#& idk. i think we should give more grace to anyone who struggles with or has to learn how to be hygienic

[coolestfinch]

i do actually think if more people believed & enforced the idea that having good or bad hygiene is NOT a moral issue, then the world would be a better place

[dawntheduckrb]

...I missed another week.

I, um, got really sick last week. At first I thought it was food poisoning, and then we thought it was a stomach bug, and then some other highly inconvenient supposed-to-be-monthly-but-never-is occurrence started, and after checking some family medical history, now we're thinking there's a chance I might have endometriosis :3 epic

I got better though ^-^

…and then managed to get a cold right after…

I'm functional, just slightly unconformable, and I can't breathe and my voice is a lot deeper than normal (I'm not complaining about that though lmao).

The week I missed was about whether the bible condones slavery, and unlike the last time I missed a week, I'm actually gonna go back and watch this one later. Maybe not until after the rest of the series is done, 'cause I can only handle this once a week. But, I'm still interested in what they had to say since it’s not something they talk about a lot. So expect that later!

That being said…

MASSIVE CONTENT WARNING 

THIS SHIT IS GROSS

This talks very blatantly about sex, because it seems they think that is the only thing LGBTQ+ people think about. If those topics make your skin crawl, maybe skip this one. Specific warnings for mentions of rape, sexual abuse, misogyny (AND misandry, if that one example the pastor gives counts), homophobia, transphobia, and general religion/religious themes. (I think that's the longest list so far)

With that out of the way:

Week 6: Is the Bible Anti-Gay?

Apparently this was the only message they preemptively received emails about. Some people messaged them to let them know they should lay into the LGBTQ+ community.  Our pastor said that this was not at all their goal. He also requested that the people in the sanctuary didn't clap for every single thing they agreed with, because of how it may come off as insensitive towards other people listening. A pleasant surprise for sure, given the attitudes towards the LGBTQ+ community common in evangelical circles where I live.

If you're reading this and somehow haven't seen me mention it before, I believe it's important to mention that I live in Southern U.S, right in the middle of the bible belt (yeehaw or something idk). Some progressive churches exist in other parts of the U.S, and they have been slowly been increasing in number which is great, but something like that is a sight to be seen down here. Churches here are notorious for their intolerance. So uh, spoiler alert, this sermon says that homosexuality is a sin and will have some pretty awful takes in regards to LGBTQ+ people. There wasn’t much of an introduction, so I'll just go ahead and start with the main points;

1.) Did Jesus say anything about homosexuality?

Some people tend to claim that Jesus said nothing about homosexuality, and that because of this, the bible doesn't really have a stance on it. However, this is untrue;

"'Haven’t you read the Scriptures?' Jesus replied. 'They record that from the beginning 'God made them male and female.'' And he said, ''This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.' Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together.'”(Matthew 19:4-6)

Here, Jesus explicitly defines sex as meant to be between a man and a women within the confines of marriage. It is meant to be for pleasure, for procreation, and more than anything else, a presentation of the gospel that joins two people together. "This [verse] defines the true form of sex, not every perversion of it." Jesus here only provides us the model of what sex should look like. Anything that does not follow this model is a perversion; things like rape and adultery, for example.

2.) We Must Show both Grace and Truth

In today's culture, some churches are very affirming of homosexuality, even sometimes having gay pastors. Others are completely alienating to anyone who "struggles with same sex attraction or is living in a homosexual lifestyle". The bible has a different approach. The bible's response to homosexuality is graceful, and with truth.

"Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.

“Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”

They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.

When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”

“No, Lord,” she said.

And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” (John 8:1-11)

If we are to follow the bible, we should be neither affirming nor alienating. He gives an example through the story where a woman who was caught committing adultery was brought to Jesus to be stoned. This was done as an attempt to put Jesus in a bind; to either continue his word of loving everyone, or to follow the law of Moses. This is when Jesus speaks that famous line, "He who is without sin should cast the first stone." Nobody was, and the men who brought the woman to Jesus began to leave. Jesus then lets the woman go, telling her to no longer sin. Here, we see an excellent example of grace and truth. Both affirming sin and alienating sin is the most unloving thing somebody can do. Jesus doesn't do either of those here; he doesn't condone the woman's sin (gives truth), but he doesn't look down on her either (extends grace).

Some say that the bible says not to judge others, so we shouldn't bother people for living differently than us. This is half correct. Yes, the bible says not to judge others:

"'Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.'"(Matthew 7:1-2)

But, not judging another person doesn't mean you shouldn't tell them what you believe to be true. You just shouldn't enact judgment on them by doing so, either through alienation or retaliation. "We must love our gay neighbor more than we love our position on sexual morality."

"You judge someone not when you asses their position but when you dismiss them as a person." -JD Greear

3.) Greater and Lesser Sins?

Some Christians see homosexuality as one of the worst sins. Is it still, of course a sin; any sex outside of marriage is, both homosexuality and heterosexuality. But some people hold homosexuality to a higher level of severity. However, the bible doesn't grade sin. There are different consequences for different sins, but all sin is equal in the eyes of god. Even still, even if it was ranked, sin itself doesn't send people to hell. The only thing that does this is rejecting Christ as your savior. The thing is though, if you begin to live your life with Christ, your behavior tends to change to reflect a life where you avoid sin. If our ability to be with god was based on our ability to be without sin, nobody would be going to heaven (a large portion of people were probably speeding on the way to church, he said. Which is likely correct). So no, homosexuality isn't the worst sin; sin isn't on a scale like that. But it is still not something that reflects life in Christ, so it is not something we should just accept.

The pastor changed subjects for a little bit in the middle of this, and went on a small rant about "tolerance." He said that tolerance used to mean that we should let people believe what they want. Nowadays, the meaning has been changed to say that tolerance means that you have to affirm and validate people's positions, no matter what they believe. He thought the definition was no longer right.

"We know that the law is good when used correctly. For the law was not intended for people who do what is right. It is for people who are lawless and rebellious, who are ungodly and sinful, who consider nothing sacred and defile what is holy, who kill their father or mother or commit other murders. The law is for people who are sexually immoral, or who practice homosexuality, or are slave traders, liars, promise breakers, or who do anything else that contradicts the wholesome teaching" (1 Timothy 1:8-10)

Once again, the bible says sexuality immorality is a sin, and explicitly mentions homosexuality here too. He made a comment here about people who will go and blast people who are homosexual, all while living with their girlfriend/boyfriend or actively watching porn or things like that. All of this is sexual immorality, and to put down others while living like this is hypocrisy at its finest. 

4.) We are all Broken and in Desperate Need of God's Grace

This is specifically refencing the common idea that people who are homosexual are born the way they are. That they have those desires innately, and so it shouldn't a sin to enact on them, because why else would that desire be there in the first place?

Our pastor agrees with this idea. He agrees in the sense that he says we are all born with improper desires. The whole, we are all born in sin because of The Fall concept. Everyone struggles with sin, and we need to be born again away from sin. He then gave a quote from a "former lesbian" (????former?), now a Christian author who is married to her husband with kids;

"Adam's fall rendered my deep and primal feelings untrustworthy and untrue." -Rosaria Butterfield

This is true of all of us; the Fall has given us all desires we can't trust. We all have a natural tendency towards sin. He furthered this by giving an example of a pastor he knows, who once said that he had a desire to have a sexual relationship with every attractive women he saw. That is an innate desire within him, and he needs to always repent from that. Those with same-sex attraction are in the same boat. He went on saying that this is also true for those with gender dysphoria. He says that people dealing with that are also fighting desire; those who claim they are a  "man/woman trapped in a man's/woman's body" have a desire to relate as another gender. These are all examples of fallen desires, and things we need to all repent from.

Our pastor then went on to say that the way we treat LGBTQ+ people today is not good. He gave a hypothetical example; if a young 15 year old girl were to go to the hospital with anorexia, then the hospital's first response would not be to change her body (he said, "they wouldn't just give her a liposuction"). They would try to change what's going on in her mind, so she begins to believe things about herself differently. But when children appear with gender dysphoria, people today think it's okay to permit drastic changes to their bodies, with things such as hormone therapy or "radically aggressive surgeries," when what really need to happen is for them to have their minds renewed. Especially with teenagers, who may feel like a different person every single day.

In all, we shouldn't focus on making a gay person straight. We need to focus on making those who are dead in Christ alive in god's word.

He somehow got off track again by talking about how when men are gay, sometimes it's because they come from a bad home life. They lacked a good father figure, so they are mostly just looking for love from any man to fill that hole. He also said he has never met a female who was a lesbian who didn't experience sexual abuse in their childhood. (he really emphasized the word female here like some kind of different species). He said, "Do they exist? Sure they do. I've not met one." Said those traumatic experiences as a child will change their desires. It's not okay to stay like that though.

"But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.

Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles.

So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved." (Romans 1:18-27)

If we look at creation, it is very clear that there is a creator. We may try to deny that because if we accept this, then we must also accept that there is a higher authority than ourselves. This denial will cause us to have misplaced desires. This is where all of our sinful desires come from, and everyone must turn away from them.

5.) Nobody is out of reach of the grace of God

"Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." (1 Corinthians 6:11)

All of these are sins that are a result of rejecting a relationship with Jesus. But when we accept that relationship, we are making the decision to try and live in a way that rejects sin. We may lose our battle with sin sometimes, and that's okay. We are all in a constant struggle against sin, but Jesus gives us the power to fight against it.

"When the Lord entered my world, I experienced that gospel-ignited 'expulsive power of a new affection.' The new affection was not heterosexuality, but Jesus, my Jesus, my friend and Savior. I was not converted out of homosexuality. I was converted out of unbelief." -Rosaria Butterfield

Saying no to sexual immorality, whether that be through pre-marital sex, an affair, rape, or homosexuality, is saying yes to Jesus. Intimacy with another person is temporary; intimacy with Christ is eternal. "Self-denial, not self-expression, leads to true fulfillment."

Some people may be able to free themselves of homosexual desire, while some may struggle with it for their whole lives. For those who will always struggle with it, is isn't because god is cruel. Our pastor explains why god would do this with a quote:

"God leaves sin in our lives to convince us until our dying day that we are in desperate need of him" -John Newton

"God's acceptance is the power that liberates us from sin, not the reward for having liberated." God gives us the tools we need to fight our battles; he doesn't win them for us. We need him to fight against sin, so God uses our battles with sin as a way to bring us closer to him.

Our pastor closed by saying that God loves us, that our sexual identity does not define us, and that anyone who is currently struggling with homosexuality is more than welcome to visit any of the deacons they had at the front of the sanctuary.

As for my thoughts.

1.) I think it's extremely unfair to equate falling in love with someone who happens to have similar biology to you to rape. I don't even think that needs to be said. I'm upset that this even has to be said.

2.) Note how not once did he mention love in this. There's no love to be had between two people of the same sex, according this ideology. Only sexual attraction. I genuinely don't think people like this can fathom the idea of loving before/without sexual attraction, or that people who are the same gender can love each other in the romantic sense of the word and not just the sexual. I say this because I was exactly like this a long time ago.

When I was a Christian, I made a very clear differentiation in my head between homosexual couples and heterosexual ones. I never thought of heterosexual relationships as inherently sexual relationships, and I'm ashamed to admit that at that time, I didn't think the same of homosexual ones. The only model I had for reference of a loving relationship were mothers and fathers, and anything else was unheard of and framed as surface level only. This is a position of complete ignorance. In my case and for others like me, it was genuine ignorance caused by indoctrination from my family, and has gone away after a lot of work and a lot of learning (not an excuse for my awful behavior towards some people, only reasoning). At a certain point though, if you have been confronted with the reality that people love for more than surface level reasons and still believe things like this, it becomes willful ignorance, and that is a horrible thing to parade around as holy morals.

3.) Tolerance still means living and letting be. The problem is, when you feel like letting people live their non-Christian lives is an egregious sin punishable by eternal death and hellfire, and start creating laws that target those people and harass those people and use your religious texts to make them feel like awful people for simply being happy due to those beliefs, you're not exactly doing the "let be" part of that sentence. Yeah, not every act done in the name of God is from God, but at a certain point you have to see the trend of how a good portion of your church is not exactly pleasant towards LGBTQ+ people. You don't have to affirm or validate anybody, but you shouldn't put others in harm's way just because they don't follow your religious text. The bible says that God has made it our choice to follow him, so even in the context of the word, nobody has a right to force someone to live under God's law. (Matthew 10:14 for an explicit example, but this is hardly a divisive viewpoint among Christians. Some just seem to forget about it at the polls).

4.) They don't just start pumping kids full of hormones. This literally doesn't happen. I don't even know how we got to gender dysphoria in a sermon on homosexuality but geez. There's massive amounts of therapy that goes into it, there's puberty blockers that are 100% reversible. And for adults, these surgeries and hormone therapies aren't framed as "radical" when they happen to cis people. This is common propaganda being pushed around to garner fear towards trans people, and is extremely harmful.

5.) Most gay people are missing love from their parents or have been sexually abused, thus causing them to be gay? Really?

6.) It is not common to want to sleep with every woman you see. He gave that example so casually, like he was announcing that his friend also likes to go bowling. He may not have mentioned it here, but I can say that in the past, we have had entire sermons dedicated to telling men how to not see women as sex objects, and how to instead respect women, and for them to love their wives and be good fathers. They are of the view that it is all to common for most men to be dealing with things like this. This case, is of course, severe compared to most, but the struggle with temptation is there for most men according to them.

Not all men are like this. Not all people are like this. People who don't read the bible don't always also want to have sex with every person they find appealing. If the only thing keeping someone from doing bad things (such as hitting on every attractive person you see) is an ancient tome, then there might be an internal issue that should be addressed. I don't like the notion that those without the bible have no way of fighting intrusive thoughts like these. These are intrusive thoughts, they're unwanted. The pastor who is dealing with this likely does have that as a natural reaction towards women he finds interesting, and it's a good thing he is aware there is a problem. Thats the most important step in moving away from things like that. That's not the bad part. The issue I have is, something like that cannot be corrected by just praying it away and asking for forgiveness from God every time you slip up. There's a bit of a viewpoint change towards other people that needs to happen there for that to show noticeable change. It's a bit concerning that this is coming from a pastor, but maybe I'm just being weird about that.

7.) (and last) How cruel can a god be to create someone born to live a life without love, while placing them in a position where they can't help but love those who they are not allowed to? You can't just get over it and make yourself love somebody. That's not how it works. To make a person force themselves to be absolutely miserable for decades in an attempt to prove their devotion to you? What kind of god would something like that? A narcissistic one, I'm inclined to believe.

I had a lot of words on this, and I had to condense them down because I could honestly rant on for hours about things like this. It hits me personally. I've dealt with gender dysphoria for far longer than I knew what gender dysphoria even was. I'm still coming to terms with that. I've felt strongly for people who I wasn't supposed to according to the bible, and I hated myself for it. I forced myself to push those people away. I'll never forgive myself for that.

In religions like this, it feels suffocating having these ideas crammed into you for as long as you remember. If you want out, there's a good chance you'll have to find a way to crawl out all on your own, because they likely won't help you. It's hard, but it's possible, and it's very much worth it. The friends I've made and the people I've met just within the past year are people I would have never met had I not began work on myself first. Online and irl; they are all wonderful people and I'm very happy to have known them. I know there's not really a whole lot of people who read these journal/summary/things, but I still hope that someone can read these and relate to them. If it helps even one hypothetical person, then it's worth posting (plus, it's very nice to get it out of my system, so this is partially for myself haha).You're not alone, and there are people who understand what you're going through, and there is a light at the end of the tunnel :) (it's a very long tunnel, but who said walking wasn't fun)

That's really all I can think to say for now, so as always, thank you for reading :D hopefully the next long writing I post will be that story I've been working on

Day of the Sun Waterproof Birds (religion tw in notes)

[cinnaminsvga]

Undercover (M)

→ summary: the company banquets that your family loves to host are often drearier than you would like them to be. lucky for you, your bodyguards have the perfect solution: why don’t you play a little game with them? 

the only rule? you must keep quiet at all costs.

→ pairing: vamp!jungkook x reader x siren!seokjin → genre: bodyguard!au, supernatural, smut → warnings: dom!jin, switch!kook, sub!reader, remote vibrator, rough public sex, fingering, orgasm denial, multiple orgasms, blood-drinking, hypnotization, jin is kinda sadistic, basically pwp ;_; → words: 5.4K → a/n: this is for the holiday fic exchange that was held on @btsghostiewritersnet!! my fic is dedicated to ms @jincherie​ (aka the loml and also the recipient of 1/3 of the fics i’ve written this year??) who requested this prompt. i’m not really good with poly or smut fics, but i tried my best??? it ended up being a lil more jk centric than i anticipated but HHHH IDK I JUST HOPE YOU LIKE THIS EVEN A TEENY BIT ;o; anyway... happy holidays everyone!!

You can feel their eyes on you.

Except that isn’t much of a revelation—they are always watchful of you, after all. Your father pays a hefty enough salary that they would risk their lives to keep you safe, so it isn’t much of a surprise to know that they are lurking at the sides, keeping distant and close all at once.

This time, however, is different. You know for a fact that it is different. There is a subtle shift in the air, something tangible enough that you can almost touch it, taste it. You know that if you glance back at them, you will find two pairs of eyes, watching and waiting for… something.

That fact alone is enough to keep the goosebumps on your arms from subsiding. You feel like a canister just waiting to burst, a small disturbance enough to get you to erupt into flames and burn every last inch of propriety left in your being. Tonight, they are here to ruin you.

“Why are you acting so damn fidgety? Stand still,” your brother huffs after a while, pinching you lightly in the side. It breaks you from your reverie, causing you to jolt away with wide eyes.

“W-what?” you ask breathlessly. You wipe your clammy hands across your expensive dress, leaving wrinkles in their wake. “Sorry. I just… had a lot of coffee before coming here, is all. I needed the wake-me-up.”

He watches you for a moment, raising an eyebrow at your odd behavior. You can tell that he’s suspicious, but he inevitably shrugs it off, too unbothered to care. Like you, it takes a whole deal to get Yoongi excited about anything, and having a jumpy sister is far from reaching his quota. “Whatever. Just don’t cause a scene, alright? These events might be boring as hell, but dad has a bunch of important people here tonight, so you better get your shit together.”

You snort. “Right. Like when does he not invite important people to these parties?”

Yoongi rolls his eyes. ��You know what I mean. Just behave, alright? I’m not covering for you if you piss someone off.”

“Wouldn’t have dreamed of asking,” you mutter. Little does he know, you are already planning on behaving tonight, anyway. That is the name of the game, after all.

On a makeshift stage at the head of the ballroom, your father has just finished giving his opening remarks, thanking all his esteemed guests for making it to tonight’s banquet. Polite applause follows soon after, the clamor loud enough to mask the way you inhale sharply in surprise. Your back straightens imperceptibly, your body going rigid as if you had been struck by lightning. To your left, your brother is none the wiser to your panic, his attention glued to his phone.

When the clapping breaks, you nearly speak your prayers aloud when the ambush on your senses suddenly stops as well. You take one, two calming breaths, your core throbbing needily as you await the second wave to hit. Disappointed when nothing comes, you smooth your dress down, fighting the urge to look around to see if anyone was watching.

Legs slightly weaker and breath a little shakier, you walk among the throngs of people as they make their way to their seats, getting ready for dinner to be served. Instead of heading to where your family’s table would be located, you change direction halfway and walk towards the back. Yoongi does not comment, just nodding back at you and going the other way as well. This is normal etiquette for both of you, anyway—your father has always expected the two of you to wander during these parties, greeting guests and socializing with them as proper hosts should.

Except that isn’t on your agenda for tonight. Right now, you have a game to play, and you don’t intend on losing your focus to anything else.

It does not take you long to find who you are looking for. Just like he promised, Jungkook is standing close to the east entrance, standing stock still against the wall in his designer black suit. When he notices you approach, his stern demeanor softens, a small smile gracing his Adonis-like features. It is nothing more than a quirk of his lips, but it is enough for a flash of something sharp to catch your eye. It disappears before you can even blink, but you know that what you had seen is far from a figment of your imagination.

To an outsider, Jungkook looks as intimidating as any regular bodyguard should be: tall and muscular, coupled with a dangerous gaze that could pierce diamond. He certainly works like one too, as your father would have never hired him if he wasn’t 100% sure that Jungkook was up to his lofty standards.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that there is something else that sets Jungkook apart if you just looked close enough. Even from a few feet apart, you can see the redness lining his irises, the deathly pallor of his skin, the sallowness of his cheeks. As you get closer, you notice other things too, like how his hands tremble against his sides and how his breathing has gotten shallow.

Everything about him screams vampire—a starving one, at that.

“How long has it been now?” you murmur, gently nudging your shoulder against his. You keep close to him, feeling yourself relax at the mere scent of him. Jungkook always somehow manages to smell good; you suppose that’s a given since you don’t think he’s even capable of sweating.

“Since the party started?” he asks.

“No, silly. How long has it been since you last fed?”

“Three days, seventeen hours, and twenty-one minutes, ma’am. But who’s counting?” he wheezes, offering you a strained smile. “Is it that obvious?”

“Not really, but I know you,” you reply. A little too well, in fact. “Seokjin hasn’t even allowed you a snack? Even once?”

Jungkook coughs out a laugh, amused. “You and I both know that hyung wouldn’t be that merciful. He did say that if I behave today, then maybe…” he trails off. You don’t miss the way he stares longingly at you, thinly veiled desire rolling off him in waves.

You feel the blood rushing up to your face, turning away from him in embarrassment. You have to remind yourself not to rub your neck, lest the make-up covering your fading scar give away your dirty little secret. “I’m sorry, by the way. I kind of did this to both of us, huh?”

Jungkook chuckles, snaking an arm around your waist. You shoot him a warning glare, but you both know he only dares to get comfortable with you when he’s sure no one is watching. Besides, it’s always been hard for you to get mad at the boy, not when he has always been so sweet with you.

“No, it’s fine. We all agreed to this when you proposed it. Besides, neither hyung nor I are going to risk our health when your safety is on the line. It’s not that bad, I promise.”

“If you’re sure,” you say, glancing at him doubtfully. You have never seen Jungkook quite so… unhinged before, as if he’s just a step away from teetering off the edge. It scares you just as much as it arouses you, but you make sure to keep that to yourself. “I honestly didn’t think Seokjin would be this ruthless.”

Jungkook snorts. “I’ve known him for a long time, Y/N. Trust me when I say that he is definitely going easy on us, especially you.”

“If this is easy, I’m afraid to know how he’s like when he goes all out then,” you say, but the thought of Seokjin becoming even more merciless than usual sends an excited shiver down your spine.

“How about you?” Jungkook asks. “Are you doing okay with the, um, you know?” He flushes, still shy to even say it aloud even after all the things the two of you have done together.

You giggle, unable to resist the urge to tease him. “You tell me, Koo. You can smell me, can’t you?” You lean closer, looking at him through your lashes. “You could probably smell from across the ballroom, especially with how hungry you are… My poor baby,” you coo. You have your chest pressed against his, your low neckline leaving nothing to the imagination. And yet, his gaze is fixed elsewhere, red eyes following the way your tongue darts out to lick your lips.

It’s a rhetorical question; you know he can smell you. The remote vibrator in your underwear has been on the lowest setting ever since the night started. The vibrations are persistent enough to keep you constantly aroused, but it’s never enough to give you what you really want.

And just when you think you’ve gotten used to the sensation, Seokjin will spike it up occasionally, causing your composure to crack ever so slightly. You’re pretty sure he hasn’t turned it on to the highest setting yet, but judging from how the dampness of your underwear has seeped past your thighs, you aren’t sure if you’d be able to keep your cool if he did.

“Do I smell good, Koo? I know you said my blood tastes sweetest when I’m like this, right?” you whisper, trailing a finger down his chest. He does not reply, his nostrils flaring as he struggles to control his breathing. He has a dangerous edge in his expression, a simmering darkness just begging to be released. It’s the kind of lust that sweet and lovely Jungkook hardly ever has the capability of showcasing, except during moments like these, when he is at his hungriest and most desperate.

“I’m not going to lose the game this early on,” he says, voice quiet. There is danger in still waters, you recall your mother telling you when you were younger, and you find that there is truth behind her words after all. Jungkook may sound calm, but the edge in his tone is laced with meaning.

“No fun,” you laugh.

As if on cue, your own dose of karma hits you when Seokjin decides to turn the vibrator up to its maximum setting. “Shit,” you gasp, barely holding back your moans. You nearly double over, mostly from shock, not expecting the intensity of the vibrations. You feel your legs turn to jelly, your body heating up and breaking out into a sweat. You have to lean against Jungkook for support, your grip on his biceps so tight that you’re afraid that you might have torn through the fabric. If he had been human, you might have worried that you were hurting him.

Jungkook stumbles slightly against your weight, surprising the both of you as he’s normally as sturdy as a brick wall. Your worry for Jungkook supersedes the lust addling your brain long enough to wonder if his blood fast is starting to affect him.

“S-sorry, Koo. Are you okay? Are you getting dizzy from hunger?” you ask, your words stilted and breathy as you try to ignore the pleasure coursing through your veins. “We can go somewhere and—fuckfuckfuck—”

You are unable to finish your sentence, having to muffle your moans by biting into his shoulder. You’re shaking and panting, the relentless assault on your clit causing a fresh wave of arousal to drip down your cunt and ruin your panties even further. The coil inside of you is close to snapping, your long-awaited climax just inches away. You have half a mind to reach under your dress and chase after your high, but the sensible part of you reminds you that you are still at a public event—your father’s public event, to be exact. So instead, you wrap your arms around Jungkook to restrain yourself, looking to all the world as if you were just two lovers in an embrace.

Just as you’re about to finish, the vibrator shuts off completely, snatching away any hopes of you coming. You want to scream in frustration, a few tears threatening to fall as you squeeze your eyes tightly. Eventually, you release your death grip on Jungkook, keeping your head bowed to hide the way you’re still short for breath. When you feel less hazy, you take a shaky step away from him while muttering apologies to Jungkook.

“S-sorry about that. So much for Seokjin going easy on me, huh? I really didn’t expect him to pull a fast one on me like that—”

When Jungkook doesn’t respond, you turn back to face him. “O-oh,” you whisper lamely, your blood heating up when your gaze meets his. “Jungkook?” you call out, though you don’t think he’ll be up for much conversation right now.

You have never quite seen him like this before. His eyes have started glowing red, so much so that there’s barely a sliver of white remaining. His fangs have extended far past what should have been humanly possible, its sharp tips puncturing his bottom lip. He doesn’t even appear to be moving, not even showing any signs that he might have been breathing at all.

“Jungkook,” you repeat. You tug on his sleeve hesitantly, but he stands as still as a statue. “Jungkook, get a hold of yourself!” It takes you a few moments of coaxing and shaking before some semblance of lucidity returns to him.

He blinks a few times, but his incisors have yet to retract. “Sorry,” he grunts, bringing a hand up to his face. He rubs at his eyes, and when he reopens them, they’ve stopped glowing. His irises are still a deep shade of red. “Sorry, I didn’t think I’d lose myself there. That’s never happened before.”

“You were kinda scary there for a second,” you laugh nervously. “Almost like you were going to eat me alive.”

“I honestly might have,” Jungkook admits. “If Seokjin hadn’t stopped you from coming right then, I might have just fed from you right in the open.”

You shiver. You kind of hate yourself for liking the sound of that, even if it was hypothetical. Your bodyguards wouldn’t risk your reputation like that. For a moment, it almost could have been real though, your mind unhelpfully supplies.

“You would’ve lost the game then,” you say instead.

Jungkook chuckles weakly, shaking his head. “You, Seokjin, and I already knew from the start that if anyone was going to lose, it was always going to be me.”

“Conceding defeat, then?” you ask. You press your thighs together in anticipation, catching the way he watches your movements like a predator awaiting its prey. “Is anyone watching us?”

With your back facing the party, you would never have known if anyone was close enough to hear your strangled moans back then. Ever the attentive bodyguard despite hunger and lust clouding his mind, Jungkook had still made sure that the two of you were far away enough from prying eyes. Well, with the exception of one.

“He was watching us,” Jungkook mumbles. You don’t turn to look when he points somewhere behind you. “He’s by the northwest entrance. He was watching us the whole time, but now he’s talking to your brother’s bodyguard.”

“How much do you wanna bet he won’t notice us sneaking out?” you ask, giggling when Jungkook gives you an incredulous look. “What? Didn’t you once say you could sneak me out of anywhere without my father knowing?”

“Your father and Kim Seokjin are two different people in two different leagues,” he points out. He glances at Seokjin once more, rubbing his neck nervously. “Oh, he’s definitely going to figure out what we’re doing the moment we get out of here.”

You shrug, already tugging him by the hand towards the restroom outside the ballroom. You wink at him, your giggles full of mischief. “Then it’s settled. We lose this game, and then we start another one.”

“Another one?” Jungkook echoes, following you like a dutiful pet. When you exit the ballroom, you find the reception area empty save for a few other security guards loitering by the elevators, surreptitiously on their phones. You easily make it past them and head to where the restrooms are, setting your sights on the polished wooden doors.

You push Jungkook inside the women’s restroom, locking the door once you both are settled inside. Turning to face him with an eager grin, you almost let out a laugh at the overenthusiastic gleam in his eyes. “New game plan. I call this one the ‘let’s see if we can get off before Seokjin catches us’ game.”

“Sounds thrilling,” Jungkook chuckles, but he’s already opening his arms when you walk over to him. You accept his embrace, pressing him against the marble sinks and slotting your lips together.

The kiss is fiery, all teeth and no finesse. He has one hand grabbing fistfuls of your ass and the other cupping your jaw as he holds you in place. Your own hands almost seem like they don’t know what to do, scrambling up and down his sides before finally locking around his neck as your mind goes blank.

Jungkook’s incisors cut your lips accidentally, causing droplets of blood to trickle down. They don’t even make it past your chin before Jungkook’s voracious tongue is already lapping it up, his groans echoing in the vastly large room.

You barely register the pain before Jungkook is offering another distraction in the form of his lips trailing down to your jaw until he reaches your neck, his breath leaving goosebumps across your skin. “Y/N,” he rasps, his fangs dizzyingly close.

Before he can choose to do anything, you trail a finger to his chin, forcing him to look at you. His eyes appear glazed over, almost as if he isn’t even fully cognizant of his surroundings. But when he catches sight of the way a fresh droplet of blood is already beginning to take form on your lips, his gaze hardens immediately.

You smirk, giggling when he groans at you licking up your bloodied lip. “No marks on my neck, baby. You’re gonna have to drink from down there.”

In any other scenario, you might have been concerned at how quickly he drops to his knees. He doesn’t look too bothered, however, as he bunches up your dress to your chest and tears your pathetic excuse for underwear into shreds. The small purple vibrator falls to the ground along with it, neither of you worried about where it is rolling away.

“You’re so fucking wet,” he groans, burying his nose into your cunt. You yelp loudly, sensitive after hours of edging. You unconsciously try to trap him with your thighs, but he holds them apart with an iron grip. From your vantage point, you can only see his eyelashes grazing your stomach as he licks two long stripes across your slit, nearly causing you to fall over had he not been holding you.

“Shit.” He leans back to look at you properly, his mouth shiny with your slick. “Can I? Can I please?”

You don’t even know what exactly it is that he’s asking, but you’re already nodding anyway, eager for him to do something, anything. “Yes, yes, yes. C’mon, Koo. Give it to me,” you whine. Your voice sounds hoarse to your ears, desperate and delirious.

Not one to disobey, Jungkook does exactly that. One moment he is on the floor and the next he is lifting you with ease, placing you on the marble counter and standing between your legs to keep them spread. He returns to kneeling and hooks your legs onto his shoulders. He caresses your thighs with a gentleness that seems out of place, craning his neck sideways so he can plant a chaste kiss on your inner thigh.

You whimper impatiently, nudging him with your knee. “Jungkook, this is sweet and all, but my pussy has been aching to be stuffed for hours now so I’d really appreciate it if we can just get on with the pro-o-g-gram—” you stammer, your verbal skills forgotten the moment his thumb brushes your clit. Your body jerks on instinct, his delicate touch like lightning on your skin. “Ah, fuck! Jungkook, please!”

You have your head thrown back, unable to keep still when he proceeds to push a finger into you without warning. He pumps into you slowly, the drag of his fingertips torturously slow as you incoherently beg for more.

“More? You fucking asked for it,” he grunts, adding a second finger and being rewarded with another chorus of moans from you. He fucks his fingers into you like a drill, the obscene squelch of your sopping cunt coupled with the sound of palm hitting against your clit is like music to his ears. He can sense the way your blood is rushing through you right now, pleasure thrumming through your limbs and making you intoxicatingly sweet.

“I can’t wait to taste you, darling,” he says, licking his lips in anticipation. “You must love this, don’t you? Love it when I finger you like this, even though you know hyung is going to catch us and punish us for this?”

You nod fervently, incoherent babbles dribbling from your open mouth. “W-want both of you! Want S-Seokjin to catch us and make us cry.” You gasp, your stomach clenching when he curls his fingers in just the right way to make your toes curl in pleasure. “Koo, I’m a-almost there!”

Your pussy, despite hours of being constantly aroused, still feels like a vice grip, selfishly sucking him back. He relishes your moans, drawing more sounds out of you that you had not known you were capable of producing. There is no time or space for shame as your whines grow higher in pitch, calling out his name when you sense your orgasm approach.

Jungkook feels feverish when he finally takes a bite from your skin, your blood made sweeter when you climaxed from his fingers alone. The meat of your thigh gushes crimson like a fountain upon his desert-like tongue. He is drunk on you; not even nectar can be sweeter than you.

He drinks for what feels like hours, lapping at your wound until he cannot stomach another drop. A blatant lie, of course, but he also does not wish to drink you dry. So with a heavy heart, he pulls away, leaving one last lick up your thigh to stop the bleeding. He slumps back on his knees, his head lolling drowsily as he looks at you with a satisfied smile.

You are in no better condition, your chest heaving as you struggle to regain your sanity after both the mind-blowing orgasm and blood loss. Still, you smirk sleepily back at him, your eyebrow raised as if in question.

“What?” Jungkook drawls.

Instead of a verbal response, you point at his crotch with your feet. When he looks down, his dick is completely hard, his erection straining against his slacks. He was so deeply engrossed in the flavor of you that he had not even stopped to consider his own arousal, but now that it has been so kindly pointed out by you, the need to be inside of you consumes him like a fire burning him on a stake.

A guttural sound escapes his throat, a renewed fervor pushing him to climb to his feet in an instant. Impatient, he struggles for a moment to loosen his belt, has half a mind to just tear his pants in two when—

“Jeon Jungkook, can you hear me?”

Jungkook stiffens. Unable to hear the voice coming from his earpiece, you give Jungkook a quizzical look, wondering why he’d suddenly stopped in his tracks. “Koo? What’s the matter?” you ask, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Jeon Jungkook, answer me,” Seokjin’s voice is slightly garbled by static, but the authority in his tone is unmistakable.

Jungkook swallows thickly. He lifts the small microphone attached to his lapel, bringing it closer to his lips. “H-hyung?” he stutters. Your eyes widen, realization and panic seizing you.

You both share a frantic look. Fuck!

Seokjin chuckles darkly. “Took you long enough. Did you and our little mistress have fun?”

“W-well, we—” Jungkook stammers, looking to you for help. You shrug your shoulders, equally as tongue-tied. He returns to his mic, “We were just, umm…”

“Open the door,” is all Seokjin utters before Jungkook’s earpiece goes dead. Jungkook rips the small piece of plastic from his ear, both of you turning to the door when a loud knock reverberates across the restroom.

“It’s…” Jungkook cuts off, but he doesn’t need to say anything for you to know exactly who is waiting outside the door.

“Open the door,” Seokjin repeats, but there’s a certain quality to his voice that makes both you and Jungkook immediately want to follow his command. Without another word, Jungkook stands up stiffly, his feet dragging as he unlocks the door to allow him inside.

“No fair,” you complain. You pout, crossing your arms. “You used your siren voice on us!”

“I wouldn’t have needed to use it if you two weren’t acting like a pair of brats,” Seokjin says, sickly sweet. He’s smiling, but there is darkness lingering in his expression. It doesn’t help that your lower body is still exposed, free for his gaze to roam. “Do you have any idea how much trouble the two of you are in?”

“I’m sure my father is hardly concerned,” you scoff, filled with false bravado. You smirk when his eyebrows furrow, keen to tempt his anger. After all, Seokjin is the most fun to play with when he lets go. “Besides, I pay you to look out for me, don’t I? I’d expect you to come up with an excuse on our behalf.”

“I suppose so,” Seokjin hums. He glances at Jungkook, whose prior arousal has yet to subside. In a flash, Seokjin has Jungkook backed up to a toilet cabinet, roughly grabbing his bulge. Jungkook wheezes, his eyes flashing open in surprise.

“And you?” Seokjin asks, using his free hand to force Jungkook to face him. “You understand that you left your post, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Jungkook gasps out. Seokjin’s grip tightens, and Jungkook releases a soft moan.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes hyung,” Jungkook emphasizes, his hips unconsciously rutting upwards. Seokjin situates his thigh in between Jungkook’s legs, letting the younger boy rock against it for a few moments before pulling back just as quickly. Jungkook whines pathetically, jaw agape.

“You both lost the game. What makes you think you deserve anything?” Seokjin asks. He directs his question to you, glancing over his shoulder. “Well? Did I interrupt something I wasn’t supposed to see?”

When you don’t reply, Seokjin frowns. “Answer me, Y/N.”

His voice is musical, and it pulls the answer out of you, unable to resist. “Yes,” you say, through gritted teeth.

“What were you going to do?”

“He was going to fuck me,” you say. You smirk when his shoulders tense. “We were going to fuck without you.”

At your admission, Seokjin considers you with an unreadable expression. The tension in the air is tangible. Jungkook has his eyes averted, but judging from the way his cock twitches in his trousers, you know he’s also aware of what’s going to happen. All you need to do is wait a little, and then Seokjin will—

He steps away from Jungkook and walks towards the chaise lounge situated near the wall of the entrance. He sits on it primly, his back straightened as though he were about to call you in for tea. “Go on then,” he says, flapping his hands flippantly. When neither of you moves, he quirks an eyebrow in amusement. “What? Don’t let me ruin your fun. Continue where you left off.”

“Um…” you say, thoroughly at a loss. This is usually the point where Seokjin decides to punish either of you, or perhaps drag the two of you back home for more adequate disciplinary action. Instead, he seems content to allow the two of you to do as you please. He has a mask of indifference on, and it’s always been a little hard for you to figure out what he was really thinking.

“But…” Jungkook gulps. “W-we wanted you to, um…”

“What? To join you? Oh please,” Seokjin laughs, a little cruelly. “No, I’d rather not stop your fun. Carry on.”

“But—”

“Carry. On.” Seokjin commands, his power trickling onto his words. At once, Jungkook straightens up, his feet carrying him towards you and spreading your legs apart. You gasp, the sudden movement surprising you.

“Seokjin, what are you..?”

“Fuck her, Jungkook,” Seokjin interrupts, ignoring your baffled stutters. “Fuck her until she can’t even stand.”

Jungkook shoves down his pants and underwear in one swift motion, kicking them off his ankles somewhere behind him. He situates his cock against you, rubbing the tip against your slit for a second before thrusting forward and splitting you open.

You both scream and moan at the sensation, your warm walls clamped around him deliciously. He begins his brutal pace immediately, both due to his desperation to meet his orgasm and also the magic imbued in the simple command given by Seokjin.

The intoxicating roll of his hips has your eyes seeing stars as he pulls out nearly all the way before pushing back in. He angles himself until he hits your sweet spot with every thrust, ripping ragged whimpers from your throat. Your second orgasm is quickly building before you know it, your body tightening up as he continues to rut into you.

With a trembling moan, you gush around him, coating his cock with your arousal. Your legs are still shaking even after you finish, your entire body going limp from the exertion. Jungkook slows down, still painfully hard inside of you.

“Did I tell you to stop? Keep going,” Seokjin utters quietly. He is the picture of calmness, his hands folded delicately onto his lap.

“What?” you exclaim. “I can’t, no, it’s too much—”

But when it comes to Seokjin, his word is the law. Between the two of you, Jungkook has always been more susceptible to his voice, completely powerless under Seokjin’s influence. And so, Jungkook resumes fucking into you, mindlessly obedient.

“I’m too—Jungkook, stop, I’m sensitive,” you cry out, but your pleas go unheard as he reaches between the two of you, his thumb grazing your clit and causing your entire body to jolt forward. Your walls squeeze around his cock in response and Jungkook trembles in pleasure. His ministrations on your clit, in tandem with the swiveling of his hips, are almost vicious, the sting both pleasurable and painful.

You can feel the beginnings of tears forming, the assault on your senses almost too unbearable to handle. “S-Seokjin, please! Make him stop!”

Jungkook is nearing his climax, his rhythm growing erratic and showing no signs of slowing down. He is unable to hear you past his desire, completely entranced and hypnotized.

“You want him to stop? Fine,” Seokjin says, amused. “Jungkook, stop.”

“No, please!” Jungkook lets out a tortured wail. His body freezes in place, his cock still twitching inside of you. The poor boy lets out a few stray tears, his eyes squeezed shut as his body refuses to do his bidding. He sobs, his voice cracking as he pleads, “Hyung, I was so close!”

“Not my problem,” Seokjin giggles. He gets up from his perch on the sofa, leisurely walking towards the both of you as he surveys the frozen boy with a satisfied grin. “That ought to teach you a lesson,” he says, patting Jungkook on the back.

“And you,” he says, facing you, “aren’t getting away so easily.”

You gulp, a shudder running down your spine. “B-but, the party..?”

Snorting incredulously, Seokjin taps his microphone on. “Namjoon-ssi? Yes, I’m sorry for leaving so suddenly. I found Miss Y/N. It seems that she is having stomach problems, so I’ll be escorting her home. Please inform Master Min about her early departure,” he says in one breath, shutting his earpiece off before the other man can reply.

“It seems like everything is already taken care of,” Seokjin says angelically, even though he is anything but. He bends down to pick up Jungkook’s discarded pants, handing them to the younger. He also finds your forgotten vibrator under one of the sinks, picking it up and placing it neatly into his pocket.

He smiles. “Get dressed, both of you. The night is still young, after all.”

[sup-hoes-its-me]

Adore You (Yamato x Reader)

A/N: hi guys. Yamato is your secret admirer and you are desperate to find out who's been leaving all these gifts at your doorstep. Civilian reader. Will be two parts, and since i just found out i have the coronavirus and cant leave the house, i’ll be putting out the second part very soon.

Ps i headcanon that yamato would be very shy and awkward with his crush. i also think that when he is nervous he definitely has really sweaty hands. idk thats just the vibe i get from him lol. please enjoy.

Word count: 4500

Y/N walked down the street after a long day of working in the bakery, kneading dough and icing cakes and sweets. It was a great job, and she really enjoyed the company of the two elderly owners. In her arms was another small picnic basket filled with sourdoughs and garlic loaves and cinnamon raisin buns. Those leftovers served as her breakfast, lunch, and dinner most days and it saved a lot of money on groceries.

Sometimes, she gifted the bread to friends and family though, like tonight.

As she walked the bustling streets, people walking home from work for the night, she noticed a couple of familiar faces sitting in the windows of a nearby restaurant. Feeling a little social, she walked into the restaurant and turned the corner, walking through the tables and past other booths full of people talking and drinking. It was busy tonight in Konoha, everyone getting ready for the weekend.

She came to a stop beside their table, and shifted so her basket rested in the slight curve of her hip. With her free hand she waved to the men, a small smile gracing her lips.

“Kakashi, Yamato,” she chirped, “I saw you guys in the window on my way home from work and thought I’d stop in to say hello.”

“Y/N. What a pleasant surprise.” Kakashi hummed, peering over his glass of golden liquid at his friend, who he could tell was struggling to figure out what to say or do. Yamato wasn’t normally nervous; he was very cool headed. How else would he become such an important Anbu member? But around Y/N, this woman with flour dusted in her hair and the smell of cinnamon and chocolate on her clothes, he crumbled. Just that smell alone could make Yamato lose his composure. And Kakashi knew that very well. “As a matter of fact, we were just talking about you.”

Yamato coughed on his drink, covering his mouth with his arm to keep from spitting up on the table. Even if they were just talking about her, it was completely uncalled for for Kakashi to stab him in the back like that. He turned to face the young woman who looked down at him with curiosity in her eyes.

“Really? What about?” she questioned, raising a brow.

He averted his eyes to the table again where his hand rested clutching at the glass. “We were just discussing the bakery,” he explained sheepishly, a hand going to rub the back of his neck. He felt the stress coming on, and sweat was beginning to gather on his palms. He felt ill, and more importantly, upset with the friend sitting directly across from him, smirking under that damn mask.

What an evil bastard.

“Mind if I join you guys? I could definitely use a drink.” She motioned to the seat next to Yamato, and he scooted closer to the wall to make room for her. She made sure her basket was sealed and secure before reaching over the table to Kakashi. “Can you sit this next to you? I don’t wanna take up the whole table.”

“No problem.”

She slid into the seat beside Yamato, and he realized just how small their table really was. The chair was clearly made for one person, or maybe two small people. They were just inches away. He could literally feel the heat of her thigh beside his. He was losing his mind, he was sure of it. There was absolutely no reason to act or think this way just because of a woman, a little baker from the village. No reason. It was inappropriate.

He took a deep breath and sipped on his drink. Everything was cool. Y/N L/N was cool.

“What kind of goods are you bringing home tonight?” Yamato asked calmly.

“Uh, lets see. A sourdough loaf and a garlic rosemary loaf. Also, I have about eight cinnamon buns in there,” she listed off the top of her head, “Why? You wanna take some home with you, because that’s fine. I’m not gonna eat all of it.”

“No, not this time.”

“You, Kakashi?”

“Yeah, I’ll take whatever.” It was a free meal for the next day? How could he say no to that?

The waitress came around, and Y/N ordered a tall glass of some sweet drink, something she knew wouldn’t taste like shit but would get her all warm and cozy quick, fruit juice covering up the taste of poison. “So, what were you guys talking about before I came around? I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

“It’s good you came around, actually. We could use a woman’s opinion here.” Yamato glared at Kakashi, pleading with everything he had for the copy nin to just leave it alone. Kakashi was set in his goals though, and pushed forward with what he was saying. “It’s about Tenzo.”

An even brighter smile grew on her lips, one full of mischief and curiosity. “Oohoho? I see. What’s got you men stuck?” She loved to gossip, it was just something so interesting in her mundane life. Surely, it wasn’t as interesting to shinobi who almost die all the time and always have something to do, but for a village girl who goes home every night to read and eat bread, and then go to work where she just makes and sells said bread, a bit of juicy personal information really intrigued her.

“It’s honestly not a big deal-”

“Our boy here, he’s got a crush.”

Her eyes widened and suddenly, she felt the urge to down even more of her drink. He was interested in someone? She never expected that. He was always so quiet and calm, and kept to himself. He didn’t seem like the type to ever care about someone in that way. She sighed, taking a long sip on her drink, which tasted like peaches and oranges. At least it was sweet enough to help her curb the impending sadness.

Maybe she was stupid for it, but she cared for Yamato. He was such a sweet and kind man, so earnest and gentle. He was everything good about her mornings, when he would walk in and ask for the same hot cross bun to start his day. He would smile and compliment the cake decorating she was working on, and tell her about his missions and what he had to do for the day.

Perhaps Y/N had the tiniest of crushes on Yamato. It was something she would never reveal to anyone else, but it was true. She couldn’t deny herself that fact.

Kakashi stared at the woman, gauging her reaction to the statement. From the way she immediately went to sip away half of the drink in her glass, and the way her shoulders curled in on themselves, he could guess how she was feeling. He wasn’t usually a fan of meddling in other people’s business, but he was beginning to feel tired of Yamato complaining day in and day out about how he could never get the girl or express his feelings. He was afraid of rejection, as sad as that might be.

He was just there to give them a push in the right direction.

“I see.”

“What do you think he should do? What do the civilian girls like?”

This crush was just another civilian. It would be one thing if he fell in love with a kunoichi, someone she would never be able to compete with, but the thought of him choosing another normal woman over her, the envy practically oozed from her pores. What did this other girl have that Y/N didn’t?

Y/N ordered another drink when the waitress walked by. And then another after she drank the second one. Might as well get more down and drown out these jealous thoughts.

Meanwhile, she listed off things that random women normally like when men do for them, things she didn't really care about like chocolates and asking them out to dinner and giving them stuffed animals. Boring things. Things they all already knew. Kakashi agreed that the advice was kinda bland, and he could have come up with that easily.

Yamato eyed her down nervously as she practically chugged the rest of her drink. The woman wasn’t a big drinker, just a couple innocent cocktails here or there, never with the intention of getting drunk.

“You okay, Y/N?”

“Yes, I’m perfectly fine,” she told him smoothly. “Anyway, I’m not done telling you all about us village girls.”

The third drink came by and she sighed, taking another long sip. At least it tasted good, that made it easy to drink and drink and drink.

“Maybe you should slow down.”

“Maybe you should worry about yourself. I’m grown. I can handle myself, Yamato.” He felt a pang in his chest at her sharp words, ones that he’d never really heard directed toward him. She scolded Kakashi on the daily for being a pervert, but only kind words met Yamato’s ears previously. “Anyway, about this girl. Have you tried getting her anything as a gift? The things I listed before? Love notes? That sorta thing?”

He shook his head. “Well, no. I haven’t tried anything yet.”

“That’s the thing about you, Tenzo. You’re so modest. If you want the girl, you need to go in and get her. You need to show her what she means to you, since you can’t bring yourself to just outright tell her.”

“The whole bold displays of affection aren’t my thing.”

She hummed, her head lolling from side to side as she twirled the straw of her drink in between her fingers. “Maybe you should try some roundabout approach since you’re so scared of rejection. Send her anonymous letters and gifts, give her little clues that it’s you and see how she reacts.”

“Like a secret admirer?"

“Exactly! That’s sooo romantic. I wish some guy would do that shit for me.”

Kakashi raised a brow. “Oh, really?”

“Of course. I’m almost 27 and I’ve never had a long lasting relationship. I just want some guy to really, I don’t know, just love me. Love who I am, not hook up with me for my body or-or only pretend to like me for coupons on bread,” she complained, quite loudly as well. “Fuck those guys and their bread discounts...”

“Y/N-”

“I’d suggest you do something like that for your crush. Make her feel like you really care about her mind and soul.” Y/N clutched her hand over her heart and squeezed the front of her dress. “So many men nowadays act like horny teenagers, and us ladies are sick of it.”

She really did not need to go into such detail, and Yamato could tell she was drinking too much. Y/N would never say these things aloud if she were completely in her right mind. He felt rude just sitting there letting her rant on and on, exposing her own feelings to the table. But at the same time, he was grateful to know what she wanted in a lover. She never really let on what her romantic life was like, other than single for the most part.

That is what he and Kakashi were discussing before she came around. He was desperate to sweep her off her feet and woo her, to make revealing his feelings easier. Kakashi told him to just go to the bakery and tell her right then and there, but that was just too bold. He wasn’t going to go in without a plan, it was irrational.

“Yamato, I’m telling you, if this woman rejects you, she’s fucking stupid. You’re a catch. You and Kashi over there, both of you could get any woman you want, and that’s a fact.” the woman waved her hand to emphasize her point, only to knock the rest of her fourth drink over into her lap, sticky syrup soaking into her apron and through to her skirt. “Oh man.”

“I think it’s time for you to head home, little miss Y/N,” Kakashi chimed in, “This is exactly why we don’t bring you to bars, you know.”

“Shush. I am fine.”

Yamato sighed, motioning with his hands for her to move to the edge of the seat. He rolled his eyes at her words, knowing she was talking out the ass. “Yeah, yeah. Just get up, Y/N. I’m taking you home.”

Both men were surprised when she lifted her hand and pushed him away from her. Her glare was intense, anger behind those eyes. “No! Not you. I want Kakashi to walk me home.” The man was taken aback by the harshness in her tone. She was normally calm tempered, but her head was spinning and she was obviously growing moody.

“That’s fine by me. Yamato, you’ll pick up the bill for us and uh, clean this mess, right?” Kakashi smirked as he slid out from the booth and picked up her bag of baked goods. She followed suit, climbing out of her seat and grabbing onto the shinobi’s arm tightly. He really couldn’t care any less about her nonsense. It had been so long since they became friends, he’d seen her in every mood imaginable, and much drunker than this. He’s walked her home more than a few times in their past years.

“Curse you, cheap-ass.”

“Gotta go.”

With that, the white haired man walked out the restaurant with a woman in tow. They lived in the same direction, so he started down the street as she stumbled after him, tripping occasionally on pebbles. He felt bad for his friend, really. But the answer was clear as day now. Y/N cared for Yamato a lot more than she let on. It was just up to one of them to make a move. He couldn't do everything for them.

She tripped along beside him, letting her head fall against his shoulder a few times. Her eyes slid up to the man’s masked face, and he felt her hands begin to quiver a bit around his arm, just a tiny bit, but it was still there. Those little, very-telling, tremors.

“What’s wrong, Y/N?” he asked gently, knowing she would immediately spill whatever was stuck on her mind.

“Kashi, why does Tenzo want some other village girl?” she questioned, her cheeks puffing out and her eyes getting watery with tears. “Why doesn’t he want me? I want him so badly, it hurts right here.” she placed her free hand over her stomach and gagged. “I might throw up, it hurts so much.”

“Trust me, it’s gonna be okay,” he hushed, a tiny smile on his lips. He didn’t want to reveal too much to her, but it was just so amusing pulling the strings like this. Two of his friends, one a subordinate and the other a sneaky baker, falling for each other right in front of him. With all the work piling up, this was definitely a refreshing take.

“Also, you shouldn't throw up. It'll burn your throat, you know.”

She nodded, and just clutched onto her stomach as they made their way down the narrow alleyways toward her small apartment. He unlocked the door for her when she struggled to fit the key into the tiny hole that blurred together with everything else. He was a good friend, she thought, and made a mental note to thank him next time she saw him. Well, she tried to make a mental note, but when her body hit the mattress in the corner of her small studio, she found herself drifting away.

__________

God, her head hurt so badly she thought her skull was cracking open right then and there, as she lifted her head from her pillow. Light shined in through the window only to make things worse than before. She looked around the room and noticed that her coat was hung up properly on the hook and her shoes were sitting by the door. Her basket rested atop her counter.

Most importantly, on her nightstand sat a glass of water and a couple pills, ready for her to take the moment she woke up. Kakashi or Yamato must have walked her home and put her to bed. They were very nice men, she enjoyed having them as friends, she just worried she had made a drunken fool of herself last night in front of them. She rarely drank heavily, for that reason. She couldn’t even remember what happened, just that she met them at the restaurant and then the rest fell empty in her mind, little images blending together until she couldn’t decipher a thing that happened. She was more than ashamed.

How could she lose control of herself so casually, she wondered. She never even wanted to drink, much less enough to give her this searing headache. Something must have happened last night that influenced her decisions. Maybe she had a drinking contest with Kakashi like that one time before. If so, that was completely uncalled for on the man’s part. He knew her tolerance.

Nevertheless, she needed to get ready for work. A hangover wasn’t enough to heed the workings of the bakery.

She took the pills, and threw off her covers, walking over to her counter to take out one of the cinnamon rolls, taking a big bite to curb her hunger pains. After taking a moment to compose herself, she got ready for work. If she was late, she knew the owners would be forgiving, but she still felt bad regardless. She was going to walk in looking like a complete disaster.

As she headed out her door that morning, she stumbled on something sitting right at the foot of her doorstep on the welcome mat. Resting there, in a tiny little ceramic pot, stood a bonsai tree, trimmed and cared for perfectly. Her eyes scanned the area for who could have set it there, but met only empty space.

Hesitantly, she picked it up and brought it into her home. There was no note attached, nothing to signal who’d given it to her. Just a little tree that she would put on her window sill. It was strange, she had to admit that, to receive an anonymous gift at such an hour. She’d have to ask her friends about it later on to see if one of them had given it to her, for reasons she didn’t know.

But as the days went by, and those days turned into weeks, she continued to receive gifts every few days. More tiny trees in pots, sometimes flowers in little glass vases. None of them at first had anything attached until the most recent piece which when she picked it up to take into her home, a folded piece of paper sat beneath the vase. She made sure to pick it and put it in her apron to read on her break when she went to work. She didn’t have the time when she woke up only about 20 minutes before she was due at her job.

She was more than grateful for the little garden she was accumulating on her window sill, the beautiful flowers and trees somehow surviving despite her little knowledge of taking care of them. She stopped by a flower store in town to get some fertilizer just to keep them alive. It would be a shame if they died since someone was being so kind as to give them to her.

With her boring life, the flowers brought a smile to her face and a warmth in her heart that she hadn’t felt before. Regardless of who was leaving the items there, she felt like she was important to someone. Some person was taking time out of their day to show they cared about her.

Truthfully, she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t wished it was Yamato leaving her gifts. She’d been attracted to the man for quite some time, ever since they met really. He was just so strong and brave, and awkward in a cute kind of way. He was truly the only man of her affections, and she could only dream she was the object of his as well.

It was more than unlikely though. He was a strong ninja of the leaf. The chances of someone that amazing wanting to be with someone as simple as the town baker were lower than she wanted to admit. He most likely had his eyes set on some gorgeous kunoichi like Shizune or Kurenai. Someone he could relate to, really.

It was embarrassing to even admit she had a crush on him. It made her feel so tiny and weak, knowing that she wasn’t his ideal.

So she pushed that thought from her mind. Yamato would never be interested in her, and he most certainly not the one leaving her little notes and plants.

What she did know was that this person was a shinobi. Maybe not Yamato, but they were definitely a shinobi. She set up a trap, at least one she thought a normal person would fall for. Right before her door, she set up a tiny trip wire made of floss at the perfect level for someone to pull loose when they walked up to leave a gift on her welcome mat. Her room was at the very end of the hallway, so there was no way anyone else except her secret admirer was the one to set off the trap. Any normal person without the high perception of a shinobi would set off the trap and she would be able to narrow down the results to a civilian.

Only, the morning after she set up the trip wire, when she opened her door, there sat another bouquet of flowers, as well as an untripped strip of floss.

This person had to be a shinobi. She concluded. It was the only explanation in her mind, desperate to find out who the mystery person was all this time.

As she walked the streets that afternoon after the store had closed, her eyes honed in on Yamato, who stood next to a vegetable stand picking up some groceries. Immediately, she turned on her heel and cornered him between the squash and the sweet potatoes.

“Yamato, I need to talk to you. It’s urgent. Do you mind?” she practically demanded, and his eyes widened. He did not expect such an abrupt conversation between them. He shifted awkwardly to rest his grocery bag in the crook of his elbow and lean on his left side, arms crossed over his chest.

He knew what she wanted to talk about. It was about those gifts that he had been giving her. It was just a matter of whether she had figured out it was him or not, that was the question. He was kinda hoping she didn’t know yet. He was not ready to face what came after the reveal, rejection or otherwise. He really hadn’t thought it that far out yet. How could he. Just thinking up love notes and what plants to give her next was more than enough to worry about.

But damn, when he looked down at her, hair dusted with flour from a days work, a smudge of cake batter still on her forearm, apron a complete mess, he wanted to cave and tell her everything. She was just so beautiful, so clumsily perfect he couldn’t help but lose his train of thought. He swore he’d never seen a woman more perfect than her, not even Naruto’s sexy jutsu could come close to this girl.

He found his ears heating up and no doubt turning red at the thoughts running through his mind, and he was quick to smother them down. He was not irrationally emotional. Hell, he was ANBU, he should be able to control his emotions down to a tee.

“Yes, Y/N?”

“I have a secret admirer, and I know they are a shinobi.”

He felt himself growing nervous. How had she deduced that? “Ah, that’s definitely exciting for you. How do you know it’s a shinobi?”

“I know because I set up a tripwire last night and the person didn’t set it off, so I know they are coordinated enough to avoid it. This isn’t just some random village boy. This is someone skilled.”

“Y/N, he could have very well just avoided the trap with his natural gait, don’t you think?” he tried to reason with her, try to get her off his trail. Admittedly, he thought she was quite clever for setting up the trap. When he walked over it the night before, he swore it was just a spider web. He didn’t even consider the possibility of a trap in his way.

If only he could throw her off his scent. He needed more time. He couldn’t confess to her now. It was too abrupt, too sudden. He would probably die.

“No, I’m convinced it’s a shinobi.”

Shit. “Well, what are you going to do now?”

She thought for a short moment on what she was going to say, tapping her foot on the ground beside her. Her eyes widened and she smiled at the thought that ran through her mind. Of course, it was so obvious. “The gifts come sporadically, so I know that the shinobi can’t leave gifts when they are on missions. Next time there is a long break in gifts, I will just ask around to figure out who has been on a mission for a while. Bam, I’ve got my answer. It’s foolproof.”

She really had thought this through more than him. She was too good, and he felt himself panicking. He had a weeklong mission in 3 days, and if she asked anyone, they would tell her it was him. He felt moisture gather up at his brow, and he internally cursed his situation. He had to find some way out of this mess without her figuring out it was him.

“Yeah, that could definitely work. I hope it all works out for you, Y/N,” he lied through his teeth.

“I know. I’m just smart like that, aren’t I?”

“You sure are,” he muttered, but honestly, he just wanted to go off and find Kakashi. He needed to talk to him. His eyes slid away from Y/N and he sighed. “I’ve got to go, but I’ll see you around, yeah?”

“Yeah, of course. Don’t forget to stop by before your next mission to get some of our special food pills, okay? I just made a new batch and you can try them free of charge. Anything for a fella as handsome as yourself.” She laughed, shifting her weight to press a hand to her hip.

Jeez. There was no good reason for her looking so adorable. Calling him handsome as well? It was all too much for his heart to handle. Needless to say, he felt like he was going to explode if he didn’t walk away right then. With that, he simply nodded before patting her shoulder. “Like I said, gotta go.”

“Oh, okay. See you around.”

“See you.”

He walked away quickly, heading in the direction of Kakashi’s apartment, knowing he just had to do something about the mess he was currently in, and ways to avoid the inevitable. His heart was racing so fast he thought he might be having a heart attack. How could he be swayed so easily by a pretty face. He had no idea, but he really wanted it to stop. For the sake of his sanity, he needed to learn to be calm around her.

He would tell her soon, get all this off his chest and share his true feelings. He just needed a bit more time.

[anarmorofwords]

I kinda wanna write a better version of tlh where Tatiana is still insane but there's no Belial bc that makes zero sense to me

In this version there would be:

Kamanna done correctly with actual genderqueer rep and not toxic relationships

Barbra and Oliver bc fight me she didn't die

Genie and Filomena bc I love them and all the lightwoods are queer

The gracelet doesn't even happen bc I refuse to write that

Grace is pretty much still the same but she breaks off their(hers and james') relationship bc she notices that he loves Cordelia

No bad James. He's not a shitty person to Alastair, and he doesn't treat Cordelia like a sex object

Anna puts a stop to Kellington and Matthew's relationship before it gets serious. She also tries to get him to stop drinking all the time

Alastair apologizes around seeing them again for the first time. The merry thieves are a little reluctant because of some of the things he did but they don't actively try to keep him away from events that they're at

Matthew notices how Alastair looks at Thomas and locks them in the sanctuary with Genie and Cordelia's help

Grace gets badly injured due to a mistake in necromancy and Christopher helps her treat it without letting people know

Lucie meets Jesse, and falls in love ofc, so in order to bring him back successfully she asks Malcolm to train her in using her magic

Matthew opens up to his mom about the incident. She doesn't blame him at all and instead apologizes for often putting her work before him

Matthew finds out about Charles and Alastair because he found Alastairxs break up letter to Charles

Matthew, the mother hen he is, decided to attempt to murder his older brother, only being stopped by James who had been there at the right time

Kamala ends things with Charles and tells Anna that she still loves them and hopes that she will give her another chance

Anna told her that they needed time to think, and that she is worried how Kamala's reputation will be affected if anyone besides their friends and Anna's family finds out

Kamala respects her decision and doesn't contact her until Anna's ready to talk about things

The merry thieves don't ignore Christopher and they actively listen and help him

The merry thieves also aren't terrible to Grace bc they realize she's been isolated alone with Tatiana and 1) she might not understand what's saying/doing is wrong or 2) that sometimes she's trying to push them away so her abilities don't accidentally make them do something

Good tid parents

James and Alastair being respectful to each other despite personal differences

Matthew, Alastair, Kamala, Christopher, and Grace being besties, or as I call them, the neglected squad

No fetishizing mlm/wlw

Domestic cuddles and taking care of the other one when they're sick

Jesse/Lucie/Matthew pairing bc I love them and I refuse to pick between lucie/matthew and lucie/jesse

Christopher teaching Grace the elements(at the time) on the periodic table

Tatiana dies at the end yay

It's very unpolished and I'm open to b hearing any feedback and/or suggestions that anyone may have

The idea came to me and I decided it would be best if I told someone before I forgot

hi, I'm sorry it took so long,but I wanted to properly answer this and I keep having either internet connection issues or little time

DON'T BE SHY, WRITE THIS 👀

In all seriousness tho... THIS IS ABSOLUTE PERFECTION?!? I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO START I AM UTTERLY IN LOVE WITH THIS IDEA, I NEED IT

Look, I've been on the verge of rewriting ChoI, and I keep saying I want someone to write a TLH that will live up to its potential, but I've never actually came up with a proper idea for it, and you?!! YOUR BRAIN DARLING THIS IS GENIUS

ok hold up I'll just react to each and every single one so

yes please?!? I mean it started off so sweet in EEV?! Also actually genderqueer Anna and not dancing around the subject like CC is doing now?! That's what they deserve, and that's what we all deserve too

yesss please. also just,,,, Barbara, the feminine, not-wanting-to-fight-which-doesnt-make-her-less-badass queen that she is, getting the page space and appreciation she deserves

that's actually brilliant?!? it would be so great, just imagine the new girl arrives for her travel year and Genie is completely awestruck. I'm so invested in Joshwood it's difficult to imagine not having them, but this is actually the only valid alternative?!

ok that's fine. I think it could still happen and be done well, but tbh for now... the gracelet doesn't seem to have done anything relevant to the plot itself? I mean yeah it messed up James's life and Jordelia, but what did it give Belial? Tatiana? nothing. It makes no sense atm.

could be! maybe she's still encouraged by Tatiana to befriend/seduce him, but without the gracelet it doesn't work out? or maybe James somehow manages to realize that she's in danger and he actually like,,,, kidnaps her? idk idk

yes. YES. just,,,,z James is a sweet compassionate literature nerd who accidentally makes a good leader and he actually cares about people, and not just judges them from his high horse; he does still have hero syndrome, but he's kind and respectful and overall a good character

ANNA INTERVENES ABOUT KELLINGTON PLZ. PEOPLE ACTUALLY NOTICE MATTHEW'S STRUGGLES. JAMES DOES, TOO, BECAUSE THERE'S NO GRACELET.

ok yes, so what about: basically TMT don't harass Alastair and accept his apology, and realize they were also being stupid and mean at times at the Academy (especially Math). Matthew doesn't want to accept Alastair's apology, because of The Sin, but his behaviour alerts the rest of TMT and they inquire what's wrong and he tells them about the sin and that's how he later tells his parents (because his friends encourage him) and as you say, she just hugs him and reassures him it's not his fault; so after that Matthew slowly begins to heal and accepts it wasn't Alastair's fault, and also since they've kind of adopted/started including Alastair in things, he can't help but notice he's actually changed and he even starts to grow fond of him

then like you said, Matthew notices Thomas likes Alastair PLEASE HE SO WOULD. I'm not sure about the Sanctuary, if it actually happens (I'll get to why later on), but him and Lucie get really invested in the matchmaking schemes, they include Genie/Kamala because these two are friends with Alastair (both? Or at this point only Kamala?) but they also share some Moments during their scheming/talking about love 👀 (yes I'm a Fairdale shipper, I think it's time to expose myself lol)

Which leads me to (sorry I'm going off order rn) YES YES YES LUCIE AND MATH PLEASE. A FELLOW SHIPPER, HELLO, NICE TO MEET YOU. But since we're actually fixing him then we can give Jesse a personality and I'm totally down for poly Math/Lucie/Jesse

Lucie seeking Malcolm's help in secret, morally gray heroine style?!? no, it's probably not legal. but also has there ever been a Shadowhunter like her? If the Law doesn't expect such situations, it can't really forbid them...

Plz Matthew ready to strangle the carrot when he learns about their relationship, YES. sure, maybe he's still not the biggest fan of Alastair, but he's seen how much the boy's been through and starts to develop an attachment to him, and besides, NO ONE DESERVES TO BE GROOMED AND TREATED LIKE THAT. He's SO MAD at Charles, and he confronts him about it - remembering Kellington as he does, and it makes him sick to think his brother would do the same thing to someone. Maybe he gets very emotional over this and later finally tells his friends about Kellington? Maybe they didn't know before, only Anna did? So when they all realize what was happening then they comfort him etc? Or maybe it's just Alastair that learns now, and the others knew before, and they share a bonding moment over that?

Injured Grace seeking Kit's help is a genius idea I didn't know I needed

Kamanna giving each other time and space and deciding they need to question their relationship and figure out if it actually makes sense would be great. Anna realising she's very privileged and Kamala doesn't have those same opportunities, and also in general realising coming out should never be pressured or forced. Just,,,, Anna being self-aware and respectful towards Kamala. Well-written Anna. Plz. Also Kamanna is actually developed and not just "in love" because,,,,, they're attracted to each other? Maybe even remaining friends while Anna makes up their mind?

yeah just TMT being more compassionate and less judgy because they're not written by Judith so her bias isn't projected onto them

It's not a want, it's a need. They adopt Alastair and Grace eventually. Like, maybe not literally - although, Grace? - but you know what I mean.

I think they all should just have various friendship dynamics and switch between them, because people need more than one friend group

no fetishizing, no watching your brother make out with his lover, yessss

yes domestic cuddles, affection, taking care of wounds, all those things. plz.

Gracetopher bonding over science yes

obviously. or maybe she's imprisoned?!

ok, now for some more notes/my ideas etc., if you don't mind:

I actually think Belial could still be featured? After all, I don't think Tatiana could do much on her own, and since she seeks help from demons, it makes sense to include a Greater Demon as well. But Belial would have to be a stronger villain, written better; I'll think more about this

if that was the case, the serial killer plot could still happen, but be done better. and it would allow for a scenario I talked about with @littlx-songbxrd to happen, where it's Alastair who's falsely accused of murder. It creates a great opportunity to explore some things, because we know Alastair is much more likely to be seriously suspected, considering all the prejudices and bad rep his family has and all that

...what do you say to well-written Jordelia? 👀 Cordelia hasn't been obsessively in love with James since childhood, she only had a crush then. And now that they meet again, she's fond of him but not in love, not straight away. They're both grown up, and different people, but as they spend more and more time together, they fall in love. What if Cordelia gets to flirt with some other boys first? What then. What if she ends up choosing James, instead of going for the only boy she's ever had feelings for and idealized since childhood. What if we even make it friends-to-lovers and have James be a little jealous at some point?! but not in a possessive awful way, just "oh damn oh no"

Now I won't know peace until this exists BUT THANK YOU

[vintagedolan]

hiraeth part five - hoaloha

masterlist | request the next concept!

“You seem miserable.”

“I am miserable.”

“Then just come home.”

“Kahua you know I can’t.”

He looked tanner over FaceTime. Or maybe she was just used to seeing more white people. She couldn’t really tell, but she caught herself staring at him as he rambled on, voice deep and strong.

She missed him. She missed home. It felt like her LA plan had turned into some sick joke, and she was patiently awaiting the cameras to appear and reveal it all.

At the top of her phone screen, a message appeared.

Tell me three things you like to do

Koa stared at her phone for a moment, chewing on her lip. It was the first non-work related text she’d gotten from him. Against her will, it raised her spirits a bit.

why?

Because we don’t know anything about you :( 

If it wasn’t Ethan texting her, she wouldn’t have even responded. But she knew he was trying to make up for his brother’s shitty behavior, and in the day that she’d had to calm down and talk it out with Harlow, she’d realized she’d probably overreacted a bit more than she needed to. So, she answered as nicely as she could.

writing, surfing, existing, idk

“Bro, who are you texting?”

“No one.” It caught her off guard that she didn’t immediately tell him.

YOU CAN SURF?!

She must have smiled, because Kahua huffed. “Yeah, sure looks like no one.”

We’re picking you up in the morning at 7. Considering it team building

I’m from Hawaii dumbass of course I can surf

I don’t have a board though

Grayson has an extra

if you show up at 7 you better have coffee in that car

deal 

She sent her address, having to rack her brain to remember the area code.

“Hello? Earth to Koa?”

“Sorry, it was Ethan. He wants to go surfing tomorrow. ‘Team bonding’ he says.”

Kahua frowned. “Why do you need to bond to write a book?”

“He’s just trying to get me back on his good side,” Koa muttered, and she regretted her words when she saw him stiffen. He was protective of her - to a fault.

“And what the fuck did he do to get on your bad side?”

“Nothing! Ethan’s a good guy, he’s just trying to cover his brother’s ass.”

“Okay, the what the fuck did his brother do to get on your bad side?” 

The anger wasn’t lost on her. In her head she saw Grayson, his wide smile, the disappointment in his eyes when she’d stormed out.

“He didn’t really do anything. I overreacted.”

“Doubtful.”

“No really, he was just trying to be nice, I took it the wrong way, but he got the message.”

“Did he hit on you?”

She froze. “Huh?”

“You heard me.” His voice was more aggressive than she was used to - it made her uneasy.

“Uh no, he didn’t. He offered me a car actually.”

“He what?!”

“To borrow! Just to borrow, while I’m here.” 

“Oh cause that makes it better,” he rolled his eyes. That unease came back into Koa’s stomach - she didn’t know this version of her best friend very well. It felt like a stranger on the screen. 

“Alright hoaloha, I gotta go to bed, it’s late here.”

His own attitude seemed to register, and he frowned for a moment before he sighed.

“Yeah, I get you. Goodnight Koa. Love you.”

“Love you too. Bye.”

She wished she could sleep, but her mind raced even with her eyes squeezed shut. She even tried to bargain with herself - surely if she just kept her eyes closed, she’d fall asleep.

But the clock read 2, then 3, then 4, and she wasn’t even sure if she actually fell asleep before it was time for her to get up and get ready to surf. 

She didn’t have the energy to put any effort into her outfit. It didn’t matter anyways... who was she trying to impress? She grabbed the first bathing suit her fingers touched and put it on, throwing her up in a bun and grabbing a towel, her wetsuit and a cup of coffee on the way out the door.

The twins were outside. She wouldn’t have known it was them if there weren’t 3 boards strapped to the top of the jeep. The windows were tinted enough that she didn’t know who was driving until she got in.

Grayson turned around from the passenger seat with a cup of coffee in his hands, face falling to a frown when he saw that she already had one. 

He’d brewed two pots, since the first one was too bitter on his taste test.

“You underestimate me,” she teased, reaching out and taking it from him. It was still warm.

“Double fisting the caffeine, I like it I like it,” Ethan grinned, pulling out of the spot and heading for the beach. 

“Hopefully the beach won’t be crowded so we don’t run into anyone on the swells,” Grayson mused just to fill the silence.

“If you’re good, you don’t hit people,” Koa said between sips, watching the palm trees fly by the window. The car was warm, cozy in a way as the sun began to rise over the ocean. It was no Hawaiian sunrise, but it would do for now.

He didn’t say much after that until they got to the beach. Ethan made small talk where he could, and Koa wasn’t unaware of Grayson’s eyes on her while she shimmied into her wetsuit.

“Need help zipping up?” He offered - his cheeks were bright red in an almost boyish way. 

She could reach the long string and do it herself, but she let him as a sign of good faith, grateful that he brushed her stray hairs away from the velcro so it didn’t get trapped and stuck. 

Koa returned the favor for him when he turned around. It took some tugging to get the neoprene to stretch over his wide back. She lingered for a moment as she took in his tattoo; three lions resting together, two young and one old, with the words above and below - others came before me, others to come. It made her pause for a moment, trying to understand. From what she knew of Grayson, it didn’t fit him, his personality, his arrogance.

But did she really know him at all?

“Is it stuck?” His voice pulled her out of her inner monologue, and it was her turn to blush.

“Yeah, sorry, hold on,” she lied, giving it an overdramatic tug and tapping his shoulder to let him know she was done before taking her board from Ethan and heading down the sand. The water was chilly, but she adjusted quickly, starting to paddle as soon as she could. The boys kept up with her well, which didn’t surprise her based on their biceps.

The separation came when the first swell came in. Koa surveyed it, eyes poignant to what was coming. When she recognized the way the water moved, she immediately turned and began to paddle. Three strokes and she should snag it. 

Sure enough, the timing landed just right and she pushed up onto her board the way Amosa had taught her when she was three; press, tuck and push. The wave caught her in its grasp and pushed her forward, exhilaration pumping through every vein. 

And on top of that board, headed towards the shore, she felt at home. 

And in her ears, she heard Grayson. 

Or Ethan. She wasn’t sure, but one or both of them were yelling behind her, cheering her on as she continued across the swell, steady and triumphant.

Grayson couldn’t look away. It sounded dumb, even in his head, but she looked majestic. He couldn’t think of another word for her as she floated across, as stable as if she was walking down the sidewalk. It made him gasp when she bailed to the side and tucked under the wave, but even that was graceful.

It took her a minute to get back to them, but the boys were still cheering. Ethan didn’t hesitate to pull her towards him, giving her a hug with wide eyes. 

“You gotta teach us how to do that bro.”

“It’s all in the timing,” she explained, and then she was talking. Technique, and strategy and watching for the right ones, how to bail - everything she knew. 

Grayson couldn’t get enough of hearing her talk, more animated than he’d ever heard her as she straddled her board and bobbed up and down in the waves. 

“Help me catch one,” Ethan begged. She obliged him, watching closely as the next set rolled in. 

“When I say it, no fucking around or you’ll miss it,” she reminded him. She saw one coming in quickly, gauged it in the same moment and began her instructions.

“Okay, go, go go go, now, up now!” 

To his own amazement, Ethan caught it at the perfect time, feet getting underneath him more solidly than they ever had. He didn’t last as long as he hoped - it was no longboard, but still, he managed to ride it for a good 10 seconds before he bailed to the side. Grayson jeered at him with a smile, watching him bob back up and struggle to get back on his board to paddle out. He thought he could hear people cheering from the shore, and he hoped for a moment they hadn’t been recognized.

“My turn,” Grayson grinned, the butterflies in his stomach a product of Koa’s proximity or the waves, he couldn’t tell.

But when he turned, she was swimming away from him as fast as she could, desperate to get away from him it seemed.

The hurt came first, and then it was immediately replaced by panic. He put the pieces together quickly. 

A woman yelling from the sand, running towards the water. Koa, barreling as fast as her arms could take her in the same direction. 

And a small dot of pink, barely visible above the waves.

“That’s a kid, fuck, thats a KID!” 

He swam as fast as he could, Ethan blindly following. But they were no match for Koa’s many years in the waves. She swam as fast as her board would take her, only slowing enough to ensure she didn’t hit the little girl. She was gasping, her blonde hair down over her forehead.

As gently as she could without wasting any time, Koa grabbed her and hauled her up onto the board, breathing for the first time when she realized the girl was okay. 

“Hi sweetheart, are you okay? Are you hurt? What’s your name?” Koa brushed her hair back just as Grayson got there on his own board, panting.

“I’m Alice. I want my mommy,” she cried, shivering as she laid on the board.

“It’s okay baby, my name is Koa. I’m gonna help you get back to mommy, okay?”

But when Koa began to move, Alice cried louder, scrambling towards her and almost tipping the board.

“No, no the waves are too big! They’re gonna get us!” she whimpered, looking towards the shore. All of them could tell she was terrified, and Koa put on her most convincing smile.

“I know it! They’re pretty big, but guess what?” 

“What?”

“Your mommy sent me to help because I have a special board, and it never tips over, no matter what. So we’ll be extra safe. And these guys are gonna follow us and make sure no waves get us, okay? We’ll be back to mommy so fast.”

She couldn’t have been more than 6 or 7, and Koa was glad. Children still trusted people. And Alice trusted her, her small hands grabbing onto the board as Koa began to kick them in with the boys following behind.

Ethan watched it happen, like the petals of a rose opening up for the first time in spring. 

Grayson was melting. All it took was seeing her once in that light and he knew the reason why he’d sat outside of Monty’s, why he was willing to let her borrow the car, why it bothered him so much that she wanted nothing to do with him. 

He watched her scoop Alice up and carry her to her mother, watched her accept the hug the little girl gave her in gratitude, and he knew that there was something about the stupid book deal, and Ethan being stubborn and her coming all the way from Hawaii that was meant to happen. 

There was no going back from it.

It was done.

When Koa turned to look at him, she couldn’t read the emotion in his eyes. So she just looked; held his gaze and quirked her head a bit when it didn’t falter. 

“What?” 

“You just saved that kid’s life,” he said. “You’re incredible.” 

“Eh, it’s no big deal, had to scoop up some cousins back home at least once a week.” She blew it off, but she blushed anyways.

“Says the hero. C’mon, I think that’s enough ocean for the day, let’s go get breakfast or something,” Ethan jumped in.

“You just don’t wanna let Grayson catch a wave,” Koa teased, nudging his shoulder. He bumped her back and Grayson watched with a smile as they all headed back up towards the car - he couldn’t care less about the waves he was leaving behind. 

They got cleaned up and out of their wetsuits, and the best feeling came when Ethan tossed Grayson his keys and climbed into the back of the jeep over the frame, a silent push for Grayson to keep his momentum as Koa climbed into the passenger seat. 

“Alright hero, what’s for breakfast?” He turned to her with a grin.

“Hmmm... bagels.” 

“Bagels it is.” 

[jamiedc-they-them]

Who you used to (and can no longer) be (Platonic)

Requested Imagine: Dany x Brother reader, maybe reader was caught by Cersei and is reunited with Dany. idk its a stretch but it came to mind. it can be angsty or nah whatever u want, B

  It had been a while since you’d seen anything but the small reflection of light from a torch on the cell door. It had been a while since you had heard anything but the rats in the cell that you were thrown into months ago or the creaks of the door or the rustles of your chains.

You got a new sound, that being of the door opening. You also got a bit lighter, for a moment that was. The door was then slammed closed, and a voice that was anything but new spoke.

“Still awake? Hm, I have to give you the fact that you’ve lasted longer than I thought you would,” The taunting voice of Cersei Lannister spat as she approached you, goblet of wine in her hand as always, “Then again, you were always the odd one out, weren’t you? The little Targaryen runt? I do have to wonder though, what your whore of a sister will do to get you back?”

She came even closer to you, now towering over you, “See, the families all live up to their sigils, don’t they? Lannister’s as lions who tear their enemies apart; the Starks, the lucky wolves in a pack who can survive the winter; then there’s the Targaryen’s,” She poured the wine onto you, aggravating your wounds.

“As the feisty, fiery dragons, with so many scars. What’s one more though? Although, I’m sure to your sister, it would make all the difference between you being worth saving and you being left behind to rot. But we’ll see.”  

 It had been a while since Danny had been able to sleep. It had been a while since she had been able to think straight and not have her mind on something other than the fact that her brother was still missing.

It had gotten to the point where she had accidentally called Jorah, Y/N. The man hadn’t minded, of course, he politely corrected her and moved on. Still, it showed. It showed how much of her mind was chipping away at a plan to get you back and safe.

“My Queen,” Daenerys turned to Tyrion, the one who had called her name, “Maybe we should make preparations for when we get Lord Y/N….Make preparations for as to how to proceed.” He suggested, struggling to find a correct way to phrase it without triggering and setting her off.

“What do you mean?” She questioned, blunt and with a bit of fear and tremble in her voice.

He looked to the others for a moment before proceeding, “I just mean, that Lord Y/N will not fully be the same Y/N we knew before his capture…We’ll need to tread lightly. He will be traumatized.”

“But he’s still my brother.” Danny said without hesitation, firmly.

“He doesn’t mean it in offence, your grace,” Missandei said, trying to clear things up, “What he – we mean, is that Y/N will be different, and we need to be aware of that.”

Danny nodded, “We will, but I know Y/N, and I will do what is best for him.”

They didn’t meet eyes, but the others could tell that it wasn’t exactly true. She’d work on a phantom form of you.

One that didn’t exist anymore.

 “Your grace!” A soldier said as he entered the throne room, holding a folded piece of paper, “I have….” He took a moment to catch his breath, have you seen how many steps their were to get to the throne room?

“.I have news on Y/N, Cersei Lannister has him! She wants to meet!” He yelled, giving a brief synopsis of the letter.

Wow, this really wasn’t royal at all, was it?

Then again, the soldier seemed to know that, when it came to you and your safety, royalty was thrown out the window.

Daenerys stared at the soldier in shock. It seemed that the plan that she had devised on her own was also out the window.

 “It’s obviously a trap, if anyone knows my sister well enough to know one of her devious schemes, it’s me.” Tyrion made his thoughts on it known. Don’t go.

“Of course, it is,” Grey worm then turned to Danny, “You shouldn’t go, my Queen. Or, if you do, at least bring some guards with you. I’ll find you my best men –”

“No,” Her words stunned all the room, “Cersei asks for me, she gets me alone. I’m not risking Y/N: I’m not losing the only family I have left.”

She knew it was risky. She knew that this could just be something that would end up with the two last Targaryen’s                 being killed. But she also knew that she couldn’t just leave you.

She had to bring you home, to make you feel safe once again.

 It was the dead of night but hearing Tyrion gasp and knock chairs over made everyone rush to the meeting room. There, it held everyone bar one.

Daenerys.

“She left.” He announced in a solemn tone.

There was no stopping her now.

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Being the youngest made Daenerys’ motherly side show itself so much more than it ever had. Or, unfortunately, more than she ever got the chance to show it. Losing her child was hard, don’t get her wrong; to lose a life she would never know and that would be her own by blood and fix the mistakes.

Now, you were that. You were the thing she had to protect, no matter what. It had started with your brother, his abuse that went more to you as a way to punish her; two birds and all that.

Her maternal instincts made her help comfort you; it helped her help treat your wounds; it helped her be more empathetic; it helped her get through it, putting her mind of helping her younger sibling through the pain kind of helped her through her own.

 She had to admit, the small crew she had brought for the boat did a good job. Was it the most royal of arrivals? No, but she couldn’t play the trump card of the dragons yet. She had to get you back with as little hassle as possible.

Power play’s from her could wait. It could wait until she had you to help council her on it. You were always a smart one smarter than her and always willing to listen to others while arguing your own view.

She was losing it, she had to admit. Hell, she’d sailed all the way with barely any protection, so that wasn’t nothing. Still, if this was it, she didn’t want to make it worse for you.

If this was it, at least you’d be together in the end. The Targaryen siblings vs the world; the world might win, but it wouldn’t win without you both giving it one last chilling smile of acceptance.

“You’re hear to see Queen Cersei?” The guardsman asked. If he had any other right to speak, he probably would’ve mentioned the lack of guards. Still, part of Daenerys appreciated the fact that he didn’t, that he simply let it go and led her up at her nod.

Yes, she was here to see the queen. No, she was not there to burn it all down.

At least, not yet, anyway.

 The stones were sharper here. In Dragonstone, it had a smoothness to them that made it feel like you were almost gliding on them. It definitely helped make it not feel as big as it did, steps wise.

These were different, these were jagged and edgy; small bits pointing out that dug in a few instances. Definitely not well kept.  

Still, that was put aside when she reached the top. In reaching it, she saw you on the floor. She finally got a good look at you. In the dreams (and nightmares) she’d have of finding you, it’d always be you either looking normal or you being too bloodied to recognise.

This was a mix but leaning a lot more towards the dreams than the nightmares (which, unfortunately, came more often than the dreams did). You were bloody, just in your nose and a cut on your lips; your eyes weren’t too bad, if not a little fucked up from punching.

Over than that though, you were breathing and alive. When you met eyes, you looked scared more than relived. Then again, she was riding a high of relief at just seeing that you were ok.

Now came the part where she kept you and herself that way.

 “I must admit, I didn’t expect you to arrive,” Cersei said as she sipped her wine, “Then again, when one of your flock are hurt, the others huddle around them, don’t they?” She taunted.

However, the fire in her eyes died a little when she saw that it was just Danny, “Came alone, did you? It could’ve been a trap.”

Still could be, “It may have been, but I wasn’t going to just abandon my brother. Just as I’m sure you wouldn’t.” She knew it was borderline flattery. But she had to not piss her off.

“Are you alright, Y/N?” Danny asked, fire completely gone from her eyes and a soft gaze replaced it; one filled with love and familial concern. She was dead certain that these types of looks (ones of comfort and respect and love) were something that you had been sorely missing.

There was silence at her answer. You looked as if you hadn’t even heard her question. She, however, didn’t lose hope. You were still in there somewhere.

“Boy,” You looked to Cersei with a shaking body, “Answer your sister.” She commanded.

You looked at Danny, eyes fearful and slightly unfocused. You only nodded, all-be-it slowly.

“Verbally.” Cersei said, not in a snap, but a calm voice.

“I’m alive.” You croaked out.

“Louder.”

“I’m ok.” Your words finally reached Danny, and she could hear just how unused your voice had been. It was raw, and it had cracked.

She could see that you clearly weren’t. But she could deal with that later.

  “Why did you ask for me if it wasn’t a trap?” Daenerys asked.

Cersei paused, her face showing that it was a valid question, “Because, I wanted you to see what a broken Targaryen looks like. The mess that they can be. The pain that they can be in. You see, when you do fully come here, to try and take what you believe is yours, maybe you’ll remember this.”

 “He hit me.” You were shaken, still shaking as you sat on your bed and your older sister knelt in front of you.

She took your shaking hands in her own, “He did, yes.” She said, regretfully.

“Why? What did I do to make him hate me.” Your question broke her heart a little.

“You did nothing, dear brother. Nothing. It’s all his ego,” She comforted. She knew, sadly, that the damage had been done. But she knew one thing, she wasn’t going to let it destroy you.

Not you.

 “You can have him,” Danny looked at Cersei in shock, “Take it as a warning. As a precautionary tale.”

 Danny didn’t waste any time in coming to you and picking you up. She didn’t look at Cersei, only you. She then hugged you. You stiffened but didn’t hug back. She didn’t seem to mind much though. She just held you tightly.

She had you, and you were back with those you belonged with.

Now she just had to return home.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The ride back, you sat in your room. Well, you laid in your bed, more like. You only ate when she would bring you food. She wanted to be the one to do it, she knew that you wouldn’t respond to anyone else.

She didn’t try and get you to speak. She knew that you wouldn’t want to and trying to force you to would only lead to more problems.

Still, at least she didn’t have to order the crew not to bother you: they seemed to just know from the get-go.

 “I have no choice in this.” She told you, trying to not allow her voice to tremble and show you the fear she felt. She had to be strong for you.

“I can’t just lose you.” You said in quiet voice. Your fear ruled you. Whenever you had been hurt, she had been there to help you; to help you rise back up when you fell.

Now, that would be gone.

She glided to you, kneeling once more to your level. She put her fingers under your chin and lifted it up, “Whatever happens, we go together. I’m never leaving you, little brother. Never. I’ll protect you as much as I can.” She promised you and pulled you into her arms.

You hugged her back, fearfully.

 The boat arrived, and there stood four or so angry advisors. Well, angry and relieved. Danny walked slowly, holding your hand and arm, and helping you walk down the ramp. She had almost not done this, as you had flinched and pulled your arm away when she went to touch.

However, after a moment, you had allowed it. She led you down, fully concentrated on your wellbeing. She didn’t take any notice of her friends. She only said one thing to you.

“We’re home.”

 The tent was big, but that didn’t matter to you. It was lonely. You were lonely. However, you didn’t tell her; you knew she had enough on her plate, and your issues would only add to that.

“Hey,” You looked up at her soft eyes that seemed to notice your turmoil, “We’ll be fine. We’ll make it through this to the other side, together. I promise, you’ll be fine.”

 “I kept it the same. I didn’t want to touch anything just in case you wanted to make any changes yourself.” You nodded mutely as you entered your room. In the past, it would be a place of comfort, a place where you could feel almost free. This was not that. This place felt foreign and the warmth was something you were used to, just in a torturous way.

The first thing you did was close the curtains.

“You used to love that in the morning.” Your sister didn’t know why she said those words; but she still had.

“Maybe, but not anymore.” You used to be quiet, but this was the quietest she’d heard you.

 She remembered the first time she had been forced to have sex with Drogo. The way he was in charge and she whimpered. She had still been holding out some sort of hope that she could get away from his.

She knew she wouldn’t be able to. She knew she had to adapt.

So, she did. She gave into it. She gave into him. Deep down, she was still the scared little girl who had been dealing with her own trauma. But that girl was repressed more and more.

In the name of survival.

 She had woken on a brand-new day. She woke up with some vigour this time, just happy to have everything back to normal in a way.

She got up and ready for the day, taking in the view from her room.

She then left to fetch you. She felt like a walk would maybe help you a little. They had in the past after all.

However, when she knocked on your door, she received no answer.

“Y/N, it’s me.” She said softly, hoping that announcing that would help you.

Still, the door did not open.

When she went to knock again, she stopped herself when she put her ear to the door only to hear nothing inside.

She put her hand on the handle, turning it. It went all the way; the door was unlocked.

She opened it fully, and her eyes widened, and her breath quickened at what she saw, an empty room.

 She didn’t think she could run this fast, yet here she was. She was yelling orders, “Find Y/N!” Was the main one she was able to track.

You were missing again, but this time it was voluntary.

Now, she just figure out where you had gone. Where you had taken yourself to.

She stopped, letting oxygen fill her lungs. As she took deep gulps, she pressed her back against a wall and took a moment to think; to actually think.

 “Come on!” You cried out in excitement as you led your sister by the hand to your destination.

“Slow down, Y/N.” She tried to be serious, but your happiness made her have a smile of her own at your enthusiasm. You had always been a more pessimistic one, but these moments that could last for a while and bursts of happiness made herself happy.

“Here.” You said, stopping and lowering your hands, pulling her towards you.

Ahead of you laid a lake. It wasn’t the largest, or the deepest. But, still, a small lake was a small lake.

The sun seemed to catch the water just right and it shimmered.

“Oh, Y/N, it’s beautiful.” She said, softly. She took the view in. This beat anything from her window for sure.

 That was the day before you were taken. It was a memory that she both played over and over again, but also wanted nothing to do with it.

Now it was the key.

She knew where you were now. Only thing was, the context of your visit had changed. Just like you had had.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She was right, you were there. You were sat down instead of stood. She watched you for a moment. Actually, saw you for who you were now. Yes, you were still her brother, but you had changed.

She approached you, taking a seat next to you. For once, she didn’t try to force anything. Instead, she just looked at the view, taking in the head and the peacefulness of the place. It was nice.

“I started to have visions while I was there,” She was the now the one looking up at you. However, she didn’t talk, “I couldn’t tell you when I started to do that. It just kind of….happened. Moments where I would see things that a rational part of me knew wasn’t there, but that part was destroyed by the part that wanted it to be real.”

“Who did you see?”

“A mix of you and the others. To be honest, mostly you,” You looked at her as you continued, “You’ve always been the one to look after me. And I appreciate it, so much. But, since I got back, it’s….it’s just been too much. You’re acting as if I’ll snap right back to who I was, but I won’t. I can’t.” You confessed.

“I know….I know,” She let her voice shake this time. She wasn’t going to hide her emotions anymore. You were old enough and knew enough about to world to know the feelings she had, the fear, the pain, and the loss.

“I’m sorry that I did that.”

“We’ll get there. We’ll get there.” You assured; but it seemed it was more so for yourself.

“What can I do right now?” She asked.

“Just….just stay.”

“Of course.” She assured.

[cosmosflower92]

i haven't dropped in

and given you guys much of an update of whats going on in my life since around the end of October,

i broke things off completely with Jorge at this point and i have decided that im gonna be open to dating but just really lightly, im not interested in falling in love right now because i need to learn to appreciate my own company and get back into doing what i like to do. that is gonna come with me blogging some more than i have in the past and making my candles, along with my tarot reading and practice.

i have noticed that i have started to like the adderal i have been getting from my friend a little to much, im going to lay off of them for a few months because i dont want to develop and habit with those, i have noticed when i come down i get really really depressed, i cant have that kind of depression knocking at my door right now.

i noticed i would not be able to sleep and i would just want to cry constantly.

with that thought being present i have decided to only to smoke weed this year.

many of you are new hear so long story short i struggled with an addiction to a bad substance and have been clean off that substance for 3 years but i do have an addictive personality that i can not ignore so when i start to see some developing habits no matter what the substance is i cut it out for long periods of time cold turkey.

i know being an addict is something that i will have to face throughout my lifetime, its something i think i have better handle on it now than i have had in a very long time.

in other news my mom had invited this random guy to come stay with torrey and her (torrey is my 28 year old younger sister) just before Christmas, and this is someone she barley knew wich is what scared me about the whole thing, my mother suffered a brain aneurysm 2 years ago and while she has healed in physical ways in some mental ways she is different, one of these differences is that she doesn't use forethought the way that she should and doesn't asses risks because of that. anyways...i went over there on Christmas eve to spend that night with my mother as is tradition, when i god there he introduced himself and me being super intuitive noticed something was off about him right from the start, i got this like vibe that he was not being truthful about alot of things, over the course of the night he got weirder and weirder i think he was on drugs that night because he was acting really erratic and at one point started to fight with my mom after me and my sister had gone to bed, me and my sister heard the argument and i went out there and she told him to pack his bags and leave, me and my sister decided we would drop him off at his moms house that he got kicked out of. we also gave him some money so that he could either get a hotel or pay someone to stay with them, on the way to do this he mentions that he also have active warrants because of violation of his probation which means he was already in trouble with the law. i really felt bad for him though because i can tell that he is going to be a person that will sabotage any thing he has going for him because he expects people to give on him but when you also make bad choices and do bad things people dont have to help you through it, its almost like a catch 22 in that way. i really hope he finds his way but i can tell his aggression was going to be a problem for my sweet mother. im glad he is out of her life but i am sad because we didnt get to a chance to show him what real love and support looks like. but my mom is to old to be trying to raise another person who acts like a child at 22. idk i guess ill harbor some guilt about this but i will pray for him and try to move in grace from that situation.

but that is it basically for the update for now,

im committed to blogging more and going back to using this page as my diary because i dont have anyone on here from my personal life so i feel way more comfortable expressing my feelings here anyway.

[n1sh1n0ya]

hii may i request the pretty setters reaction to their s/o, who is usually quiet, performing like a powerful/badass kpop type dance? thank uuuu

Pretty Setters x shy! s/o who dances? idk i'm bad at naming things

a/n: i don't know the first thing about kpop sorry if that shows in this lol

Kenma Kozume

You and him have a lot in common, and you bond over this quite a lot

Like,, you both have a lot off common interests, you like the things he likes and vice versa, you're both pretty quiet

You’re both pretty and quiet

But if one of you really likes something, they’ll try and get the other into it as well, you got him playing Animal Crossing, he introduced you to apple pie

You basically know that if you like something, he’s gonna like it too

So when he sees you dancing for the first time he's like oh hell no

I am NOT getting dragged into this absolutely not no no no

I feel like out of all of these guys he would be the least surprised to find out that you have another side to you, he has another side to him we just don’t see it in the anime he does I swear

Although he r e f u s e s to join in with you, he definitely enjoys watching from the sidelines ;)

And you only dance in front of him, no one else, he's the only one who knows about your more confident side

Even if he wasn’t as surprised as the other boys on this list, he was still pretty surprised

The bar wasn’t set very high

You wouldn’t see that he’s surprised though, and he wouldn’t tell you, he just smiles to himself, thinking about how proud he is of you

He’ll even look up from his game a little more often if you’re dancing in front of him

Akaashi Keiji

You and your friends often learn kpop dances and post short clips of it online

But you don’t tell anyone about it, you’d be absolutely mortified if anyone you knew found them

Spoilers: You’re about to be absolutely mortified

Out of everyone to see them, Bokuto, your bf’s best friend, and close friend of your own, finds your TikTok and sees ALL you guys’ videos

He totally spam likes ur acc smh

So as soon as you see his name in your notifications, the panic sets in

Ohmygodhesgonnashowakaashinononono

When Bokuto shows him, they’re both kinda in shock

Like, they both thought that they knew you pretty well, but they had NO IDEA that you could or would dance like that

You’re kinda dreading going to school with him the next day, because you know he’s gonna mention it

So when you see him, you brace yourself for him to say something about it, at least to ask you why you didn’t tell him, but he just?? Doesn’t??

You keep looking at him, you can’t tell if he’s not saying anything because he knows that you didn’t want anyone to know about it, or if he genuinely doesn’t know

He notices this, and by the end of the day, when you’re on the millionth glance his way to see if he’s showing any recognition to you, he has to say something

“If you’re worried about me judging you, I think it’s really cool that you can do that”

On the outside, he seems super calm but on the inside he's like

Where did you learn to dance like that? Did you teach yourself? No, there’s no way you taught yourself, so who taught you?

He’s so impressed like?? You have a WHOLE other side to you that he didn’t know about?? You’re so cool??

Sugawara Koushi

He would be your BIGGEST fan

✨ ultimate hypeman ✨

He just loves you so much and anything that makes you happy? Makes him happy too

When he saw you dance for the first time he was really surprised, because, of course you’re super shy, HOW did you change into such a badass like that??

But once he gets over the initial shock of it, he will ALWAYS be cheering you on

He doesn’t really get it, but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t appreciate it

If you’re struggling to learn a new routine and are about to give up?? He’s there to hype you tf up

If ppl take the piss and you’re feeling down about it?? He’s there to hype you tf up

Wish i didn’t have to make that point but ppl are mean >:(

he knows you’re the best, and he wants to make sure you know it as well

He won’t join in unless you b e g him, but he’s always happy to give a second opinion and constructive criticism

Once he kinda learns what’s going on, he might even start sending you videos and being like

“You would look so good if you learned this”

You fall in love with him all over again I swear, because he’s taking the time to learn about something you love 🥺🥺

It never fully stops surprising him how you can go from 0 to 100 and then straight back to 0 again within an hour

Like when you’re dancing you look?? So badass?? But when you’re not?? You’re super quiet??

He is l i v i n g for it I tell you that 💅

Tobio Kageyama

You come to him with the idea

He’s tried to teach you volleyball before, so why don’t you teach him something that you enjoy as well?

And then it’ll be a two in one of two of your favourite things; him and dancing

He’s not too keen on the idea at first, but you look so excited, how can he say no

This is the most passionate about something that he’s ever seen you be, he doesn’t wanna let it go to waste

And if you love it, he knows it’ll be great

So at first you gotta demonstrate, because not only is he clueless school-wise, he also has no idea about anything else

He probably doesn’t listen to music at all anyway, so you might have to even explain to him what kpop is lmao 🥴

He’s still a little confused, so you show demonstrate the dance that you wanted him to learn with you

I stg all his thoughts depart

If there was any to begin with that is (probably not)

He’s so a m a z e d

Because?? 1. You can dance like that 2. You look gorgeous when you dance like that 3. Who are you and what have you done with my quiet s/o????

He’s ABSOLUTELY not complaining tho

But,,, when you try to get him to learn,,, ✨no✨

You thought that maybe he would be good at it, because of how graceful he looks on the court, but, maybe you were wrong lmao

Mans has two left feet and NO rhythm and you’re about to give up and crash when he says

“Maybe this isn’t for me, but I’d really enjoy watching you do it again”

He loves how talented you are so much, especially because he’s tried it for himself and knows just how difficult it is

Tooru Oikawa

While he’s at volleyball practice after school, you and your friend meet in an empty classroom so that you can each wait for your bfs to finish their club activities

She’s dating Iwa bcos best friends dating another pair of best friends is the cutest thing to me idk

Because you two know that you’ll be alone, you’re not afraid to go all out practicing the you guys’ favourite dances

You could NEVER do this in front of anyone else, you’d get too embarrassed, but when it’s just you two, and you know that there’s no one around to see, you Go For It™

You two are working super hard on perfecting this one dance that’s been bothering you for weeks

Working so hard that you completely forget the time, and that your bfs will be waiting for y’all

How convenient lmao

So when Oikawa and Iwaizumi come out of the volleyball clubroom and can’t see you two around, they head on over to the classroom that they know you go to while they’re at practice

As they’re coming towards the classroom, they can hear music playing in there, and just poke their heads around the door

At first they’re both in shock, like seeing you, who’s usually so quiet and reserved, going all out on a dance like that??

You two are facing away from them and filming, with your phone propped up on the windowsill, so you don’t notice that they’re watching

Iwa’s pretty happy with staying there and just watching but Oikawa is totally like “ooooh I know this one!!”

So he comes and joins in behind you two

You two are so caught up in your dance that you don’t even see his image on the phone screen in front of you, until you finish dancing and turn around to see your boyfriend, still sweating from vball practice and looking at you in absolute wonder

You try to hide away from him because your boyfriend, who would never expect you to be performing kpop dances in front of a camera in an empty classroom just saw you doing just that and oh GOD that’s embarrassing

He’s like OH HELL NO you are NOT getting away from me now I know you can dance like that COME BACK

Kanji Koganegawa

I feel like he would like to date someone who’s a little more on the quiet side, because he’s super loud and energetic, and he needs someone to balance that out

AND HE’S A TOTAL KPOP STAN FITE ME ON THAT

Him and Oikawa are the biggest kpop stans in the Miyagi Prefecture 💅💅

So I think that he’s gonna be the one to approach you and be like hey we should try this lmao

Like, expecting you to say no, so when you say yes he’s so surprised

You both start learning it separately, so that you’ll be almost done learning it when you see each other

He’s super excited, but then he also knows that you’re quite shy and quiet, so he’s not really expecting you to go all out on this

Oh no he was wrong

When he sees you again for the first time after he suggested it, you both perform as far as you’ve learned to the other, to see how much you have to learn

He goes first, and just imagine him,,,just picture it in your mind 🥺🥺

He’s kinda bad, but a+ for effort

And then it’s your turn

He suddenly panics, because he thinks that it’s quite out of character for you, and he might of accidentally peer pressured you into it lmaoo

You brush him off, and when you start dancing… damn

He’s in shock

If you looked inside his brain right at that moment all you would see is just ????

When he gets over his initial surprise, he kinda realises like,,, that’s hot WHY have i never seen this before

You put him to shame and he knows it

When you’re done he just stares at you

You’re kinda nervous because??he’s not saying anything??

And then he kinda explodes

He’s all like

“WHY did you not tell me you could dance like that that seemed so unlike you??we could have been doing this for months??I didn’t know you could dance like that???what??

Kiss him to shut him up please thank you

[thesunandseonghwa]

Shadows and Angels | Part One

chan x reader | changbin x reader

warnings: violence, being drugged. 

genre: angst, kinda fluff idk?

1.7k words

i sincerely hope this is decent, this is literally my first fic ever lmao.

see here for glossary of starred terms

masterlist

You didn't know why you were here, it was noisy and the flashing neon lights had begun to give you a killer headache. You sat at the bar, looking over at your best friend who seemed to be having the time of her life every so often. Your best friend had insisted on going to this party, supposedly she had been invited by some other friends of hers but something about the place made you uneasy. It was just a regular club as far as you could tell and you had convinced yourself you were just being paranoid but you could of sworn you had seen some strange things about the people here.

Bright yellow cat eyes on a guy in a jacket covered in glitter, a women with a spiked tail trailing behind her through the slit in the back of her red dress.

You had probably just had too much to drink or the lights had to be playing tricks on you. Nevertheless, you still felt on edge.

You turned your head as you felt a tug on your shoulder, "Come with me to the bathroom, I need to pee!"

Your best friend laughed as she tugged on you to come along, you stood up from your seat to follow after her. You surprised yourself when your head instantly felt like a thousand tons and your vision blurred in front of you, you shook your head trying to take one step in front of the other but you couldn't and your best friend was quickly fading away into the throngs of people. You tried to call out to her but it was impossible to hear you over the deafening music.

Your drink, it must have been drugged by someone you thought, as you felt your knees buckle under you. You were sure your head was about to hit the floor but a strange man came to support you before you fall. Lifting your feet off the ground and walking on,

You didn't know if this person was your saviour or a nightmare because you could no longer hold on.

﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

"I told you going to this rave was going to be useless, Changbin," Chan rolled his eyes at his parabatai, they were surrounded by downworlders* but not the right downworlder. Not the ones he knew Changbin was looking for.

The two of them were no stranger to downworlder raves but Chan knew a lost cause when he saw one, "Hey man, I know you're struggling but this isn't how we're going to avenge your father,"

Chan put his hand on Changbin's shoulder, he could feel the unease in him. The unrelenting anger and frustration too and Chan felt it too.

Changbin's father had died nearly a year ago. A few years prior to his death, he had become addicted to a substance called Yin Fen*. His father ultimately succumbed to his addiction. Once you had built a dependency on Yin Fen, you could either stop taking it and die or continue to take it and slowly die. It was a lose-lose situation if you were to put it in extremely insensitive terms. His father had been killed by downworlders, presumably vampires as he gone to them quite frequently to procure more Yin Fen however this time, the vampires he had gone too were not willing to bargain. The accords* could not protect him, these vampires were not like the others. They were Downworlders that did not care for the accords. They were rogues in a sense, hellbent on causing as much trouble as they could for the Nephilim. They hated the accords and shadowhunters alike.

Changbin's father like his son had been a shadowhunter. A shadowhunter who had ended up tangled with the wrong crowd after the death of Changbin's mother. This 'crowd' had been the reason why his father's addiction began. Chan knew the way Changbin felt about finding the people that had killed his father, they had spent the past few months tracking down each and every person that had any connection to his father's addiction and ultimate murder as instructed by the head of their institute.

They had been tracking one of the vampires but the trail has gone cold, trying to find one vampire at a downworlder rave was like trying to find one specific needle in a stack of other similar looking needles. It was difficult to differentiate thus making it even more difficult to find.

Chan tried to block out the deafening hum of the music as Changbin leaned closer to say something to him, "I think I found our vampires,"

Chan followed Changbin's gaze to see two men, skin pale as night, carrying what looked to be a mundane* girl between them. Her arms were slung over the one vampire's shoulder, her feet dragging on the floor.

They followed the vampires out the back door into a dark alley just behind the club, Changbin flanking them

"If you could just leave the mundane alone, we'd like to talk," Changbin said, his Seraph* blade a few centimeters shy from the vampire's heart. A smile graced his features, one Chan knew well but nevertheless one that scared him sometimes. It was almost like he enjoyed this, in a way it was almost like revenge.

"You have no business here, Shadowhunters," The other vampire hissed,

"We just want to ask you some questions about-" Chan wasn't able to finish his sentence as the vampire made a lunge for him. Chan dodged with a quick tuck and roll. He steeled himself for a battle but when he looked again, they were gone with the wind at a pace neither him or Changbin could follow.

The girl no longer supported by the vampire had slid to floor in a heap. Right now, he shouldn't worry about a randon mundane's possible concussion but it unfortunately cross his mind. He wasn’t evil, a concussion and a hangover was just cruel and not to mention the come-down from whatever the vampires had drugged her with

"So, what are we supposed to do with this problem?" Changbin said gesturing toward the girl on the floor. 

"I-I'm not anyone's problemmm, pretty boy!" The girl suddenly interjected, her voice slurring.

"She can see you? She can see us?" Changbin's eyebrows knitted together as he spoke, clearly perplexed. Chan didn't have to say it, he felt the same.

"She has the sight*," Chan said, bending down to the girl’s height. He propped her up against the nearby wall. He did feel sort of bad for treating her like a sack of potatoes but he didn’t have much choice.

“What are we supposed to do with her then, Chan?” Changbin muttered, clearly annoyed about losing the vampires, “She could be just a mundane for all we know?” 

“A mundane with the sight that’s not exactly common is it?” Chan chose to ignore his parabatai’s attitude, he shook the girl’s shoulder

Her eyes fluttered open for a few seconds, she reached a hand out seemingly to touch his face. It was almost like she was trying to make sure he was real. Chan found himself gazing at her with a softness he didn’t know he had in him. Her fingers brushed his cheek softly, “You’re not an angel, right? I’m not dead?” 

“Close but no,” He laughed, his attention was drawn by the sound of the backdoor scraping open, 

The girl’s hazy eyes drifted to the newcomer, her hand dropping to the floor, she tried to stand, “Miya!” 

“y\n?!” The newcomer’s eyes darkened to black as she saw the boys, “Nephilim, what has dragged you down here?”

“Nephilim? Miya, what are you talking about?” Y/n answered, attempting to make her way to her supposed friend. Chan took a step in front of her, him and his parabatai drawing their Seraph blades. The glow of their blades lighting up the dark back alley. It felt good to stand ready with his parabatai at his side. He didn’t know what this girl was but he felt the need to protect her. 

Chan exchanged knowing looks with Changbin, this newcomer was a shape-shifting demon no doubt about it. One they had been tracking, nonetheless. A scream ripped from the supposedly mundane girl as her ‘friend’ Miya took her true form. The skin of her face ripping open to reveal a grotesque animal-like face, the human body ripping apart to reveal a disgusting demon body fit with several arms. 

Chan and Changbin advanced, they were always fierce fighters on their own but together, they were almost unstoppable. The demon hadn’t stood a chance, it’s body dissipating into nothingness as their blades cleaved cleanly through it. A fine layer of demon blood splurging out, Changbin wiped his blade off on his sleeve, “So, what are we doing with the girl? I think she’s gone into shock,”

“You’re killers!” The girl backed up against the wall, holding herself. She was shivering and he wasn’t sure if it was the shock of what had just happened or the cold. Most likely the former rather than the latter. 

“Listen, I can explain everything to you but I need you to come with us, somewhere safe,” Chan said, slipping his blade back into it’s place on his belt.

“Why should I trust you! You just killed my-” She cut herself off, 

“Obviously that wasn’t your best friend or girlfriend or whatever,” Changbin huffed, running his hand through his dark hair, 

Chan shot the boy a look, “Bin, cool it with the attitude please?” 

Changbin glared at him, Chan turned his attention back to the girl, “Y/N?” 

Her eyes, pupils shot wide looked to him. The fear in her eyes was there but she was trying not to let it show, “That’s your name, right? Mine is Chan and this is Changbin, we’re protectors of a sort and your friend, Miya was a demon,” 

“So you’re like ghostbusters for demons or something?” She said, her back was still flush against the brick wall, “What the hell is all of this, none of this makes sense!” 

“I promise we’ll both explain everything but now we need to get to somewhere safe, you can trust us,” Chan mustered up a smile, reaching a hand out to her. 

She seemed to mull over her options before she stood up straight and after some time she took his hand, “Fine, I’ll go with you,” 

“Bin, you getting the car or?” Chan asked, 

“I have a bad feeling about this and Jihyo is not going to be happy with you for bringing a mundane into the institute,”

﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤ 

I hope you liked it, thank you for reading!

 part two is coming soon. I really appreciate any and all feedback <3

[dottie-wan-kenobi]

song lyrics I use to characterize Dick Grayson

This is definitely not everything (& I would love to do more) but it’s also Extremely Freaking Long so. Many thanks to @zitkaplushie for chatting w me abt this! I would love to hear your thoughts/additions/etc. If u disagree w any of these, feel free to debate w me but please be civil!!

— OVERALL:

Drag Me Down by One Direction: okay there are tons of parts that fit but this line is the best: “I've got fire for a heart / I'm not scared of the dark / You've never seen it look so easy”

I think this one is kind of straightforward lol but. The first line kind of tells me that Dick is passionate, and feels more with his heart than his head. The second line is just kind of a tongue in cheek thing like obviously he’s not. And the third one is both Dick’s confidence and also that it’s just TRUE. He makes things look easy, all kinds of things. It’s just a fact. 

High Hopes by Panic! at The Disco: ugh this has such good lines but this one: “Mama said / Burn your biographies / Rewrite your history / Light up your wildest dreams / Museum victories, every day / We wanted everything, wanted everything”

So I think “Mama” thru to “dreams” ties back to him becoming Nightwing, or going through different identities and kind of letting himself go with it to an extent. Like he doesn’t let it hold him back. The rest of it, like...that’s just Dick’s superheroing career. “We” in this case could be him and Bruce, him and the Titans, him and Damian, etc etc

Catch My Breath by Kelly Clarkson: um. the whole song. the whole thing. buuuut one line I’ll analyze will be: “I don't wanna be left behind / Distance was a friend of mine / Catching breath in a web of lies / I've spent most of my life / Riding waves, playing acrobat / Shadowboxing the other half / Learning how to react”

“I don't wanna be left behind” - he knows this feeling well already and doesn’t want to relive it

“Distance was a friend of mine / Catching breath in a web of lies” - he has like no civilian friends in canon, and even then he’s always lying to somebody about something. There aren’t many people he can be truly close to and open with, other than like Donna and Roy and Kory

“I've spent most of my life / Riding waves, playing acrobat / Shadowboxing the other half / Learning how to react” - idk, when I see this it makes me think that he’s just lived this life that isn’t exactly normal and he recognizes that

Birds by Imagine Dragons: this one makes me so sad but: “I know that / Ooh, birds fly in different directions / Ooh, I hope to see you again / Ooh, birds fly in different directions / Ooh, so fly high, so fly high”

So obviously Dick has lost a lot of people important to him over the years, either because they died or DC said XYZ and Dick’s relationship no longer has any rights, but. This is how he would feel about that. Grudging acceptance, hope to see them again, wishing them well. 

Dance Monkey by Tones And I: I had to. “I said, oh my god, I see you walking by / Take my hands, my dear, and look me in my eyes / Just like a monkey I've been dancing my whole life / But you just beg to see me dance just one more time”

I’ll mention this later on, but I think that Dick projects an image a lot of the time that isn’t what he’s really feeling. This ties into that - I think at certain points in his life, he just gets exhausted and wants to take a break, but he can’t. He feels like everyone is counting on him, either to do this or that, or keep up this appearance. Sometimes they really are, and sometimes it’s pressure he’s putting onto himself!

Icarus by Bastille: tbh this is a song that I think applies to most if not all of the batfam, but for Dick, this is part of it that I like: “You put up your defenses when you leave / You leave because you're certain / Of who you want to be”

I prefer the version of canon where Dick willingly decides to stop being Robin, but even in the way that he gets kicked out, this tells me that he’s steeling himself for whatever may come, and that he’s sure of his actions. 

Stars by Grace Potter: now THIS one is freaking sad. “All those times we looked up at the sky / Looking out so far, it felt like we could fly / And now I'm all alone in the dark of night / And the moon is shining, but I can't see the light.”

Again, he’s lost a lot of ppl!! I usually think of this song as him referring to his parents or Bruce after he “dies”, but it could apply to anyone really. And these lines in specific just make me think that he feels lonely without whoever it is, that he’s not in a good place.

Simple Man by Lynyrd Skynyrd: "Boy, don't you worry, you'll find yourself / Follow your heart and nothing else / And you can do this, oh baby, if you try / All that I want for you, my son, is to be satisfied"

Okay so maybe I hc that the Graysons were very much so free spirits who rubbed off a lot on Dick. But with that aside, to me this is Dick being determined to live a happy life, and knowing it’s going to be a struggle at times. “You’ll find yourself” and “if you try” are things that I think Dick keeps close to mind. Like, maybe he doesn’t know everything right now, but he will. He’ll figure it out. And he can get through anything if he just pushes through it.

Weight In Gold by Gallant: “I’m pulling my weight in gold / Call me anxious, call me broke / But I can’t lift this on my own”

I’ve already mentioned this but Dick has a lot of pressure on his shoulders, like all the time. And he’s also someone who reaches out to others, which is what these lyrics are saying. He’s aware when he can’t handle the pressure anymore and can admit it to himself. (I don’t think this fits him ALL the time, I mean it just doesn’t, but. Sometimes.)

Tears Of A Clown by Smokey Robinson: I really fuck with the idea that Dick is, still, an entertainer. that + the pressure he’s under = “Now if I appear to be carefree / It's only to camouflage my sadness / In order to shield my pride I've tried / To cover this hurt with a show of gladness”

The word “camouflage” stands out to me because I think sometimes the way he hides parts of who he is is to protect himself??? Dick can also be a prideful person, who might not want others to know that he’s been hurt by something they’ve done. 

The Show Must Go On by Queen: relatedly,,, this whole song fits him perfectly. but to do something not related to smiling: “Show must go on. / I'll face it with a grin. / I'm never giving in— / Oh—with the show. / I'll top the bill, / I'll overkill. / I have to find the will to carry on with the show.” 

This ties back to him hiding his real feelings, of course, but also it speaks to how he doesn’t do things by half. This makes me think about being Batman, about how he won’t give in to the pressure, will push through and keep going and uphold his dad’s legacy as best as he can

Pumpin Blood by NONONO: “It's so magical feeling, that no one's got a hold / You're a catalyst to your own happiness you know”

This goes back to my thoughts that Dick has this mindset that if he keeps going, keeps putting in as much effort as he needs to, then he can get what he needs. It’s also kind of those moments where Dick realizes that where he is is good, like being Robin, but it’s not great, and it could be great. When he decides to stop being Robin, it’s like he’s thinking, “I could be happier, and if I want that, I need to do it myself.”

Rocketeer by Far East Movement: this song fits in a lot of spots but. “Here we go, come with me / There's a world out there that we should see / Take my hand, close your eyes / With you right here, I'm a rocketeer”

Overall imo this is a shippy song but this lyric specifically could be Dick and anyone at all -- he’s the kind of guy who reaches out to others, who would enjoy showing people new things. I also think the last bit kind of speaks to how he can feel better and more empowered when he’s not going through things alone 

I Want To Break Free by Queen: “But life still goes on / I can't get used to, living without, living without / Living without you by my side / I don't want to live alone, hey / God knows, got to make it on my own / So baby can't you see / I've got to break free”

This goes back to a few things. For one, I feel that when he feels held back or held down, he’s VERY aware of it and doesn’t like it, and wants to have his freedom back. Another one is, considering all the people he’s lost, it’s like...he doesn’t want to live without them but there’s no choice, he has to. And finally, I also think this is to Bruce, like he’s feeling like he could do and be more if he weren’t being restricted by Bruce

Teams & Friends, Ships, Family, & Bruce under the cut!

— TEAMS & FRIENDS:

Young Volcanoes by Fall Out Boy: there’s a reason why I named my fic after this lol. “When Rome's in ruins / We are the lions / Free of the coliseums / In poisoned places / We are anti-venom / We're the beginning of the end”

I think that Dick really does enjoy superheroing, and that he’s proud of himself and those he works with for being courageous, kind, and helpful to the world. In his more positive moments, this is what I feel like he’d think of his teams and their impacts.

Home by Daughtry: I’ve always thought of this one as a batfam song but tbh I think it works better as a Titans one. “Well I'm going home, / Back to the place where I belong, / And where your love has always been enough for me. / I'm not running from. / No, I think you got me all wrong. / I don't regret this life I chose for me. / But these places and these faces are getting old, / So I'm going home.”

The way I interpret this is like...he DOES love Bruce, he does love the batfam, but ultimately when he thinks about home he thinks of his friends. This is kind of him talking to Bruce, at least in the second half. Another reason why I put it here is that there’s another lyric in the song that says, “I'm going to the place where love / And feeling good don't ever cost a thing.” In the batfam, as zitkaplushie said, love isn’t conditional or anything but it IS exhausting. It takes a toll on them. Love with the titans is just easier.

— SHIPS:

Make Me Feel by Janelle Monae: Dick is bi like this song and this line describes his at-times tumultuous relationships: “It's like I'm powerful with a little bit of tender / An emotional, sexual bender / Mess me up, yeah, but no one does it better / There's nothing better”

He takes comfort and strength from his relationships and sometimes that’s good, hence the powerful/tender part! But in all his relationships, not just his romantic ones, it’s (sometimes) easy for people to affect him

I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) by Celtic Thunder: this fits all of his ships imo: “When I'm lonely, well I know I'm gonna be / I'm gonna be the man who's lonely without you / And when I'm dreaming, well I know I'm gonna dream / I'm gonna dream about the time when I'm with you”

He’s just a sappy boy who is in love. That said, I don’t think these feelings would overtake him!

— FAMILY:

Losing My Religion by R.E.M.: I read this heartbreaking fic recently that dealt with how Dick hid his feelings from EVERYONE and no one noticed anything was wrong, really, except Cass. so. “Every whisper / Of every waking hour / I'm choosing my confessions / Trying to keep an eye on you / Like a hurt, lost and blinded fool, fool / Oh no, I've said too much / I set it up”

Dick is more open than his siblings, but he does still hide things, especially from them. The line “I'm choosing my confessions / Trying to keep an eye on you” makes me think of Dick trying to take care of his siblings, whichever way he can

This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) by Kishi Bashi: “Home is where I want to be / Pick me up and turn me round / I feel numb - born with a weak heart / I guess I must be having fun / The less we say about it the better / Make it up as we go along / Feet on the ground / Head in the sky / It's OK, I know nothing's wrong... nothing”

“Make it up as we go along / Feet on the ground / Head in the sky / It's OK, I know nothing's wrong... nothing” - this reads happier than it’s sang but I do think it describes the more positive side of the family dynamics! 

You’re Not There by Lukas Graham: this one is abt (all of) his parents :( “I only got you in my stories / And you know I tell them right / I remember you and I, when I'm awake at night / So give it up for fallen glory / I never got to say goodbye / I wish I could ask for just a bit more time”

There are times where the deaths of his parents & Bruce (and Alfred) weigh heavily on him, and that everything he does is kind of continuing on where they left off, or doing something they didn’t have time to do. I think he would tell his kids stories about them and that he would try to be as true to them as he can be. And then of course, “So give it up for fallen glory / I never got to say goodbye / I wish I could ask for just a bit more time” is kind of his relationship with his parents after they die

— BRUCE:

(I gave him a separate section bc I have a lot of feels abt them okay??)

The Ballad of Dick Grayson by Crafty McVillain: there are actually a lot of songs abt Dick Grayson, but I picked this one bc of this: “Broken hearts improve, but my mind's broken too / Show me how to hurt and I'll hurt them with you / I'll take on the world, I will fight for you / But tell me how to stop, cause now I'm fighting you”

This is abt when Jason takes on Robin but I like to look at this like:

“Broken hearts improve, but my mind's broken too / Show me how to hurt and I'll hurt them with you” - this is when Dick first comes to the Manor, and when he’s first becoming Robin. He’s struggling and Bruce shows him a way to cope. (is it healthy? lmao)

“I'll take on the world, I will fight for you” - this is just...any time really lol. Dick is loyal to Bruce (to an extent) and will fight alongside him, will do almost anything for him

“But tell me how to stop, cause now I'm fighting you” - then this is how it feels when they’re broken apart for the first time, when they aren’t getting along and it’s just a change from the past few years, and Dick doesn’t know what to do about it

Let You Down by NF: “Feels like we're on the edge right now / I wish that I could say I'm proud / I'm sorry that I let you down / Let you down”

“I'm sorry that I let you down / Let you down” - this could be pre-emptive, Dick kind of thinking that no matter what he does, he’s most likely going to let Bruce down

Like how Bruce is always that 8 year old who lost his parents, Dick is always who he was the first night he went out as Robin, desperately wanting Bruce’s approval

He wants the approval and hates that he does, it feels like it holds him down

The Chain by Fleetwood Mac: “Listen to the wind blow / Watch the sun rise / Run in the shadows / Damn your love / Damn your lies”

When I read these lyrics, I think about Bruce and Dick when they’ve been arguing, having a quiet moment (the peace after the storm, zitkaplushie said), kind of reflecting, and Dick just thinks, “I want you to love me but I want you to stop lying to me.” Or like, “your love comes with your lies and I don’t know if I can handle that [right now].”

Numb by Linkin Park: “I've become so numb, I can't feel you there / Become so tired, so much more aware / I'm becoming this, all I want to do / Is be more like me and be less like you”

There’s this moment in canon, before he even gives up being Robin, where he’s acting just like Batman, hunting down criminals with a single-minded ferocity that has his friends legit concerned for him. I can’t remember exactly what he felt about it when he kind of snapped out it but these lyrics remind me of that. He doesn’t want to be like Bruce, he doesn’t want to be Batman, and especially as a teenager, that last line is big. Overall it also fits when Dick IS Batman, and he feels like he’s kind of being swallowed by everything that it is

The Archer by Taylor Swift: okay I’m sorry I can’t pick between these two: “I've got a hundred thrown out speeches / I almost said to you” and “And all of my heroes / Die all alone / Help me hold on to you”

There are a lot of things Dick doesn’t say to Bruce over the years, or things that he wants to say but doesn’t for however long until he can’t hold it in anymore or it’s the right time or whatever. Ultimately that line just tells me that their relationship isn’t one with great communicating

“And all of my heroes / Die all alone” - Bruce ‘dying’. “Help me hold on to you” - Batman when Dick is him. Or it could be about Dick’s parents, and then Dick trying to keep Bruce alive as Robin/Nightwing

[phoebehalliwell]

Do you think redemption for Cole after Black as Cole is possible? I mean he met one of his victim, and all he cared about was Phoebe’s reaction. For me it’s a sign that he wasn’t interested in that sort of things. As long as Phoebe was full of forgiveness and acceptance he couldn’t care less about Emma, or any other of them But this is what I actually like about his arc. It shows that being in love doesn’t equal redemption.

The second question is about Phoebe and her behavior in the same episode. Imo in Black as Cole her way to become the Queen begins. She chose Cole before but it was ether a split second decision (let him go) or chain of events that couldn’t have been foreseen (Prue’s death.) This ep she chooses him over his victim without any sign of hesitation. And that is the very first step to become evil.

i feel like redemption for cole after that episode is possible but would be a very lengthy and complex process. taking a step back, i would say redemption for cole wasn’t going to happen after we got black as cole bc let’s face it if you wanted to give him a redemption arc you just would not have given him that episode because it would have been so much easier to keep his demonic past in the abstract than to actually bring in a very obvious manifestation of the pain he caused.

as far as the episode itself, i will admit i haven’t watched it in a minute, but i do agree with your assessment. i feel like cole really put a great emphasis into make sure phoebe wasn’t horrified at him (which is a valid fear) but i don’t remember any earnest apology from cole to emma? which again i feel like greatly implies the writers had no intention of fully redeeming cole, though the kept the illusion he could become a good guy up until the bitter end imo.

they really kept harping on the “you make me want to be a better man” but like,,, that’s not enough?? it shouldn’t be on the li to generate that motivation? like yes it can be the spark but after that we should really see this person try to do better on their own, to really make that decision for themselves. (i’m gonna bring up the best redemption arc ever the grace television and say that zuko’s redemption officially came when he made the decision to leave the fire nation and help the avatar. and it was made clear that was a decision he came to on his own terms. yes there was guidance towards good, but there was also a pull away from it. and we saw the war and we saw the struggle and we saw him choose to do the right thing. not for anyone else. but for him. let’s face it cole was never being good for cole, cole was being good for phoebe. if you removed her from the equation i don’t think his character as written in canon would have ever become good.)

and on to phoebe. in an ask just two days ago, i explicitly stated my belief that if phoebe even had the slightest inkling that her relationship with cole could lead to the death of her sister, she would vanquish him. she would not risk that. and imma be honest with you, i really don’t get why phoebe didn’t vanquish him in sleuthing with the enemy. like, at this point, you know your relationship is built on lies. he might be in love with you, but you’re not in love with him, no, you fell in love with the mask he crafted specifically for you. see the difference? (that’s also one of the many reasons i never got behind phole as a ship.) And Here’s The Thing Tho. cole was ready to let phoebe vanquish him. it was like him paying penance. and then krell attacked and even tho phoebe was about to vanquish cole two seconds ago now she’s fighting to protect him which you know what i will let slide. But Then. phoebe tries to fight off krell and then krell tries to kill phoebe and then cole saves phoebe and he seems to view that as his get out vanquish free card. like a minute ago he was like i’ve done unspeakable things blah blah blah vanquish me. and now that he’s saved 1 (one) person, he’s like nvm those unspeakable things have been canceled out by the only good thing i’ve done every and phoebe’s like all my hate for you has turned to love because you just saved me from that demon and even though you are a demon who did make any attempts on my own life as well as my sisters lives, not to mention manipulated me into a relationship, in spite of all of that i will kiss you passionately and help you fake your death. Ma’am?? like let’s grab some relativity for 90 seconds let’s look at this in human terms you’re mindhunter or whatever and you’ve been stopping serial killers. you fall for this one guy who seems to be the man of your dreams, but then you find out he’s one of the worst serial killers in the game, and he has indeed tried to kill you multiple times. but he couldn’t, because he loves you. and to be fair you loved him too before you knew he was a Serial Killer who Manipulated & tried to Kill You. now, personally, if i’ve got the gun pointed at him i’m not going to hear him out on the but i’m still human & you make me want to do good spiel. even if he saves my from some vigilante murder who was trying to kill him but also felt the need to take me out too because we were in cahoots. dude he’s a serial killer who i have feared would take my life for idk like almost a year now. that mf would be dead. but idk maybe that’s just me if you were looking at this in the fully human terms would you burn down the house and let the dead vigilante burned beyond recognition sit underneath that serial killer’s headstone. evidently phoebe would.

so when we’re talking about phoebe “choosing evil” it’s quite obvious that she has an extremely dim conception of what evil truly is (i mean hello we are looking a the woman who thought she could be both the queen of hell and protect innocents at the same time and just Did Not Get why that couldn’t be a thing). so i feel like in her mind, when she’s siding with cole, she’s purely operating under this belief of she just doesn’t understand who he is when in truth it seems emma understands who cole it a lot more that phoebe did.

[jq37]

The Report Card – Fantasy High Sophomore Year Ep 2

Boggy the Froggy!

Welcome back, ya’ll! We jump back in with our Bad Kids (or 4/6 of them anyway) the very next day. Fabian sends Gilear out on a coffee run on the threat of bodily harm. His mom–who, if you remember is low-key a total badass–tells Fabian that if Gilear doesn’t come back from the quest alive, she’s going to duel him to the death on top of the house. Yikes. At Chez Thistlespring, Gorgug’s parents give him another very detailed sex talk and then remind him that he lives in a world where magic is very real so any and all dreams he remembers should be treated as omens. 

At the haunted house, Adaine wakes up having had portentous dreams like everyone else which is doubly concerning I have to imagine considering (1) she is the eleven oracle and (2) as a full elf she’s supposed to trance, not sleep and dream. Luckily for her nerves, she cast Find Familiar the night before and summoned an emotional support familiar which she gave the amazing name Bogariel Frogariel aka: Boggy the Froggy. 

Meanwhile (and I needed to switch paragraphs because Kristen is doing the D&D equivalent of playing Twister while everyone else is playing Checkers as she is wont to do) Kristen is talking to Tracker about changing Yes? again because she is filled with doubt about her god of doubt but the one thing she clearly doesn’t have doubt about is her relationship with Tracker because it’s been less than a year and she already sees wedding bells in their future. Wild. She also invites Tracker on the quest, rectifying what I thought was a wild oversight last week. 

Everyone meets up and they realize Fig and Riz are missing. They (specifically Fabian) can’t get Riz on the phone (which has never happened before) and all of Fig’s stuff is missing. They head over to Riz’s office to see if they can find him but, before that, Tracker cancels the church of Yes? because, sure. 

There are signs of a struggle at Riz’s office, but no blood. They find a picture of Riz’s super-spy dad (Pok) with his arm around someone who appears invisible to them (though the spot is circled in red). They also find claw marks going up to a mirror. Adaine stops Gorgug from touching the mirror which would have driven him insane and had him attack the group. She sees a twisted version of Riz in the mirror which no one else can see until she describes it (suspicious). Then, she dispels magic and the Riz appears in the room…and attacks them (roll for initiative baybee)!

Fabian is flipped the F out. Kristen decides to chill out and drink Riz’s coffee–much to the incredulousness of everyone else (she’s on those chill existential dread vibes). Adaine and Gorgug are stricken by fear but they’re able to snap out of it quickly. Once they’re sure it’s not Riz (the doppelganger is going full creepy horror movie monster with the head twisting and biting and junk), they start going full throttle but Kristen gets a clutch roll and lands a banishment on Nightmare Riz (who was invisible at the time). Also, Adaine finds a gun but no one is down with her packing heat without proper firearms training so she reluctantly puts it back. They confer with Sandra-Lynn and they find out Fig has, for some reason, gone to Bastion City (the capital) and Gorthalax is missing. Also, because Emily is Emily whether she’s present or not, they find out that Fig has decided to multiclass and she is now a bard/warlock with her demon dad as her patron. Those might be connected because, as her patron, Gorthalax can now find Fig at all times.  

Sklonda, in the meantime, has been investigating a robbery at the mall. They end up there too because Gilear (who is back from his coffee run) said he saw Fig’s bus in the area. They tell Ragh to meet them there and then head over (Gorgug in the old family car which he buys from them for 30 gold (the cost of a pony)–the amount Adaine suggests after the Thistlesprings reject his insane offer of 1000 gold). Also, Kristen leaves her brothers some gold secretly which is sad and also I think not the best way to handle that, but the intention is good. The robbery was of a gem–non-magical I believe–called the Devil’s Heart. [Edit: And apparently Fig’s doing.] Fabian shows up, tries to be helpful, and then eats glass. Normal stuff. 

The group tries to figure out what’s going on with Fig by calling the hotel she’s at and basically doing a straight improv comedy routine, each passing the phone around with a bad story until Adaine just hangs the phone up. Then, they find out from Sklonda that Pok’s partner is a tabaxi (cat person) named Kalina and she is in the empty space in the photo. Sklonda and Sandra-Lynn can see it even though the Bad Kids can’t. 

With that information gathered, the group leaves Elmville for the first time on the way to the Hotel Cavalier in Bastion City and, hopefully, Fig. 

Detention

Fabian for Intern Abuse

Poor Gilear. Fabian solicits increasingly complicated coffee orders from his friends to make Gilear’s job harder and tries to get them to threaten Gilear on their behalf. Even Sandra-Lynn was like, bro. Lay off the guy. Bad form, sir. (Hilarious, but bad). 

Honor Roll

Adaine for Rocking Her Portent Rolls

Adaine had a 19 and a 4 for her portent rolls this session and she used them very judiciously. The first was her 19 which she gave to Gorgug who was about to fail his saving throw and touch the mirror which would have led to him attacking everyone (she has a vision of his beheading her in a rage–sidenote love that Brennan makes her portent rolls actual visions instead of just having the mechanical effect of changing the roll happen). The second was a 4 which she gave to Brennan who was rolling for concentration on Nightmare Riz’s fear spell. What a power move to stare your DM in the face and say, “You roll a 4.” Amazing. Portent rolls are so good you guys. Also, bonus points for coming up with the name Bogariel Frogariel. 

Random Thoughts

Fabian’s response to his mom’s ultimatum that she will fight him if Gilear doesn’t return alive? “Damn, guess I have to fight my mom.”

“MAGIC IS REAL AND SO IS MY FROG.”

Brennan describes Boggy as just the most archetypal looking, round, squishy frog and I want a plush of his yesterday. Or a stress ball! It would go with his whole emotional support thing in game. I love that Siobhan picked not the potentially “useful” or “cool” animal. She went full Marie Kondo and was like, “What’s gonna spark some joy?” Boggy also can give her the help action, which is great!

The episode was great even 2 cast members down, but they were missed. On more than one occasion, I was like, “This is more quiet than usual. I wonder why–ah Emily.” We better get her reaction to Boggy as soon as she’s back.  

Kristen brings up the concept of patenting a god which is wild. We also get an answer to the question I had last week about Tracker’s cleric status–she still is a cleric of the moon goddess. The moon goddess is just chill with her followers not being exclusive. 

Fabian sans Riz is a hilarious mess. For anyone who likes them together as friends and/or romantically there was a lot of Content. Fabian being like, “Idk about Fig but something is def wrong with the Ball because he always answers on the first ring when I call  him.” Him canonically forgetting that he has a name other than The Ball (that’s the name in his phone, obv). And, the coup de grace, him investigating RIz’s office, but only for signs of his name. Him trying to Investigate like Riz, rolling a nat 1, and literally eating glass (“I thought I could taste fingerprints!”). 

“Coffee’s ordered, is the Ball dead?”

Adaine as everyone is clowning on Fabian for possibly making out with the Hangman: The Hangman is much more human than my bitch sister. 

Nightmare Riz, who they still think is actual Riz at this point, pops out of the mirror and Fabian and Adaine’s reactions respectively are, “You can’t do these things!” and, “It’s like 60% of our grade.”

The idea of Gorgug going from a terrified scream into a barbarian rage scream is very funny. Where are the animatics people?

Oh, speaking of people, Fantasy High was trending on tumblr the morning after this stream. Nice job, guys! 

The talk that Gorgug’s parents give him about all dreams being significant is something I always say in movies/books/shows like this. You have protagonists who *know* they live in a magic world and they have weird dreams and it’s not until 2/3rds of the way into the story that they’re like, “Wait. My dreams…mean something?” Bitch, what?

Gorgug’s initial coffee order is Hot Chocolate with a shot of decaf.

Everyone is very chill with Tracker coming onto the quest. Adaine just has one rule: No sex in the tent while they’re also in the tent. Kristen asks like she’s offended Adaine would feel the need to say that but like…come on. 

At first, I thought the invisibility in the photo was similar to the non-Adaine bad kids not being able to see Nightmare Riz until she described him but they still couldn’t see the woman in the photo after Sklonda described her so not sure what was going on with the mirror. 

I went back to the episode where Riz finds the photo of his dad (First Kisses and Last Words at around 1 hour, 27 mins in) and in that photo it’s of his dad and his mom. So either (1) it’s a different photo, (2) Brennan forgot/retconned something, or (3) something seriously screwy is going on. I will also note two observations here. Sklonda mentioned that Kalina doesn’t drink but was holding up her hand in a toast like she was drinking in the photo. That seems too specific a detail to not mean anything. And the second thing is, last ep, we did learn about a servant of the Nightmare King called the Shadow Cat and Kalina (if that is her real name) is a tabaxi so that’s something to think about. 

With all the complicated coffee orders flying around, Adaine just changes hers to a black coffee to try and make Gilear’s life a little easier (her original order was a Peppermint Mocha–sans the threat of violence to Gilear Fabian was offering). I do really love that Adaine seems genuinely concerned about the guy. SOMEONE should be. And it’s consistent with her characterization of just being generally well mannered and empathetic. 

Kristen getting the banishment on Nightmare Riz is something she did after Ally asked for it and Brennan was like, “lol, sure on a 19 or 20.” Boom. Rolled a 19. Just like in the prom fight. So the lesson here folks is don’t give your players a conditional yes and then expect the dice to bail you out. 

Kristen’s existential crisis is so crazy to me because she’s having, like, a prototypical Crisis of Faith™ (and pretty realistically) except, unlike in real life, she has certain knowledge about the existence of gods, life after death, and the means to communicate with those deities in the present day like…I feel like you’re crisis-ing wrong, girl. She’s crisis-ing like she just deconverted from Christianity when I feel like what actually happened is closer to, like, quitting a sorority or realizing you hate your major or changing political parties.  

the nature of humanity is just that every so often someone accidentally invents homestuck helioism again

Ragh had a dream matching up with Gorgug’s (but he didn’t realize it was Gorgug in his dream) which means something and I’m sure we’ll figure out what soon enough. 

The Fabian eating glass scene is another one where you truly need to see it to understand how great it is. Lou is equally game to have Fabian be the coolest person who ever lived or a huge baby and Fabian running away crying because he has glass shards in his tongue is incredible. Hilariously, he runs into Ragh in the food court who has also eaten glass in the past (“Glass is literally invisible.”) and they bro bond over it so hard (“That’s my boy!”) that Tracker and Kristen are like…are they a thing?

The other crazy scene is the gang passing around the phone trying to convince the hotel receptionist to give them info about Fig. Kristen comes up with the name Teddy Guyger (and Zac and I at the same time are like, “Did you get the name Teddy because you have a teddy bear in your inventory rn?”). Fabian tries to drop his dad’s name. Their first move for some reason isn’t to give the phone to Gorgug who is also a part of the band. Adaine just hangs up the phone like Peppa Pig. Exquisite comic timing. 

“I cast bane on Gilear.”

I love the running joke of Adaine having visions throughout the day of her friends in the process of doing dumb BS.

Nightmare Riz going after Fabian’s good eye was big gross. Thanks Brennan, I hate it.  

I wonder if what’s going on with Fig is completely different than what’s going on with Riz. Just because they’re gone for the same reason irl, doesn’t mean they’re gone for the same reason in game. Nightmare Fig could be a fun fight though.

As someone whose fave thing in D&D is not combat, I thought the fight in this episode was great. Interesting concept, good chance for in-character reactions, not too long . 

Ragh upon meeting Tracker: Check it out: I’m gay. (Tracker: Tight.)

Fabian, who has known Cathilda his entire life: Do maids dream?

In this ep, Kristen and Adaine rolled 2 nat 20s each (Kristen rolled one for initiative also but it was lowered by her modifier), and Gorgug and Fabian each rolled 1. Fabian also rolled a nat 1 (which, again, led to him Eating Glass).  

[deniigi]

Hey idk how many asks ur getting but I hope ur not being bombarded or anything. If u could, would u write a scene where jack loses little!matt cuz oops Matt just ran off during errands. He runs into various NYC heroes/vigilantes and in the end Matt has them all trailing him as they try to find jack together. Meanwhile jack panics and anxiety.

This got long and definitely wasn’t quite what you were thinking of, but I think it’s still pretty okay.

I’m putting the 2nd half under the cut since it’s so long (sorry mobile folks)

—

There was a huge fanfare in the streets; some guy with money was apparently strolling through the Kitchen and folks had come out to stare back at him when he started eyeing up their buildings, as was their way. Santiago’s was helping this by leaving a couple of folding tables outside the restaurant doors with ‘Make Peace Not Weapons’ fliers on it next to a couple of flats of eggs.

What was to be done with said eggs was not stated. People around here just knew.

None of that had ever been Jack’s bag, honestly. He was busy. Politics had always been background noise to his daily scrounging and scraping and really, this crowd was going to be the death of him.

He caught Rudy and the others crowded around the doorway of the gym and scream-asked over the noise of the crowd gathering around the edges of the streets if they’d seen Matt.

No, they hadn’t. He wasn’t out playing with Rudy’s kids; they were at their grandmother’s.

Rudy told him to try the church’s playground. A lot of the local kids had climbed up on the fence over there to watch the protest.

Aigh.

Matty knew better than to go that far without asking, but Jack went anyways.

Normally, he’d be panicking, but these were the streets that Matt grew up in; that he himself had grown up in. Th folks lining the pavement here knew him and his kid. They’d keep an eye out and make sure Matt didn’t get kidnapped or anything like that.

He got to the church and saw that Grace was standing outside, shaking her head at all the kids lining the top of the fence. He made wide gestures to catch her attention. She met him at the front of the church with a frown.

“No, he’s not here,” she said. “I saw him go past, though, with the McKenzies’ girl. They’re alright. They went and found a football, the two of them.”

Ahhhhh.

That was 100% Mrs. Green’s doing. She’d had a yard sale for her kids’ shit the other day. Jack had seen a couple of basketballs and footballs in among the stuff. She must not have gotten rid of all of it.

Grace waved him in the direction of the green lot the next street up. It was where most of the neighborhood children spent their time—in the daytime, playing and in the nighttime, for the older ones, experimenting.

Jack struggled through the crowd that way but got caught up in a mass of jeering and jostling when Mr. Moneybags, Whoever finally got out of his car.

Are you serious, y’all?

He called over folks to move, that he was after his fuckin’ kid, and they tried as best as they could to let him back.

Finally, blessedly, he stumbled back out on to the pavement and blew out a breath. Then headed off towards the park.

Sure enough, Matt was there, holding a football that was way too big for him with Perry, the MacKenzies’ girl. They’d evidently been playing the first-grade equivalent of tackle football, if Jack was reading the color in their faces and the dried grass all over them right.

He started that way and was so preoccupied with planning out the conversation he and Matt were about to have that he didn’t hear the folks shouting behind him. Matt saw him and perked up. He handed off the football and met Jack at the water fountain in the middle of their paths. He knew he was in trouble.

Jack put his hands on his hips to emphasize it and was validated at the guilty dropped eyes he got in return.

“Uh-huh,” he said. “That’s what I thought. Come on, then. You know what comes next.”

Matt scowled and dropped his face, mumbling out excuses.

“Sorry, I can’t hear you,” Jack said.

Matt pouted.

“Hey, you’re in the way,” a new voice said. Jack stood up straight and glared over his shoulder.

“You got the whole pavement, asshole. Go around,” he snapped.

And the next thing he knew, there was a man in a suit manhandling him off the concrete onto the grass.

“You need to move,” the guy growled.

Oh hell no. Not in this neighborhood, pal.

Jack shoved him back; the guy wasn’t prepared for that, it would seem. He fell back right on his ass and stared up, stunned.

“Who do you think you are?” the man babbled, struggling up. He had some kind of thing in his ear, like a secret service man.

Jack huffed at him and went back to collect Matt. They evidently couldn’t have this discussion here.

“HEY. I’m talking to you.”

The second the hand hit his shoulder, time fast-forwarded and Jack came back to himself with the dude with a bloody hand slapped over his face and a fucking roaring crowd of neighbors all around him.

Oh, shit.

“Shit,” he said, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?” the asshole snarled, ripping his hand away from his mouth to reveal a split lip. “You come out here to assault one of Tony Stark’s bodyguards, huh? You one of these fuckin’ low lives who think they own this city? Hit me again, pal. We’ll see who’s the real winner in the court of law, huh?”

Woah.

Hey, now. Jack had just been trying to apologize.

“FUCK ‘IM UP, JACKIE,” Someone shrieked from the middle of the crowd in the street.

“Jackie? Your name’s Jackie? Jackie what? Full name and address, asshole, give it to me,” the suit demanded.

This.

Was not excellent.

“Listen man,” Jack said as calmly as the roiling, bubbling heat in his chest would allow. “I’m just trying to pick up my kid, alright? So why don’t you fuck off and we both pretend like none of this ever happened?”

The suit scoffed.

“Sure,” he jeered, “Yeah, you pick up your little bitch and clear out. Why don’t we do just that?”

Um.

Oof.

Mm.

“Daddy?”

MMF.

Jack could not break this man in half in front of his son.

He could not make this man beg for mercy in front of his son.

No. That wasn’t true. He could. But he wouldn’t. He had an example to set.

“Yo, what’s going on here? Will, is everything alright?”

The suit suddenly broke eye contact with Jack and turned to a short dude dressed in an obnoxious hoodie and flip flops.

“Everything is just fine, Mr. Stark,” he said, all prim and proper. “This guy’s just impeding the walkway.”

Mr. Stark—fuck, that explained a lot—had to be around Jack’s age. He had dark eyelashes and was probably pretty in other parts of the city. But here? Nah, a pretty man was a working man and this guy, for all his unshaven jaw and tousled hair, was not it.

“Alright, so move, man,” Stark said towards Jack. “It’s public property. You don’t own it.”

“You don’t either,” Jack pointed out to another uproar in the crowd.

Stark chewed on his tongue and chuckled.

He held his hands up.

“That’s fair,” he said. “Leave it, Will. He’s not bothering anyone.”

Will the Suit blustered all over.

“He’s assaulted me, sir,” he said, pointing at his lip. “Not to mention, he’s obviously out here to rile up the crowd.”

“I’m just out here to pick up my son,” Jack snapped.

“So pick him up and get out of the fuckin’ way already,” Will growled.

Ho, ho, motherfucker.

Jack did not move. He held the guy’s eye.

“Daddy.” Matt’s little hands found their way to his wrist.

He was scared. And the thought sent another ripple of heat through Jack’s body.

This was their neighborhood. This was Matt’s home. Jack’s home. And he wouldn’t be treated like shit in it. He wouldn’t teach Matt to bow his head to people with more money.

“You heard your kid,” Will the suit said, “Good to know the next generation here’s got some kinda brains in their heads. Lay off.”

“You ain’t better than us,” Jack spat. He stood up tall and breathed slow. “None of you. This is our city, not yours. So get the fuck out. We don’t need your fuckin’ money, Stark.” He twisted his head to make direct eye contact with this man and his tousled hair and eyelashes.

This wasn’t about some shithead in a suit anymore.

Stark tipped his own face slowly to the side.

“You got guts,” he said. “But honestly, man, you all actually could use my money. You got holes in your shirt, friend. You think—”

“We’d rather have a park than a store we can’t afford to buy from,” Jack said.

“So shop somewhere else,” Stark replied with wide hands. “But this isn’t about a store, you know. This is about an office; a whole five floors of new jobs—”

“Yeah, as janitors,” A gal with a sign on her shoulder said, squirming out of the crowd. “As service people to the rich lapdogs you drag in here to do your business for you.”

“You’d have new patrons for your fine establishments,” Stark said calmly to her.

“Oh sure, I bet they’d flock here, yeah,” the gal drawled. “Them and their pretty white families, with all their pretty, GAP clothes. And you know what they’d do, Stark? They’d start complaining about the quality of our ‘fine establishments.’ They’d start demanding shit we can’t afford, to the point where we’d have to find ways to afford ‘em, just so that we could make an honest living—and by then, our own moms and neighbors wouldn’t be able afford to pay for our so-called fine services.”

“So they would go somewhere else, and you would still be making a profit,” Stark reasoned.

“I should be able to do laundry at the laundromat closest to my house,” the gal pointed out to a chorus of support. “It’s not about money. It’s about community.”

Stark huffed.

“And what a community it is,” he said sarcastically. “You got this guy out here, punching people on the streets ‘cause he can’t keep his kid under control, you got used needles on every corner, trash piling up in the gutters—you call that ‘community?’”

“I call it poverty,” the woman said.

“Business and investment will help alleviate—”

“Mr. Stark,” the woman interrupted, “For all them brains in your head, you sure aren’t good at thinking. Or listening. So why don’t you just take a moment for the next minute and practice. Just listen. Look at me—really look, sir.”

Stark did, but he made it real clear that he was doing it out of the kindness of his heart.

“If you really cared about poverty,” the gal said slowly, “You and all your war money and all your millionaire and billionaire friends would fund community programs. Hell’s Kitchen doesn’t need new businesses, Mr. Stark. We have plenty of our own. What we need are services. Better services. More services. We need people who want to help us as people. Not clients. Not customers. As a community of human beings. And until you really, truly understand what that means, you and your friends aren’t welcome here in Hell’s Kitchen. So, sir, what do you say?”

The crowd fell silent. Jack lifted his chin and stared down at Stark around it just in case he or his security detail got any ideas.

Stark glanced up at him, then back at the woman and then, for the briefest second, at Matt barely peeking out from behind Jack’s hip.

He cleared his throat.

“Well, I see that we’re not welcome here,” he said. “Perhaps we can table this discussion for now due to community concerns, which I’m sure we can overcome in the future. What do you say, Miss?”

“Mrs,” the woman corrected. “I say you’re welcome to try as many times as you want.”

Stark looked her over and scoffed.

“Oh, I will,” he said, “I got this little thing called ‘spite’ in me.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” the woman said peacefully.

Stark didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything. He puffed himself up and told his guards that he was ready to go. This visit was not worth extending.

The crowd parted to let him and his suits through and was more or less quiet as they all watched him get in his fancy car and drive away.

Jack felt the tension in his shoulders settled down. He stroked a hand over Matt’s hair.

“Thanks for the rescue, Bess,” he said.

Bess beamed up at him.

“Anytime, Jackie,” she said. “Anytime.”

—

AHEM.

Bess Mahoney was Hell’s Kitchen’s main superhero before DD. Thank you and good night.

[cookinguptales]

"#ask me about my feelings about scorsese and coppola running their mouths in interviews GO ON ASK ME" Alrighty, I'm asking

idk if you’ve kept up with filmmaker news (I refuse to call it film news because it’s not), but both Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola have been talking shit about Marvel movies and I’m just. I’m so tired.

Disclaimer, though I shouldn’t really need one: I don’t even like Marvel movies. But this kind of shit rots the film industry and I find it so frustrating.

Scorsese I wasn’t as upset about, though I did roll my eyes. I could kind of see what he meant even if I don’t think it was phrased well. He said they were “not cinema” (rme) but also that they were more like “theme parks”. And, well, I can see a discussion about spectacle films in there, but it’s kind of buried under the “not cinema” bullshit.

Coppola just weighed in, though, and oh my god MAXIMUM eye-rolling. Two choice quotes:

“When Martin Scorsese says that the Marvel pictures are not cinema, he’s right because we expect to learn something from cinema, we expect to gain something, some enlightenment, some knowledge, some inspiration. I don’t know that anyone gets anything out of seeing the same movie over and over again.”

“Martin was kind when he said it’s not cinema. He didn’t say it’s despicable, which I just say it is.”

And honestly, DESPICABLE? I’m not going to say that I don’t think any movies are despicable, but using that word on a goddamn Marvel movie is just being a goddamn drama llama. It’s a spectacle movie, not a human rights violation.

Like honestly, you know what movies I find “despicable”? The Shining. Kill Bill. Last Tango in Paris. Fun fact: when you watch these movies, you’re seeing actresses being abused on film. Which brings me to my first point.

Auteur culture is bullshit. It’s bullshit! We excuse bad behavior and lazy filmmaking bc ~omg this incredible filmmaker~ did it, like any film is worth all that. Like any film is created by just one person. I hate that the film world feels beholden to these big names, as evidenced by the fact that these quotes are news stories at all. I don’t give a shit about what some auteur has to say, especially when they’re in every possible sense the old guard.

Some auteurs, like Polanski, Tarantino, Kubrick, Hitchcock, and Bertolucci are bad fucking people. They’ve abused the hell out of the people working under them (particularly actresses) and I refuse to fete them. Some auteurs are just tiresome, like having some well-received movies makes them someone I should listen to.

I think the emphasis on auteurs honestly stifles the film world as a whole. It privileges established voices instead of curating new talent. It models film trends on the styles of a couple famous people. It leads to abuse in the industry. Worst of all, it covers up the work of other people. 

Like, for example: The Godfather. Mario Puzo wrote the book and worked on the screenplay with Coppola. Gordon Willis was cinematographer. Peter Zinner and William Reynolds edited it. Anna Hill Johnstone did the costuming. I could go on and on. And you know what? I had to look up all those names on imdb because we don’t talk about them. We talk about Francis Ford Coppola, like the film sprung fully-formed from his brain. That’s bullshit. Say you like his directing. Say you like his writing. Don’t act like he’s the only voice on this film that matters. Hundreds of people worked on these films ffs.

Like. As much as I have no interest in going to bat for Marvel (I’m sure they’re crying into their billions), I genuinely do not give a shit about Francis Ford Coppola’s opinion on them, and I resent that his opinion is being treated like it’s gospel. I don’t think anyone is important enough to decide what’s cinema and what’s not. I didn’t like The Godfather. That doesn’t make it a bad film. It also doesn’t mean it’s some universal good and I just didn’t “get” it. It means that film is innately subjective, though we agree on some conventions. If you put it on film, it’s film. Everything else is subjective. “Cinema” is a meaningless term that we could argue in circles about, and I don’t think Scorsese’s opinion is worth more than anyone else’s. (And yes, I know that he’s also a film expert along with being an auteur. It still doesn’t give him the right to define subjective terms.)

And with my issues on auteur culture aside, the innate melodrama of calling a Marvel movie “despicable” aside, there’s nothing wrong with spectacle films. I say this as someone who doesn’t even watch 99% of superhero films anymore. Spectacle films, just like arthouse films, have their place in the cinema landscape. They always have. That train coming into the station? Spectacle. Busby Berkeley? Spectacle. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to go see incredible things on a big screen, and I’m not sure that a theme park is a bad comparison. Theme parks are fun. Fun is a fine reason to watch a movie. And you know what else fun does? It makes fucking money.

It annoys the hell out of me to see these old guard assholes bemoaning the end of the theater industry (which, yes, is slowly dying for a lot of reasons that are all frustrating) while simultaneously shitting on spectacle films that make a ton of money. What, you think just The Irishman is going to keep a theater afloat? No. Theaters are struggling. That’s why they’re prioritizing Marvel movies. Spectacle films aren’t what’s killing arthouse cinema. Capitalism is. Don’t blame a symptom for the illness, that shit’s childish.

Am I saying you have to like spectacle films? No. Honestly, they don’t do much for me most of the time. But that doesn’t make them innately bad or even innately lesser. It certainly doesn’t make them despicable, as cynical as the industry may be. And you know what? It’s not even fair to talk about them like they’re not about human connections. I couldn’t connect to the characters in The Godfather and I didn’t particularly care about their relationships. That doesn’t make it a bad movie. It doesn’t mean those connections and relationships weren’t there. It just means I didn’t like the movie. The sheer volume of fanfic about the Marvel movies means that, for a lot of people, the character growth and relationships in those films really hit home. (Hello, inspiration?) So like. Who fucking cares if they didn’t for Scorsese? I loved Hugo, man, but you gotta calm down.

I’m not saying that Coppola and Scorsese are bad filmmakers, though I personally bounce off of a lot of their films. I’m not saying they’re bad people. I’m saying that the way we prioritize their crabby feelings is indicative of dead weight on the industry and it’s absolute bullshit!

I love films. I love films. That’s why I’m at a film festival right now. But I also love seeing fresh new voices in film. I love new perspectives. I love empowering people who never would have had a chance to be an auteur thirty years ago. And I love that there’s something for everyone -- if I don’t like a new Marvel film or Coppola’s latest, I can just go see By The Grace of God or Extra Ordinary. Cinema is about choice and it’s about the joy of film and anyone who says otherwise can go shove it. Opinions are like assholes; everyone’s got one. And auteurs’ aren’t worth any more than anyone else’s.

(also wait what the fuck, what’s wrong with watching the same movie over and over?)

[ts-2020-olympics]

EPISODE 1 - “My Legs Were Not Qwoperating” - Kathy (Part 2)

no. jk here.

So, it’s morning. I look around at our camp, and see everyone is at work. Karen is painting their flag and using safety scissors to cut out Monty’s head, Kevin is chanting to himself in the corner, Stoner’s been asleep so we buried him in the sand up to his neck and then sculpted a sand castle around him. Tommy is just trying to make eye contact with anyone he can and so I’m...avoiding that. I’d say we are solid but that’s probably not the truth, and so that kind of stinks. I’m hoping the newbies really fuck up, and I know that’s harsh but...that’s showbiz, babe!! Speaking of newbies I still haven’t talked to a few of them.  Emma like zoomed away the first day and I’ve given up on talking to her. Hope she goes first. That’s all I got for now, going to eat breakfast I will continue this rant later.

my truth is that i haven’t played an org game in so long i forgot i was playing and then remembered an hour ago and tried to do this wack qwop game hsksksj! my legs were not qwoperating 

I see there's an arena going on! I might go there first if the rest of the team is okay with it - gives me a chance to scope things out and get a feel for the area. I'm excited!

WE WON THE FUCKING CHALLEEEENGE AAAAA NOT ONLY DID WE WIN BUT WE KILLT IT WE SCORED 12 AND EVERYONE ELSE GOT LIKE 8 AND 5 OHMYGOOOD IM NOT GONNA BE FIRST OUT YALL IM SHAKING I CANT BELIEVE GSJDKDVDSNDBWSKHSD okAy okay so thank god bc my tribe has like no drama so our vote would’ve been really difficult and that gives me more time to think about my possible advantage and the possible bonds here. 

so while I am safe I still have to game a little bit and talk to the people I’ve been talking with who are going to tribal like Sammy and Jordan, funny enough who are on the same tribe.... maybe I can get them to protect each other..... hm

Well we lost because of technicalities, I choose to blame that. This tribe is apparently extremely quiet to each other, so the fact that I messaged everyone hello this morning, nearly 48 hours after the start, I am SOMEHOW one of the best social players here. Challenges are generally my strength, we got last in QWOP, so backup is social game in a social ORG. I can be in some danger here, but I think I have a TRusuT sclusTER to keep myself here. As is necessary. I don't care who goes, I have a preference, but I don't really want to set a goal right now. Flexibility is key.

I'm literally PISSED. I'm fuming right now, like wtf? OK so I haven't confessed anything yet because my tribe has been SO quiet. I've honestly talked a lot more to some of the people from ONE WORLD than I have from some of the people from my own tribe... and I'm not crazy okay? It's NOT my fault. I put in effort with these people... But some of these people are just DRY! Drier than the Sahara Desert! Drier than my chappy ass lips! They can't hold a conversation, and that's obnoxious. I'm not going to respond to you if your message has literally nothing in it worth responding to, that's why most of my messages will either have a follow-up question, or something actually of substance to comment on/reply to... YOU SHOULD DO THE SAME SO WE CAN ACTUALLY SPEAK AND MAINTAIN A CONSISTENT DIALOGUE!!!!!!! But NOOOOOOO, my tribe decides to not speak... MOVING ON! The only people I've had good conversations with really are Juls and Em, and lo and behold, Em does lit rally nothing in this challenge, which sucks because I'm afraid that may put a target on her back. But I'm not sure, I definitely will vote with her and I think Juls will too. I'll move onto that later but I wanna talk about why I'm fucking LIVID RIGHT NOW. I literally made SO many suggestions on how we could tweak who does what in this challenge, or what we do on certain parts. Now I'm going to admit a TINY bit of fault here, in that I didn't say my suggestions on the tribe flag. There are some things I think we could've done to make it better, but I love Juls, and everyone had already told her it was great, so I didn't wanna make her feel that I didn't like it or was over criticizing. So I didn't say anything. That was my bad. BUT EVERYTHING ELSE, LUV? I said We should guess lower than 610... Now granted my even 600 guess still would've been too low to win, BUT AT LEAST IT WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN OVERBOARD! HMPPHH!!!!! Or maybe we could've compromised on 605 if people hadnt IGNORED ME!!!! IDK!??!?!?! Further than that, I asked for different tweaking on the chant and nobody gave any suggestions. I'm not saying we would've won or anything had I taken the lead or that I was doing everything the right way,  obviously I wasn't since my chant got 3rd, but what I'm saying is once it became obvious the challenge was going to be about group participation and suggestion, our tribe needed to unify. Everyone in the tribe needed to have a clearer vision and talk to eachother and actually put in the EFFORT that this stuff requires. Which I'm admitting my own error, in not doing that with the flag. But our tribe was just so quiet and silent before now, which sent me down a paranoid spiral, that I was super fucking worried about my place in the tribe or where things were heading. Now I realize I'm in a good position on the tribe for sure, it's just that our tribe is STRUGGLING. ON THE (Mr.) BRIGHTSIDE!!! We lost by a tiebreaker guess, and only by 4 points.... and I'm pretty close with Juls, and it seems like a target will probably fall pretty easily onto Billy. He had the worst QWOP score, described himself as arrogant in his own intro, and just seems.. critical of others. He gives off a strange vibe. If it's not him, I'm pretty sure it'd end up being Jacob or Em. I feel that me and Juls are safe which is all that I can hope for on a tribe this freaking tiny, I instantly connected with Juls over our love of anime, the fact her name is the same as Euphoria Jules, and other stuff. As far as One World goes, I honestly keep forgetting it exists. I haven't reached out to too many of the others but have talked back to those who talk to me and it's been generally decent. I get along well with other Jacob, the not pie one. Caeleb I already know from before this and so I feel like we'd def work together, and I get good vibes from a lot of these people like Eve, Nicole, Ben, etc. Honestly I'm just so frustrated right now because things have been quiet and nervous and I'm PARANOID, and my tribe was so close to winning but fucked it up over minor things we could've tweaked had we just tried a little harder and communicated a little more. ugh, this SUCKS. now my first legacy in Tumblr Survivor is a mediocre chant (i honestly really like it and i put a LOT OF THOUGHT INTO IT OKAY....) and a trip to tribal council *Sobs* Here's hoping things take a positive turn from here...? It could always be the Bronze before my Gold! ~Hamfisted olympics metaphor~

Love my tribe a lot! However, i still feel on the outside somewhat tho.... Idk this is a lot for me I just hope we win until a swap or whatever its called ahh

Alright, Darcy back here with yet another confessional!   Here is a little update since I last posted confessional, mainly the biggest difference is now I have an ally formed with Ben.   At least, I made a deal with Ben yesterday proposing just the generic looking after one another ordeal, then going to give it some time and maybe question Beck about forming an alliance, since I've been connecting with her even more past bit, but don't want to go too fast and end up asking half my tribe right away to work with me, as I don't want to be seen as playing hard out the gate and make myself a target.   Meanwhile, I decided to give the Olympic Village searching a shot, but alas was no luck in the cafeteria cabinets, so will just have to try my luck again in the future rounds.   Thinking of searching either the South or North end of Village next round, but we shall see.   Anyways, I'm glad my tribe won Immunity, so don't have to go to tribal this round, and this Olympic Arena twist sounds great, essentially one person from each tribe goes to the Arena, I believe for the immune tribes just 1 person is selected to go to the Arena, and for the losing tribes, the two voted out go to arena, where the winner of the voted out people come back in the game, and loser is out of the game for good.   Think I read that all right, but maybe won't hurt to give it another read to double check.   For now though, I shall go, so will see you all with my next confessional.

Fuck having to go to tribal first. I don’t like having to send someone home when I don’t even really know who I’m playing with yet. 

Seems like Billy pulling the "I don't want to make any moves" to me was surprisingly bullshit. Who would've thunk. I think everyone is fine with voting out Billy here, I didn't really want to initially, but yeah, uh no. I could be in danger, but if everyone is honest here, I should be fine. Fingers crossed. "I'm either going to be first boot or win" - Pia Miranda

So, the first tribal is in a bit and we were almost sent there but managed to pull through in the tiebreaker! I hope that opens some of my tribemates eyes (lets be real, just Stoner who hasn’t been doing much of anything!) Being in One World but none of the newbies talking to me is still wild to me, half of them still haven’t even accepted my contact request. Yet they’re plenty active in the chat, so what gives? Anyway, I hope it’s just that they are intimidated by the very fact that I am beauty, and grace, and Miss United States. I hope we can win the next round, hopefully first or second place so we don’t have a close call again. We are trying to get Chris to go to the Arena so he can get us that 20% but he hasn’t answered so...what gives? On the alliance front I’m good with Kevin and Karen tribewise , the bigger picture is Kevin, Jacob and Sammy want to align and then we will have a bigger alliance that includes Beck, Juls and Eve. Eventually I might wanna break off and align with Jules and Eve, but having bigger targets around is essential. Anyway that’s all I got for now. I should start making video confessionals AS THINGS ARE HAPPENING. Ya know? Anyway toodles for now see ya next round. OH, and I’m hoping Jules and Jacob are safe this tribal :( love them and hope we can work together going forward. 

Hiiii, arena results are about to come in so I'm just gonna drop a quickie confessional before that happens. I don't honestly remember how much I talked about the strategy and gameplay that was going on, so I'll give you a quick rebriefing of that. I'm really close with Juls. Em I like, but I want more out of her. Jacob is quiet, but inoffensive. Billy, I actually like him, but there are certain things about him that just.. Rub me (and others) a strange way and that's why we voted him out because certain things he did just didn't quite gel with the rest of the team. If he does return from the arena though, it's possibly I may vouch for him over Jacob because Jacob... HE JUST NEEDS TO TALK!!! But idk. One world still SUCKS and is dragging me through the MUD because nobody wants to do cross-tribe talking me included but that gets me paranoid as FUCK, luv. About the live tribal, it was fun! My camera angle was awkward and I was soo nervous though, but I think I was still able to hold it together relatively well, act normal, and give semi-decent answers. Will definitely be improving my live tribal performance for next time so I can be a bad ass bitch on call, it's GOING to happen... dskfdsf. I love Emma on call/video sooooo much, But on text she's kind of dry. Maybe I need to ask her if I can call her sometime, but I haven't done a call for a game like this in a looong time. I'm a bit nervous about that. But yeah. I'm looking forward to the game... The first tribal just makes everything real, and you realize, oh shit, we're playing Survivor. And I forgot how thrilling it was to play in a live, video environment like that, it just grips you and it feels so much more intense than when wiki results are just posted in chat and you don't have to deal with physically seeing the person you're voting out, talking to them with your actual voice, etc. All that stuff just makes the experience that much more realistic and it's so intense and fun. I'm ready to get this game on (Btw fuck the arena twist)

hey guys im really loving this game so far... keep up the good work!

i didn’t appreciate the attitude billy gave me whenever i tried to help the team out but! i’m willing to get over it because he is a nice guy. i feel fairly comfortable with my team and i’m just hoping we can avoid another tribal! 

Hello! I can not believe I'm back for a 6th time on Tumblr Survivor this is so crazy! Especially for an Olympic season because I vowed to myself that I would never do a season again that was more than 20 people after being in Japan. Now that I'm back I'm ready to play, I haven't really came into this season with a strategy but if I did it would have changed because this is a One World season and now with the arena twist I'm sweating. One World makes the season super social (probably one of my least favorite twists) it's very easy for this season to let pre-mades and majorities take over just like that and let underdogs like me in this season to get taken out especially taken out early. So I have been social not only with me but a few people on different tribes but not too much. I don't want to seem like I'm playing too hard but I wanna build relationships before swaps happen so that people choose to ally with me (A WINNER) over a newbie or a returnee who hasn't won because I already have a big target on my back. With how the tribe divisions are it gives the newbies the biggest advantage with 15 newbies compared to 5 winners and 5 non-winner returnees, which isn't bad in a Fan vs. Favorite season because the ratio is even with returnees and newbies. However, now that I'm in the minority and also labeled a WINNER, I have to do damage control to lower my target but most importantly integrate with other people which is hard because I'm not the best social player and I know that's my weakness but I still have to attempt. In terms of my own tribe I'm closest to Kevin, when I talk to him we have a good conversation I probably already irritate him but I think out of everyone I can put my trust in him the most compared to everyone else. I think having one good ally is how I want to approach this season due to the arena twist I don't want to come across as running the tribe especially the winners tribe incase we do go to tribal because if I vote in the majority and that person stays they are immune and will be mad and spill the beans about the tribe, and I want that person to be the least mad at me so the focus is not on me. So having overall good vibes and 1 strong connection is a good strategy for the long term game. It might put me at risk for being voted out in the short term but I want to play the long-term game. Preferably if it is up to me I'd want Nicole to be the next closest to Kevin and myself without myself having to make an official deal with Nicole so I'm not seen as the ringleader. Kevin says he wants Stoner to be the first one voted out on our tribe but honestly I rather it be Karen. Stoner has the reputation keeps his target bigger than the rest and I think Karen has the better chance of flipping on the winners and succeeding than Stoner does. So my target is Karen if we do lose. I also believe that there may be an alliance with Nicole, Kevin, and Karen which I hope is not an actual alliance because that's bad news for me. I hope we don't go to tribal because I don't wanna go to a tribal with only 5 people. Wish me luck!

Whew it has been one round and i've fucked up so much its not even funny. its a little funny. anyways i start this game on a tribe of 5, i allign with connor who ive never played a game with and find some similar common ground, and with jacob who seems chill. we lose the first challenge sucks and all hell breaks loose, long story short fuck sammy. I'm trying to work my way back in caeleb and jacobs good graces. its gonna be a rocky road, but its one i've driven before