaller’s room, the remainder of their siblings in a bathroom or their own bedroom, getting dressed into comfier clothes. It did not take Virgil to fall asleep, Patton softly making up a story of how Prince Vee helped saved King Daddy when he was feeling sick. Though each word that fell out of his mouth reminded him how completely terrifying the situation only a few days prior was, he pushed through, able to get his brother sleeping soundly.

A built up sigh left Patton’s mouth, kissing his brother’s head and pulling the blanket closer to the baby. He sat lingering for several more seconds, before his brothers called from the other room - Roman was being poked by Remus’ toothbrush, and Janus was yelling about how Thomas “isn’t putting the scale cream on properly!”. With a small, sad smile on his face, Patton made his way towards the rest of his family to be of assistance. I just have to push through 10 more minutes of this, and then I’ll be alone in my room, he thought, gently lecturing Remus to be nicer to his twin. Just a bit longer, then I can sleep, the thought continued, applying the scale cream to Janus’ face the same exact way as their dad, but it was different to him for some reason.

Finally, finally, all of his siblings were sound asleep, making his way to his own room. Of course, he loved his family more than life itself, but being able to walk into a private room for time to himself was a euphoric feeling. He crawled into his bed, getting underneath the covers and pulling a stuffed animal to his chest - a frog that Thomas had bought for him a few years prior at a yard sale, before half of Patton’s siblings had appeared. He gripped the sides of the frog, the stuffed animal that was once so big compared to him now the size of his torso.

Patton started crying. For the past few days, he had been holding it back, trying to be strong. Though a few tears slipped on the phone call to Nico, and his breath shook when they left the hospital for visiting hours, and he stared sadly at the bathroom door whenever he locked himself in there to be alone, he did not sob. He let himself cry for who knows how long, before hearing a gentle knock on the door - he knew it was Thomas, he’d memorised how each member of his family knocked on the door.

Quickly, Patton wiped his tears, sitting up on his bed, “come in.”

Thomas opened the door, smiling sadly, “Hey kiddo. Thank you for helping so much today.” He walked into his son’s room, shutting the door behind him and sitting on his bed.

“‘Course,” Patton mumbled, slightly worried he was going to be told off. Did he hurt Thomas when he initially fainted? Maybe how he lectured Remus wasn’t good enough?

Thomas went to gently ask him if he was feeling alright, but noticed his tear-stained cheeks and red eyes, unable to beat around the bush, fully knowing how insistent Patton was of being “fine” to not worry his father further. “Were you crying, Pattycake?”

The comment made his anxiety jump a little, rubbing his eyes roughly, “Maybe a little, but I’m fine dad, just tired.”

“You don’t need to be fine, it’s been scary, huh?” Thomas spoke gently, taking Patton’s hands so he could not rub his eyes further, “it's just you and dad, kiddo, you can tell me anything.”

Though a few seconds of silence passed, Patton soon fell into his dad’s arms, sobbing into his chest. Most of what he said was incomprehensible, Thomas able to make out the words “sorry”, “scary” and “pressure”.

He did not interrupt his son, gently rubbing Patton’s back and rocking him as he let himself cry. Intermittently, he pressed kisses to his forehead, gently wiping any tears he saw with his sleeve if Patton looked up to meet eyes with him.

The two sat like this for several minutes, the sobs eventually dissolving into sad hiccups and a few more mumbles about how sorry Patton was. Thomas kissed the remaining tears away from Patton’s face, eliciting giggles from his oldest.

“Are you feeling any better, kiddo?” Patton quickly nodded at the question, making Thomas smile sadly, “you did so well, Patt, I wouldn’t have known what to do when I was 12.”

Patton sniffled softly, muttering how he needs to know to keep his brothers safe.

He felt his father cupping his face in his hands, melting into the warm skin - a few smaller tears fell again. Truthfully, Patton was so scared, mumbling to Thomas on how he tried his best to stay brave to not worry any of his brothers.

“You did so well, kiddo,” Thomas smiled sadly, kissing his nose gently, “let me make you a hot chocolate, we can stay up longer watching TV, yeah?”

Patton nodded happily at that, grabbing the frog stuffie again to bring with him. Thomas noticed, cooing happily.

“You still have Strawberry?” he asked softly, stroking the one-fluffy material of the stuffed animal. Patton nodded, making Thomas beam, “We should get you a new stuffie, hm? I think Build-a-Bear has frogs, don’t they? We could go together, just you and me!”

Patton nodded, “I’d like that…”

[loveyourlovelysoul]

These recent years have been (and are) pretty tough: pandemic and viruses, lockdown, wars, repressions... it has been (and still is) difficult to live in such a complicated worldwide environment. Many of our triggers and fears have surely found a good ground to come back to surface and try to bug us and play with us: all the stress related to living, working, maybe having social interactions, and sticking up to society's standandars despite all that is going on around, is literally sending our mental and emotional health to places. For this reason, I think we all need to be a little kinder and understanding of ourselves, and others too. It's not easy to go on like this. I hope you all recognize you've been (and are, everyday) doing a great job. You're enduring a lot and you totally deserve accolades. Hope you remember this every second of your life.

[stahp-right-there-peasant]

MePhone4: So, apparently, the 'bad vibes' I’ve been feeling are actually severe psychological distress… but I’m sure it’ll be fineeeee

[dreamsclock]

Oh gosh I just had this thought- Maybe dream hums/sings to himself road trip or another one of his songs and any of the dream team kids specially hear and pester him to learn it. They go home and are humming it or something and their parents demand to know where they learned it but the kids are adamant in protecting/hiding their ghosty friend and don’t tell them

this was so sad to write :’) i don’t think i’ve ever written from c!sam’s perspective ?? so this was an interesting challenge, esp. writing him five years into the future :0 i enjoyed this a lot!!

warnings: death, grief, unhealthy coping mechanisms, unhealthy relationships, repression, emotional distress

It’s a ghostly rhythm that haunts the server: which is ironic, Sam thinks, because he’s haunted by ghosts in every dark corner of his life.

He has a lot of regrets in life, he does, and Dream is a whole category of regrets: I was only doing what I had to, he tells himself to help him sleep, and when Ponk worriedly inquires the next morning why Sam’s eyes are red-rimmed and exhausted, Sam smiles tiredly and tells him he’d been thinking.

(“Don’t think too deep,” Ponk tells him with a snort, but his eyes are genuine, sincere, “you’ll hurt yourself.”)

(Ponk is another whole category of regret. Sam’s heart squeezes sharply at the sight of him, and sometimes he doesn’t know whether it’s in grief or in affection. “I know,” he sighs, and lets himself be distracted.)

Every adult is on edge; every adult who understands the song’s meaning, that is. George is quieter than usual, wincing at the idle humming from the children, while Sam knows Sapnap spends as much time as he can around them to try and remind himself of Dream. Tubbo and Ranboo and some of the others who hadn’t been as close to Dream seem oblivious, and Quackity—

Quackity is a whole different story. He’s flighty and snappy at the sound of the song, leaving the room every time it’s hummed and remaining worryingly silent about it. The younger is still a mess after what had happened, and Sam knows he’s not much better — guilt is a worse ghost than Dream himself (not that he sees Dream, at all), and from looking at Quackity, he knows he feels it just as bad as he does.

(“He doesn’t sleep,” Karl sighs, drifting aimlessly around the room and fiddling with a crafting table, “he just paces around and doesn’t talk. Me and Sap both know why, but he never tells us. He’s going to run himself out if he’s not careful.”

Sam thinks of Quackity, of the slowly rekindling anger in his eyes and the way he never really got the time to actually get over what he’d done in a healthy way. “We might have bigger problems than him burning out,” he says tiredly, and Karl knows exactly what he means.)

Doomsday — the metaphorical one — comes on Doomsday — the anniversary of the literal one. Sam is having dinner with Karl and Sapnap and Quackity, their kids playing happily while dinner is made, and all the adults know Quackity is tense; can see it in his shoulders, hear it in his terse conversation; don’t, Q, Sam thinks desperately, who has grown rather adept at ignoring his regrets and guilts while they devour him from the inside, don’t do this.

Quackity, perhaps in typical fashion, does do that. The blow over comes when James comes in humming, but it’s Dream’s voice Sam hears in his head—

(“What song is that?” Sam asks Dream curiously after a gruelling day, coming to stand next to him in the hot summer’s sun.

His friend looks sheepish, mask half off his face to enjoy basking in the afternoon. “...It’s mine,” he admits, and Sam blinks, surprised, “I’m writing it. It’s not finished, or anywhere near finished, but— but I like it.” He smiles, shaking his head ruefully. “Everyone needs a healthy way of expressing themselves after the war, right?”)

—and it seems Quackity does too, because he jerks a hand out, sending bowls crashing to the floor, shattering on the ground at his feet with soup spilling everywhere. “Where did you hear that?” He demands, turning to a surprised James. “Who taught you that song?”

James blinks, gaze sliding to Helga, who shrugs. “Heard it in the wind,” she says cheerfully, and Sam flinches at the sight of her gaze, something knowing and sharp in it, more judgmental than he likes: the kids had always been bound to be their judge and jury, and Sam hopes to Prime they’re not their executioners if they find them guilty, “are you okay, Papa?”

“Q,” Sapnap says, voice low, “don’t.”

Quackity’s breathing is ragged and uneven when he leaves, storming out of the house, and the silence over dinner is just as bad. Sam chokes down his dinner and has never been more thankful to leave — the twins’ eyes burn into his back as he does, and Sam can’t get home fast enough.

Darian and Ponk are there when he gets back, both of them looking confused at his early arrival back. Sam pulls them both into his arms and vows to ignore the song, ignore the memories, ignore it all. Living in the past, Puffy tells him, is a recipe for disaster.

...It’s hard to live in the present when he wakes up with a nightmare and Ponk comforts him with a song, humming under his breath. Sam’s too busy trying to clamp down his shaking to demand he stop, but he can force out a raw “where did you learn that?” before he can stop himself.

“Darian was humming it earlier,” Ponk tells him, “I guess I must have picked it up, ‘cause— hey, hey, Sam, are you okay?”

There are tears running down his face, even as resigned hilarity rises inside him: this has to be Dream’s last laugh, Sam thinks, haunting him with this song, it has to be his final act of revenge. And Sam can tell Ponk the truth — he can tell him to stop singing it and reveal why and Ponk would stop, he would, but then he would also know, because once Sam starts talking about Dream he can’t stop, because he can’t have Ponk know any more than he does, because Ponk is one regret and Dream is another and Sam knows those are his regrets to drown in.

“I’m okay,” Sam tells him, resigned to his guilt, “I’m....”

From the shadows, he thinks he sees Dream’s eyes glinting at him through the darkness.

[noodles-07]

The real reason I’m learning to skateboard is so I can escape my feelings. If I move fast enough maybe they won’t be able to catch me

[urisk-factor]

Ok I wanted to throw out a few of my own Heartless Headcannons, entirely the Jury, mostly Dock. TW for blood, mentions of animal testing, dead corpses, rats, organs, violence, and stuff that Dock would do. I'm just gonna tag this as body horror because I guess that counts. Oh and I headcannon Dock and Alastor as married too, sorry (not sorry), I don't make the rules.

Dock once, a month or two after graduating from medical school, got really drunk and blacked out. In the morning, he found a giant teddy bear and a human body in his room, with the organs from the human in the teddy, and the stuffing from the teddy in the human. He has no idea what happened that night and has no idea how he did it or where he got the teddy, let alone the body.

Bandy somehow knows everything before it's public. He knew that Alastor and Dock are married, he knew about Heartless, he knew about Lance's stash of "chewed items", he knew about Lorelei's black swan dress, and he knew about Diana's pet owl.

Anyways, like I said, Diana has a pet owl that she took care of since his mother left him. He's call Ben, and she likes saying stuff like "Ben killed and ate a mouse that I've been trying to shoot for weeks, he's a good boy, bless his heart" to people she's just met but have warmed up to enough to speak.

Lorelei sometimes calls Dock her "skirt buddy" to annoy him and he just accepts it.

Dock really hates animal testing, and once beat a guy to an inch of his life for testing drugs on rats. He took the rats and he still has them. They're old and well looked after.

Alastor once got so annoyed with a guy who was somehow bigger than Dock that he climbed up Dock's cloak, sat himself on Dock's shoulders, and started berating the man. Lorelei, Lance, and Bandy got in on video camera.

Their curses come from heavily repressed magic.

Their ages are Lance and Bandy at twenty-nine (29), Lorelei at thirty-two (32), Diana at thirty-seven (37), Alastor at thirty-nine (39), and Dock at fourty-three (43).

Dock's real name isn't actually Dock, but is instead Daniel Harrowmoore. Daniel Harrowmoore may or may not be wanted for arson. All Dock will say is that it was an accident.

Diana is somewhere between craving physical touch and hating physical touch at all times.

They leave notes on the fridge. The only ones who can read Dock's atrocious hand writing (it's the doctor hand writing) is Alastor because he's so familiar with doctor hand writing, and Diana because she made a code for it.

Following on from that last one, Lance once wrote "okay I am convinced that you're not even writing words anymore" under one of Dock's notes.

Lorelei has handwriting so neat and curvy and pretty that it's almost as impossible to read as Dock's, not quite though.

Lance, Lorelei, and Alastor are cat people, Bandy and Diana are dog people, and Dock just really loves animals of all kinds, especially if they're considered unlucky or horrible or something.

They have this sort of truck thing, with three seets in the front, three in the back, and then the boot. In the front, Diana drives (she's the only one who can drive), Dock navigates, and Alastor sits between them and helps Dock sometimes. In the back, Lorelei, Lance, and Bandy all sing show showtunes and get on the front three's nerves.

Well that's not totally true. When Dock was in his twenties, he had a motorcycle, but it was stolen and he never got it back.

Alastor is the only one allowed to hug Dock and vice versa. They're very affectionate towards each other, with Dock often coming up behind Alastor, wrapping his arms around Alastor's chest, and wresting his head on Alastor's. Alastor is a bit more nervous but will sometimes just zoom over to Dock and cling to his side.

Alastor's coat used to be Dock's. When Alastor first met Dock, it was really cold, in the middle of a snowstorm, in a giant city, alone, at twenty-one (21), at approximately three o'clock in the morning. He was walking down the street, shivering, when Dock just happened to leave a small twenty-four hour store, saw Alastor, and just went, "yup, small, shivering, not a threat, hey I wonder if he wants this jacket? I don't need it". Dock offered it and Alastor accepted, grateful. They would meet again a few years later and Dock recognized him by the same coat.

Dock has a bad habit of working for days straight, then heading back to his room/home or wherever he sleeps and just crashes and sleeps for the rest of the week. Only a Lorelei scream can wake him.

Not really a headcannon but my mind randomly went "what if the Jury aren't witch hunters, and are instead witches, pretending to be witch hunters, to save other witches, and this whole Heartless and Co. situation was just one big misunderstanding that could easily be solved by simple communication" and I thought it was funny.

Once the paparazzi were following the Jury leaders around, to the point of it probably being a crime, so Alastor invited them into the Jury HQ and told the leaders to be as obscene and messy and dickish as possible. Dock walked in, covered head to toe in blood, with a still beating heart of unknown origins. Just imagine this giant, massive thing, probably bigger than Dock's head. So anyways, he walks in with it in his hands, walks over to the head interviewer or whatever, dumped in into his lap, and said "I hope you find it just as delicious as I do." They left incredibly quickly after that, and never even looked in the Jury's direction after that.

[solreefs]

Mmkay here are the promised adhd!Tiergan headcanons

Warning, a good 90% of these are pure projecting

He’s self-diagnosed because the Lost Cities’ mental health system is a train wreck that’s also on fire

It wasn’t really obvious until he started Foxfire, because a lot of his symptoms could be dismissed as just “weird smart kid” up to that point

Around the time he started Foxfire, he started to realize that not everyone had hyperfixations so intense they literally couldn’t think about anything else or waved their hands around when they were happy or felt like they physically could not pay attention in class sometimes or spaced out constantly

He has that lovely combination of ADHD and anxiety that makes you essentially a procrastinator with a horrible fear of failure, which is a trip, to say the least

He listens to music in the background a lot while he works because if it’s too quiet he spaces out but if it’s too loud he can’t focus

Speaking of music, human music is one of his longest-lasting hyperfixations, especially the Beatles

He used to infodump about music to Prentice a lot, but then you know... all the memory break stuff...

He used to have a ton of stims, but because mental health is Total Shit in the Lost Cities, he represses them a lot now

As far as the stims themselves go...

He waves his hands around when he’s excited over something

But it also calms him down

Not-so-fun fact: this is why Tiergan is mentioned to twist his hands together when he’s stressed or upset

It’s his way of stopping himself from flapping his hands or tapping his fingers or anything like that because he was told shit like “stop acting like a child” whenever he would stim

Jfc Aelan let him be happy for once

He has a love/hate relationship with routines, i.e. he will get nothing done without them but hates having to rely on them

Oh! He finds words he likes the sound of and repeats them over and over until they sound like nonsense

I did not not know until recently that this in fact constituted verbal stimmming. *adds to my list of Odd Habits I Have That Turned Out To Be ADHD Symptoms*

Not specifically an adhd thing, but he has terrible handwriting

He likes to read and gets very into books very quickly

Oh boy so much projecting on this next one

Okay okay so you know how he’s kinda weird about touching, especially when he’s upset? Like sometimes it’s like “get away from me” and other times it’s like “thank you I appreciate that”

Yeah it’s the adhd

Sometimes when he’s stressed it’s just Too Much because “I’m freaking out and I feel awful and oh my god someone’s hugging me I do not like this”

But other times it does help because it gives him something to focus on other than the Internal Panic

Okay projecting over

Mostly

He doesn’t mind sitting, but he can’t sit still. He has to do something, even if it’s just tapping his fingers on the desk or whatever

Okay this got very long so there will be a part 2