#I AM A NON VIOLENT INDIVIDUAL

[subtlesolitude-tailoredtaste]

4 solid years later. I had it, I ain’t got it no more.

Ellen Bass, “The Thing Is”, Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems

[tic-loud-tic-proud]

"Maybe white men wouldn't have overwhelmingly voted for Trump if it wasn't for feminists telling them they're bad all the time!!1!!" Weird how everything men do ends up being women's fault somehow

[edenfenixblogs]

Let’s put some numbers to Jewish fear right now.

In news that I’m sure will thrill all antisemites, it would take startlingly little effort to foment widespread violence against us and cause another genocide of the Jewish people.

I have had many fellow Jews express to me how overwhelming it is to see the rising antisemitism. I have seen many Jews express fear at being drowned out of public, online, and IRL spaces due to dangerously violent vitriol.

I have also seen people who claim to advocate for Palestine—especially western leftists—openly mock Jews who express this fear.

Finally, I and my fellow Jews have often expressed that, while we wholeheartedly support Palestinian freedom and self determination, it is exhausting to have to say so repeatedly, especially when we are trying to advocate for ourselves. This is not due to any latent or widespread hatred of Muslims, Arabs, or Palestinians. It is because we are an extremely maligned and marginalized minority that is fighting to be heard against strong, hostile forces that at best wish we’d shut up and at worst want us eradicated from the planet.

There is a disconnect about how much harm people can do to Jews by spreading antisemitism and refusing to dismantle their own internalized antisemitism—and everyone has internalized antisemitism. It is one of the oldest forms of prejudice in the world and is found in almost every single culture. It is as, if not more, pervasive than white privilege. Yes. You read that right. And if asked to elaborate, I will provide numbers on that to the best of my ability. For the purposes of this post, however, I want to focus on the global distribution of religious groups only.

Specifically, this disconnect is between Jews who are fully aware and feel the affects of this damage and goyim who simply do not comprehend our marginalization.

To help, let’s put some numbers to this. In this post, I’ll be using the Pew Research Center’s survey and findings on the Global Religious Landscape. This is the most recent data from a reputable source that I could find which surveyed every world religion at the same time. While the Jewish population has grown slightly in the intervening years, so have most (if not all) other religious populations around the globe. I wanted to use figures measured at the same time to avoid bias for or against any religious group.

For the purposes of this post, I will not be discussing folk religions or other religions. This is not because they are not important. This is because they are not a monolith and individual folk religions and other religions may have even fewer adherents per religion than Judaism. I am currently only focusing on religions and religious groups who have more adherents than Judaism.

In descending order of adherents, there number of people in the world belonging to these groups:

2,200,000,000 (2.2 Billion) Christians

1,600,000,000 (1.6 Billion) Muslims

1,100,000,000 (1.1 Billion) Religiously unaffiliated people

1,000,000,000 (1 Billion) Hindus

500,000,000 (500 Million) Buddhists

14,000,000 (14 Million) Jews

Reduced to the simplest fractions there are:

1100 Christians for every 7 Jews

800 Muslims for every 7 Jews

550 Religiously unaffiliated people for every 7 Jews

500 Hindus for every 7 Jews

250 Buddhists for every 7 Jews

Combined, there are 6,400,000,000 non-Jewish people in religions or religious groups (including religiously unaffiliated people).

This means that for every 7 Jews there are 3200 people in religious groups who outnumber us.

Jews are 0.2 % of the global population.

When we tell you that hate is dangerous, it is because…

It would only take 0.21% of 6.4 Billion people to hate us in order to completely overwhelm and outnumber every single Jewish person on the planet. In other words, only 67.2 out of every 3200 people.

And given how violent and aggressive people have become toward us in recent weeks, that doesn’t seem far off.

No, most Christians, Muslims, Atheists/Agnostics, Hindus, and Buddhists do NOT hate Jews.

But if even 0.21% of them do hate us, Jews are at a legitimate and terrifying risk of ethnic cleansing and genocide.

It is not possible for Jews alone to fight this rising tide of hate. There simply aren’t enough of us. And many of us are too scared to tell you the truth: if you don’t vocally and repeatedly stand up for Jews (and not just the ones you agree with) you will be complicit in the genocide that follows. Police your own communities.

Nobody acting in good faith is asking you to abandon Palestinians or their fight for self determination and equality in their homeland. All we are asking is for you to learn about antisemitism, deconstruct it in yourself, and loudly condemn it when it occurs in front of you. We are asking you to comfort us and not run away when we are scared or even angry at you. Because a lot of us are angry with you, because we are extremely scared right now and many of you are not helping us. Many of you are actively and carelessly spreading dogwhistles that further the global rise in hatred against us.

You can support Palestine AND avoid Islamophobia WITHOUT making antisemitism worse. But you can’t stop antisemitism by staying silent in the face of it. And if you don’t speak up, you will get us killed. Silence, in this case, is quite literally violence.

Many of us have armed guards posted at our synagogues and schools and community centers because of this. I certainly had times where my synagogue and school had to have armed security for our safety.

The only reason more of us haven’t died already is because we have millennia of experience in confronting this kind of hatred and guarding against it.

But in pure numbers, if you don’t speak up for us now, we don’t have a chance at survival without support.

So, what can you do, specifically?:

* Make a stand or public statement about condemning antisemitism without mentioning another group. Acknowledge Jewish fear, pain, and current danger without contextualizing it in someone else’s. It could literally be something as simple as “Antisemitism is bad. There’s never a reason for it. I won’t tolerate it in presence in real life or online.” If you cannot bring yourself to publicly make this statement, you should have a serious look at yourself to understand why you can’t.

* Learn about the six universal features of antisemitism and the many, various dog whistles affecting the global Jewish community

* Do not welcome people who espouse rhetoric that includes any features from the above bullet point in your community unless you are able to educate them and eliminate that behavior.

* Check in on your Jewish friends, regularly and repeatedly. Do not wait for them to reach out to you. They are scared of you. Even if you don’t have the emotional space to have conversations about antisemitism. Just send a message once in a while, unprompted, “Jfyi, antisemitism still sucks. I support you.”

* Redirect conversations about which “side” is “right” to how to attain peace. Do this by saying that this line of argument is not conducive to peace, and link to a well-respected organization not widely accused of either antisemitism or Islamophobia that is devoted to achieving a peaceful resolution, increasing education, or providing humanitarian aid to relevant affected groups—including Jews, Israelis, Palestinians, Muslims, and Arabs. You can find over 160 such organizations at the Alliance for Middle East Peace https://www.allmep.org/

* Look to support experienced groups without widespread and verifiable claims of prejudice against either Jews or Muslims or Arabs or Palestinians. Many of these organizations can also be found at the AllMEP link above. Avoid groups on the shit list as well as unproductive and harmful movements.

* Do not default to western methods of political demonstration. Specifically, protests are not useful in attaining peace in western nations at this time. Israelis and Palestinians can and should protest to the best of their abilities in Israel and Palestine so as to pressure their own governments. However, protests in western nations have proven to be poorly regulated and to further the spread of bigoted rhetoric and violence against Jews, Muslims, Arabs, and Palestinians. Furthermore, there are nearly as many Palestinians in the world as there are Jews. It is extremely easy and common for the voices of bad actors and bigots on all sides to completely drown out Jewish and Palestinian voices and concerns at these events.

* Spend more time listening and learning than speaking and acting. Anyone who tells you this conflict is simple is someone who is lying to you. Take the time to learn the ways in which your actions and words can get people hurt before joining the fray.

* Stop demonizing Zionism as a concept, even if you disagree with it. Understand that it is a philosophy with many different movements that often conflict with each other. The Zionism practiced by Netanyahu and the Likud party is NOT representative of most Zionists or interpretations of Zionism. It is an extremist form of Zionism known as Revisionist Zionism.

* Don’t deny Jewish indigeneity to the levant. It doesn’t help Palestine and hurts Jews by erasing our physical and cultural history as well as erasing the Jews who remained in Israel even through widespread diaspora.

* KEEP THE HOLOCAUST OUT OF YOUR MOUTH

Things That Are Always OK

* Denouncing Antisemitism loudly and publicly

* Denouncing Islamophobia loudly and publicly

* Telling your Jewish and Muslim and Arab friends you support them and won't abandon them

* Elevating the work of respected, widely accepted people and organizations devoted to attaining peace for all, rather than just one group of people.

* Develop media literacy

* Understand what aspects of the current western leftist movements Jews are criticizing, rather than assuming our criticisms are motivated by hatred for Palestine or Palestinians.

* Expressing sorrow for civilian deaths regardless of religion or nationality.

* When you are not Jewish and you share a post about antisemitism from a Jewish person, please say you’re a goy. This isn’t because you’re not welcome to share. This is because it is indescribably comforting to know we aren’t just talking amongst ourselves and screaming into the void. Let us know you are supportive of us. It doesn’t mean that you or we hate Palestine or Palestinians or that we oppose their full and equal rights in our shared homeland.

[diagonal-queen]

Omg you're backkkk<3 I hope uni's going well for you!

Maybe the Hunting Dogs with a s/o who's kind of mean/petty?

Hunting Dogs with a mean S/O

♡ pairing: Fukuchi Ouchi, Jouno Saigiku, Tecchou Suehiro, Teruko Okura (platonic), Tachihara Michizou x gn!Reader

♡ synopsis: How are the Hunting Dogs with a mean and petty S/O?

♡ cw: Swearing, u r a BULLY >:((, dw it's pretty chill though, non-graphic NSFW with Jouno, teensy bit of NSFW with Tachihara, mentions of violence, crime and torture

note: ahhh hello yes i'm back! uni's pretty great actually. i love being able to tell people i go to law school lmao, it makes me feel smarter than i am. uhh but i've been swamped and a bit busy, and i'm going back home for a week so i might not be super active over the next couple weeks, i'm so sorry my babies </3 but i'll still be lurking in case you wanna chat! as always, apologies for errors and i hope you enjoy x

Fukuchi:

Mf you think he cares?? He hired Jouno and Tachihara because they committed crimes, and he's more than happy to keep Teruko around. Bro doesn't give a FUCK that you're mean

If you're dating Fukuchi you clearly do give a shit about the welfare of society and world peace, so your individual quirks are just that. Quirks

He will fully let you just be a dickhead sometimes, because...like, why not?

I feel like Fukuchi is obviously often a very intimidating individual who strikes fear and commands respect from everyone else. But you? You just walk all over him

In some ways for him it's probably kind of refreshing to have someone around him who doesn't idolise him at all, or look up to him as a superior. It gets exhausting, for sure. Sometimes he just wants to be humbled and that's so okay Fukuchi, you deserve it actually /mean-spirited and condescending

Don't get me wrong it's not like you're an abusive partner! You're still obviously nice to your partner and you love him, but you definitely don't go out of your way to sugarcoat things or try to avoid any necessary confrontations

And Fukuchi genuinely really respects that about you. He's pretty similar like that, though still definitely goofier than you

I mean he won't want you sitting around with an RBF when he's at formal events and whatnot, because that really wouldn't have the best impression, but he's usually very gung ho about letting you be yourself

You're lucky he loves you man...lmao

Jouno:

He loves it. Full stop.

You two are just sadist central over here. Like he'll be torturing a suspect and you're just watching. Bored. Not a care in the world

(Jouno, I don't think you're legally allowed to invite your partner to watch you do your job- much less one like this, but...eh...)

You two are always just talking shit about people to each other, and like when you're out in public on dates you're just whispering to each other and judging people T-T

Lowkey kinda gets turned on when you guys argue. He thinks it's hot when you get heated and angry. Usually it ends in rough "passionate hugging", and the pillowtalk is when you both actually resolve the issue (dumbasses)

He might even purposefully rile you up sometimes because mf is just THAT much of a horny degenerate. You guys can call him classy and gentlemanly all you want, but we all know he's secretly deranged

Like an angry, horny goblin with a knife...someone stop him

Tbh you should probably bully him a little bit every now and then. I think he needs to be taken down a peg sometimes

Hey, he's more likely to listen to you than Tecchou, isn't he? Besides, it's nothing genuinely malicious. Just couple's banter

Oh, you guys are fucking LEGENDS at the couple's banter. Though you never do it in public, because a lot of the times the things you both tell each other as jokes can come off as really cruel jabs

Nah your senses of humour are just not family-friendly (violent and malicious)

You guys have very strange ways of showing your love and affection. But, hey, it works for you and that's what's important :)

Tecchou:

Ah yes, arguably the least meanie of all of the Hunting Dogs. Yeah uh he doesn't really like you at first

Tecchou doesn't understand being mean just for the sake of it. I mean like, for Teruko, she uses it in her career, and Jouno is sadistic and weird and also uses it in his career. You're just petty because you can be

But the more time you spend together the more he realises that you're really not that bad- you're really just more of the loveable asshole type

An acquired taste, yes, but this is Tecchou we're talking about! That's his thing!

He learns to appreciate the things about you that many others would probably consider flaws. He influences you for the better definitely...

...BUT you also kinda make him worse

He will adopt your 'deal with it bitch' attitude sometimes, but it doesn't hinder his relationships or work so it's fiiiiine

(Jouno isn't a huge fan of it though...but at the same time he kind of respects you)

Tecchou probably won't admit it but he really likes to listen to you rant and bitch about people you don't like. He just likes to listen to you be angry about trivial things, he finds it equal parts endearing and entertaining

If you're mean to someone who deserves it? Well I mean...who is he to stop you?

At the end of the day you're definitely emotionally self-sufficient, so that's one less part of you for him to fret over. All's well that ends well or some shit idk

Teruko (platonic):

You guys are literally the best of friends

She's the loud fiery kind of mean and you are the 'I will straight up meticulously ruin your life' kind of mean

You on some r/nuclearrevenge type shit and she fucking loves that for you

Like she's fully willing to plot and scheme with you and do whatever mean shit you suggest. You two are menaces and she should absolutely not be a military soldier

Teruko WILL smite your enemies. And by smite your enemies I mean she will actively do what she can to ruin the lives of people you don't like, with absolutely no remorse (pretty sure she actually commits crimes to do this)

She LIVES for your cruel one-liners and clever insults. Every time she hears one she absolutely hollers

Teruko enjoys it when you're mean to the other Hunting Dogs (except Fukuchi). They can handle a couple bitchy words so it's not a huge deal, but she's just extra amused by it

For the record you're not *mean* mean, you're just...humbling them (which let's be real they could use from time to time (Jouno, again, looking at you))

Nobody is surprised by your guys' friendship really

You're a dangerous pair. Please stop

Teruko kinda likes that you hold grudges so frequently because she'll never tire of hearing you shittalk the same exact people and events over and over again

She'll shittalk them too

Dia doesn't approve of this friendship

Tachihara:

You guys know that scene in B99 where Jake says that he can't decide if he's scared of Amy or turned on by her and then decides that he's both? Yea, that's Tachihara with you

He is a good person at heart, and outside of his mafia gangster persona he's really not that mean, and as such he does not encourage mean behaviour. But like, when you do it? Mm...

Bro is WHIPPED

Lowkey he probably gets some of his mafia persona ideas from you 💀

His mafia coworkers have no questions about how you two get along, and they generally like you. The other Hunting Dogs have a few more questions

Tachihara isn't some shy, quiet introvert, but he is generally pretty chill and a nice person. They like to playfully tease him about how different the two of you are (though if it gets too far he knows he can count on you to rip them a new one with no issue)

Dw they still like you though! Especially Teruko

He has absolutely no problems with you for being cold and blunt. It's nothing he himself can't handle, and in some ways it actually makes talking to you easier

Again, I'll stress that you're not mean to him, you're just not the most lovey-dovey person out there. But you DO put effort in and that's what Tachihara cares about, even if it isn't in a stereotypical way

If anything else, you're certainly loyal!

Tachihara loves you for all of your different eccentricities, and he's also kinda turned on by them. Win-win? Win-win.

taglist~ ♡ @gettinshiggywithit, @fyodorhatr, @flower-of-darkness, @bejeweledgirl, @kokoenjiandco, @pinkiipeachiikeen

[sillygoofyqueer]

Hi, I had some questions about the crowyuan au. What do the other heavenly demons think about him? Like Zhuzhi-lang and tianlang-jun, I was imagining the antics tianlang-jun would get up to in teasing sy, and how maybe Zzl would bond with sy over being part heavenly demon part animal demon. I love this au so much and I would love to add even more heavenly demons into the mix. Actually I wonder if zzl and sy would not get along, because crows and snakes kill each other in nature. Either way, ideas for thought. Thank you so much for making this au I love it so much!!

Herlo herlo there!!! Firstly, I'm so so glad that you like this AU, crowyuan anon brought it to me and I think we just spiralled from there - honestly, I've just started posting about it very recently again, but not a day went by that I wasn't thinking about it. And OH MY GOD, THIS KIND OF QUESTION IS THE ONE I LOVE. I LOVE WRITING ABOUT REACTIONS. TEEHEHEHEHEHE. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!! Let's DO THIS!!!! Tianlang-Jun: This fucking guy would come back from being trapped under the mountain, hear about a 'corvid king' and just immediately go snoop around. He disappears for a couple of years and the corvids have gotten their shit together enough to have a KING now??? He meets Shen Yuan and he is violently excited the moment he spots a FELLOW heavenly demon that reads his favourite genre - even if it is just to trash it!! He gets the best recommendations off the demon, and he also gets so much entertainment from watching all of the corvid demons n yao stumble over one another to try and woo SY. If TLJ so much as mentions the courting methods of the corvids, SY goes a delightful shade of red that TLJ cannot help but find inherently amusing. Not only that, but SY is cunning and intelligent! Although he spends most of his time dallying in the human realm, TLJ was emperor of the demon realm for a reason, and finding a likeminded individual who has positively delightful tactics to deal with irritating flies is nothing but exciting in TLJ's eyes. Zhuzhi-Lang: I am psychotic over the idea that most of the time, these two are completely chill with one another, with Zhuzhi-Lang getting hit with the wifebeam and being in awe of the doting that Shen Yuan drops onto him without any expectations in return!! However. There's just a tiny, itty bitty amount of time where one of them trips up and succumbs to their more feral instincts - SY snatches up something shiny without thinking, ZZL steals a small bit of prey that SY had been gunning for - and they just fucking BRAWL. Of course, with how demons court and flirt, ZZL is like "ohmygodohmygodohmygod we're fighting!!" and TLJ is in the background like "damn, go off nephew!!! Look at you go, you slutty slutty snake" (/j). Meanwhile, SY's mindset is just "MYfuckingshinystupidsnakewhenIfuckinggetyou", even after he is reminded of the courting methods because he can't heeelp itt!!! (let me know if you want other ((non-heavenly)) demons' reactions to this little freak (((/aff))))

[deepdarkdelights]

Perfection | Jin x Reader

Pairing: Vampire Jin x  Reader 

Word Count: 16k

Series: (6/7) Predator Universe

Warnings: 18+, NSFW, Yandere, Obsession, Fear, Non-Consensual Kissing, Non-Consensual Touching, Dub-Con, Cunnilingus, Breaking and Entering, Symptoms of Panic/Anxiety, Stalking, Depictions of Gore, Blood, Anger Issues, Dismemberment, MC had a fear of death, MC has agoraphobia, but MC is in therapy (good for her), Jin is kind of an asshole but we love it, kind of pet-playish(?), Jin is basically a sugar daddy tbh 

I do not condone the acts displayed in this story nor do I believe any members of BTS would actually engage in this type of behavior. This is simply written for entertainment purposes and should not be taken as a reflection of my own values, opinions, or morals. 

Preview: Your eyebrows furrowed as you peered over your shoulder. Sure enough, there were a few dark eyes staring back at you - but there was one pair in particular that really caught your attention. There was a man in a roped-off section of the club, a velvet curtain drawn to the side to reveal him seated on an ornate chair. He looked like a king watching over his people, and you meant that not only because of his position but because of his features as well. It was undeniable that he was the most attractive person in the room, hell, the most attractive person you had ever seen. Smooth pale skin, plush lips in a permanent pout, dark eyes, and the widest set of shoulders with a slender waist. He was a work of art. He had this look on his pretty features as if he had just tasted something bitter, and that look was directed behind you. 

A/N: I have been working on this fic since July and I am so happy that it is finally done and you guys will be able to read it! I really hope the time this took was worth it and that the fic was worth the hype lol. It’s almost one thirty in the morning and I have a quiz so I really should be sleeping. I think this is one of my favorite installments of the series! I hope you enjoy the fic and as always I can’t wait to see you in my inbox and my comments. Ily 💜💜💜

Kim Seokjin had not only a pretty face but a brilliant mind as well. 

At least, that’s what he told everyone. 

If there was a singular sin that he could fully encompass it would be vanity. And the sin that he shared with nearly everyone in his “family” was that of pride: a deadly and violent mix. That blend was what led to his damnation.

He knew that he deserved only the best and nothing less, that was exactly how he had been raised when he was still human. In the late 1800s, he had been granted the privilege of being born into high-class society as the eldest son, the heir to the Kim legacy. Everything he wanted was directly at his fingertips and at his disposal. From the moment he was born he was guaranteed power, and that was something he wished to never lose. 

As the heir to a luxury wine company, it was only expected that alcohol, parties, and lewd behavior were set to follow him, and he exceeded those expectations. But he was good at keeping business and pleasure as two distinctly separate functions. 

And with the life he lived, it was not often that individuals met his expectations. And by individuals, he meant potential wives. Naturally, it was expected of him to marry and continue the family's legacy. But the gold spoon that he was born with in his mouth tainted the pool. No one was good enough for him and that caused much strife within the family. 

He was well past the age of marrying at twenty-eight years old. He was beginning to feel the pressure his father and mother were putting on his shoulders. And, not to mention, he was well aware that he was aging. Of course, he would never admit that his looks were fading. There was not a crease in his skin or a gray hair to be plucked, but he could feel it. He could see the minute imperfections that no one else could. It made his skin crawl in disgust. 

And then Kim Namjoon entered the frame and everything began to come together. 

His mother had insisted on organizing yet another party to find him a wife under the guise that he was there to make several important business deals. But when the vast majority of partygoers were young women with stars in their eyes he knew what was really going on. And of course, he was not going to stick around and socialize with subpar candidates. If he were going to do that it would be restricted to his bedroom, of course. 

Namjoon had come to that party that night, Yoongi in tow despite his protests. Namjoon was a cultured man, he liked to mingle with the members of high society from time to time. It helped him learn what was appropriate for the decade as trends (in manners, clothing, and amusement) came and went rapidly. And those who belonged to the upper class were those who set those trends. It was strategic and it helped his kind blend in as seamlessly as possible. 

And Jin was the epitome of a high-class man. 

And so, Namjoon and Yoongi befriended him. It hadn’t been hard for them, they had been around for so long that they fit right in. And Jin had merely thought he found more of the few people that could meet his high expectations - his small inner circle growing with two new additions. But of course, that friendship had started out with the purpose of using Jin for what he had. 

So in turn, he used them. 

While Jin had a pretty face, he actually was quite smart and observant. He took note of his companions' odd behavior. He never saw them during the daytime, only in the veil of the night. They had the oddest colored eyes - not quite black but a deep shade of burgundy like the embers of a smoldering fire laid within their depths. And they were cold, absolutely frigid to the touch like a corpse. It didn’t take him very long to piece together what they were, and it was only proven true when he caught the both of them feasting on lifeless corpses in his guest room. He timed everything just perfectly to discover their true nature. 

Yoongi had seemed genuinely surprised, bloody lips parted in shock as he stood as still as a statue, the limp body still collapsed in his iron grasp. 

Namjoon, on the other hand, was smiling. He too was not able to conceal his nature any longer but he wasn’t trying either. He took his time and continued to finish his meal despite the obvious living human presence in the room. 

“You two have been holding out on me,” Jin said with a disappointed tone. 

“Holding out?” Namjoon echoed before relaxing his arms and allowing the corpse to slip down to the floor, the thinnest drizzle of blood pooling onto the parquet flooring. 

Yoongi could only stare at the both of them, his eyes darting back and forth between the two other men. 

“Yes, holding out! You are immortal are you not?”

“Yes, we are, and I’m sure you’ve figured out the rest by now haven’t you?” 

“You may have been able to fool all of those other halfwits but it was painfully obvious to me, of course.”

“Of course.” Namjoon nodded while trying to suppress an amused grin. 

“I want in, I wish to join you and your kind.” 

“No,” Yoongi immediately cut in, “You don’t know what you’re asking for, this is a curse it is not something to take lightly and flirt with the notion of.” 

His tone was harsh, his face stern but there was evident pain behind his eyes. Yoongi had been forced into this life if that was what you could even call it. He couldn’t fathom someone willingly agreeing to eternal damnation and he would try his hardest to convince them otherwise. 

“Are you denying me?” Jin asked, his face contorted in utter disbelief. He was never denied anything in his twenty-eight years of life and the feeling of rejection was infuriating. 

“Yoongi, it’s his decision,” Namjoon interjected, his hand wiping the blood from his mouth leaving a streaky crimson trail behind. 

“You’re not actually considering this, are you?” Yoongi hissed.

“What is there to consider? He’s already seen us and he knows what he wants.”

“He has no idea what he wants!” 

“And why are you speaking for me? Just because you’re miserable and dissatisfied does not mean the same will be said for me!” Jin spat. “I grow tired of this human body. Every second of every day I feel myself wasting away and there is not a thing I can do about it.”

“You would throw away your humanity, your life, all in the name of vanity?” Yoongi asked in disbelief. 

“And for greed as well,” Jin laughed, “Believe me, I am many things and one of them is self-aware. I am a selfish bastard and I am perfectly fine with that. I won’t allow my looks to fade and my fortune will grow as centuries pass. This is what I desire and I refuse to concede.”

He was a businessman in every aspect. 

“It sounds like he’s made his choice, Yoongi.” Namjoon finally spoke.

“It sounds like he’s made an ignorant choice and I refuse to have any part in this,” Yoongi said, storming past the two of them and slamming the door shut with enough force that the mahogany wood cracked by the handle. 

“So, are we going to fuck about or will you give me what I want?” Jin asked, his impatience growing. 

“I consider you a good friend, Jin. I won't lie, I am pleased that you are asking this of me.” Namjoon smiled before grabbing Jin’s shoulder, “We’re all lonely children looking for a place where we belong.” 

Lonely children, that was one way to put it. Namjoon was not entirely wrong. In a world where you deserved only the best, many fell short and in the end, you were painfully alone, whether you were willing to admit it or not. 

“Before we go through with this, there are some things you should know.”

“What things?”

“You can’t go in the sun, not just yet, you’ll be far too young and far too sensitive to light. Quiet, dark, scentless places are going to be the best place to stay - your senses are going to be heightened tenfold. You must feed often in the early years, you’re going to be very hungry, bloodthirsty really so you need to stay away from large crowds of people.” 

Jin was silent for a moment, his eyes shifting from left to right and back again as he processed everything he was told. He could manage, and he could figure out how to do all of those things while maintaining his position as an heir. 

“Lastly, do not try and do this alone. In our world, there is strength in numbers as well as safety. You’ll have to stay with me and Yoongi, we will all be bound to one another as creator and creation.”

“So when you two leave…”

“You will follow.” Namjoon nodded, “We try to stay in one place for as long as we can so if it’s your family you’re worried about you’ll have plenty of time to figure something out.” 

But they weren’t coming with him. As terrible as it was, that wasn’t a great enough reason to sway his decision. He still wanted what he desired and he was willing to let his family go. So he stuck out his hand, ready to shake on the agreement. 

“I accept the conditions.” 

~~~~~~~

Most people were afraid of spiders, some of heights, and many feared drowning. But you feared something a bit more abstract and with a bit more finality. You were afraid of aging and by association, you were incredibly afraid of death. 

And that fear often leads you to do a few things. One of them was to start skincare at an absurdly young age. The other was to hermit yourself inside of your house out of fear of some horrific accident befalling you. And the other was to seek out strange and obscure places to visit before you die. It was odd that the last two coincide but they do. 

There were days when you were so frightened that you couldn’t stand the thought of leaving the comfort of your bed. And then you had days where you felt daring, if you were going to die one day would you really want to have lived your only life trapped inside of your own house? There were your good days and your bad days and they came and went like the tides.

Today was a “good” day. And by good day that meant you were on your laptop scrolling through forums trying to find a new place to visit. Living in a small town was hard, you knew everyone and every place because they were so few in number. But sometimes there were locations in between towns, or hidden spots in your own. Briar Hills is an old town, a historical town even. It’s not uncommon for places to be abandoned, concrete skeletons collapsing and being devoured by the flora.

It was finding them, buried in hundreds of posts, that was difficult. The teenagers in the town had taken to reclaiming those places, turning them into party spots in the blink of an eye. But that has changed in the past few months. Ever since the first body turned up. 

That was the thing about small towns, murder was much rarer than the action that cities see. So, when dozens of corpses begin to show up in streams and lakes and people begin to go missing without a trace - panic ensues. As well as a town-wide curfew. 

Briar Hills turned into a ghost town after dark. The streets would be empty, lit by a few lampposts spread down the street that was easily consumed by a thick, hazy fog. Every now and then the fog would be broken by police lights, red and blue shocks of color dispersing the mist as the night patrol came around the block. It looked like something out of a horror movie. 

And, if it weren’t a good day, the sight alone would be enough to keep you corralled in your room. But it was a good day and you had become stir-crazy from staying in your house for the past few weeks.

After endless scrolling there was one post in particular that caught your attention. It looked like an extravagant invitation with a satin black background and deep red embellishments. It had very little interaction and it was written in a completely different language. For something as obscure as an abandoned place in a small town you weren’t surprised that it had gone unnoticed, especially considering few people checked this forum. 

Putting the text into google translate had not been insanely helpful. The translated text was jumbled and made little sense, it was one of those languages that did not thrive when it came to longer translations. But you were interested and fairly stubborn and after extended research and decoding fragmented sentences you were left with this:

“The best bite I’ve ever had,” And following that was a set of coordinates that had been written out instead of just using their numerical counterparts. 

You were interested. 

What could that mean? Maybe it was some hole-in-the-wall restaurant, but why all the decorum? Why the translations? Who even uses coordinates anymore? The best way to get the answers you desired was to discover them for yourself. 

That’s how you ended up sneaking out of your house, dressed head to toe in dark colors, like some teenager that’s about to disappoint their parents. Except, in this case, your parents were the cops, and being grounded would equate to being detained for violating the town-wide curfew. All the more reason to not get caught. 

You started to get cold feet when you realized where the set of coordinates was leading you, your body came to a fast stop when the toes of your boots met the edge of the forest. The forest, at night, with low visibility, and predators prowling was a bad move. That just screamed a sudden and violent death, not to mention the bulk of missing persons' corpses had been found within its depths. This was a stupid idea, a bad move, but it was a good day and you were too stubborn to follow reason. You would make up for it tomorrow by hiding in your bed all day. It was an unhealthy coping mechanism, but a coping mechanism nonetheless. 

You took a deep breath, squared your shoulders, and took a step forward. There was no going back now, you had made up your mind.

The further into the forest you trekked the quieter it became. It didn’t make sense. You were getting further from society so why was it so quiet? The wind was still, not a branch or leaf trembled, and not even a cricket dared to chirp. It was like every living creature had up and left, abandoning their home. The only sound that filled the static silence was the bubbling rush of water from the river. 

You began to walk faster, your nerves urging you to get where you were going and be done with it. On top of that, your eyes were starting to play tricks on you, your brain attempting to make sense of the dark and fill in what was missing resulting in ominous shadows shifting through the trees. You were regretting your decision immensely, so you picked up the pace and began humming to yourself to fill the silence. 

If you were being honest, you really had no idea what you were supposed to be looking for. The post hadn’t listed much of anything and you weren’t sure what would be at the end of the coordinates. But, the red light glowing in the distance was a sure sign of something. It grew more intense as you neared it, the light getting stronger the closer to the ground it was. When you finally pushed through the underbrush you were met with a set of concrete stairs leading down into the ground and at the very bottom was an old metal door with a faintly pulsing red light above it. Looking down at your phone you were able to verify that you had made it to where the coordinates were marked. 

It was a bomb shelter. It was most likely one for the community back in the forties, an evacuation and safe point for those who didn’t have their own. It must have been abandoned and forgotten about after the war, left to rot there for the past eighty years. But if that light was anything to go by, it must have been reclaimed by someone. 

You carefully stepped down the stairs, applying a little weight at a time to make sure that the concrete hadn’t eroded and wouldn’t crumble beneath you. When you reached the bottom you tried the door and to your surprise, it opened with a creak. There was a long tunnel just barely lit by candles lining the walls leaving deep shadows in between them. And now you could feel the walls thumping, steadily vibrating with a muffled bass. That meant there was another chamber somewhere. 

You hesitantly traveled down the tunnel, long stretches of the floor would eventually give way to more stairs leading you deeper and deeper underground. This was a claustrophobe's worst nightmare. The more you walked the harder the walls vibrated until you finally came upon another door where the sounds became the loudest. Above the door hung a purple neon sign that read: “Blood Sugar.” 

Upon testing the door handle, you were surprised to find that it was unlocked, and once it slowly swung open your nose was assaulted with the scent of alcohol, sweat, and a coppery odor. You swiftly entered and closed the door behind you, trying your best not to bring too much attention to yourself. But it appears you would have no trouble doing so. 

The room you had stepped into was massive, the walls were tall and rounded out at the ceiling and were made completely out of metal. But it was far from a barren, abandoned bunker. The room was packed with people, some dancing, some drinking, and others wrapped around one another on the various red velvet chaises spread around the space. The music was loud and the room was lit by antique chandeliers as well as deep purple lighting casting an ominous glow over everyone. 

The bunker had been converted into a club of some sort and despite the decrepit tunnels you had slunk through to get here, it was surprisingly luxurious. You were honestly surprised the entire town hadn’t known about this place. That much was certainly true because, despite the large crowd, you could only recognize about five people you had seen before. The massive gathering was largely that of people that were not from Briar Hills. 

A set of delicate hands slithered around your waist, tugging you sharply towards the stranger behind you. A shout of surprise parted your lips as you turned around, slapping the offending limbs off of you. 

There was a tall woman facing you with a grin on her face, her bright white teeth glinting from behind her deep red lips. Her skin was so pale it was glowing with a purple hue from the lights, her long black curls creating an even sharper contrast against her skin. And you couldn’t explain why you felt the way you did, but the sight of those bright white teeth had your stomach twisting in knots. Despite her delicate appearance, every red flag was being raised in your body. The urge to run was strong. 

“Hello, sweetheart,” She crooned, “You’re new, aren’t you?” 

Something in the back of your mind demanded you lie. 

“No, I’m not. If you’ll excuse me,” You said, your voice steady and cold despite the goosebumps on the back of your neck and the rapid thump of your pulse. 

As you went to walk past her she easily stopped you with a hand on your shoulder, her face suddenly incredibly close as she pressed her nose to your hairline and took a deep breath. “Oh, you can’t lie to me, I remember every sweet little snack that comes in here.” 

What. The. Fuck.

“Look, I’m not interested in…whatever that means,” You huffed, taking a few steps back and breaking free from her steel grasp, “I’m just here for a drink.”

“Oh?” She hummed, “So am I, I’m glad we can cut to the chase.” 

“Okay?” You slowly asked before shuffling around her imposing figure, “See ya.” 

You slipped into the crowd, forcing your way through the bodies in an attempt to shake her off of your trail. Anybody else in your position would have lingered for the ethereal woman, but you couldn’t ignore that feeling in the back of your mind or that tug deep in your gut. She was dangerous, and no pretty smile or sweet words could hide it. It was in times like these that your intense fear of death became present as paranoia, warning you of all potential threats.

When you started therapy you were encouraged to slowly step out of your comfort zone, to do things that would combat your anxieties. So, on good days, you try your best to succeed with these short-term goals hoping in the long run you could live normally like every other person your age. But you often found your anxiety creeping up on you and you knew after tonight you would need the rest of the week to recover and that meant avoidance which meant hiding out in your rented duplex. 

But for now, you had to cope. 

When you broke free from the crowd you stumbled forward, a stray limb jabbing you in the back and sending you reeling onto one of the velvet chaises. To your utter embarrassment, you landed right next to a couple that had left all of their inhibitions at the door like many other patrons of the underground club. The woman was straddling the man's thighs, her arms wrapped around his shoulders as he buried his head in the crook of her neck, her long locks obscuring his face. Although you couldn’t see what he was doing it didn’t take a genius to figure out what it was as the woman’s mouth opened to let out soft moans of pleasure. 

Heat rushed up to your face as you stumbled off of the chaise and backed up from the voyeuristic lovers. Of course, you weren't innocent, but seeing something like that in person was different from shamelessly reading smut at three AM. 

A few feet away from the couple was the bar. It was surprisingly empty for a club. The man you assumed to be the bartender behind the countertop was relaxing against it, his dark eyes scanning your awkward posture. 

You swiftly approached the bar and yelled over the music, “Hi, how much is water?”

He gave you an amused chuckle before grabbing a small leather menu and sliding it over to you, “We don’t serve that here, sweetheart.” 

You stared at him in confusion before flipping open the menu. The only thing listed there were various wines all costing an exorbitant amount of money, and by that, you meant at least three months' rent and that was just for a glass, not even the bottle. 

“These prices are insane, are you kidding me?!” 

“They’re from 1889, newbie.” He smiled, a grin identical to the woman from earlier. 

“Well, this was a bust.” You groaned, the initial buzz of excitement from finding a town secret had long since faded. 

“Can I offer you some advice?” 

“Be my guest.”

“You might want to pay more attention to your surroundings, you’ve had eyes on you since you stepped foot in this place.” 

Your eyebrows furrowed as you peered over your shoulder. Sure enough, there were a few dark eyes staring back at you - but there was one pair in particular that really caught your attention. There was a man in a roped-off section of the club, a velvet curtain drawn to the side to reveal him seated on an ornate chair. He looked like a king watching over his people, and you meant that not only because of his position but because of his features as well. It was undeniable that he was the most attractive person in the room, hell, the most attractive person you had ever seen. Smooth pale skin, plush lips in a permanent pout, dark eyes, and the widest set of shoulders with a slender waist. He was a work of art. He had this look on his pretty features as if he had just tasted something bitter, and that look was directed behind you. 

“If I were you, I would get out of here. Things get crazy with fresh blood, ya know? The people here are like sharks in the water.” The bartender said, regaining your attention. “Uh oh, looks like you got one on your trail.” 

You followed his and the pretty stranger’s gaze behind you. It was her again, the woman from earlier. She was slipping through the ocean of moving bodies with ease, her gait like that of a jaguar on the prowl as she approached. You watched as her polished fingers wiped away what looked like stray lipstick from beneath her lips. 

Without thinking you darted away from the bar and past the pretty man, rushing through the first door you found which turned out to be the bathroom. Once the door fell shut you felt like you could relax for a moment. The music was muffled allowing you to think coherently for the first time since you had entered the bunker. Everything had become far too stimulating and you could feel your anxiety rising. 

You leaned against the sink, turning the water on ice cold before splashing your face so that you could shock yourself back into clarity. You allowed yourself to brace the sink and relax your body, focusing on your breathing and grounding yourself before you lost control, just the way you were taught to. 

The feeling of ice-cold fingers on your shoulders threw all of your work away. 

You yelped and flinched, your eyes flying open to see her standing behind you in the reflection of the mirror. 

“I knew you were a shy little thing, you should have just told me you wanted to do this privately.” She sighed with a sickeningly sweet smile. 

In a moment of flight, fight, or freeze your body chose for you, your legs running without you telling them to do so. You didn’t make it far, not before she grabbed hold of you and threw you up against the wall. Your head hit the tile behind you so hard you saw stars. 

“I’ve been hunting you down all night, you’ve made me build up quite the appetite. Do you know how many others I’ve had to threaten to get to you? Everyone always wants to take someone’s first bite.” 

What the fuck was she talking about? 

“While it was cute at first, we've played this game for long enough, don’t you think?”

“Let go of me!” You yelled while grabbing her wrists and trying to pry her hands off of you. To your complete and utter shock, she didn’t move an inch, it was like her bones were made of iron - immovable and inflexible. 

“Now, now, don’t go throwing a tantrum that won’t get you anywhere.” She sighed, sliding her hand up your shoulder to wrap around your throat and squeeze. 

Your throat and lungs burned as her grip slowly increased its pressure, your eyes watering as broken gasps and chokes for air gurgled past your lips. 

“There there, much better.” She whispered into your ear as she released your throat, your body going limp as you gasped for air. 

She easily gathered you up into her arms and softly tilted your head to the side, her perfectly polished nails grazing over the stretch of skin as she hummed before pressing her cherry-red lips to your throat. 

“Don’t worry, you’ll feel a slight pinch.” She joked before her jaw widened and a demonic hiss left her throat as her teeth grazed the soft flesh of your vulnerable neck. 

But before she could sink her teeth in she was harshly ripped away from you, her perfect face slammed so hard into the bathroom wall that the tiles shattered upon impact. A loud cry of pain echoed throughout the room as she pulled herself from the wall, black blood was pouring from her crooked nose and her sliced lips. 

Behind her stood the stranger from before, a miffed and frankly disgusted expression marred his stunning features. 

“What the fuck, Jin?!” She screamed, cupping her injured face. 

“She’s not a fang banger, Junghee.”

Her once flawless features froze in shock as a look of horror crawled over her face. It was the look of someone who realized that they had made a horrible mistake. 

“You’ve really fucked up this time.” He growled in irritation, a genuine growl that had your skin crawling. 

“Well, how was I supposed to know?! What is she even doing here?!”

“That’s none of your concern anymore, get the fuck out!” He yelled, ripping the bathroom door open and throwing her out of the room. 

You stayed pressed up against the wall out of pure terror. Vampires, you had walked into a fucking nest of vampires and had the closest brush with death you’ve ever had in your entire life. Your gaze remained locked on the vampire, Jin, as he calmed down; the waves of his rage slowly dissipating. In this lighting, you could finally see what you hadn’t been able to before in the dim club. Under the fluorescent lights, his eyes gleamed a vibrant, intimidating red. 

You winced in fright as he took a step in your direction, your body attempting to meld into the wall behind you. Jin raised his eyebrow in questioning, taken aback by your apprehension. It wasn’t often he had humans cowering in fear, usually, they shook from…something else. 

“Enough of that, come along human.” He snapped, grabbing you by your sleeve and easily dragging you from the room despite your protests and your heels digging into the ground. He was pulling you as if you weighed nothing. 

“Let go!” You shrieked in terror, struggling against his hold with all of your might. 

He came to a sudden halt, gripping you by your shoulder and pulling your body so close that there was barely an inch of space left between his chest and your own. 

“Don’t you think you’ve drawn enough attention to yourself tonight?” 

You peered over your shoulder, and sure enough, there were several of his kind watching the two of you from the dance floor. Their stares were curious and hungry. Unconsciously you shifted closer to him, choosing the lesser of two evils, one vampire versus many. 

“Look at that you’re smart, for a human.” He snickered before guiding you back to the curtained area you had seen him sitting in before Junghee had cornered you in the bathroom. 

“Sit, stay.” He said with a smirk as he pressed you down by your shoulder onto one of the couches before gesturing for someone to close the thick curtains. 

“Look, I just want to go home. I won’t breathe a word about what happened here or what this place is, it was a mistake coming here.” 

“A mistake indeed, but a mistake that needs correcting nonetheless,” Jin said with a distressed roll of his (impressive) shoulders. “So, tell me human, how did you find this place?” 

You sat there in silence for a moment, your face the perfect image of confusion, “Are you being serious right now?”

“I don’t recall telling a joke.”

“You - there was a post online, on a forum? Anyone could have found it if they were looking close enough, it really wasn’t that hard to find. All I had to do was translate the text and it told me where to go.”

“A…forum?” He repeated, clearly confused. 

Dear God, he was an old-ass vampire who didn't know much about technology or even the internet. He didn’t even know he had advertised the place. He was just an old man in a young man’s body. 

“You know, a forum, it’s online, it's where people who want to discuss a certain topic go to. I was looking for obscure places, abandoned buildings, and lesser-known spots in town. I found the posting for this place and it just said ‘The best bite I’ve ever had’...I didn’t know it meant literally.” You said, your nerves leading you to ramble on and on. 

Jin’s eyes pressed shut, his face contorting in anger as a hiss parted his lips, “Jimin.”

Jimin and himself were the only two vampires in their coven that knew about the club Jin hosted. Jin had been careless one night and Jimin had followed him, discovering the secret he had kept well hidden. Jin bought Jimin’s silence initially with limited access to the place, but now he was regretting every interaction he had had with the short vampire.

One of the few times Jin had found himself getting on with said vampire had led him to express his annoyance with the lack of human stock for the club. In turn, Jimin had offered to help “advertise” in exchange for unrestricted access to the club. 

Now that he had figured out how the little human had snuck her way in, he had to decide what to do with her. He could always kill her, that would be the simple answer. He could drain her dry and snap her pretty neck in an instant. But that wasn’t really his style, he typically preferred to savor his meals unlike his gorger of a “brother”, Jungkook. 

Perhaps the human could serve a purpose for him. 

“Come, human.” He beckoned with his fingers.

You remained frozen in your seat, your body still in active survival mode keeping your joints locked. 

Jin sighed, clearly miffed by your disobedience. He rose from his own seat only to cross the room and sit next to you. His long fingers gripped your chin and jerked your head up, forcing you to look at him. His hold was ice cold, the chill from his touch steadily seeping into your jaw. You felt paralyzed by his intimidating crimson gaze. His eyes flicked quickly over your features as he turned your head from side to side, taking in your every pore. 

“Not bad, for a human. Don’t feel too offended, it’s difficult to look as flawless as myself.” He said with a casual tone as if he were merely stating a fact. 

“You look pretty average to me,” You blurted out the lie, your lips moving before your brain could stop you from verbalizing. 

It was so fast you almost couldn't see it but it was there, his left eye twitched and his grip tightened forcing a slight whine of pain from you. He roughly jerked your head to the side, choosing to ignore what you said despite how much it clearly bothered him. Instead, he trained his focus on your neck, pulling the collar of your shirt down past your collarbone.

“Smooth,” He observed, his icy touch skipping over the skin of your throat, “Junghee didn’t sink her dirty fangs in you after all, that’s good.” 

Without warning he leaned down, his nose skimming over your neck as he breathed in, flooding himself with your scent. His grip tightened as you yelped and tried to jerk away from him in fear that this time you would surely die at the hands of a mythical creature, a monster in the flesh. 

You squeezed your eyes shut as you felt his plump lips brush your throat, his cool breath fanning over the skin and leaving goosebumps in its wake. His actions were reminiscent of a wine connoisseur, the way they studied the body of the wine and the aroma. He was assessing you - attempting to decide if you would make a good meal, that you were certain of. 

You jerked as you felt him bury his face further into your neck. You could feel the slight flutter of his eyelashes against your skin as a groan parted his lips. 

“Well, don’t you smell delicious?” He crooned, his tongue swiping over his lips and just barely ghosting over your throat. “I think that we can come to an agreement, does that sound nice?” 

“What,” You paused to clear your throat, “what did you have in mind?” 

“I’m glad you asked,” He said with a wink after pulling back from you, “You see, I think we could mutually benefit from one another’s company. While breaking your pretty little neck would certainly be the easiest way out of this problem, I do find you quite amusing, pet.”

Your body grew stiff as your mind conjured up the image of his strong hands severing your vertebrate in one smooth pull, your body falling limp and lifeless on the club’s floor. Your greatest fear was death and Jin was death incarnate. He could very easily take your life if he so desired and he was making that very clear. He cared not whether you lived or died but only if your presence benefitted him in some manner. Your life was inconsequential. 

“Very few people meet my standards but you are very lucky, I have a rather refined palette and it just so happens you meet said standards. So, I would like to propose a business arrangement. You will be my sole donor and keep those pretty lips sealed about everything you have witnessed tonight and in turn, you get to keep your life.”

“And if I don’t agree?” You dared to ask. 

A sneer marred his perfect face, his fingers gripping your chin and forcing you to look at him in his blood-red eyes. 

“Then your pathetic human life ends right here, right now.” He said, his hand slipping down your jaw to loosely wrap around your throat. He could feel your pulse steadily thumping against his hand causing his mouth to involuntarily pool with saliva, hunger twisting in his gut. 

Your breath hitched, fear slicing down your spine like a violent chill. You knew you only had one choice, and that was to appease the monster that sat beside you because he was far less frightening than the unknown, than the certain embrace of death that waited at every corner. 

When fear rules your life, you have no choice. There is only ever one option. 

“I agree,” Your voice trembled as you swallowed uncomfortably under his grasp. “I’ll be your donor.” 

“Splendid.” He said with a grin, his canines glinting under the light. 

“Can I…can I please go home now?” You asked, clasping your trembling hands together to try and still their shaking. 

“No, there are a few more fine details we have to iron out,” He said, his index finger lightly tapping your chin, “Firstly, I expect you to maintain a healthy lifestyle and that means no alcohol within a twenty-four hour period before we meet and certainly no smoking it’s a dirty and disgusting habit.”

You nodded slowly, trying your best to avoid looking into his piercing red gaze. 

“Try your best to have a healthy diet as well, the junk you humans gorge yourselves on taints your flavor, it’s unbearably sweet.” He said with a wrinkle of his nose in disgust. “I will compensate you for your efforts and your donations, once I’ve deemed you satisfactory, of course,” 

“I think that about covers it. And when I call upon you I expect your presence. Do we understand one another?” He asked with a tilt of his head. 

Your throat was far too tight, your eyes burning with unshed tears as you weakly nodded in agreement. 

“Very good,” He hummed before leaning back into the couch and soundly tapping the top of his thigh, “come, pet.” 

You sat still, your body frozen in shock as you were unsure if you had heard him correctly. 

“Well?” He raised his eyebrow expectantly. 

“I…I don’t think that, um-”

“Are you going to keep babbling and test my patience, or are you going to be a good little pet and do as I say?” He interjected and immediately you remembered the phantom feeling of his hand on your throat, the light grip that screamed threat. 

You awkwardly shuffled on your knees across the couch and hesitantly settled your legs on either side of him, hovering so that your weight did not rest on his lap. In response, he firmly gripped your hips and harshly pulled you down onto him, pressing you directly against him in a way that sent heat rushing beneath your skin despite the evident chill that emanated from his body. 

You could see his fangs even clearer now. They had become longer than before, the sharpened points dragging along the flushed skin of his plump lower lip. You were terrified by the thought of them piercing your thin flesh. What if they punctured your jugular and you bled out to death? What if he had just been playing with his food this entire time, instilling a false hope of survival in you just to watch with murderous glee as you realized you were meant to die the entire time as he drained the life out of you? 

And then what? The void of inevitable nothingness? The abyss of the afterlife? You were spiraling now, you could feel it in the way your chest constricted and your breaths came out in panicked, short huffs. 

A soft, wet, stroke against your throat pulled you from your frightening thoughts. As your vision cleared you realized that he had settled back into the juncture of your neck and shoulder, his tongue gently and steadily lapping at your skin. Despite your embarrassment, you could feel your body slowly relaxing and melting against him. It felt like you were being shot up with a tranquilizer, your muscles going weak from his ministrations as the skin of your neck went numb.  

And within seconds his fangs were sinking through your flesh, easy and smooth. You jolted in response, a cry of pain leaving you as your fingers curled into the silk of his shirt while your body subconsciously leaned away, trying to escape the sudden painful stimulus. 

In response, you could feel Jin’s arms tighten around your back and harshly pull you flat against his chest with an animalistic growl, one that immediately paralyzed you with fear. 

The vampire beneath you was enraptured, completely lost in the feeding frenzy as rivers of blood flowed freely past his plump lips and poured down his throat. Your scent had been seductive, but your taste? It was better than any wine, better than ambrosia and nectar, it was addictive. So addictive he was unsure if he would be able to stop but at the same time aware he could not kill you because the rest of his immortal existence would be utter hell if he were unable to get another hit. 

Kim Seokjin had a refined palette and high standards and few people met his expectations. But you? You were complete and utter perfection. And he deserved perfection. 

His grip was too hard, unrelenting, crushing you against him. You wouldn’t be surprised if he cracked your spine by accident. It was like he was afraid to release you, afraid that there was a chance you would be able to escape him, the apex predator. 

But these thoughts were all uselessly whimpered in the back of your mind because the rest of your brain was completely flooded with euphoria. You had never felt so warm and tingly despite his cool hands in your entire life. It was almost like an out-of-body experience, the only thing keeping you grounded in existence was his tight hold. And there were other feelings as well, feelings you would have been ashamed of had your inhibitions not completely disappeared. Feelings that had your thighs clenching on either side of his waist, your heart beating pathetically fast, your pupils dilating, and your limp body helplessly rocking against him with his hands guiding and encouraging you. 

This was completely out of character for you. You didn’t climb into random men's laps and writhe against them eagerly like you were in heat. That had never been who you were, but the position you were in now clearly said otherwise. 

You were growing lightheaded, not only from arousal and euphoria but from blood loss as well. You weakly pushed at his chest, your innate desire to survive prevailing over the pleasure that had relaxed your muscles. 

“Jin, please,” You whimpered, struggling to speak. 

The vampire didn’t respond or relent, his arms still wrapped around you like a vice. In desperation you wound your arms around his neck, your fingers tangling into his hair and tugging at the roots. The pull certainly took him off guard, his fangs sliding free from your throat and his perfect lips parting to release a startled moan. 

His eyes were half-lidded but his red irises still burned brightly under the dim lighting, a perfect match for the blood that stained his lips and chin. He said nothing at that moment and from what very little you knew about him you could conclude that it was not often that he was at a loss for words. 

Warmth trickled down your neck, rivulets of blood still flowing freely now without him there to catch them and that seemed to snap him back to attention. He slowly leaned forward, maintaining eye contact with you until he was level with your throat once more, his tongue darting out to lick up the trails of blood before tracing over the puncture wounds he had left behind. 

Your hold on his shoulders did nothing to dissuade him, in fact, he quite enjoyed your weak attempts to keep him at an arm's length. Humans were so fragile, so weak, and he enjoyed that.  

“Relax,” He breathed, “We have a deal, remember? It would be a waste to drain you dry in one night.”

“And how do I know you don’t just like to play with your food?” You asked. 

“You don’t. You’ll just have to take my word for it, pet.” He smirked, tapping your chin with his finger. 

“You’re not going to kill me?”

“Let’s just say your sample was more than satisfactory, I have no reason to take back my word just yet.”

Yet. And yet, he was actually letting you go. 

“I’ll see to it that you make it home safely,” He began. But before he could finish speaking you were eagerly sliding off of his lap. 

His hands caught your waist easily, one holding you steady and the other firmly grasping your chin between his thumb and forefinger forcing you to look him in his eyes. 

“Remember, I call, you answer. As long as you abide by my rules we won’t have a problem.”

You nodded quickly, his words barely registering in your brain as your body took control. You would agree to anything that would keep you alive.

“Don’t disappoint me.” 

~~~~~~

Days had passed since that night at Blood Sugar, days where Jin had not tried to contact you, days that you spent isolated in your house - a wave of agoraphobia so strong that the thought of passing a threshold frightened you to the bone which was beyond ironic considering your situation. But those days also led to you trying to convince yourself it had all been a bad dream. 

If the encounter at Blood Sugar had in fact been real, you had little to show for it. The skin of your throat was smooth and untouched despite the fangs that you were certain had torn through it like paper. The only parting gift you had was the urge to sleep for days, a splitting headache, and a touch of soreness around your ribs where you were sure his arms had once restrained you. 

Pretending it hadn’t happened was easier on your mind. Your whole world had been turned upside down and the monsters you once thought to be the stuff of stories had been pulled from the shadows and abruptly thrust into the light. It was easier to pretend it was a dream. But you couldn’t shake those blood-red eyes from your memories nor the show of pure strength that had been demonstrated against Junghee - her once perfect face that was so easily disfigured by the elder vampire. 

You were afraid of death and the realization that it actually lurked at every eerie corner and you had sat in its lap like a contented house cat was enough to fry the connections in your brain. 

And you could only pretend for so long. You could only ignore reality for so long. 

It had been three weeks since you had seen him when he finally confirmed his existence in the form of a simple text. 

“Hungry, you know where to find me.” 

And that made your blood run cold. It was time to finally face reality, you had actually made a deal with a vampire and now he was cashing in on your promise. It was donate or die. 

And in an absolute panic, you made a terrible decision. You placed your phone face down and retreated beneath your blankets like a small child hiding from the boogeyman. 

Your phone did not cease to remind you that you had made a bad decision. The messages started sporadically - spread out throughout the hour. But Jin’s impatience grew as did the texts and calls. The eerie silence of your bedroom filled with a continuous buzzing as your phone continued to vibrate until you couldn’t take it anymore and without looking at a single message you shut down your phone. But that only brought temporary relief. 

You were begrudgingly pulled from the safety of your bed that day for an inspection your landlord had scheduled two days prior. There was no getting out of it and in your mind, it was a welcome distraction from the spiraling anxiety you felt when you thought about your powered-down phone. 

You had no way of knowing that their presence would only worsen the problem that you had created. 

You were generally a quiet person that kept to yourself around strangers, especially strangers that had a say in whether you continued living in your home or not. You practically stuck yourself to the walls as she inspected your home, and while your landlord was not necessarily a mean woman she wasn’t very chatty. You two got along in those regards. 

You were able to breathe when she gave you an awkward, tight-lipped smile, waved, and closed the door behind her. 

As soon as she was gone you rushed back into your bedroom and just barely pulled your curtains aside to peer out your window and watch her retreat. But when you did look out that window you felt your blood run cold. She was still there, standing on the walkway, and directly in front of her was him. It was twilight out, the sun still desperately trying to cling to a purple and ochre colored sky. It was safe for him to be out. He was giving her a charming smile, one that anyone would fall over at the sight of. You could see him laugh and then say a few words but you were too far away to make out what they were. And then to your utmost horror, she walked away and he made his way up the front steps. 

You were frozen, your muscles tense, and refused to move. You held your breath as you listened. There was no way that he could get in, you hadn’t given him permission. But all of your hope washed out of you when you heard the front door’s knob turn and the soft click of it leaving the frame. There were a few light steps and then the door shut once more. 

He was inside the house. 

You felt absolutely helpless as all you could do was wait for him to find you. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, you were cornered. 

It was only a matter of seconds before he did find you, a stern and angry expression clear on his face as he rounded the banister and the stairs and stood right outside the door frame of your room. His eyes were different now, they weren’t the vibrant red that you remembered. They were a deep burgundy now, almost black as they stared back at you with intensity. You couldn’t even make out the difference between his pupils and his irises. It was a bottomless, dark gaze. 

“How did you get in?” You asked, the words rushing out of you to your own surprise. 

One of his dark brows quirked, whether it was in surprise or irritation you did not know. 

“Elaine let me in,” He said with a stomach-turning grin. 

Your landlord. She technically owned the house, she could let him in even if you didn’t invite him. 

“I thought I made myself clear when we spoke, did I not?” He asked rhetorically, “I call, you answer, I feed, you keep your life. What part of that did your little human brain not comprehend?” 

“You called me?”

“Don’t play dumb with me.”

“My phone died-”

“Don’t make me repeat myself!” He snapped, his voice shockingly loud and incomposed. 

You flinched back against the wall as he finally entered your room only to stop dead in his tracks not more than five feet away. His eyes widened, his nostrils flared, and his fangs descended on instinct. 

The two of you stood there, both staring at each other and refusing to move, waiting for the other to act first. 

Jin was the one to break the stalemate. 

“You’re on your period.” 

Your eyes widened in embarrassment, warmth radiating beneath your skin in response. He could smell it, that was the only explanation and that was a mortifying thought that had you pressing your thighs together, tight and closed. 

He looked shaken, frazzled, and incredibly unlike himself. His rage was forgotten, his hunger controlling him. He was gripping the footboard of your bed, the skin of his knuckles stretched taut as he held onto it like he was keeping himself grounded. 

“I want a taste,” He said, staring you down without a single blink. 

It took you a moment to comprehend what he had just said, and as soon as you connected the dots you were anchoring yourself to the wall and vehemently shaking your head. 

“No, no way!” 

“Yes,”

“No! That’s messy and gross and I never agreed to do anything like that with you!

“I’m hungry,” He hissed, “And you expect me to just leave when you smell like fucking heaven?”

“Yes, because everything about this is crazy! I don’t know you, I never wanted to find you and now I’m stuck with you until you ultimately decide to kill me so I’m sorry that you’re hungry but it’s not even my problem in the first place!” 

That was the one upside to being on your period, the influx of hormones allowed you to become confrontational. 

“I’ll pay you double for a feed directly from the source,” He said with gritted teeth. 

Jin was never one to bargain, usually he would leave a deal with far more than the other party. But this was something he refused to pass up. Vampires, very often, had little to no inhibitions especially when it came to sex. Sex was often a co-occurrence with feeding, and menstruation was the epitome of that. He didn’t expect a pathetic little human like you to understand. You were fettered by mortal concepts that had forced you to believe you were to be a social pariah during that time, that it was “gross,” as you had said. Little did you know you were considered a delicacy in his world, ripe for the taking. And he knew how delicious you were when he fed from the vein, his mouth watered at the thought of what it would be like now. 

Your silence to his proposition only frustrated him even more. 

“Do you know how many people would die to be in your position right now? I’ve had women beg to be on their knees for me and I’m offering to pay you to do the opposite.”

You were sure that he was telling the truth because he certainly was the most breathtaking man you had ever seen in your entire life. But what confused you was why he didn’t just throw you down and do as he pleased. He was bigger than you, stronger than you, and far faster than you. If he wanted it as badly as he claimed, why was he bargaining with you? You could only assume it was the lingering effects of the era he had lived in. While he was an asshole, perhaps he took no joy in forcing himself on a woman in that manner.

And then there was the money. Rent wasn’t cheap, that was for sure. And not many people could say that they were paid to be pleasured. It wasn’t a terrible offer, and the last thing you wanted to do was displease a vampire that could kill you and had threatened to do so before.

Shit. 

“You wont hurt me?” You asked, your voice wavered. 

“Quite the opposite,” He smirked. He knew that he had won. 

A gasp of surprise parted your lips as he closed the distance between you, moving so fast that a gust of wind whipped up ruffling your hair and sending loose pages of paper tumbling from your desk. Your heart stuttered in fright, every minute you spent with him only served as a reminder of how dangerous he was. This arrangement you had with him was dangerous, you were toeing the line between life and death and that thought made your stomach turn in unease. He was a vampire, an apex predator, a creature that you had stopped believing in long ago, but also the undead embodiment of death. The very thing you feared the most. All it would take is one moment of frenzy, a lack of control and you would be left to bleed out in your sheets with no one to come and find your remains for weeks to pass. 

You didn’t want to die, but you knew he wouldn’t let you live. 

The touch of his cold fingers to your waist brought you back to him as he tugged you toward your bed, pressing you down onto the sheets before moving over you like an animal on the hunt. His eyes were pitch black, the veins beneath them prominent, and his fangs dangerously grazed his plump lips. He looked like a fallen angel, like Lucifer himself, the most beautiful outcast of them all. 

An involuntary cry of fright left you as he moved impossibly fast once more, his face now level with the side of your head, the tip of his nose just barely brushing over your cheek as he chuckled. Even his breath was frigid. 

“You’re nervous,” He hummed in delight, “Careful now, we wouldn’t want your heart to stop, would we?” 

He could feel the violent, rapid thumps of your heart where his chest was pressed against yours. It had been a long time since he had had a human like this, oftentimes he found it too annoying. They were fragile creatures and having to restrain himself was rather inconvenient, but he preferred his partners to be responsive when he had his way with them, unlike some of his kind who couldn’t care either way. Was it still necrophilia if both parties were technically dead? 

And while your heart was making itself known, you could feel nothing in response. His heart didn’t beat like yours, it had gone silent long ago and that thought only reminded you of just how wrong this entire thing was. He was dead, but you couldn’t wrap your mind around how he also seemed so very alive and while that scared you deeply, it also ignited a disturbing thought within you. But that thought was quickly halted when he noticed your lack of attention on him. 

He hated that your attention wasn’t on him. 

An annoyed growl rumbled in his throat as he moved back, quickly going down the length of your body and ripping your shorts down your legs, exposing you to the cold air. 

“Jin wait-” It felt as if all the air was sucked out of your lungs as he ignored you, plunging his face directly in between your thighs. 

He was unlike any of the partners you had had before. He did not take his time even though he evidently had plenty of it. He didn’t warm you up with gentle words, pleasing touches, or lingering kisses. Instead, he was absolutely ravenous. It was just like he said, he was hungry. But you, on the other hand, had not been prepared in the slightest for how sensitive you would be. 

You could only whine in discomfort as you tried to clench your thighs closed, one hand coming down to push at his shoulder. Your actions were completely useless, no matter how much force you could use it was like pushing against a concrete wall - he was immovable. 

You could feel him growl in annoyance which only sent a shock throughout your body, your hips twitching and your shoulder blades digging into the mattress. His fingers were harshly pressing against your thighs, forcing them open wider and hooking your legs over his shoulders so that he could get impossibly closer to you. 

“Too - too much!” You barely managed to get the words out, your body jolting from sharp bursts of pleasure. 

“Be a good pet and take it for me,” He crooned, parting from you for a mere moment to look up at you - his bright crimson eyes cutting through the darkness that had steadily filled the room. “I thought you said you would do anything to keep your life?”

You couldn’t explain the feeling that his words gave you, but the shame that lingered was recognizable. Shame that enduring pleasure to ensure your survival was an addictive cocktail of emotions. 

You couldn’t even form a response in time before he returned back to his feeding, his soft lips and firm tongue caressing you in a way that made you realize he was actively trying to make you feel good instead of solely focusing on gorging himself on your blood. You had no way of knowing that that just made the feed all the more enjoyable, the rush of hormones in your body only adding to the flavor. It was a flavor he already knew he was addicted to and while he was reluctant to admit it to himself, it was a flavor he could not live without. 

And with each feed there were more problems to come. While he knew his blood, saliva, and venom were incredibly intoxicating to your weakened human state - he underestimated the effect you would have on him. With all of the hormones his bite coaxed out of you there was one pesky one that affected him: oxytocin. It was a bonding hormone, one that fostered a relationship between feeder and donator which was why so many vampires rarely fed from the same human more than once typically preferring to drain the body dry and dump it anywhere to rot. 

He was willingly making himself vulnerable to you all in order to get another fix, another hit of your blood. And the worst part was, he didn’t mind. 

“Jin!” You cried. 

He was disgusted with himself, disgusted by the way his body shuddered and was aflame with tingles at the mere moan of his name rolling off of your lips. It was nothing special, countless others had done it before you, but he couldn’t understand why it was you. Why were you special? 

He could blame it on the damn hormone bond all he wanted, but this was only the second feed which meant, to his utmost horror, it was him. His interest in you, a human, was more than just superficial desire. 

Oh, how far he had fallen. 

He smelled your salty tears and he could even see the gleam of them as they rolled down the curves of your cheeks as your hips pitched forward, broken whimpers wracking your body that only served to drive him crazier. He could drown in you and it still wouldn’t be enough. 

And as soon as all of the tension within you snapped he was digging his fangs into the meat of your thigh, fresh, hot blood rushing over his tongue and down his throat. The blend was intoxicating for not only him but for you as well - the bite secreting venom that doubled the effects of all of his efforts that lit your brain and body on fire. You could become addicted to him just as easily as he was to you because that feeling, that feeling was indescribable and would never be able to be replicated by anyone but him. Just as he was chasing you for his fix, you could easily see yourself doing the same. 

When you came too, you were startled by the gentle touch of his tongue to the puncture wounds on your thigh. It soothed over the cuts rhythmically, urging the skin to sew itself back together again. And while he worked, he stared. Bright, crimson red eyes were trained on you. His gaze dark and dangerous. Your body that had once been limp and relaxed immediately tensed once more. The knowledge that a predator was nestled into your lap was enough to reignite fear in your chest. You feared that the slightest twitch or breath would signal for him to lunge again, but this time the outcome would not be so pleasurable for you. 

But Jin was a man of his word. You didn’t die that night and your bank account was fed in due course. 

This continued for the next six days. Whereas before it seemed like the vampire was able to abstain from feeding for as long as he wished, he had now become ensnared by a ravenous, bottomless hunger. And that was all the more frightening. But what was even more frightening was the way he began to change. 

He was still rude, cold, and dominating. But he had become ever present. His closeness could be described as suffocating. The only solitude you could find was in the daylight, but the minute the sun began to set he was back and hungrier than before. And after the…feeding, he would linger. He would touch you more often, his words still snarky but lacking their usual bite. It was like he was becoming comfortable around you. He was still insufferable, but undeniably comfortable. 

It was that comfortability that encouraged you to entertain that dark thought you had tried to smother before. Your ever present fear of death could easily be solved, the answer to your problem mere inches away from you. You understood the gravity of the situation, what it would mean to become something like him. But you couldn’t deny the truth that you could live with ending the lives of others if it meant you could sustain your own. You didn’t want to die, you couldn’t fathom dying, and you had an undead man at your disposal. If he was willing. 

It was after your seventh session together that you decided to finally ask him. His cherry red lips were pressed against your throat, swallowing every last drop of blood that slid down your skin. Your neck stung and your body thrummed with ecstasy, your fingers cupping the back of his head on reflex - moving without your permission. 

“Jin?” You asked. 

He hummed in response, visibly enthralled by the feed but letting you know he was listening anyway. 

“I want to be like you,” You whispered. 

A slick pop echoed in the room, his fangs pulled from your neck and retracted into his mouth, disappearing from sight. His eyes narrowed, his dark brows drawing together in confusion and distaste. 

“No,” He simply said, retreating to the foot of your bed. 

“Why not?” 

“Because you would be useless to me, that’s why. What good is a donor that’s dead?” He scoffed. 

You couldn’t deny the ache you felt in your chest, the sting that “useless” struck against your heart. 

“You’re…you’re going to grow tired of me eventually. I’ll get old, I won’t taste as good anymore. Then, I’ll be useless.”

“Oh, I plan to savor every last drop that you can offer. I won’t let you go to waste like that, you are mine after all.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean? You’ll just kill me before I go bad? Put me out of my misery before I can rot? I’m a fucking human being not a piece of meat!” You yelled, angrily standing up from your bed. 

You expected him to become enraged, to become violent. But if anything he was deathly calm, still, and silent. 

“Wouldn’t that be a kindness,” he stood from the bed, now towering over you, “To not have to grow older, to be in pain? To just stop here where you’re perfect, when you’re young and beautiful?” He said with a soft caress down your cheek. 

“But you could give me what I want,” You pleaded, “You would never have to see me again, I could go far away and I wouldn’t be your problem anymore.”

A frown pulled at his lips, frustration falling over his features, “It’s not as simple as that. You would be bound to me, there are rules about these things.” 

“Rules? Like laws, is there someone in charge of you?”

“Don’t bring that Twilight bullshit into this,” He hissed, running his hands through his hair in what appeared to be distress. 

“Then I don’t understand, why can’t you do this for me? I’ve done everything you’ve asked! I’ve given you everything you wanted so that I could stay alive! Why can’t you understand that I don’t want to die!”

“Because you don’t understand what you’re asking for!” He snapped. 

In that moment, he was brought back to that fateful day all those years ago. Yoongi had warned him, he had tried to stop him and he hadn’t listened. And now, he was being faced with a painful reminder of his naivety and arrogance when he stared back at you. Jin never regretted becoming a vampire. He never regretted his inability to grow old or the only way he was able to satiate his hunger. He enjoyed it. But if there was anything he didn’t enjoy, it was being under the control of someone else. 

“We would be connected for the rest of eternity. Anything I ask of you, you have to do. You can’t deny me even if you tried. And even if you ran, you would eventually come back whether you wanted to or not. I would be your sire, your creator, you couldn’t hurt me no matter how badly you want to. We would be stuck together, do you understand?” 

If there was anything he was afraid of, which he would never admit to, it would be having to rely on someone like that. It would be loving you, obsessively loving you like he felt the desire to creep over him. While he refused to admit it, all of those feeds had done their toll. He could feel the tugs of a weak bond forming between you - begging to be strengthened by a little of his own blood and a swift death. If you stayed human, he could save you from the fate he suffered through. And if he killed you, then no one else could have you. It was insane, but to him it was incredibly logical. 

You had been quiet for quite some time, your face pensive before you finally spoke. 

“That doesn’t sound all that different from our current arrangement.” 

“Ugh, you’re insufferable!” He yelled, grabbing the closest thing to him and flinging it across the room in a show of strength and anger. So this was what Yoongi felt like. 

“You’ve exhausted your usefulness to me,” He spat in rage, “Good luck defending yourself on your own.” 

And just like that, he was gone. The only remainder of his presence was the broken chair that lay in pieces on the ground and the huge dent in the plaster from where it had hit. 

You couldn’t stop the sudden wave of tears that poured down your face. That had been your only way to cheat death, and he wouldn’t give it to you after you had given him every piece of yourself that he had asked for. 

The silence was loud, your sniffles and your pounding heart painfully apparent. But what was even more apparent, was the sense of paranoia steadily creeping over you. 

What did you have to defend yourself from now that he was gone? 

~~~~~~~

Jin was starving. 

Even he was not so thick-headed that he couldn’t see what he was doing. He was throwing a temper tantrum. 

He had left you for a month now in what was supposed to be a break that would teach you a lesson. You weren’t allowed to make demands from him, you weren’t the one in control. But if there was anything he had learned from his pathetic plan, it was that you were very much in control. 

You had managed to burrow your way into his unwilling, stone cold heart. A feat that no one in his human and vampiric life had managed to do. The very thought itself made his stomach turn. He had never had to depend on anyone else, he never wanted commitment in that sense. Yet here he was yearning for you, a pathetic little hermit. His pathetic little hermit. 

He let out an audible groan, collapsing back against one of the velvet couches in the club. The blue and red lights flashed over his face, his stomach rumbled in pain. He had thought it would only take a week for you to break, just a few days before you apologized and begged for him to come back. But he had greatly underestimated you. 

It had been a month and he hadn’t fed. Everyone else paled in comparison, their blood sitting on his tongue like spoiled milk; he couldn’t even manage to swallow a drop. And that was completely his fault. This was why he was warned not to keep feeding from the same source. You were bonded now and he was suffering because of it. 

He had never felt so backed into a corner before. And the fact that it was all because of a human was just salt in the wound. He thought that time would sever the bond but in reality, distance had just made it grow stronger. 

Even now he was certain that he could smell your scent sifting through the hazy air, it’s tendrils beckoning him to come find you. 

It was the prick of his fangs against his lip and the sudden pool of saliva flooding his mouth that made him realize it was anything but a fantasy. You were there. A wave of satisfaction rolled over him, you had broken first in a stalemate that you were unaware of. He had won. But any excitement he felt about his win was quickly thwarted when he was reminded of the present danger. You, who smelled so heavenly, had once more crawled into a nest of vampires. 

He quickly lurched to his feet, cutting through the crowds of vampires and humans alike in order to find you. You were in the most dangerous spot in Briar Hills and he could not protect you. His abstinence had greatly weakened him, he could only hope that no one else would be aware of that. He was the eldest there and he was in charge, that should be enough to keep everyone else away from you. 

Well, all except one. 

You hadn’t even seen her coming, her or her “friends.” You had just barely managed to step foot inside the bunker before she was ripping you back outside, moving so quickly that your head was spinning and your neck burned with whiplash. 

You moaned in pain, one hand cradling the back of your neck while the other dug into the damp earth in an attempt to ground yourself from the violent pounding that vibrated all throughout your head. At first you were utterly dumbstruck, confused as to what exactly happened. But the swift kick of a pointy shoe to your ribs rolled you onto your back and allowed you to be faced with four pairs of glowing red eyes. 

The pain in your head was quickly overshadowed by the hot shooting pain in your ribs. Your spinning head could just barely register the loud crack that had sounded when you were kicked. What looked to be an effortless, swift strike from her was enough to break your ribs. 

“Hello sweetheart,” A familiar, sickeningly sweet voice crooned. 

It was her, that vampire from a month ago. The one that Jin had saved you from. 

Cold shocks ran through your body as you panted, grabbing your side as you tried to scoot away. 

“Ah, ah, ah,” She teased, grabbing you by your ankle and roughly pulling you back. Another sickening pop echoed through the night as a violent scream tore its way free from your throat. 

“Now, I’m not letting you get away from me so easily this time. You really pissed me off, and now you’re going to give me what I want.” 

You had no time to react and nowhere to run to. She and her friends descended on you like a pack of hungry vultures. They ripped at clothing and jostled you around like a toy they didn’t want to share. And all four of them dug into you. With Jin, there had been little to no pain. But this was the worst pain of your life. You could feel teeth digging into you, ruthlessly cutting through your flesh and ripping it apart. Hot, thick blood was pouring out of your wounds, drenching your skin and your clothes in an instant. 

There was nothing you could do but scream, cry, and shake. 

You were helpless and soon you were going to die. You had no doubt that they had every intention to bleed you dry. You felt like you were on the verge of passing out. Your greatest fear was suddenly becoming a reality and there was absolutely nothing that you could do about it. Death spared no one, especially you. 

And for a moment you thought that death really had come for you because the pain was suddenly wrenched away. 

You laid there, groaning in pain as you listened to what was happening. You could hear her low, sultry voice, the sounds of hits landing, and a deep, rumbling growl that shook you to your very core. It wasn’t death, but it was a close second. Jin had found you. 

You forced yourself to open your eyes and look, you struggled to turn your head but when you did your heart dropped. Half of her group collapsed, in various states of injury. But Jin was the worst. He was barely managing to stand and he looked so weak. His cheeks were gaunt compared to the last time you had seen him, the veins beneath his eyes prominent and exposed. But worse of all, he was coated in his own blood. It stuck to him like an oil spill, pouring from wounds that were trying to heal themselves albeit very slowly. He wasn’t going to make it out of this; he was too hurt, too weak, too hungry, and outnumbered. 

“I knew it,” Junghee giggled, her voice pitchy with murderous glee. “I could smell you all over her, you bonded with her!” 

Jin said nothing. He wobbled, his chest rose and fell rapidly with angered breaths. 

“Oh, how far you’ve fallen, Jin,” She sneered, “So high and mighty and look at you now. You’re no better than the rest of us - in fact you’re weaker than us! I’m so sick and tired of living under you and your rules, I think it’s time someone replaces that coven of yours. It’s time for a new jurisdiction.” 

“I’ll give you one chance to get on your knees and beg for forgiveness,” He said with a deathly calm voice. 

“I’m going to rip you apart and burn the pieces. And when I’m finished with you, I’m going to drain your little pet dry.” She said with a cocky grin. 

Jin hummed in response, his head slightly tilting back as he thought. His eyes seemed to glow even more intensely in the dark, a ring of light shining around his irises as he spoke. 

“That’s an interesting idea. Tear each other apart.” 

You stared in shock as they immediately obeyed his command. It was mind-control, he could compel individuals to do his bidding. How many times had he used it on you and you had gone on unaware of it? 

All four of them turned on one another, rushing at each other with abandon. It looked like they were marionettes, like someone else was controlling their limbs and forcing them to do as he commanded. You watched as the four of them attacked each other, clawing at their friends and prying their limbs from their bodies. The sounds were horrific. You could hear them screaming, crying, gurgling, and begging for it to end as they tortured one another. Black blood sprayed and stained their hands and faces as they ripped each other apart limb by limb. 

Your stomach rolled at the sight, your wounds flashed hot with pain, and your ribs and ankle throbbed in sympathy as they violently mutilated each other until they couldn’t reach one another anymore - their limbs dismembered and useless. 

You choked down the bile that threatened to escape your throat. They had tried to kill you, they were getting what they deserved. They were going to do the same to you and Jin.

Jin. 

You caught sight of the vampire a few feet away from you. He had fallen to the ground after he had issued the command. His body was unnervingly still, his skin ashen and the sickliest pallor you had ever seen. He was dying, you were sure of it. That was something you had thought to be impossible for his kind but here he was proving you wrong. It was possible, but hard to do. 

You felt a surge of adrenaline wash over you. You couldn’t let him die, he was your one chance to avoid that very same fate. You needed him just as much as he needed you. If you could help him then he would owe you. You could get the immortality that you were desperate for. 

You cried out in pain as you rolled onto your side and crawled to him. Each inch you moved felt like you were being stabbed along the way. Your body was crying in protest but you were on a mission. 

When you finally closed the distance between you, you could breathe a sigh of relief. He was hurt badly, but he was still “alive,” if not barely. 

You grabbed him by his shoulders and slowly, painfully, dragged him into your lap. Your body threatened to crumble beneath his weight as you guided his head to the open wound on your neck. This was a risk, a really big risk. You were hurt badly and you had already lost so much blood, but you were sure that he would be able to stop. 

“Come on, Jin,” You encouraged him, cupping the back of his head with your hand, “Come on drink, you need to drink.” 

You felt a cool puff of breath on your neck, his nose slightly skimming over your pulse as the scent of blood pulled him out of unconsciousness. And as soon as he was awake, his predatory instincts took control. He lunged forward, wrapping you up in a vice like grip as he dug his fangs into the already open wound. 

You hissed but held still, allowing him to get his fill. He was scarily inhuman at that moment. Jin had fed from you many times, but he had never been like this before. Silent, overbearing, and territorial. 

Your eyes began to flutter, they were feeling incredibly heavy and it was becoming hard to keep them open. You had lost too much blood, you were still losing too much blood. 

“Jin,” You croaked, “You need to stop.” 

He ignored you and continued drinking, only digging his fangs in harder to force more blood from your throat. 

“Jin please stop, please,” You cried, “You’re going to kill me!”

When you realized he wasn’t responding, that he was too enthralled by the feeding frenzy, you began to fight. You tugged at his hair, pushed at his shoulders, kicked at him with your good leg but it all was for nothing. 

He let out an animalistic growl, squeezing you tighter before roughly shoving you to the ground and pinning your wrists above your head. He groaned in delight as your fighting ceased, as your blood flowed more easily into his waiting mouth. 

You were fading fast, your visions steadily beginning to black out around the edges. He was going to kill you, and just like before there was nothing you could do about it. You were utterly helpless. 

Your own desires would be your downfall. Just like Icarus, you had flown too close to the sun. 

~~~~~~~

When Jin came to, he was confused. 

He couldn’t remember anything after he had ordered Junghee and her coven to dismember one another. But when he became aware, he quickly figured out what had happened. Their corpses were sprawled about, their limbs still occasionally twitching. 

And you were there, scarily still in his arms with the remnants of your blood on his lips. 

He didn’t expect a wave of grief to wash over him. He hadn’t felt that even when his own family died or when he watched them mourn the loss of a son that never truly perished. But the sight of you, your broken body limp in his arms was enough to force a choked sob out of him. It was painful, it was complete and utter despair. 

It was in that moment that he realized he did love you. In some horrific twist of fate, he loved you. He once thought that he would be able to kill you, then no one else could have you. But he didn’t anticipate the pain that it would cause him. 

A soft, weak flutter halted all grief he felt. It was your heart. Your little human heart was still trying to beat. You could still be saved. 

That was how he ended up here, with the only person he knew that could fix you. 

“So, this is what you’ve been doing with all your free time.” Namjoon hummed, checking over your vitals. 

Jin stayed quiet, nervously clenching and unclenching his fingers. At that moment, he understood what Yoongi went through. If he believed in karma, which he didn’t, he would have been able to appreciate it. This was what he deserved after what he put Yoongi and the fledgling through. But Jin was far more determined to keep you human than his “brother” ever was. 

But it was undeniable that he could finally understand him. He finally knew what Yoongi was trying to protect him from all those years ago. 

“Junghee really did a number on her. I’ve given her an awful lot of my blood to heal her wounds. It would just take one quick break, Jin. You said it yourself, this is what she wanted.” He mused. 

“She’s my pet, nothing more. She’s useless to me as one of us, I want to make her last as long as I can.” He said with a warning glare.

“It’s useless, you know, lying to me. I could smell it on you the second you came through the door. You bonded with her, she’s yours now. Do with her what you will, but she will join us soon. Whether it’s you or me, well that’s entirely up to her. But I have a feeling she would let any of us do it at this point.” 

“You wouldn’t-”

“Oh, but I would. Remember this, everything I do is for our family. You helped me with Yoongi, you understood then what I was trying to do. You can keep playing with her for a little longer, but she will join us. Don’t make me command you, Jin.” 

Jin’s back stiffened, that familiar tug in his brain was there. That feeling that he needed to fulfill his creator’s wishes. And so, he bought himself some time. 

“I don’t think it’s her you need to be worried about,” Jin said, that cocky edge to his voice back once more. 

“Oh really?” Namjoon asked, leaning forward in interest. 

“When was the last time you checked in on Hoseok?”

Namjoon’s brows furrowed in thought. Jin had got him, this was what he was good at - misdirection. 

“Hoseok too?” He mumbled to himself. “Don’t you find it odd that this is all happening now? Yoongi and the fledgling, you and your pet, Taehyung and the little human he keeps in his studio, and now Hoseok? How interesting.”

He knew about Taehyung? But he hadn’t said anything about Jimin or Jungkook. He didn’t know everything. He had two more bargaining chips to buy himself more time. 

“Watch over her, make sure she doesn’t hemorrhage. You’ve done a good thing, Jin. Thank you.” Namjoon said before briskly leaving the room - his office that now served as a hospital for you. 

He wasn’t so sure that he had done a good thing. He was paying for what he had done to Yoongi now, what would come to him next now that he sold out Hoseok. And what about Jungkook and Jimin, what would happen when he revealed their secrets as well. 

That was all he could think about as he waited for you to wake up. Namjoon’s blood was doing a thorough job. He was old and strong and because of that your body was mending itself incredibly quickly. 

The only thing he hated was that you smelled like him. It was Namjoon’s blood in your body and because of that you were practically emanating his scent. Your normal heavenly essence was murky in the haze of his creator’s and it would take some time for it to dissipate. He was going to have to live with it for the time being. For now, he needed to figure out how he was going to protect you from the fledgling and from Hoseok. One was hungry and the other was certainly going to be pissed with him. 

But if he could keep you like this for a little while longer it was worth it. 

Your heart monitor was starting to accelerate, the beeping became loud and frequent. You were awake. 

He slowly raised his head to look at you and he felt his stomach drop. You were giving him the thousand yard stare, your frail body tense on the mattress. You were utterly and completely frightened of him. 

Your name left his lips in a hushed whisper as he stood, moving closer to your bedside. You shrieked and huddled into the furthest corner that you could. 

“Stay away from me!” You yelled, crossing your arms over your chest in an attempt to block yourself off from him. 

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, his tone the softest it had ever been, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Let me go, I want to leave. I don’t want to see you ever again, I want to go home!” You were rambling now, every frightened word running out of you with a gasp. 

“You can’t leave, it’s too late now.” He said apologetically. He had never apologized before. 

“I want to leave!” You screamed again, “You tried to kill me! You said you wouldn’t but you did! You lied, you’re a fucking liar!” 

“I’m in control now, that’s never going to happen again I swear.”

“You’re a fucking liar!” You screamed again, your words trailing off with a broken sob. 

He had felt grief when he thought he had killed you, but now he was experiencing heartbreak. His first, genuine heartbreak. He thought seeing your lifeless body was bad, but this, this was somehow worse. 

He was suddenly overcome with the urge to comfort you, to hold you. And so he tried. The second he picked you up you began to writhe, screaming obscenities at him and clawing at his skin. You were trying to do anything you could to get away from him.

The last time he had held you like this, held you this close, he had tried to kill you. Your body and mind were completely in survival mode now and you needed to get away from him. 

But he wouldn’t let you budge. He pulled you into his chest and wrapped you in a tight embrace, pinning your arms in between the two of you so that you couldn’t hurt yourself while trying to hurt him. All you could do was scream and cry and writhe but eventually your body went lax when you realized it was pointless. There was no escape. 

Your brush with death had only made you more frightened of it. You had met that dark, empty void and the void had stared back at you. What some might have found to be peaceful, you had found to be terrifying. And, as a result, you were terrified of Jin. He had brought you to that void and your body was certain he would escort you back. 

“I’m sorry,” He finally said, the words not burning him like he once thought they would for the longest time. “I’m sorry.” 

You sniffled as you limply laid in his hold. You could feel the soft touch of his lips against your cheeks, collecting your tears as they brushed by in the lightest of kisses. 

“Never again,” He mumbled, “I promise.” 

You whimpered once more, the word liar echoing in your mind. 

“I’ll give you what you want, I swear. You’ll never be that close to death again, I’ll keep you safe. Just give me time.” 

You slightly perked in interest. What you want…what you want. He’ll give you what you want. You tilted your head up at the same time he went to kiss your forehead, only for him to gently kiss you instead. He froze for a moment, still as a statue as he processed what he had done before he did it again, and again, and again. It was like he had discovered a new insatiable hunger that he couldn’t settle no matter how many times he tried. 

“I love you,” He admitted so softly against your lips that you thought you had imagined it. 

He loved you. He was going to give you what you wanted. You had almost died. He was a liar. Your mind was reeling. 

“No one else can have you, not even death can take you away from me; because you’re mine, remember?” 

[transmutationisms]

serious question but do you personally believe there is a way to approach psychiatry in a way that uplifts and upholds patient autonomy and wellness or is the entire trade essentially fucked haha. Btw this is an ask coming from a 3rd year med student—with a background of severe mental illness—who is considering a residency in psychiatry after receiving life-saving care in high school pertaining to said conditions. (I have peers who have been involuntarily hospitalized and treated horribly in psych wards, with approaches i patently disagree with, but was lucky not to experience. I don’t like modern american medicine’s approach to mental illness; “throw pills” at it to “make it go away” ie. a problem of overprescribing, inadequate and non-holistic approach to mental health, and i feel a lot of that can be attributed to the capitalistic framework. I also def agree with you that so much of what can be considered normal human responses to traumatic events/normal human suffering can be unnecessarily pathologized—a great example being the whole “chemical imbalances in the brain is the ONLY reason why im like this” argument that ive unfortunately fallen hard for when i was younger and am still currently dismantling within myself…and like dont even get me started on this field’s history of demonizing POC, women, LGBT, etc). Like i deeply love my psych rotations so far, and i utterly feel in my gut that this is the manner in which i would like to help people—a lot of whom are just like me—but im wondering if there is a way to reconcile these aspects in a way that one can feel morally okay participating within such an imperfect system, in ur opinion… ngghhhhhh i just want to be a good doctor to my patients…

(ps i love all ur writing and analysis on succession!! big fan mwah <333)

i don't mean to sound unduly pissy at you, specifically, but i do have to say: every single time i've talked about antipsych or broader criticism of medicine on this website, i immediately get a wave of responses like this, from doctors/nurses/psychs/students of the above, asking me to, like, reassure them that they're not doing something immoral or un-communist or whatever by having or pursuing these jobs. and it's honestly frustrating. why is it that these conversations get re-framed around this particular line of inquiry and medical ego-soothing? why is it that when i say "the medical encounter is not structured to protect patient autonomy or well-being," so many people hear something more along the lines of "doctors are mean and i wish they were nicer"? why is it that it's impossible to discuss the philosophical and structural violence of academic and clinical medicine without it becoming a referendum on the individual morality of doctors?

i'm choosing to read you in good faith because i think it's possible to re-re-frame this line of questioning to demonstrate to you the sorts of critiques and inquiries i find more interesting and more conducive to patient autonomy and liberation. so, let me pick apart a few lines of this ask.

"is the entire trade essentially fucked?"

if you're thinking of trying to 'reform' the project of medical psychology within existing infrastructures and institutions, then yeah, it's fucked. if you're still assuming that affective distress can only be 'treated' within this medical apparatus (despite, again, no psychiatric dx satisfying any pathologist's understanding of a 'disease' ie an aberration from 'normal' physiological functioning) then you're not challenging the things that actually make psychiatry violent. you're simply fantasising about making the violence nicer.

"I don’t like modern american medicine’s approach to mental illness; “throw pills” at it to “make it go away” ie. a problem of overprescribing, inadequate and non-holistic approach to mental health, and i feel a lot of that can be attributed to the capitalistic framework."

i hate when i talk about psychotropic drugs being marketed to patients using lies like the chemical imbalance myth, and then pushed on patients—including through outright force—by psychiatrists, and the discussion gets re-framed as one about 'overprescribing'. my problem is not with people taking drugs. i am, in fact, so pro-drugs that i think even the ones administered in a clinical setting sometimes have value. my issue is with, again, the provision of misleading or outright false information, the use of force and coercion to put patients on such drugs in order to force social conformity and employability, and the general model of medicine and medical psychology that assumes patients ought to be passive recipients of medical enlightenment rather than active participants in their own treatment who are given the agency to decide when and how to engage with any form of curative or meliorative intervention.

'holistic' medicine and psychiatry do not solve this problem! they are not a paradigm shift because they continue to locate expertise and epistemological authority with the credentialed physician, and to position patients as too sick, stupid, or helpless to do anything but receive and comply with the medical interventions. there are certainly psychotropic drugs that are demonstrably more harmful than others (antipsychotics, for example), and some that are demonstrably prescribed to patients who do not benefit from them and are even harmed by them. conversely, there are certainly forms of intervention besides pharmaceuticals that people may find helpful. but my general critique here is aimed less at haggling over specific methods of intervention, and more at the ideological and philosophical tenets of medicine that cause any interventions to be imposed by force or coercion on patients, then framed as being 'for their own good'. were suffering people given the information and autonomy to actually choose whether and how to engage in any kind of intervention, some might still choose drugs! my position here is not one of moralising drugs, but making the act of taking them one that is freely chosen and available as an option without relying on physician determination of a patient's interests over their own assessment of their needs and wants.

"so much of what can be considered normal human responses to traumatic events/normal human suffering can be unnecessarily pathologized"

true, but don't misunderstand me as saying that drugs or any other form of intervention should be forcibly withheld from those who do want them and are made fully aware of what risks and harms seeking them could entail. again, this would still be an authoritarian model; my critique is aimed at increasing patient autonomy, not at creating equally authoritarian and empowered doctors who just have slightly different treatment philosophies.

"dont even get me started on this field’s history of demonizing POC, women, LGBT, etc"

ok, framing this as "demonisation" tells me that you're not understanding that, again, this is a systemic and structural critique. it is certainly true that a great many doctors currently are, and have historically have been, outright racist, trans/misogynist, ableist, and so on. framing this as a problem of a well-intentioned discipline being corrupted by some assholes is getting it backwards. medicine attracts prejudiced people, not to mention strengthens and promotes these prejudices in its entire training and practice infrastructures, because of its underlying philosophical orientation toward enforcing 'normality' as defined by 18th-century statistics and 19th-century human sciences that explicitly place white, cis, able-bodied european men as the normal ideal that everyone else is inferior to or failing to live up to. doctors who really nicely tell you that you're too fat are still using bmi charts that come from the statistical anthropometry of adolphe quételet and the flawed actuarial calculations of metlife insurance. doctors who really nicely deny you access to transition surgery are still operating under a paradigm that gives the practitioner authority over expressions and embodiments of gender. the issue isn't 'demonisation', it's that medicine and psychiatry explicitly attempt to render judgments about who and what is 'normal' and therefore socially 'healthy', and enforce those standards on patients. this is not a promotion of patient well-being, but of social conformity.

"i deeply love my psych rotations so far, and i utterly feel in my gut that this is the manner in which i would like to help people"

let me ask you a few questions. you say that you like your psych rotations... but how do your patients feel about them? is their autonomy protected? are they in treatment by free choice, and free to leave any time they wish? are they treated as human beings with full self-determination? if you witnessed a situation in which a patient was coerced or forced into a certain treatment, or in which you were not sure whether they were consenting with full knowledge or freedom, would you feel empowered to intervene? or would doing so threaten your career by exposing you to anger and retaliation from your higher-ups? what higher-ups will you be exposed to as a resident, and then as a practicing physician? could you practice in a way that committed fully, 100%, to patient autonomy if you were working at someone else's practice, or in a hospital or clinic? could you, according to current medical guidelines, even if you had your own practice?

when you say "this is the manner in which i would like to help people", what do you mean by "this"? can you define your philosophy of treatment, and the relationship and power dynamic you want to have with any future patients? is it one in which you hold authority over them and see yourself as determining what's in their 'best interests', even over their own expressed wishes? have you connected with patient advocates, psych survivors (other than your friends), and radical psychiatrists and anti-psychiatrists who may espouse heterodox treatment philosophies that you could consider? do you think such philosophies are sufficient for protecting patient autonomy and well-being, or are they still models that position the physician's judgment and authority over that of the patient?

"im wondering if there is a way to reconcile these aspects in a way that one can feel morally okay participating within such an imperfect system"

and here is the crux of the problem with this entire ask. you are wondering how to sleep at night, if you are participating in a career you find morally distasteful. where, though, do your patients enter into that equation? do you worry about how they sleep at night, after having interacted with a system of social violence that may very well have traumatised them under the guise of providing help? why does your own guilty conscience worry you more than violations of your patients' bodies, minds, and basic self-determination?

i can't tell you whether your career path is morally acceptable to you. i don't think this type of guilt or self-flagellation is fruitful and i don't think it helps protect patients. i don't, frankly, have a handy roadmap sitting around for creating a new system of medicine and health care that rests on patient autonomy. affective distress is real, and is not something we should have to bear alone or with the risk of having violence inflicted upon us. what you need to ask yourself is: how does the medical model and establishment serve people experiencing such distress? how does it perpetuate violence against them? and how do you see yourself countering, or perpetuating, such violence as someone operating within this discipline? what would it mean to be a 'good' actor within a violent system, if you do indeed believe that such a thing is ontologically possible?

[report-rqs]

Step-by-step: Let's report a radqueer for inciting violence

This is a tutorial on reporting. Don't find this user, don't contact them, don't harass them, etc - I am showing how you should report these posts instead. Content warnings: Radqueers, murder, torture

Here is our post in question:

"transtorturemurderer: a transharmful term for one who wishes to or identifies as having commited torture murder"

Archive the post.

Report the post to Tumblr.

Block the blog and everyone in the notes of the post.

Tutorial on each step is under the cut:

Archive The Post

When a radqueer advocates for violence, child abuse, animal abuse, abuse of a corpse or actual CSAM material, it's very important that you archive the post. Saving evidence of radqueers promoting harm is important, especially if this user later comes back after their account is removed.

(It is important to note that I am specifically saying "advocates for" as in in real life. If a radqueer coining post doesn't specify, it can be reported to Tumblr as IRL. I'm noting "IRL" here because so many people think that fictional child sexual abuse material (and similar things) are perfectly fine, although I would like to note that I do not support/endorse "fictional CSAM" and it is recognized as being equally harmful to IRL CSAM/CP by places like MissingKids.com (organizations dedicated to stopping child abuse). But I'm not dedicating this space to arguing about that - Do not derail this post by arguing with me about this. This is a tutorial for something specific.)

You have two main options for archiving:

Archive.Org

Archive.Today

I tend to use both archivers, but if you only want to use one I suggest Archive.Today. Open the main page and copy-paste the URL of the RQ post into the field. Press enter, and it will store an archived version of the post. (Sometimes this takes longer than other times, this is based on how many people are using the site at once.)

If you plan to do a lot of reporting, install the Firefox extensions for Archive.Today and Archive.Org, they let you archive your current page with one click.

If a page has been archived before, you get this message. If it looks like a post has been edited or there are new replies in the notes from radqueers encouraging it, I suggest archiving it again.

Now you've got your updated archived URL. Hold onto this URL.

Report Them To Tumblr

You'll need to view the post in dashboard view if they have a custom theme. Custom theme URLS go like blogname.tumblr.com, and dashboard view is tumblr.com/blogname/post122121212121212121.

Once in dashboard view, click the hamburger menu (the three dots), and you'll see the red option that says "Report blogname."

This takes you to a basic categories menu. Select "Report something else."

That takes you to a sub menu which lets you pick from the following options:

Copyright violation

Trademark violation

Harm to minors

Privacy violation

Impersonation or Non-Genuine Behavior

Suicide or self-harm concern

Hate speech violation

Suspected terrorism

Sexually explicit material

Gore, mutilation, or bestiality

Violent content or threat

I’m being harassed

Unlawful uses or content

Spam

Election Integrity

I bolded the options which radqueer posts will most likely fall into. For the post I'm reporting, I am selecting "Violent content or threat."

You'll enter Tumblr's permalink (the post url), enter a name, your email, solve a captcha and most importantly describe how it violates Tumblr's Community Guidelines. Since I'm reporting this for violence, let's go right to the Community Guidelines on Tumblr:

What Tumblr is not for: Violent Content and Threats, Gore and Mutilation. Don't post content which includes violent threats toward individuals or groups - this includes threats of theft, property damage, or financial harm. Don't post violent content or gore just to be shocking. Don't showcase the mutilation or torture of human beings, animals (including bestiality), or their remains. Don't post content that encourages or incites violence, or glorifies acts of violence or the perpetrators.

You can use the way a website's phrased their guidelines as a sort of base for writing your report. However, on Tumblr remember that it needs to be fairly short because there's a character limit. So, questions to answer:

Does this include violent threats towards a person or group? Is this a label/"pride flag" about committing violence against a person or group?

Does this encourage violence - is it telling people to commit acts of violence?

Is it glorifying acts of violence or their perpetrators?

In this example, this is a pride flag, which denotes pride, and it says "one who wishes to or identifies as having commited torture murder" That is reasonable enough cause to call this post glorifying violence. So, here's what I'm saying in my report: (Changed phrasing slightly from the screenshot above)

This user is posting "pride flags" for people who "identify as" and "wish to" into murderers and other violent perpetrators. In this post, they made a "transorturemurderer" pride flag, for people who wish to commit torture murder. This is very concerning, this blog seems to be completely serious. Please take this blog and other radqueer blogs down.

If a user has many posts right on their blog that violate the Community Guidelines, you can say something akin to "More examples: (Link)" and link to the archived post/s.

Once you're satisfied with your report, you can click submit and Tumblr will say "Got it" and let you know it was received.

Block the blog and everyone in the notes

If you still have the post open, quickly go through the notes and block everyone interacting positively. (Don't spend time looking at these blogs, it will likely be upsetting/disturbing)

Closing Notes

I could've phrased the part about removing other radqueer blogs better. My reason for adding that is that I want Tumblr to start becoming aware of what radqueers post. I believe firmly that once enough people report radqueers for their content, Tumblr might respond to future petitions or requests to ban all radqueer content.

Don't reply to radqueer posts. Don't reply to radqueer posts. This can be tempting, but I don't think it's a good idea. Even if you've got good intentions or make some great points, radqueers like to screenshot anti radqueer posts and post them as examples of "antis harassing them". Your post could even be shown to someone who is questioning being radqueer, grooming them into the community with a sort of "Look! See? All of those mean antis will never accept you, all they do is harass people for disagreements!" air.

I'm autistic and can't read tone well, and I also have OCD that makes me overexplain my intentions. If parts of this post were hard to read, please help me make them shorter.

Tagging some relevant blogs for visibility and critique on this post: @anti-radqueer-zone @radqueer-repellant @radq-blocklist @antiradqueer

[hyperfixationstation128]

I'm sure this has been said before, but I'm of the opinion that Gale didn't love Mystra. Not really, anyway.

"But, Hyper!" You cry, "He tells the player flat out that he was in love with her! What are you talking about?"

Well, allow me to shed a little light on what it is I mean.

It's pretty much unanimously agreed within the fandom that Gale is Autistic, which I find awesome. He's such a great source of representation for those of us who've been through similar experiences and relate to his personality. Those of us with Autism know the frustration of being portrayed as "the weird kid", "the manic pixie dream girl" or even as non-verbal people with a propensity towards violence with our meltdowns. Fun fact: not every person with Autism has "violent meltdowns", some of us go through what's called a shutdown, where we become non-verbal, secluded and kinda "stop working".

"Okay, okay, that's cool and all, but what do you mean by Gale didn't love Mystra?"

I applaud your enthusiasm and am going to explain now. As someone with Autism, someone who's been researching the topic for years, and someone with immediate family members who are on vastly different sides of the spectrum, I can say with about 95% confidence that Gale did not love Mystra... not for real, anyway. He had what is called "Limerence".

Well, why don't we turn to the internet to look up the definition of the word. "Limerence is a psychological state characterized by an intense, all-consuming romantic infatuation. It is an involuntary cognitive and emotional state in which an individual feels an overwhelming desire for another person, known as the “limerent object.” This state was first defined by psychologist Dorothy Tennov in the 1970s."

Now, the act of limerence is completely involuntary and could happen to anyone, neurodivergent or neurotypical! However, based on anecdotal evidence, it appears to affect women with Autism more than anyone else. When you experience limerence with someone, they become everything to you. You are completely obsessed with them, they can do no wrong in your eyes, they are everything to you.

Sound familiar? The way Gale describes how he viewed Mystra is unmistakably Limerence, at least in my opinion. And if you aren't convinced, allow me to be vulnerable for a minute and share a personal story on my experience with Limerence.

I was about 12 or 13 when I first met my friend, let's call her Tina. Now, Tina was that one girl in school who loved anime, played the violin, and made incredible art. From the first moment I met her, I was smitten. And this went far beyond a normal teenage crush. I was obsessed with her, her opinion, her tastes, her likes and dislikes. I was so in love (I thought) that once stole my late grandmother's wedding ring and gifted it to her. I devoted every breath in my body to her, every fiber of my being. We were friends for years and even dated for a while. In my mind, we were meant to be. We got along great, she was funny, silly, and so incredibly talented. What I didn't know - or maybe didn't want to believe - was she didn't feel the same way.

"But, Hyper! Isn't that just unrequited love?" No, dear reader... 'tis not. Limerence is not love, no matter how much you may want it to be; no matter how deep your feelings feel like they are. Limerence is an unhealthy obsession and there is typically very little one can do to sway oneself from their "object of desire". In the mind of the person with Limerence, there's nothing else in the world except the person they're obsessing over.

Now, there are three stages to Limerence: Infatuation, crystallization, and deterioration, which all seem pretty self-explanatory, but I'll explain further for those of you who don't know.

Infatuation: The first time you notice the other person's positive qualities. Their eyes, their smile, their abilities/talents.

Crystallization: The "obsessive" part of the act. Where you feel a heightened sense of anxiety, walking on eggshells to avoid any "turn-offs" around the other person. You may find yourself thinking about them to the point where it's affecting your normal, daily life.

Deterioration: When the intensity of your feelings begin to wane, and you no longer find yourself attracted to or wanting the attention of the person you were pursuing. In my experience, this is the worst part of Limerence as it usually blew up in my face.

Now, you may be thinking something along the lines of "Okay, but how does this relate to Gale?" or "Are you trying to imply that Gale was abusive towards Mystra? That's ridiculous and you suck!!!" and you're right. I do suck. But I'm not implying that Gale was abusive towards Mystra. Given the fact that she's a literal goddess, it's impossible for that to have happened. What I'm implying is that how Gale viewed Mystra for the time that he was with her was not genuine, true love like how he has with Tav.

This post got way longer than I originally anticipated and I'd love to write a full-length essay on this someday, but I feel I've assaulted y'all's brains with enough jargon for now. If you guy wanna hear more of my thoughts on this particular subject, I'd be more than happy to oblige.

Please feel free to keep the discussion going in the comments or your own post! I adore Gale and discussing things like these regarding his character and personality is my bread and damn butter.

[silenced-judgement]

‧₊˚ ☾. ⋅ ⋯ 𝙿𝚊𝚝𝚛𝚘𝚗 𝚍𝚎𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚎𝚜; 𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚊𝚝𝚘𝚜

  ・．⸻⸻˖⁺‧̟⭒₊☠︎︎🦋☠︎︎₊ ˖⁺‧̟⭒⸻⸻．・

‧₊˚ ☾. ⋅ ⋯ 𝙰𝚜𝚜𝚘𝚌𝚒𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜

┊┊✧

┊✦

✧ .

Identified with Mors (Roman), and Letum (Roman)

Greek God/Personification of Non-Violent Death and mortality

Known Symbols: Inverted Torch, Sword, Theta (θ), Wreath, Wings

Plants and Trees: Poppy and Cypress

Animals: Butterflies

Stones/Crystals: Onyx, Obsidian, Black Tourmaline, Amethyst

Incense: Frankincense, Myrrh, Cypress

Colors: Black, Silver, White, Purple

Death 13 Tarot card

‧₊˚ ☾. ⋅ ⋯ 𝙴𝚙𝚒𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚝𝚜

┊┊✧

┊✦

✧ .

Paean "Healer"

Makar "Blessed one"

Leukokhrotos "White-skinned"

Acherontis "Woeful"

‧₊˚ ☾. ⋅ ⋯ 𝙵𝚊𝚖𝚒𝚕𝚢

┊┊✧

┊✦

✧ .

Son of Nyx, Night Incarnate

Grandson of Primordial Chaos

Twin Brother of Hypnos, Sleep Incarnate

Brother of The Moirai (Fates), Charon, The Keres, Nemesis

‧₊˚ ☾. ⋅ ⋯ 𝙾𝚏𝚏𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜

┊┊✧

┊✦

✧ .

Common offerings include: Red wine, olive oil, water, honey, milk, fruit, poppy seeds, black tea, dark chocolate

Other than that, play around a bit with different types of offerings and figure out what he likes, I've only offered him dark chocolate which was also torture to myself since I enjoy it as well, but thankfully he was understanding that I mean no disrespect if I ended up eating it (which I did), though now I have two bags of dark chocolate I got for Easter just sitting in my room unopened.

  ・．⸻⸻˖⁺‧̟⭒₊☠︎︎🦋☠︎︎₊ ˖⁺‧̟⭒⸻⸻．・

The rest of this will be of my own personal experiences with interacting with Thanatos, everyone has their own experiences so yours is likely not going to be the same. I will also include some things I personally associate with him.

  ・．⸻⸻˖⁺‧̟⭒₊☠︎︎🦋☠︎︎₊ ˖⁺‧̟⭒⸻⸻．・

‧₊˚ ☾. ⋅ ⋯ 𝙲𝚘𝚗𝚗𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚊𝚝𝚘𝚜

┊┊✧

┊✦

✧ .

As soon as I had reached out to Thanatos through my Tarot he answered almost immediately, however as someone who had only done a reading once and correctly translated Hestia's message to a friend who was confused on what she was trying to say I am not good with any other Tarot spread as the friend had used a custom spread that was similar in layout to a Yes/No spread. The type of spread I use is the Yes/No spread, where you lay out five (5) cards with Major Arcana and even number Minor Arcana being for "yes" and the Suits and odd numbered Minor Arcana being "no". Personally I prefer this as it's easier for me to understand with my silly little Autistic brain.

The first thing I did after connecting with him through Tarot was actually ask him how he was doing, I don't know why I chose to ask him that, but I said "yes is for if you're doing good, and no is for if you aren't" and then placed out my cards. His answer to me was "No" with a hidden message within the cards in order to explain to me that something didn't go well that day and he was upset, to which I replied with an apology for the fact he was feeling upset and then I asked him if he'd like to just hangout and sit with me the rest of the day, his answer was a yes and as soon as he answered I began crying. I'm naturally sensitive to the presences of beings that aren't exactly within our plane of existence; such as ghosts, spirits, demons, and deities, it's just with everything else besides deities I get a shortness of breath but all presences give me that same sort of tingly feeling one might get when they look down from somewhere up high or are in an elevator and it's going up/down.

From that single interaction alone I've learned that Thanatos is a rather kind individual and enjoys interacting with others. I always thought he was more of a reserved and quiet individual as one may think Death to be, and while he is rather quiet he's far from reserved. The best way to explain him is someone who wants to be around others but can easily become a bit anxious if he feels as if he's making the person uncomfortable and depending on his mood he can become rather introverted. If you feel like he's possibly becoming anxious over something the first time interacting with you, especially if you're as sensitive as I am to the presence of other beings, the best thing to do is reassure him that it's alright and he doesn't have to limit his interactions with you. I had told him near the end of the day that from now on he can come and hangout whenever he wants without me getting his attention first, but he instantly became unsure and worried that he'd overwhelm me due to my sensitivity. Thankfully he calmed down after I explained to him that I'm not overwhelmed and explained my sensitivity to him.

I've only seen him twice in some dreams, the first time he had gotten lost in it (as my dreams are chaotic and I can't control them if they choose to shift to something else) after like 10-20 minutes into the dream, but from that first appearance, he chose to appear as a mix of how he really looks like and the design of the character Thanatos from the game Hades. Turns out, after asking him about it the next day, he had chosen to appear that way just to mess with me and to be funny. Second dream I remember nothing about other than the fact he was there looking normal. Third dream he wasn't there but at the end of it he did send some butterflies in order to say hello.

Normally, Thanatos doesn't need to try and reach out to me, he's done so once through a butterfly, a few days after our dog had passed away but that was just to say hi and for no other reason. I had also drawn the Death Tarot, which was reversed but there was no hidden message. He seems content enough to come and sit with me without me knowing or to watch over me, plus most the time I'm the one suddenly getting his attention by talking to him at random and he's fully aware that due to my Autism and ADHD I wont exactly go and grab my Tarot to talk to him and is content with just listening, dealing with me being extremely random, or, something he did yesterday (28th) and yesterday night (27th) was sit directly next to me on my bed and lean in extremely close just to stare at my laptop screen. I'm unsure if he was trying to comfort me after Hecate scared the fuck out of me with a spider because I was paranoid and refused to sleep at all even after coming to an agreement that no more spiders will be sent into my bedroom with Hecate.

Based on that interaction, I feel as if Thanatos can become rather protective over people he's taken a liking to, his presence itself being rather warm, comforting, sometimes it's enough to make me feel like crying because suddenly all my anxieties, everything is just gone and I feel as if I don't have to worry about anything. Sometimes I'm unsure if I'm smelling lavender or some other floral scent, or even chamomile, which sometimes makes me think he's literally gone and gotten into my teas. I believe at times he's also gone and woken up Hypnos some nights just in order to get me to sleep. While writing this, I've felt warmth against my ear, cheek, felt peaceful, I smell a familiar scent that smells floral of some sort, so another thing is that Thanatos also seems to be rather curious once he's gotten used to someone. Although, as I don't find many people talking about their interactions with him, and based on how he told me that no one had ever really offered to let him just hangout whenever he wants with them before, I have a feeling that a lot of this is actually Thanatos feeling as if he is free to just be himself and that he's in a safe place because when I interact with him I don't see him as Death itself or as a literal Greek God/Deity, instead I treat him as if he's just like anyone else, I don't reach out to him for advice or help, I reach out to him because I genuinely enjoy interacting with him and I'm one of those few people who aren't afraid of death or dying, at least, not the concept of dying, as I would never do anything that actually puts me at a risk of death out of fear of being forgotten and also because I want to enjoy life as much as I can before it comes naturally.

I've also had a natural affinity towards death and the concept of an afterlife and Gods of Death, so to me, Death is a friend and is my friend, which I believe is why Thanatos interacts differently with me.

‧₊˚ ☾. ⋅ ⋯ 𝙿𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚕 𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚘𝚌𝚒𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜

┊┊✧

┊✦

✧ .

Blue colored butterflies, specifically the Blue Morpho (for those who play Animal Crossing, it's the Emperor Butterfly, literally just learned it's actually called a Blue Morpho. Although the Ulysses Butterfly is also called an Emperor Butterfly or the Blue Emperor and is a swallowtail butterfly)

Red Spider Lilies (Japanese flowers associated with death)

That silly "guh-dong" sound that happens when you get a "Death Approaches" area in the game Hades.

White roses

  ・．⸻⸻˖⁺‧̟⭒₊☠︎︎🦋☠︎︎₊ ˖⁺‧̟⭒⸻⸻．・

[swp2023]

SWP Account

TW: transphobia, transmisogyny, SA, gaslighting/manipulation, general trotskyist bullshit

I first joined the SWP as a minor during the Honor Oak demos. When I attended one of the protests for the first time in May 2023, I knew fairly little about the British left and its intricacies. I joined at a time when I was incredibly vulnerable - I was an isolated trans teenager with a poor home and school life and few friends. I initially joined SUTR but was soon syphoned into the SWP and became a formal member around 1.5 months in. After four months I was lucky enough to meet people outside of the party, find my own systems of support, and start drifting away from them. At the beginning of October I formally left the party and rescinded my membership. I essentially speedran the process. I know that I am not the first to come forward about their experiences in the SWP, and that my account won’t be as horrific or traumatic as others’. But the more I sit with the memories of spending time in the SWP, the more frustrated and angry I become with how poorly I was treated, especially as a trans teenager. A while ago, I compiled a list of everything I could recall about being in the party and its impact on me, and I’m hoping sharing it will draw more awareness to the extent that the Socialist Workers Party hasn’t changed and actively poses a threat to young activists. 

Structural/Functional Problems

Most people are aware of the SWP’s overt focus on recruitment, but within the party it’s even worse than it looks from the outside. Recruitment processes target those new to activism, especially young women and queer people. On multiple occasions, SWP leaflets were purposefully plastered outside my secondary school and other schools in the area. Once you’re involved with the party in any capacity, there’s a lot of pressure to ensure you formally join - if you’re not a member, within a month you’ll have membership papers being shoved in your face constantly. The worst instance of this was when I attended Marxism over the summer while I was in quite a bad place. I ended up having a breakdown in a corner of SOAS, and someone walked up to me when I was visibly upset and somehow tried to use it as a recruitment opportunity. Although far from the worst of their faults, the recruitment means the party is incredibly stagnant and frankly, boring. The same meetings repeat over and over, the same discussions are held, conferences are repetitive and demos are attended only for the purposes of recruiting or selling papers. 

The general attitude towards other, non-SWP activists is extremely condescending and patronising, especially in both formal and informal discussions of anarchism and grassroots organising. I consistently heard anarchists being reduced to a violent, ineffective group of rag tag young un’s who don’t know what they’re doing. I think it must have been in their handbook to describe anarchism as “grabbing 15 of your mates and beating up fascists”, because I heard that exact phrasing used at least twice. The belief that the SWP’s unwritten values and structures are the only correct ones runs deeply, and since I was a teenager my age was often used to dismiss my actions as immature or naive. I was told I was being pretentious for wearing a mask at demos - I’d been doxxed before and was looking out for my safety but apparently this made me appear “hostile and unwelcoming”. 

I can’t emphasise enough how much everyone in the SWP is treated as disposable unless you work for them. They don’t care about arrestee support, accountability, or building safe environments. I was a trans teenager so I looked good for their party, but ultimately they couldn’t care less what I had to say and I was often shut down or told my ideas weren’t appropriate. The SWP consistently seizes the politics of individuals’ marginalised identities to create a more appealing facade, while also discarding the same individuals as soon as they are no longer politically convenient. 

Lack of Accountability

From the beginning, it was clear that there were zero helpful routes for complaints or conflict resolution. I asked multiple times at meetings what their explicit process was for dealing with internal issues, and at best I got an off-hand mention to the central committee. Mostly I was shut down right away and told it wasn’t the right time to ask - a better time never became apparent. There is zero transparency and it didn’t take me too long to realise that I had no faith in anyone in the party to protect me or listen to me if something went south. You’ll hear them talk about their “disputes committee”, which was established as a response to the Comrade Delta coverup, but despite all the time I spent in the party I still have no idea who’s in this committee, how to access it, or whether it’s ever successfully resolved a dispute. 

No one talks about the coverup. This isn’t too surprising but every time I tried to ask about it, I was met with the same awkward dismissal. It’s creepy how everyone who’s been in the party for a while feeds you the same “that was a long time ago and we’ve changed and learned from it” schtick. Even a month in the party would be enough to show you that this isn’t true. The process of covering up the reputational damage from Comrade Delta is very much still active and the more time you spend around them, the more subtly intrinsic it becomes to everything you do. I was walking with a paid member of the SWP and watched him slap an SWP “trans rights now” sticker over one that read “the SWP protects rapists in their party”. No organisation that’s suitably addressed its failures should feel so threatened by the reminder of them. 

More widely, there are never any internal criticisms of the party. When I was in, I was in deep. I went to their weekly meetings, their organising meetings, their conferences - I went to fucking marxism. Not once did I hear a natural critique arise, there’s a complete lack of self awareness. It isn’t an environment where you’d feel comfortable expressing criticisms, and this has led to an echo chamber of sorts in which many members are incapable of conceiving themselves or the party as imperfect. It’s a dangerous amount of self-assuredness and this attitude allows for a culture of racism and bigotry to underlie the party’s supposedly anti-racist fronts - microaggressions don’t get called out, racism gets excused especially in the predominantly white spaces. There aren’t any attempts to actually foster anti-racist mindsets or incorporate it into how they organise, it’s largely just for external presentation and again, recruitment. 

Any issues that do get brought up are met with absurd amounts of gaslighting and guilt tripping. The party runs on guilt and censorship. If you ask too many questions people start acting cold or frame your comment as needlessly confrontational. Even now, I still struggle to process a lot of what happened because I was constantly told it was normal, that I was overreacting, that because I was relatively new to activism I didn’t know what I was talking about. 

Transphobia and Transmisogyny

As I’ve mentioned, my main involvement in the party was based around my identity as a trans youth, but there was very little regard for my safety as it pertained to this. For instance, without any warning a parcel was sent to my house with my chosen name on it. This put me in a bad situation because my parents hated the thought of me going by another name, I had to lie and endure my home life temporarily getting much worse. When I brought it up with someone I trusted in the SWP, it was dismissed without so much as an apology for putting me in a dangerous situation. I spoke to another trans ex-member about this and they told me about going through the exact same thing a few years back - the SWP doesn’t learn or change. 

There is consistent, blatant transphobia in the party. There were too many occurrences to list out here, but it’s so profoundly endemic to the party that I spent a considerable amount of time feeling uncomfortable and objectified. I had someone tell me they wouldn’t use they/them pronouns because “it’s too hard”. I was constantly misgendered, and although it was sometimes a careless mistake it was often very clearly intentionally weaponised. Almost every time it happened there was someone in the room who knew me well enough to know what my pronouns were and correct the mistake, but that never happened. No one stood up for me. 

There’s explicit transmisogyny. In addition to being generally misgendered and sexualised, trans women are often referred to with they/them pronouns and as a “person”. There was a trans woman quite deeply involved with the party who I spoke with a few times, she often got dismissed when she contributed at conferences and one time, a cis dude fully stood up and started talking over her while the chair of the meeting allowed it to happen. 

Contrary to what the SWP would have you believe, there just aren’t many trans people in the party. Certainly not a proportionate amount when compared to the wider left, which isn’t surprising once you’ve experienced being trans in there - there aren’t any attempts to make you feel any less isolated, ostracised, or used. There are, however, plenty of cis people who think that just because they’ve attended a trans demo or two they know more about the experiences of trans people than we do. 

I want to note that all the transphobia I experienced and witnessed took place while London branches of the SWP were spending their time at HO trans rights demos, handing out their placards, using it for recruitment, and taking credit for the work that was mainly being done by grassroots activists. Transphobia is just one example of how hollow their ideals are. 

Non-Existent Consent Culture

When I was sitting in a conference at SOAS, a man I didn’t know sat next to me and ran his hand down my back while we were talking, and then repeatedly tried to scoot closer to me when I moved away. 

A different time, someone tried to get me to sit close enough to them so that our legs were touching. 

Both of these incidents were extremely creepy and uncomfortable, and just to be clear: I was visibly/openly a minor during both. 

In general, physical contact is heavily normalised and sort of expected. There was always an expectation that you’d hug people, that you were okay with being patted on the back or having an arm around your shoulders or whatever. I always felt uncomfortable with this and although some people were fine with it and people’s intentions weren’t always harmful, there’s just generally zero consent culture and most times I wouldn’t have felt comfortable saying no. 

When I was in a transition phase of technically still being in the SWP but trying to spend as little time around them as possible, one of them came up to me at a demo (where, for the record, I’d just been through quite a traumatic incident - not that it should have to matter) and tried to pull me in for a hug without asking. When I flinched away without saying anything other than “hi”, she later commented to a comrade that I was being rude. The persistent entitlement to my body and my consent was disgusting. 

Exit Process

When I started spending less time with the SWP and more time with anarchists and antifascists, they were semi-aware of it so I got lots of calls and messages purporting to be “checking in”, but the undertone was very much “why aren’t you standing with us at demos anymore”. No one ever checked in on me when I was properly in the party. One of the calls was particularly lengthy and pretty much summed up to “we feel like you’re drifting away, we really miss you and you’re our comrade” - more guilt tripping. The feeling that I was trapped because I was constantly being contacted and approached at demos was bad enough to make me actively suicidal. 

The final breaking point for me was a conversation that happened in the South London SWP group chat that had reached an intolerable level of censorship. Someone, very politely, complained about how the branch had made a commitment to doing hybrid meetings but consistently struggled to actually have working tech/mics/etc. They also suggested a possible solution. They got shut down with a curt “our main focus has to be in the room rather than on our phones”, a comment that rightfully got called out as being explicitly ableist, especially since the following messages implied that attending online was insufficient or lazy. This conversation was concerning enough, but the original person then got told they “sounded harsh” (they didn’t - I’ve seen more lively conversations in my extended family’s whatsapp group), and was explicitly told to delete their message. I finally had a good answer to what happens when you criticise anything the SWP does, and this was a fairly mild criticism too. 

Then, a comrade I know very gently expressed their support for the original person - literally just said that they agreed with them and didn’t think they were being harsh. This comrade (also a teen) got two separate DMs telling them that they “misunderstood” what was happening and to delete their message as well. The hierarchies and power structures within the SWP are so obviously corrupt, and this whole incident just made that much more clear to me. 

I sent a final message on this chat, calling out the patterns of behaviour I’d noticed and advising people to do what I had - take a step back and look at who actually gets listened to in the party, at the corruption that’s so deeply rooted in it. Then I left that chat. The next day I was removed from every SWP-related chat I was in - fine by me, I was done. I did get sent one DM telling me that I had misread the situation, was overreacting, etc. It was incredibly infantilizing and blamed the fact that I’d been associating with other people as the reason I’d formed these opinions - clearly the SWP was reliant on my isolation. 

I was out of the chats but I did get the aforementioned comrade to update me on the aftermath, which was mostly damage control. The upcoming conference got plugged, people talked shit about me for being immature and overreacting. I’ve got screenshots of this incident in particular but I honestly don’t think they’re too worth sharing. I firmly believe that painting the bigger picture of the party and how and why it operates like this is much more important. 

I’d say I made it very clear that I wanted nothing more to do with the SWP and its members, but to this day I still have issues with them at demos. I’ve had people come up to me and try to touch me in various ways - hugs, back pats, etc - that I’ve expressed I’m uncomfortable with. There’s someone who winks at me. The general attitude towards me seems to be either glaring me down when I walk by (I don’t mind this honestly), or being overly nice as if I hadn’t been groomed into their cult (this is considerably worse).

I think this summarises it pretty well. It’s not everything - some stuff is hard to talk about, some would involve revealing info about me that I need to be private, and honestly my brain has defensively blocked out a lot of the time I spent around the SWP, so I’m still remembering stuff out of the blue. But please listen to me, listen to everyone else who’s been through their pipeline and made it out the other end. They aren’t just an annoyance with boring placards, they hurt people. They prey on young queers and women and don’t actually give a shit about anyone. Kick them out of your demos, kick them out of your circles, and also - try to get people out! I owe my life to the anarchists who were like “hey, we see you’re in there and you probably don’t want to be - you can hang out with us”. Most of the people the SWP recruits are sucked in before they have a chance to form other networks, and it’s hard as fuck to leave a party when all your activism takes place within it and you’ve got nowhere else to go. The Socialist Workers Party is broken beyond repair and needs to be dissolved, and I would encourage its current membership to resign. Thanks for reading. 

[theresattrpgforthat]

How about any TTRPGs set underwater that aren't horror themed?

THEME: Underwater Games.

Hello friend! I am so sorry that your asks got eaten - I'm glad to have them back! (It looks like Tabletop Trick or Treat unearthed a few gems.)

Now, let's see what kind of underwater games I can fish up for you!

Deepwater Enclaves, by kiryas.

Just plain old air pollution? A failed weather control experiment? Or more sinister forces? Nobody will know for sure why earth cooled below a dark mantle of clouds in the 1980s. Agriculture could not adapt fast enough and when conventional battles for the few remaining natural resources close to the equatorial line erupted into full-scale nuclear war, humanity was on the brink of extinction. Less than five hundred thousand mostly malnourished, freezing humans were left, when the year 2000 began.

This game is about venturing from a safe Community into the unknown. At the core are taking risks for your loved ones; sometimes this is at odds with your individual motives.

Deepwater Enclaves is a Rooted in Trophy game that contains a number of roll tables with evocative choices, and a community creation that involves the entire table. As players, you play both your character and a member of the community who is important to someone else. You play through a series of scenes, structured in a similar way to the way you might set up a scene in a tv show.

To participate in a scene, if you are not one of the original characters set to play a role, other players must spend a token. These tokens are also used to affect outcomes from when you roll, as well as reduce risks that may pop up as you play. You need two different colours or shades of d6’s for this: one colour will represent regular dice, while the other will represent “dark” dice, which raise the stakes whenever you roll with them.

Overall, I think this game is about exploration and survival. I think it has the potential to be a horror game if you want it to be, but you can also alter the tone to redirect the story towards something more dramatic, perhaps centring the game more on your community, and awarding the players with enough tokens to give them the ability to pull themselves out of danger.

Carcinauts!, by Hessan Yongdi.

Carcinauts! is inspired by a famous British children's animated TV show that takes place in and around the sea. You play animal explorers, scientists, and rescuers. Joined by your many friends and helpers, you seek to learn more about our fascinating oceans. Make the world a better place for the animals who live in and around the Great Blue Sea!

Based on the prolific Dominus system created by members of the Brazilian RPG community, Carcinauts! is designed to allow for quick play without a game master. This makes it idea for a solo session in the Sea or a team adventure, using the tables to build out your story. Its simple rules based around d6s and largely non-violent topic materials also make this game child-friendly.

Carcinauts is a two-page game that feels a little bit like a kid’s show; you are all underwater animal explorers, going on missions and solving problems. The resolution of the game is called the Dilemma oracle, and is fairly simple. You must determine two possible outcomes or answers, and then roll 1d6. On a 1-3 the first option is true, on a 4-6 a second option is true. These outcomes need not necessarily be “success” and “failure” either. They could be “left” and :right”, “up” and “down”, or “true” and “false”. This resolution system also makes the game friendly to solo gamers or GM-less tables.

If you want a light-hearted game about underwater explorers, which generates a lot of story ideas for you, maybe check out Carcinauts.

Deep Love, by Bully Pulpit Games.

You’ve come to this paradise to drop a two-and-a-half ton iron ball off the side of a ship and lower it almost a kilometer into the abyss. 

You’ve come to crawl inside that iron ball and go down with it, to see what there is to see down there. 

You’ve come with three other brilliant adventurers, friends, and lovers, and you’ll all get a chance to descend and risk your lives in exchange for seeing things no human being has ever seen.  And maybe, in the inky darkness and cold silence, you’ll find a measure of happiness and fulfillment.

Deep Love has a fond appreciation for old naturalist drawings of various fish, and uses those drawings as the art for the game. You play four characters, possibly pre-generated, on an expedition to the deep waters of an island for a geographic expedition. You all have feelings for each-other, and you’ll have to spend some extended time in a bathysphere to sort this out.

This game looks like it’s equal parts emotional conversation & role play, and, on the other hand, discovering the wonder of the ocean. According to the designer, it looks like you can modify how much you want to experience the former, and how much you want to experience the latter. If you want a game that gives you the tools to explore both your character’s internal emotional landscape as well as the strange underwater world around them, you might like Deep Love.

Submerged, by Arcane Atlas Games.

SUBMERGED is a solo journalling game of undersea exploration.

In this game, you take on the role of a daring explorer aboard a submersible. You have been charged with venturing into the depths of the ocean, to find something wondrous and undiscovered, hidden deep below the waves.

This one is for the solo gamers! It’s based on Carta, which uses a deck of cards to explore a map or series of locations. The player draws a number of cards and lays them face-down in a grid. Each turn, you move to a new card, flip it over, and come up with a journal entry based on the prompt the card gives you. The four suits represent four elements of the game: the Lost City, The Creature, the Wreckage, and the Signal. All of these elements play into the themes of mystery and exploration that this game seems to be about, but I don’t think any of it is necessarily horror-focused.

24XX The Deep, by Chaosmeister.

ONE DAY THE OCEANS DROWNED THE WORLD. Humanity survived below the waves. The sea birthed leviathans. Your crew owns a dingy old sub. Odd jobs, salvage, leviathan hunting and a few merc gigs keep you afloat and breathing.

24XX The Deep is a game about underwater survival and it’s also a drama. As a 24XX game, it’s only a few pages, but those pages distill the necessary parts of the game into a few things: customization for your submarine (aesthetic and mechanic), character options, and roll tables for pieces of the world, such as the factions that your crew might have to work with or work against.

The designer for this game says that 24XX The Deep isn’t necessarily meant to be a horror game, but it can still be a little creepy in tone when you consider the ways the natural underwater environment can raise the stakes for your players.

Aqua Squad, by Em.

A Tunnel Goons hack of aquatic and aquatic-adjacent adventure, created for the Saturday Morning Cartoon Jam. 

I think this might be a fairly safe bet considering it was submitted to something called the Saturday Morning Cartoon Jam! As a Tunnel Goons hack, this game is fairly simple. You follow the Submarine crew of the Cuttlefish, as they go for adventures underwater. Players pick character types, which kind of act like characters on a tv show, and fill in a few pieces of information to make those characters fit their play style.

The resolution mechanic involves rolling 2d6 and adding a relevant ability, and adding +1 for any relevant item you might have with you. You must meet or beat the difficulty score to succeed. You start with 3 items, and 10 HP. There isn’t much in terms of GM tools for adventure generation however, other than what appears to be episode title names. These titles can be evocative: you roll two words and put them together, so the GM may have an interesting time designing a “ghostly volcano” for the squad to investigate, or trying to figure out what the title “Vacation Megalodon” might mean.

Signals From The Deep, by Aaron Goss.

SIGNALS FROM THE DEEP is a tense, ocean-floor setting and scenario made using a no dice, no masters roleplaying game system Tiny Tokens.

This scenario takes you and the rest of your old, sentient, deep sea research robot team SEA-4 on a shared voyage, exploring deep sea wonders as you seek out the source of a anomalous signal detected way down at the bottom of the ocean. What awaits you in the depths?

Signals in the Deep is a mystery game, but it’s not necessarily a horror one. The game is small, meant to fit on two double-sized poker-card-sized cards. It’s easy to pick up and carry, and doesn’t have too many rules. Your core goal is to figure out the source of the signal; but what exactly that source is will be up to the GM, at least from what I can see.

Also Check Out…

Octopus Shipwreck Explorer, by SassWrites.

Bones Deep, by Technical Grimoire Games.

Odyssey Aquatica, by Old Dog Games.

My Mermaids TTRPG Recommendations.

The Sea Calls Recommendation Post.

My Coral Recommendation Post from last week.

[nanomooselet]

Little but Fierce

Now, I might be mistaken, but judging by the number of bare pectoral muscles strewn over my dash at any given moment, I'm gonna say Wolfwood is pretty popular? And that's understandable (he's a loser <3) but it's a genuinely terrible shame that Meryl gets overlooked. Especially in Stampede. Orange have done some really amazingly cool things with Meryl.

And it makes me a little nervous to say so, but I think they only could have done them by detaching her from Milly, at least for a time. Milly's still going to show up and I'm confident from this precedent they'll treat her well, so I'm at peace with her absence for now.

Nightow is unexpectedly good in many ways. He treats sex workers as human, which is a low bar that many nevertheless fail to clear, and my only serious disappointment in Maximum was in how the girls vanished for long periods. I recall an interview where he said something to the effect of being reluctant to put them in harm's way, and while I'm disinclined to take anything Nightow says entirely at face value (I don't think he's a liar, but I do think he has a sense of humour that inclines him to kindly trolling, which I respect), that would line up, I think.

I think Orange are taking the opportunity to remedy this disappointment.

It's exciting. It's the kind of writing for female characters in genre media I've always craved. I will not be silenced on how extremely gay I am for Meryl Stryfe.

Unfortunately that means for this first entry, I'll have to talk about Knives. (Whom I also love, but not in a gay way. More an affectionate revulsion. He's fascinatingly horrible, this man.)

So. I've noticed a distressing tendency for Knives's... really almost anything that ever comes out of his mouth (seriously) to be taken as the honest, objective truth. After all, they didn't call him a villain.

And what an honest face he has!

As Knives has it:

Vash is pretty, but he's useless without his brother. He's a powerless, weak, pathetically naïve, blubberingly sentimental little baby who doesn't care about the Plants, too busy enabling humanity's abuse via performing his cringing, grasping abasement before them to notice how his brethren suffer. Knives himself is the more powerful (and much less human-like) of the twins; the strongest and most righteous activist for necessary change now that, sadly despite all good faith attempts at communication, non-violent solutions have failed. He truly has only the best and most altruistic intentions: the freedom of his people, and the happiness of his brother.

Here's the problem. This has always been the problem. Every one of the statements in the paragraph above is false. Except the one about Vash being pretty.

Once more with feeling: They are completely untrue. They are supported by literally nothing. All we have is his word that they're true and there's so much existing evidence to disprove his claims that even the thought of compiling it exhausts me.

However, I did say that Zazie is a truth-teller in this story, didn't I? So let's examine some of Zazie's conclusions.

Now, I've seen reference to the surviving human communities on No Man's Land as "colonisers", and that their treatment of the Plants even before the Fall is analogous to slavery. (My strong suspicion is that Knives is purposefully invoking those comparisons, in fact.) Those are both extremely loaded analogies, culturally and emotionally, and I just want to gently, respectfully caution those who make them against overlooking the more nuanced and purposeful analogies being made. Or maybe should I say, the actual individuals to whom they apply.

Zazie is very careful to say this: Knives told them humans can't be trusted to learn from consuming their home planet. Knives was the one who said humans will have Zazie's planet next, and that only Knives will "use" the Plants correctly - so Zazie should ally with Knives.

Here's what Knives meant by "using the Plants correctly":

I, uh, think Zazie may have made the wrong call on this one! And that Zazie thinks the same.

This is what makes the interaction with Wolfwood so funny and sad - the all-knowing, ostensibly unkillable Zazie is freaking the hell out, staggering under the weight of realising just how apocalyptically badly they have fucked up. Wolfwood, who also directly instigated this disaster but under duress, is grimly amused - he did everything he did fulfilling the contract to protect the kids, even as his conviction failed, even though he would rather have died, even after Livio... and thus he personally rendered all his own efforts and sacrifices moot.

And he's just like, "Heh, yeah. That tracks." This poor boy.

Afterwards, Zazie is confused and even a little saddened that Vash was demonised in the wake of July's destruction. Never let it be said the bug fails to learn from experience: Vash is the one everyone blames? Ah, so he was in fact spectacularly heroic and clever and it's entirely Knives's fault it turned out so badly.

Also, crashing on this specific planet wasn't exactly humanity's choice. Guess whose choice it was.

Go on, guess. Better yet, guess why.

Yeah. It was also Knives who said to Zazie that both he and Vash crashed the ships... trying to stop us. From doing exactly what Knives tried to do the very instant he got the chance.

The thing is, Knives does everything he can to look like he's right by positioning himself as the most authoritative source, but he isn't ever backed up by like... facts. Or evidence. Or reality. Or anything. Ever. He crowned himself king of the Plants. He speaks and acts for them by divine right, apparently. He didn't take a vote or anything - in his mind it's self-evident only he understands the world, and Vash, and the correct way to use the Plants. Because remember that it's not using Plants he gives a damn about, even using them to death in the Last Run, as long it's him doing it. It's being dependent upon humans; he views providing for our basic survival needs as wasteful and inherently, exclusively parasitic, even if we're helping the Plants to survive in turn. Because it's humans that he's frightened of, and he wants the yucky things gone.

The thing is, when he's not being purposefully manipulative (though Vash is the only one he manipulates in person, probably because Vash is the only one he pays enough attention to for his tactics to be effective) he's being a dense fucking idiot. At very few points do his delusions intersect with reality.

The thing is, Knives is a known, proven, and entirely unrepentant liar. It's the logical extension of the way he gaslights Vash. He is in no way a trustworthy source of information.

All that he says is part of a heroic narrative about being the specialest boy evar that he came up with to avoid taking any blame or responsibility for the consequences of his actions. Knives considers himself perfect, but he's made plenty of mistakes, which I do think he would consider mistakes - among them Rem's death, alienating Vash, cutting off his arm and rendering him disabled, and what I suspect to be the large number of Plants killed in the Fall, along with the ones consumed by the Last Run in the desperation that followed.

So he tells himself... little stories. Inside his head. It's how he reconciles it. It's how he copes.

Basically, if you want to find any truth in anything Knives ever says, look closely at what he says, and believe the opposite.

Now, onto my girl and how completely fantastic she is.

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

Part VII

Part VIII

Part IX

[chaotic-orphan]

Whumptober No. 11

Seeing Double

Convenience Store // Loneliness // “Leave no trace behind, like you don't even exist.” (Taylor Swift, Illicit Affairs)

*~*~*~*~*

Whumpee stared blankly at the wall ahead of them. More specifically at the door of the basement, waiting for Whumper to return.

It was such a strange sensation; longing for the person who was torturing them to return so they wouldn’t have to feel this heavy, aching loneliness. This air-filled vacuum of nothing in their chest, in their bones, flooding them with absence. It chilled them to their core and left them wanting any semblance of human contact.

Even if that human contact was violent and terrifying.

Whumpee lifted their hands in front of their face. Their eyes acclimated to the darkness long ago, which meant they could see the thick, heavy cuffs locked around each wrist that was chained to the wall. It meant they could see the blood from their fingertips where Whumper pulled out their nails with a pliers for fun one day. The nail had only started to grow back recently.

It also meant they could see the spot of blood pooling around their bandage in their hand. Whumper would have to come down and change the bandage, right? Right?

Whumpee shuddered to remember how they got that wound. Whumper had come down in a particularly bright mood yesterday, or was it the day before? Time seemed to all meld into one continuous loop of moments in pain, without pain, recovering from pain. There were no seconds, minutes or hours for Whumpee anymore. Whumper had evolved that way of thinking long ago.

Whumper had clipped their cuffs together and unchained them, dragging them to their feet and over to an old school table. The ones that Whumpee had only seen in American television shows, where the table and chair are one unit. Whumper strapped Whumpee to the chair at the waist and then strapped their wrists down individually to the table.

“What— what are you doing today, sir?” Whumpee asked, voice hoarse, but not quiet enough to be able to hide their fear.

Whumper winked at Whumpee. “You’ll see.”

Whumpee watched as Whumper turned his back and walked to the cabinet that had all of Whumper’s favourite torture tools on hand to hurt Whumpee with. Whumpee tried in vain to pull their hands free from the leather straps locking them to the table. If they could get free… they’d still be too weak to escape Whumper. Whumper only fed them every once in a while. Enough to survive, but not enough to have energy to stay awake all day, nevermind escape.

Whumper came back with a hammer and a five inch nail. Whumpee realised that, looked down at the table, at their hands and back up to Whumper shaking their head.

“No, no. Sir, please! Please wait! Don’t, please.”

Whumper smiled his horrible smile. “Whumpee, come on. I learned today that apparently there’s a sliver of space between your nerves and bone in your hand and I want to try and make it through. It shouldn’t cause any harm, you shouldn’t need any physio after.”

“No, Whumper. Please. Not my hands.”

Whumper held up a finger. “Hand. Singular. I’ll do it on your non-dominant hand because I am so reasonable, how’s that?”

Whumpee wanted to protest. They wanted to cry and scream and call Whumper crazy, but a nail going through only one hand was actually a mercy for Whumper, one they weren’t about to spit back in his face.

“Whumpee.”

Whumpee winced at the tone, nodding like a bobblehead on a rickety road. “Yes sir. Thank y-you sir, that is so generous of you.”

Whumper smiled. “I know. Now, you’re a lefty right?”

Whumpee swallowed. “Y-yes sir.”

“Okay. Perfect. Now, just sit still and let me do all the work okay? And don’t tense cause then you could close up the hole and this won’t work.”

Whumpee nodded. They couldn’t suppress the violent shivers that tore through their body though, no matter how hard they tried. Whumper splayed Whumpee’s fingers and lined the nail up in the back of their hand, just down wind of the knuckles of Whumpee’s two middle fingers.

Whumpee bit their lip and screwed their eyes shut. “Whumpee,” Whumper chided and Whumpee’s eyes flew open. Whumper caught their terrified gaze in his, grinning at them. “I want you to watch.”

“But, but sir, I—” Whumpee screamed as Whumper slammed the hammer down on the nail, jerking their entire body forwards as they cried out in agony. White hot pain flashed behind their eyes as they jerked in the chair, their waist catching the strap keeping them tied to the seat with a gasp.

Whumper slammed the nail with the hammer again and Whumpee screamed until they descended into harsh sobs of pain mixed with begging, pleading for Whumper to stop.

“You can go more, Whumpee. Wiggle your fingers.”

Whumpee looked up at Whumper with a tear stained eyes, shaking their head. “Please, ple— please, no.”

“Whumpee,” Whumper said, his voice commanding. Whumpee flinched at the change in tone, their entire body trembling. “Wiggle your fingers so I can make sure you have full range of motion, or else I’ll have to recheck on your other hand.”

Whumpee bit their lip to stop themselves from crying out as they obeyed Whumper. They moved their index finger first and bone rub against bone that was beside the nail and they almost got sick, gagging instead as they forced the digit up and down.

Whumper grinned and nodded. “Good. Now the middle finger.”

“Whumper—” Whumpee began, but cut themselves off when Whumper shot them a hard look. They swallowed the plea and looked down at their hand, sucking in a deep breath. They got the middle finger a fraction up before a shriek of white hot pain flashed across their vision and their body bucked in their restraints.

Whumpee ripped their hands back on instinct, which would have torn their hand in two if Whumper didn’t grab their wrist and pin their hand down to the table. Whumper used the claw of the hammer to tilt Whumpee’s chin up so Whumper could look into their eyes.

“If you want to lose your hand Whumpee, that’s fine by me. Just keep disobeying me and you’ll get your wish.”

“I don’t— I can’t— it hurts,” Whumpee stammered, a cold sweat consuming their body and making their teeth chatter.

“It will hurt a whole lot more if I have to amputate it, won’t it?”

Whumpee’s eyes widened in panic. “Please, please no. Pl— please!”

“Then do as I say and calm — The fuck — down.”

Whumpee nodded because they couldn’t do much of anything else. Whumper waited patiently as Whumpee got their breathing under control. Their body still trembled slightly, but other than that they were as calm as could be expected.

“Good,” Whumper praised and patted Whumpee’s sweat soaked hair. “Very good. Now your ring finger.”

Whumpee’s eyes snapped open, but they knew there was no point in arguing the moment they met Whumper’s gaze. They just needed to get this over with so Whumper would take the nail out and bandage them up.

That was always their favourite part. When Whumper took the time to look after them after hurting them. When Whumper spoke like a human being and not an inhumane doctor. When Whumper would tell Whumpee about current events, or people he hated in work and Whumpee would listen and ask questions and Whumper wouldn’t chastise them for asking.

Whumpee moved their finger up and down and bit their tongue as they felt the bone scrap against metal and they tasted iron in their mouth as they struggled to keep their screams down in their chest.

“Good, Whumpee. Very good. How interesting.” Whumper murmured and pulled away. Whumpee let out a sigh of relief at that, because that meant Whumper’s curiosity was sated and that they would look after them now. They would het nice Whumper instead of the monstrous Whumper.

Surely he would come down and hurt Whumpee today, right? How long had it been? Hours? Whumpee tightened their hands into fists, lowering them to their side again to the jingle of chains. For now, all they could do was wait, and try to not let the toothy loneliness consume them.

*~*~*~*~*

Whumptober masterlist here

[fisheito]

non horny ask: what kinda irl snake would Yakumo be? venomous or non venomous?

my instinct says venomous purely because that opens up the fun possibility of magical side effects whenever yakumo bites someone (i want his venom to have a mild numbing property so he can bite me and i can finally get a decent night's sleep)

i'm openinmg up the search gtengine for this (HEY SNAKE FREAKS IN THE AUDIENCE!! IF YOU HAVE SUGGESTIONS THEN SHOW THE CLASS 👉👇👈👐)

(spoiler alert: i am no closer to an answer than when i started. we're just looking at snakes together)

flashback: i once pointed at western worm snake and laughed because BABY

but let's assign yaku a larger counterpart for when he's feeling big and brave i briefly considered the nonvenomous approach but i'm gonna joke that yakumo has a bigger oral fixation>>squeezing fixation on eiden so uh, this snake is all about the mouthparts i guess

i mean.. the snakes that constrict will inevitably hoRMPH(gulp) too so it would be reasonable to make yaku a nonvenomous squeezer. but. my bias says venom time, ,today

considering his ridic Great Serpent ancestry, he's probably gonna have a potent venom so let's look up Hella Dangerous Bitey Boys *typetypetypeclickclaxke*

side thought: are some species generally more aggressive than others? or does it vary moreso by individual? hmm. let's see if we can find a danger noodle that's reeaaaallllllly not into using its fangs as a first response

..... .......... i'm overwhelmed by choice again so i'm gonna start relying on aesthetics by which i mean altho i love defaulting to boas for their :3 face

i feel like yaku would be more of a streamlined snake skull like the neck isn't distinguished very well from the head... I wANT to see him as :3 snake puppy face but i also need him to have zero structure. absolute jello. no bones. skullless. just a *USES LINE TOOL*

wait. if i rely on Looks does that mean i can only choose IRL snakes that are black or subdued colours? because yaku doesn't want to be perceived, after all........

[eyes start to glaze over] -nondescript colouring -venomous (perhaps potently so) -not aggressive?? the type to strike ONCE , or wait-- is he more of a multi-striker.. fast? no... he seems like he'd be slow..if Dark Nova/Shadow Lineage is any indication..? slow OHKO heavy hitter? no, not "slow". HESITANT heavy hitter? ... -heat sensing organs? or just drawn to the heat? THE TYPE TO ONLY PREY ON OTHER VENOMOUS SNAKES--no no that's not right yaku will eat everything uhhhhhh

[SHAKES MY HEAD VIOLENTLY LIKE A WET DOG REBOOT]

call me basic but i like the look of mambas....

(sadly the black mamba doesn't have black scales but LOOK AT THAT MOUF!!!!!!!!!!)

wait how about a snake that hangs out in east asia? MOUNTAIN KEELBACK????? lil diamonds all along the back .nice

LOOK AT THE MASSIVE ORBS on *THIS* keelback.......

would he be arboreal like those funky vine snakes? mmm.., unlikely? i don't think yaku has shown much of a desire for heights... at least not yet (flashback to Puzzling Investigation Blade's impromptu takeoff)

what about a rattlesnake??? err... nah... yaku doesn't seem like much of a defensive butt wiggler....

Now i'm rethinking my entire instinct on VENOMOUS because ...Dark Nova 2 had yaku going snake-ish and eiden was ALL UP IN HIS fangs but he didn't feel any ill effects besides, you know, the physical obstacle of yaku shoving forked tongue down his throat-- EURYJK WHAT DO I DO . look at more cool snakes

OKAY BUT WHERE ARE THOSE SNAKES WITH THE PRETTY LOWER LASHES LIKE THE EYELASH VIPER, BUt LOWER lashes???

CAN I GET A LOOK AT ONE OF THOSE? do they exist? did i hallucinate the glorious snake lower lashes? do they belong to another reptile? boo.......

WWAIT NO, RIGHT, THE EYES, I SHOULD HAVE STARTED WITH THE EYES THAT'S AN EASY WAY TO NARROW DOWN A YAKUSNAKE

ok.ok. slit eyes. but a lil squiggly. thunderbolt eyes? the creative freedom of it all. let's go with slit eyes but wibbled by tears...

HOLD UP ! HIS EYES LOOK LIKE A TOKAY GECKO'S . IS YAKUMO ACTUALLY JUST A REALLY LONG GECKO?????

DESCENDANT OF THE LEGENDARY GREAT GECKO...........

[lilacthebooklover]

@staff after thoroughly reading and examining tumblr's terms of service and community guidelines, i can say with absolute certainty that @theinkbunny has done nothing at all that's worthy of being banned.

you claim that tumblr is not for:

Terrorism

Hate Speech

Harm to minors

Promotion or glorification of self-harm

Sexually explicit material

Violent Content and Threats, Gore and Mutilation

Non-Genuine Social Gesture Schemes

Deceptive or Fraudulent Links

Misattribution or Non-Attribution

Username/URL Abuse or Squatting

Account Dormancy

Spam

Mass Registration or Automation

Illegitimate Promotions

Themes Distributed by Third Parties

Copyright or Trademark Infringement

Impersonation and Non-Genuine Behavior

Harassment

Privacy Violations

Disruptions, Exploits, or Resource Abuse

Unlawful Uses or Content

Election Interference

Human Trafficking and Prostitution

i understand this, and agree wholeheartedly. and that is precisely why it is impossible to understand why @theinkbunny's blog has been suspended.

inky is one of the sweetest people on here, and has never once promoted terrorism or hate speech. he is himself a minor and has done nothing to harm anyone else on here, underage or adult. any mention of self-harm on his page is treated with the seriousness it warrants, and is appropriately tagged to prevent users from viewing it where they have no desire to.

he has been harrassed for months by anonymous askers intent on sending him sexually explicit material despite the fact that he is a minor. he has never once posted any of those asks as he is aware that it is against the community guidelines, and despite reporting it, the abuse has continued. his blog is entirely sfw, and i am certain that it is in no way whatsoever disobeying the terms of this site.

again: any mention of violence or threats he's posted has been frustration and upset over the stream of vicious anons intent on sending such things to him. it is by no means his intention to expose violent material such as gore to those who do not wish to see it, especially as he too does not want to see it in the slightest.

his asks are infrequent and sent to people he already follows/is mutuals with. there are no "follow trains" or excessive asks, and as his blog is oc and fandom based, there are very few sources needed to be provided (those which are are reliable, and with no malicious intent). his posts are original & he consistently reblogs rather than reposts.

he has one username (excluding side blogs with very different handles) and has not done anything as ridiculous as hoarding those similar to it. i find that he posts almost every single day, as well as using tumblr as a way to message those he has befriended here by being such a genuinely wonderful presence here.

ink's blog has never been used as a platform to promote anything, his tags are accurate and relevant. his ocs are his own, he gives fandom content full recognition & appreciation to its owners/creators. he has never claimed to be anyone other than his brilliant self, even posting occasional pictures of himself on here. there is no imitation involved, and there is nothing about him or his content that would incur a ban.

i reiterate: all and any harassment on his blog is the result of others (hiding behind anonymity) harassing him. he has no ill intent and has continuously proved himself to be a respectful individual. he makes use of tumblr to befriend and encourage people & to share his phenomenal artwork: all of which is firmly within community guidelines and completely legal.

he is too young to vote and is a canadian citizen with no intent or attempt to interfere with u.s. elections. finally, it goes without saying that he has never once promoted sex trafficking or illegal prostitution. his blog content is wonderful, innocent and obeys every rule put in place by your staff.

your terms of service say directly, and i quote, "If we conclude that you are violating these guidelines, you may receive a notice via email. If you don't explain or correct your behavior, we may take action against your account. Repeat violations of our Community Guidelines may result in permanent blog or account suspension. We do our best to ensure fair outcomes, but in all cases we reserve the right to suspend accounts, or remove content, without notice, for any reason, but particularly to protect our services, infrastructure, users, and community. We reserve the right to enforce, or not enforc, these guidelines in our sole discretion, and these guidelines don't create a duty or contractual obligation for us to act in any particular manner".

despite having absolved yourself of the obligation to justify your decisions in banning without notice, you have also stated that it is for "any reason". however, for this to apply, it is necessary that there must be a reason in the first place. ink has not received any notice, nor has he violated any guidelines; let alone on repeat occurances. you claim to ban blogs to protect your users, and yet situations such as this are arising more and more frequently- in which said users are being suspended for seemingly no reason and with no explanation.

i, among many others, have begun to notice a disturbing pattern in the banning of transgender individuals on tumblr who have done nothing that would even imply that they have violated this site's guidelines. tumblr is supposed to be a platform open to everyone, not only cisgender users.

having read the terms of service in full, i understand that users are able to "report violations of these guidelines to [you] directly". however, having taken into account the persistent influx of hateful asks inky receives on a regular basis, presuming that those transphobic, discriminatory anons were the ones to report him is a more than reasonable conclusion to make. they do violate the community guidelines due to their persistent harassment, hate speech, sexually explicit material and violent content & threats.

i am aware that you most likely receive many reports per day, and that it must take a while to go through them all. on the other hand, there is far more harm than good done when not even the most basic of fact-checking is done to ensure that reports are valid and warranted. i'm sure the tumblr staff placed in charge of such matters possess enough rational thought to understand how jumping to conclusions about whether or not a trans minor may have violated the terms of service without even checking their blog would create the wrong impression.

i am appalled, disappointed and shocked at what is demonstrably unfair and unwarranted condemnation towards a user who has done nothing in violation of your terms. i urge you to rectify your mistake and focus more on suspending those who are actually causing harm than on causing undue stress and dismay to people who are just trying to enjoy using your platform. a reputation of suspending people with no due cause is hardly going to make for a welcoming site, i promise you.

restore inky's account (@theinkbunny if you needed a reminder) and return it to him lest further action be taken. it is the only correct and reasonable response here, and as you have assured in your TOS that your intention is to make users' experiences here enjoyable, i am sure that you will be eager to fix this issue before it becomes even more prominent. tumblr ought to be a safe place for people everywhere to connect over topics they enjoy. as conditions are at the moment, it seems like nothing more than a cesspool of discrimination, ignorance and unreliability.

i thank you in advance for taking my words into account and returning ink's blog to him.