#I WAS FUCKING ROBBED OF AND SOCIAL SKILLS AND A NORMAL CHILDHOOD

[sliceocheese]

DO NOT HOMESCHOOL YOUR KIDS‼️‼️‼️

THAT SHIT WILL CRIPPLE THEM‼️‼️

[eldritch-queern-magicat]

Um. Ok. This certainly is a... whole post. TRIGGER WARNING for plainly explaining the consequences of being brainwashed throughout all of foster care by the Pentecostals, while dealing with far too much pain and blood.

The rest of this entire post is going under a cut. This is straight up high-octane horror fuel, but I think it deserves to exist as a testament to understanding suffering.

Coping with my fucked up childhood means literally mind-bending myself. To cope with what the pain drove me to do, I have to accept some very disturbing truths about myself. It means that I've had no choice but to accept where humans actually exist in the web of life, and that is not inherently at the top. I was eating my own top layers of skin/fat inside my mouth as far back as I can remember. Swallowed it blood and all, as much as I could when in the middle of it. I was both afraid of the consequences and compelled to keep doing it. There's a lot of fucked up reasons for it, but religion was a much more prominent aspect of it than I gave it credit for.

So on that note... Don't ever, ever try to teach a child suffering from so much pain they dig themselves bloody about the Eucharist. If I'm anything to go by, it's definitely a good example of why you don't do that. I have to cope with a literal taste for myself that will probably exist for the rest of my life at some level. And that means I have to accept the cannibalism for what it is, along with how it came to be.

I'm never going to be even close to the realm of an acceptably normal person. Because of my childhood, I will be seen as inherently immoral and evil to some people. I've decided to focus simply on being as ethical a person as I can, but I know that's not enough for purity culture. Accepting this is hard, because of the emphasis that's placed on moral purity by society at large. I feel like there's always the risk of rejection or judgement any time I decide to be entirely honest about what I went through.

It still absolutely must be understood to be a consequence of fundamentalist Christianity (protestant flavor) and extreme pain, literally just like torture. This isn't some instance of a group of people pretending to be Christians while actually doing so-called 'satanic' rituals instead. They fervently believed themselves to be worshiping God/Jesus, and that my suffering was a good thing.

Did they know how badly they were fucking with my understanding of the world and Christian theology? Probably not, actually. At least, not in the way that they did in terms of not understanding their flavor of nuance. But did they fully expect me to fail and go to Hell? There's not a single doubt in my mind anywhere that they expected me to be tortured as a dirty, evil sinner for all eternity. I think they were convinced I was an actual demon from Hell.

How am I learning to cope at all? By zooming out and away from an anthropocentric view of the world, and understanding that humans are still just animals like any other. There is nothing the human creature can do that is against the laws of nature. Nature cannot go against itself, it's laws are what govern the universe. And those laws are morally neutral. They don't pass judgement on anyone or anything. They ultimately just exist so that reality can exist and be stable at all. Humans came up with things such as ethics and morals to navigate an inherently chaotic and entropic universe.

Humans have mistaken our place of responsibility to the care of the planet, as somewhat self-aware animals, for being the masters of it. We absolutely are not. There's no actual grand purpose to life but to persist, live, and prosper. Any meaning beyond that is ours to create, and that's definitely not going to be universal. We aren't special, we're just sufficiently curious enough to ask why the world works the way it does.

My so-called 'legal guardians' tried to rob me of my humanity by denying me my basic evolutionary, psychological social survival skills. They denied me empathy and compassion first. I take responsibility to heal what I can now that I'm safe enough, but I should never have had to in the first place. They're the ones who tried to turn me into a monster.

There's no good way to end this thing. This is not easy to discuss. And there's nothing satisfying about it except that I avoid bottling it up and letting it fester longer than it already has. Because if that internalized shame stays repressed to fester any longer, I legitimately don't know what could happen.

-Pandemonum 🪁😺

[sagamemes]

critrole sentences starters  — 100 quotes from 100 episodes.   critrole just posted a list, so here’s about 100 lines of dialogue compiled, edited, and occasionally split into smaller pieces for roleplay purposes. topics and tone shift... wildly. and as usual, alter anything you want to make it fit your muse better.  tw:  murder, death, self-destructive intent.

❝  welcome to [place].  ❞

❝  is that a natural thing for you guys to just attack each other in moments of stress?  ❞

❝  i’ve never travelled with a bunch of people i thought would die in front of me!  ❞

❝  yeah. the world does need an asshole.  ❞

❝  tell you what. i start sweating real hard, i’ll let you know, okay?  ❞

❝  well, my social anxiety is getting the best of me. i’m taking a walk. goodbye.  ❞

❝  i think that the bust of a tiny, curly-headed 120-year-old woman needs to slam its way into the torso of that beast.  ❞

❝  what do they look like, these buttons?  ❞

❝  i don’t normally speak with the dead on a first date, but we’ll think about it.  ❞

❝  what if we kill all of them and come back and rob this place?  ❞

❝  i’m always ready to make a damn fool of myself.  ❞

❝  it’s a collection of crazy tales about this weird fella.  ❞

❝  i did my best. every town i went to and every town i left, no matter how they treated me, and a lot of them treated me with deep disrespect…  ❞

❝  i left every town better than i found it.  ❞

❝  i mean, i don’t want to impose… but i’m bleeding profusely.  ❞

❝  what happens if you have a childhood, but it’s like barely a childhood ‘cause it was supposed to be someone else’s childhood, but it was you instead?  is that a childhood?  ❞

❝  two shit throws in a row. it can’t get any fucking worse.  ❞

❝  i am your god. long may i reign. eat my fruit.  ❞

❝  code:  modern literature!  ❞

❝  welcome to the [group]!  ❞

❝  you’re very liberal with your parenting.  ❞

❝  one thing that i have realized today is that i need to work on my interpersonal skills and friendship making.  ❞

❝  try not to cut up my face, okay?  ❞

❝  i want to say thank you for the package you sent me. i know that it was really–  ❞

❝  you are blue.  ❞

❝  an example, it is.  ❞

❝  i’m trying to be nice. this is as painful for me as it is for you. just give me five seconds.  ❞

❝  i could check my smell bag, but i trust you right now.  ❞

❝  case closed.  ❞

❝  i think what his holiness is trying to convey is that he will be going on a spiritual journey, and there’s only room on that train for one dude!  ❞

❝  look to purchase, [name]!  just look!  ❞

❝  hello [title/nickname]. this is [name]. please respond.  ❞

❝  that sounds like someone whose ass i would like to kick.  ❞

❝  sometimes the things that are the most beautiful are the things that can hurt you the most.  ❞

❝  it’s actually /[title]/ [last name].  ❞

❝  this one time i saw a bug carrying a piece of bread that was like five times its size and he was carrying upstairs, like up and then he would turn, and then up, and then he would turn.  ❞

❝  fluffernutter!  ❞

❝  sleep well with your bad decisions.  ❞

❝  sometimes boys like it if you are a little bit aloof, a little bit cold to them afterwards, like maybe they did something wrong, and they don’t even know what it was.  ❞

❝  well, i would race to the...  ‘ apricot ’  and seize it so that she can’t pick that fruit. keep it for ourselves in our fruit basket, and make off and decide if we’re going to make marmalade later or not.  ❞

❝  i… wait.  ❞

❝  alright, let’s treat this situation with all the seriousness it demands  ❞

❝  i’m really really nice, but i don’t always make the best decisions…  ❞

❝  what, you don’t want a unicorn pooping on his face?  ❞

❝  yes. it’s a chair. it’s a standard chair.  ❞

❝  are you in love with me?  ...are you secretly in love with me?  ❞

❝  i win!  ❞

❝  why is just my dick purple?  ❞

❝  now, [name] is number two. you are number one. you are in charge. you just… dress to impress, okay?  ❞

❝  what happens when a moorbounder enters a feline beauty contest?  it’s a cat-tastrophe!  ❞

❝  you’re not my type.  ❞

❝  i am of the empire. but i am no friend to the empire.  ❞

❝  it’s still you though, right?  ❞

❝  you don’t get to talk anymore.  ❞

❝  it’s a regular fucking turtle.  ❞

❝  don’t let the irons be your strength.  ❞

❝  you pick and choose your fights.  ❞

❝  best not give in to a man i can crush with one hand.  ❞

❝  there’s a dick hidden somewhere in there.  ❞

❝  back up a little bit. so we met at like a circus. it was a crazy night. but after a while, yada yada–  ❞

❝  man, you made vulnerability look so easy.  ❞

❝  well, i’ve always learned that the best way to deal with your problems is to run away from them.  ❞

❝  and i know that you lost your family, but we can be your new one and we love you very much, [name], no matter what happened. okay?  ❞

❝  i guess in a way i’m an orphan maker.  ❞

❝  i’m sorry. i was trying to do the thing.  ❞

❝  i killed my family, i’’ll throw you under a bridge.  ❞

❝  i heard you.  ❞

❝  i don’t mean to raise my voice.  ❞

❝  this is precisely the sort of attitude i’ve been saying everyone should be having. this is what i’ve been waiting for. this is great.  ❞

❝  you need me more than i need you.  ❞

❝  you pooping?  ❞

❝  the rule is that evil dies.  ❞

❝  eventually, someday someone will pray for a miracle, pray for something to save them to whatever gods are nearby, and that prayer will be answered because you’ll show up.  ❞

❝  fucking seaweed wraps are the shit!  ❞

❝  oh shit, are we a cult?  ❞

❝  hey everybody, don’t mean to intrude. obviously, there’s a lot going on here, but we’re going to be sort of walking around for probably the next couple days and there’s some other people wandering through that are… they’re bad business. they’re probably going to do a lot of damage, possibly a fire, who knows?  but we’re trying to take care of that.  ❞

❝  we’d really appreciate a helping hand and we’ll try our best to stay out of everybody’s way.  ❞

❝  if there’s any birds—hey up there.  ❞

❝  if you’ve seen anything, we’d love to just get in and out with as little hassle as possible. thanks, that’d be great.  ❞

❝  you know, the concept of gravity was first discovered by a wizard known as iz-aak newton.  ❞

❝  but i would rather you put your faith in me for something more important than my curiosity.  ❞

❝  it’s better to have somebody’s word broken than to have no word at all.  ❞

❝  i pick and choose my apologies.  ❞

❝  we will trust you if you tell us who the members of the [name] are.  ❞

❝  i could be her beacon.  ❞

❝  yes, i think we have a job to finish.  ❞

❝  can i get a hug?  ❞

❝  it’s entirely off-putting how disarmingly charming you are.  ❞

❝  i genuinely do not know how to react. take that as a compliment.  ❞

❝  finish it, champion.  ❞

❝  kill me.  ❞

❝  i smell like a crayon.  ❞

❝  many fairy tales with an old crone in the woods.  ❞

❝  have you ever had a blueberry cupcake?  ❞

❝  stop—shut up, [name]!  god-fucking-alright.  ❞

❝  ignore the fucking undead, okay!  ❞

❝  nothing happens for a reason. it’s absolute fucking chaos.  ❞

❝  i’m asking you to open your heart to chaos  ❞

❝  you were not born with venom in your veins.  ❞

❝  please. please help me  ❞

❝  we’re being followed by a tiny island.  ❞

[xmxisxforxmaybe]

Decryption_Error: “Beneath the Bright Lights”

Summary: As the holiday season begins, Y/N sees a side of Elliot she had nearly forgotten about. However, Darlene is able to hit the reset button for her brother, and Elliot and Y/N end up having a memorable, happy holiday season.  

Decryption_Error: All Chapters

A/N: ** Lines/Story credited to the show, not me.

Word Count: 9100

Tags: @sherlollydramoine @rami-malek-trash @teamwolf2411 @limabein @txmel​ @alottanothing​ @ouatlovr @backoftheroomandnotbelonging​ @moon-stars-soul​ @free-rami​ @ramimedley​ @hopplessdreamer​ @sweet-charmie @polarcrystall​ @hah0106​

If you want added, removed, or if I’ve missed your request, let me know : )

Warnings: Angst, Verbal attack, Marijuana use, Smut (18+ up, please)

Gif Credit: @s-k-y-w-a-l-k-e-r​

��We could just . . . not pick her up?”

“She’ll love the organized chaos of a high-society social. Maybe she can even do some networking?”

Even though I couldn’t see it, I knew Elliot rolled his eyes; I chuckled and lightly smacked his shoulder with the back of my hand.

We were on our way to pick up Darlene before heading to my parents’ house in Greenwich to kick off the first event of the holiday social season. Every year, on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, Dad hosted a party for the members of the board and his investors. It was a way to maintain relationships, form new ones, and offer a thank you to everyone who helped with the company’s growth.

The general public was committed to its characterization of what it was like to be an owner of a company on Wall Street—bouncing from meeting to meeting before sitting in an office to bark out orders like a ringmaster in a circus, whose priority was not to entertain but to squeeze the most money out of every person in the tent or to squeeze every ounce of productivity out of every employee. In reality, owning a company meant maintaining a huge social jerk, a near-constant stroking of egos in order to reassure some of the most insecure people, who also happened to be some of the most wealthy people, that you weren’t going to lose the most important thing to them: their money.

This party was especially important because Dad was announcing his retirement. Normally, this created a drop off in stocks because people panicked. Out with the stability they had always known and in with something new. If there was anything people with money hated (aside from parting with it), it was change.

And Elliot wasn’t interested in any of it—he didn’t understand the need for it. Or perhaps it wasn’t that he didn’t understand it, but that he didn’t approve of it and was not willing to risk hurting my feelings to say so.

I had just returned from a business trip in Denver, and I was so insanely paranoid there would be another attack while I was gone. I was the one who had to deal with the brunt of the board and didn’t want to risk placing that kind of pressure on the new Senior Manager, JaLeah, or even Ali. But as of this evening, there were no further cyberattacks on our company. In fact, DoS attacks were down by 15%. Typically, there are surge of attacks close to the holidays like there had been on the Fourth of July.

Elliot’s voice startled me out of my thoughts, asking, “How many people are going to be there?”

“Many, many people, but since it’s at our house, you can hide in my room when you’ve had enough. You look handsome, by the way.”

He was wearing light gray pants, a nice slim-fit chino. He had donned a navy sweater over a white dress shirt and tamed his hair into a side part. He looked nice, normal, at least in the way I knew he envisioned normal.

He reached over and took my hand, pulling it into his lap so he could lace his fingers through mine.

“I missed you.”

“It’s a shame we have to spend my first night back surrounded by other people.”

“Are you tired?”

“Exhausted,” I breathed as I pulled in front of the building where Darlene was staying and threw my flashers on while we waited for her to come out. She wasn’t long, and I reached behind my seat to fish in my overnight bag for the black heels I promised her.

Darlene had her hair pulled up in a ballerina bun and her makeup looked flawless. Her dress was black, fitted, and fairly short with long, lace sleeves. She was currently accessorizing it with a worn pair of high-top chucks.

“You look gorgeous—even with the chucks,” I said as I dangled my heels. “These are the ones you tried on the other night.”

“Perfect,” she mumbled as she unlaced her shoes.

“Feeling conservative, tonight?” Elliot smirked as he peeked around his seat.

“Shut your face, Sweater Vest,” she retorted without looking up.

“I’m not wearing a sweater-vest.”

“Whatever, Mr. Tanner. Isn’t this what rich people look like? Basic black and heels and shit?”

“Is that what I look like to you?” I asked mildly offended and majorly concerned that I looked like a caricature.

Neither Elliot nor Darlene said anything for so long I actually guffawed.

Elliot laughed softly and pulled our still laced together hands to his mouth and pressed a quick kiss to the top of my wrist.  

“You look good. You always look nice.”

“Mmm,” I said, unconvinced as I pulled my hand from his grasp to put the car in drive.

We chatted on our way out of the city, mostly about the party and about our childhood Thanksgivings. I found myself scaling back the details of my own in the event that it would seem obnoxiously normal; I didn’t want to feel like I was throwing my happy childhood in their faces. However, it did seem they had some normality with Angela and her parents, always ditching their own house in favor of hers, especially before her mom died.

When we crept up the drive, the party was already in full swing in the heated tents in the backyard, so I pulled into the garage so we could sneak in our bags. The house was full of caterers and servers, so we quickly dashed upstairs.

I flicked on the light to Charlie’s room, which was closest to mine, and Darlene threw her bag on his bed, her eyes taking in the bedroom.

“If you ever need a house sitter, I better be your first call.”

“My parents are actually downsizing their place in the city and moving out here. I can’t remember if I mentioned it, but tonight’s the night Dad announces his retirement.”

“Is that, like, a big deal?” Darlene asked.

“For several million reasons, it is.”

Darlene nodded and said she was going to use the bathroom, if she could find it, she muttered as she flicked on the light to Char’s closet.

“It’s on your other left,” I laughed as I went to my room.

Elliot was on the balcony which overlooked the party. With my heels on, I was just a bit taller than him so I wrapped my arms around his waist and rested my chin on his shoulder.

“Are you going to be cool with all of this? It won’t be as stuffy as the last few parties I made you go to.”

“I’m surprised the tent is big enough to house all of that ego.”

I turned into his neck and inhaled the familiar scent of his aftershave.

“Because you, Mr. Hackerpants, have no ego at all,” I teased before pressing my lips to his neck.

“I don’t use my skills to rob the masses blind.”

I loosened my grip on his waist and stepped back.

“You don’t have to go. I just thought it would be nice if the family was there for Dad’s announcement.”

Even with my loosened grip, I felt Elliot’s body tense. I let him go and he turned to face me, leaning back against the railing.

“I’m family?”

I shrugged, unable to meet his eyes because I feared his rejection when I answered, “Yeah. We consider you a part of our clan now.”

Elliot sighed and stepped forward, his finger moving to lift my chin.

His polychromatic eyes were a swirl of blue and grey tonight, making them seem almost ethereal in the flickering lights from below and the back light from my room. I couldn’t quite read his expression, which seemed to be something I struggled with a lot lately. I wasn’t sure why, but Elliot wasn’t the open book he was when I first met him. Long ago I had theorized that he hadn’t learned to guard himself from me in the early stages of our relationship, like the night we first had sex. His vulnerability had once been laid bare to me, but it was almost always gone now and I sometimes wondered if I had projected, idealized the version of Elliot I wanted to see, the version that needed me.

Elliot tilted his head slightly up and kissed me, a soft sweet kiss.

“Okay,” he whispered against my lips before he pulled away.

Darlene’s clicking heels on the hardwood floor interrupted the moment and we turned to meet her, ready to head to the party.

Dad’s announcement went over well since he said he’d remain on the board for at least two more years. His replacement was a company favorite, a man not entirely unlike Miles with his perfect reputation and his ambition to climb, but I thought he was a good choice, a safe choice.  

I left toward the end of the party, my face tired from the banal talk and the even more banal smiles. When I went upstairs to my room after grabbing a spoon, a can of caviar from the fridge, and a sleeve of crackers, Darlene was laying across the end of the bed sorting a pile of business cards.

“Oh! You did some networking?” I said as I emptied my hands and reached to open the caviar. I prepped a cracker and walked over to Darlene before popping it in my mouth.

“Networking for that rich D,” she said with a smirk.

I swallowed, barely holding back a laugh, “Even better!”

I leaned over to take a look at her pile and frowned.

“Can I help?”

“Have at it,” she said as slid off the bed and headed to the caviar.

“Married. Married. Married.” I said as I tossed those cards to the side.

“This one broke Char’s heart last season, so he’s maybe bi? Maybe in denial?”

“Toss. I don’t want your brother’s sloppy seconds,” Darlene said.

“Fair enough,” I agreed as I continued. “He’s nice. Nice. Holy fuck—”

Darlene grinned like a cat as I held up the most coveted number in my social circle. Alexander Strömberg was gorgeous, perpetually single, a tech genius, and a self-made billionaire.

“He overhead me talking about cryptojacking, hypothetically, of course, and before I knew it, he was fetching me a drink and holding my elbow like I was my fair fucking lady. We talked. And we totally made out by the pool.”

I made an incomprehensible noise between a sigh and a slight moan. “He’s gorgeous. And smart as a whip.”

Darlene raised her brow, “He did say he knew you . . .”

“We’ve crossed paths over the years,” I said, looking toward Elliot who didn’t seem to be listening to a thing we were saying. “But neither of us ever made anything of it.”

Darlene finished another cracker before she gathered up her pile of business cards, throwing the ones I warned her about in the trash. She stretched and said she was going to find her way to the kitchen to find something more substantial than “fancy-ass” caviar. I gave her directions and she waved, not bothering to glance back as she headed downstairs.

I stretched out in her vacated spot and used my feet to kick off my heels. I glanced up, angling my head to look at Elliot as his fingers never paused in their trajectory over the keys of his laptop. He had dipped out not long after Dad’s announcement, and he hadn’t even glanced up when I came upstairs. His sweater had been discarded and his white button down was open, revealing his white undershirt.  

“I hate these things. But I’m glad everyone knows about Dad’s retirement. I was tired of keeping that secret.”

“Didn’t look like you hated it.”

“I can assure you, I did. Now everyone thinks I’m maneuvering for a position in Dad’s company. I felt like a broken record repeating that I have no interest in leaving the tech side of things.”

“My heart bleeds for you.”

I sat up on my elbows and stared at Elliot, disbelieving of his cold tone.

“What?”

Elliot huffed and looked up from his laptop, and there was an edginess in him I hadn’t seen since Sarah had texted him about the server room. Anger seemed to be surging under his skin, humming.

Elliot’s eyes locked on mine, unwavering in their brutality before they flicked to the ceiling as he leaned his head back and stated, “Why the fuck should I sit here and listen to a rich little girl complain about doing rich people things? Do you understand everyone in that room tonight could cut their salaries in half and still have more money than they could spend in a lifetime? That everyone here, at this house, your house, could effectively end the desperate paycheck-to-paycheck struggles of every person who works for them? I don’t give a fuck if you’re tired from smiling at shitty jokes and drinking expensive champagne and eating fucking caviar.”

“What the fuck, Elliot?” I said as I slid off the bed and stood, the blood rushing to my ears, roaring with the humiliation that was coloring my cheeks red.

He rolled his eyes and shut his laptop, tossing it on the bed beside him as he stood to unbutton the cuffs of his dress shirt. I took a step back, and he didn’t even glance up as he popped the buttons and shrugged out of the sleeves.

“Elliot? Seriously! What the hell was that?”

He brushed past me and walked over to his backpack and dug out a pack of cigarettes. Without looking at me again, he went on to the balcony and lit up.

As I stood dumbfounded and staring at his silhouette, Darlene walked in, saying she forgot her phone as she walked over to my nightstand. When she processed the look on my face and read the tension in the room, she asked, “What’s up?” as her eyes looked between me and her brother on the balcony.

“Nothing,” I mumbled as I looked away and moved toward my desk.

“Tell me. Please,” she added as she stepped in front of me.

“It’s nothing,” I said as I stepped around her and gathered up the caviar and crackers and tossed them into the trash, disgust churning in my gut.

“Elliot’s clearly pulled a dumbass move. If we can’t talk to each other, who can we talk to?” she pleaded, her eyes, so like his, boring into the back of my head.

I pressed my lips together and inhaled, steadying my nerves as I turned to her and explained, “He’s not . . . himself. I haven’t seen him like this for months—I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him this . . . mean,” I finished as I blinked quickly, holding back tears because Elliot certainly didn’t deserve them.

Darlene frowned and for once she didn’t bite out a sarcastic remark. She seemed far away in her thoughts when she finally said, “Think I’ll have a smoke, too. You mind grabbing me a water? Sorta forgot to get one when I was talking to your parents.”

I took the hint and was relieved to get out of the room. My legs felt shaky as I made my way down the hallway, and when I descended the steps, my hand clung tightly to the rail as I continued to fight the urge to cry as Elliot’s dark words pierced through my mind, seemingly stuck in a belligerent loop.

I took a deep breath and steeled my features before I went into the kitchen and made light, normal conversation with my mom and dad.

Even after my parents said goodnight, I sat in the kitchen, replaying what Elliot said. It wasn’t the first time he had expressed himself about socioeconomic division, but it was certainly the first time I understood that he did not separate me from my parents’ wealthy status. I thought Elliot saw me just for me, but tonight proved I was wrong.

Darlene walked quietly into the kitchen and I looked up, not bothering to hide my hurt.

“Is Elliot asleep?”

“Nah. He’s waiting to see you.”

“I don’t want to see him.”

“I don’t blame you, Y/N,” she said, her expression soft as she approached me. “But please don’t give up on him now. Just . . . hear him out.”

I frowned and thought about all the times I swore to myself that I’d be someone Elliot trusted, someone he could count on, someone who wouldn’t leave him.

I nodded and gave her shoulder a squeeze before I grabbed two waters from the fridge. The walk to my room was long as dread settled heavily in my stomach.

Elliot was sitting on the bed facing the doorway as his feet dangled off the floor thanks to the high bedframe. The first thing I noticed was that the change in his demeanor was so stark it nearly made me take a step back. Gone was the edginess, the closed off body language, the skittish glances. In front of me was the Elliot I could read like a book, and when he didn’t raise his head to meet my eyes, I knew he was in the same state of misery as I was.

“I’m so sorry, Y/N,” his voice quiet, a deep sadness wrapping up every word.

“You hurt me.”

Elliot looked up, a flicker of relief on his face that I was being direct with him. He had trouble with ambiguity, especially when it came to feelings.

“I don’t want you to bury your feelings, ever. This life—my life—I know it fucks with your moral compass, the idea that anyone rich can’t be good. But fuck, Elliot. You really came at me, at my family, who, in case you forgot, consider you family, too.”

I was starting to feel angry.

“I know. And I am sorry.”

“I know.”

Elliot scooted forward and stood, taking a few tentative steps toward me.

“Do you have any idea what kind of people were at that party?”

“Good people. Bad people. In-between people. Money doesn’t change that.”

“Philip Price from E Corp was here.”

“Yeah? I’ve known him since I was little. E Corp financed Dad’s manufacturing plant in Colorado—the one that employs over 600 people, in case that mattered,” I sniped.

Elliot said nothing but came closer, watching my face and imploring me to remember—and then it hit me as effectively as a slap across the face.

“Your dad worked for E Corp before he got sick.”

“As a software engineer.”

Despite my anger, I softened, knowing what Elliot’s dad meant to him and to Darlene, as much as she remembered of him.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“He’s not the only one who got cancer. Angela’s mom, too. And there were over 20 others. All of them working out of E Corp’s Washington Township facility.”

I took some time to think about what I wanted to say next, my anger at Elliot continuing to recede.

“Are you saying E Corp was at fault?”

“Yes.”

“Have you . . . looked into it?” I asked, avoiding directly knowing whether he hacked the shit out of the biggest conglomerate on Wall Street.

“Yes.”

“And?”

“Nothing. There’s no conclusive evidence E Corp was involved.”

I shifted my weight as I thought about whether I wanted to offer my help, the last seeds of my anger dissipating as I looked at Elliot’s sad face.  

“Do you—I don’t know how far I could get, but do you want me to look into it?”

“I’ve already—"

“Sure, digitally, you’ve . . . researched it. But sometimes the paper trail can . . . disappear.”

Elliot looked at me for a long time and I would’ve given anything to know what he was thinking as he formulated what he wanted to say, or rather, what he was willing to say.

“I would appreciate that.”

“Oh, Elliot,” I said as I closed the tentative distance between us and wrapped him up in a hug which he returned with equal fervor.

“I feel like I have no control sometimes,” Elliot whispered into my hair. “Everything is out of my control.”

I laughed lightly into his shoulder.

“Control is an illusion, El. No one ever really has it.”**

Elliot’s grip tightened on me, and I fell into his embrace, letting myself believe his apology and naively, so naively believe this was the last of the anger and the apologies.

* Christmas Eve *

My apartment was so hot I debated turning on the air conditioning until Elliot suggested opening the balcony door.

I flung the door open as Elliot came up behind me, pushing me onto the balcony, almost tackling me into the railing.

I laughed and he turned me around his arms, his face split into a grin as he leaned in to sloppily kiss me.

He was drunk, I was drunk, and so was everyone else still at my Christmas Eve party.

Angela and Ollie had stopped by earlier, but they had made a pretty short evening of it. I hadn’t yet clicked with Angela, mostly because she focused all of her attention on Elliot as soon as she saw him. I told him he should hang out with her more often, but a part of me was relieved when he said he really didn’t want to. I didn’t push for an explanation.

Franco and his wife, Gianna, Jill and Jack, along with Darlene and a few more friends were all in attendance. Darlene’s sometimes more-than-friend, a good-looking stockbroker, stopped by around the same time as Angela and Ollie.

Erin, Ryan, and Charlie came, and since Kathleen was on-call, Josh brought Jared and Jack, who both competed with Elliot for the attention of Jack and Jill’s dog, Robert Goulet.

My parents stopped by for a little while, insisting they weren’t going to crash the good times of “the youth” for long.

I expected Elliot to stick to either me or Darlene, but he didn’t. Instead, he spent a long time talking to Franco about his business. Elliot had said once that he would like to do that someday; start up his own cybersecurity business, land a few big clients to pay the bills, but then operate pro-bono for as many small businesses as he could.

I offered him the start-up money and he promptly looked like I had just slaughtered a bag full of puppies, so that was the end of that conversation.

Things had been normal—we had a happy thanksgiving with my family, then Elliot invited me to go with him and Darlene to visit their mother. Darlene went as far as the lobby, but I went to Mrs. Alderson’s room with Elliot. She had suffered a debilitating stroke, most likely caused by smoking, and was mostly catatonic, her eyes only occasionally flicking to Elliot as he sat with her.

Elliot and I never really talked about what happened in my room after the social, so I considered Elliot letting me in to his life by taking me to meet his mother as a way of sincerely apologizing.

But by visiting his mother, Elliot opened a door I was dying to peek into. I tried to open the door and ask more about his relationship with her, but he slammed it shut. For the past few days, I had been warring with myself with whether or not to suggest he go to therapy, and I decided my best bet was to ask Darlene what she thought he’d say if I suggested it.

It was almost 2 am when I finally kissed Jill, Jack, and Robert Goulet goodnight, but I wasn’t the last person to kiss Mr. Goulet. Elliot carried him to the elevator and I had never seen him look so adoringly at anything, but the way he looked at Robert Goulet as he handed him over to Jill was heartbreaking.

Robert Goulet didn’t help matters either by looking back, upside-down at Elliot and giving him a sad, big-eyed glance. Elliot leaned forward and smooched Robert Goulet between the eyes and Jill yelled at me to take Elliot to the shelter to pick out a puppy.

I shook my head and sighed as Elliot waved goodbye as the elevator doors shut. Jill and Jack gave a wave but I knew sure as shit that Elliot was waving at their dog.

“You can see Robert Goulet anytime you want,” I said as Elliot turned around looking sad.

“I love him.”

“I can see that.”

“He’s such a good boy.”

“He is. I take it you and Darlene never had pets?”

Elliot’s expression darkened and he shook his head no.

“Are there any Jell-O shots left?”

“If you didn’t eat them all,” I said with a laugh as Elliot headed back inside to raid the fridge.

Just as I shut the door, I saw that Darlene was shrugging into her coat. She was the last to leave, but I begged her not to.

“Don’t go. I can’t stand the thought of you not being with people who love you on Christmas morning.”

I didn’t miss the way her eyes lingered on mine, an unspoken question of whether I meant what I said.

“Stay,” I pressed.

“If you’re gonna be so up my ass about it,” Darlene said with the least unaggressive huff I’d ever heard, so I smiled and walked over to her give her a big hug and a loud kiss on the temple.

“Eat chips with me,” I said, grinning.

She giggled, clearly still drunk, but not quite as drunk as her brother.

“That dog is really fucking cute,” Darlene said as she gathered up the pita chips and the layered hummus dip.

“His name,” specified Elliot as he hollowed out his cheeks and sucked down the last Jell-O shot, “is Robert Goulet.”

Darlene laughed at the offense dripping in Elliot’s voice.

I giggled at the two of them as I slid my chip through the dip and ended up miscalculating the dip to chip ratio, half of it landing with a splat on the floor.

“Fuck,” I said, contemplating whether I should still eat it.

“I got you,” Elliot said as he stumbled over with a wad of napkins, some of them trailing behind him as he miscalculated his hand to napkin ratio.

He cleaned up the dip and I thanked him when he came back and plopped on the sofa. His eyes immediately slid shut and he had a dreamy smile on his face as he leaned back into the cushion.

“He’s dreaming about that dog,” I loudly whispered to Darlene.

“I know,” she loudly whispered in return.

As Darlene and I chattered and ate entirely too many pita chips, she eventually looked around me to give her brother a wary eye.

“El—you alive over there?”

I turned to look as he jumped a bit at being addressed and vaguely hummed in response.

“Go to bed, dork,” Darlene barked as Elliot opened his bloodshot eyes.

He shuffled to the edge of the couch and looked around like he had forgotten where he was.

“Those Jell-O shots are lethal,” I said with a grin. “And you had a whole fucking tray’s worth when you weren’t laying on the floor with Robert Goulet.”

“Robert Goulet,” Elliot sighed with a half-smile as he shook his head and stood, stumbling just a little.

“Fuck,” he muttered, as he wobbled. “Night.”

We watched Elliot walk in a semi-zigzag down the hall. There was a questionable thump that caused us to giggle loud enough before Elliot swung the bedroom door shut.

“Guess he’s alright,” I said at the end of my laugh.

“He’s fine,” Darlene said with a roll of her eyes.

“I’m glad you’re staying,” I said as I moved into Elliot’s spot, stretching my legs out.

“Thanks for asking me to,” Darlene said with a soft smile that looked just like her brother’s.

“Water?” I asked, reluctantly swinging my feet off the couch.

“I think it’s about that time,” she said, laying her head back on the couch, again, much like her brother.

I glanced up at the TV as I walked back into the living room and handed Darlene a bottle of water. The TV was still softly playing Christmas songs as a fire burned on the screen.

The fake fireplace made me realize it was awfully chilly, and I walked over to shut and lock the balcony door.

When I sat down, I looked at Darlene who had turned her head to watch my movements.

“Spill. You look like Elliot—I can see the indecisive hesitation just about making your head ready to pop off.”

“I don’t know if I’m not drunk enough or if I’m too drunk to ask.”

“That serious? Gotta be about my bonehead of a brother. I swear to god if you’re thinking about breaking up with him, I’ll kick his ass.”

“Kick his ass?” I laughed.

“Yes—because somehow I know he’ll end up fucking this up. Not to, like, shit on your relationship because I hope to fuck he doesn’t fuck it up, but I’m just saying—”

“I know what you mean. You’re a good sister. And a great friend.”

“Don’t get sentimental on me now, Y/N. Spill.”

I took a long drink of my water and put the lid back on, stretching to set the bottle on the coffee table before I settled back into the sofa.

I took a deep breath and asked what I had wanted to ask Darlene since she and I really became friends.

“Did your brother ever tell you about the incident in the Server Room?”

“You mean how you saved his ass from getting fired?”

“About what he did after he got locked in.”

Darlene took a deep breath, her hands in her lap as her chip lay idle in her fingertips.

“He told me that those guys, like, played a prank or something—locked him in with the servers because he kept hacking through their security protocols. He said he lost it and the next thing he knew, you were there. Like a fucking knight in shining armor,” she said, her voice just hinting at being teasing.

I scoffed.

“He didn’t say that,” Darlene said with an eyeroll, “but that’s what he meant. He thinks you hung the moon, Y/N. I’ve never seen him like this.”

“Happy?”

“Not since we were kids. And even then it was less . . . consistent.”

“He didn’t say anything else about that night?”

“No,” Darlene answered, her eyes boring into mine just like Elliot’s.

“I need you to be absolutely positive he didn’t say anything else—are you totally sure?”

“Yes. I am positive that’s all he said. Why?”

After a pause, my explanation came out in a bit of a rush.

“Elliot has no memory of smashing up the towers. When I found him, he was blacked out. I thought it was the head gash, but Jill assured me it wasn’t. She—she rattled off a few things that could cause a person to black out like that.”

“Yeah?”

“Anxiety attack, a reaction to traumatic stress, dissociative or dissociative identity disorder, or,” I paused, “schizophrenia.”

Darlene was quiet.

“The first time I remember it happening was when I was like six, maybe seven. My grandmother came to visit, Dad’s mom, and she was showing us all these pictures from when Dad was little. I remember thinking about how much Elliot looked like him as a kid and being a little jealous because I didn’t. Anyway, my grandmother started to cry and she told Elliot how much Dad loved him, how special he was to him, and Elliot just froze before he started screaming. He told her to shut up and a bunch of shit I can’t really remember, but Mom got so pissed. She dragged Elliot upstairs and locked him in his room.”

It felt like I had swallowed lead as I listened to Darlene, the knot of leaden nerves growing heavier as she continued.

“Once Mom was in bed, I stole her key and took Elliot dinner. He was just laying in his bed, facing the wall like he hadn’t moved all day. I remember—”

Darlene faltered for the first time in her story.

“I remember,” she said finding her voice again, “the look on Elliot’s face when he rolled over. He asked, ‘Did Mom lock me in?’”

“I told him, yeah, she did, and he asked why she hated him so much.”

“I said that maybe it was because he yelled at our grandmother, and I’ll never forget the way he looked at me because I’ve seen it enough times now. He looked at me like he had no idea what I was talking about—like I had just told him some horrible truth he had no knowledge of.”

“So, he’s blacked out since he was little?”

“I’m not sure how young, but that’s the first time I remember it happening.”  

“And has—has he ever been to therapy?”

“Definitely in high school. I remember mom being livid when she found out he met with the school’s psychologist once a week.

I don’t know what it was about Elliot that always set her off. It was like he couldn’t ever do anything right. I mean, she was a fucking bitch to me, too, but all of her anger was concentrated on him. It was like he was her trigger.”

“Did she,” I stopped and paused. “This is hard to ask outright. Did she . . . hurt either of you?”

“When I was, like, 8, I found this kitten. Gray and black with four perfectly white paws. She was so little, so I snuck her into my room, even named her. Moonpie,” Darlene said with a wistful smile. “Anyway, I built a little space for her in the backyard and that’s when Mom found out. She threw us in the car, went in and got Elliot, then drove to a lake. She said—she said I had to drown the cat so I would remember that actions have consequences, and disobeying her meant a consequence. I fucking took the cat and ran for it and found her a home far away from that monster.**

I’ve got a million stories like that,” Darlene finished, finally flicking her eyes to mine. “She was a stone-cold bitch.”

I was quiet while I processed Darlene’s story, thinking it alone confirmed why she stayed in the lobby when we visited her mom.

“I don’t want to push Elliot, but there’s something he’s not telling me. Maybe not telling any of us.”

“If you push him, you could lose him. That’s all I’m going to say. How important is it for him to tell you—or us—or anyone?”

“That night at my parents’ house,” I began. “That wasn’t the first time Elliot lost his temper with me.”

Darlene huffed, “That wasn’t—fuck. I don’t know how to explain it, but that wasn’t the same. Trust me. When he really loses it, you’ll know.”

“And he never remembers?”

“No.”

“Do you think it’s an act? A way to release aggression without suffering the consequence?”

“Y/N—this is the most normal I’ve ever seen my brother. Before you, there was nothing. No one. He stayed in and jacked around on his computer. What would be the point of putting on an act for years? It’s not like he was protecting some perfect life.”

“I don’t know. Had to ask,” I said with a shrug. 

“I’m just saying that he’s happy now. He’s in a good place—you are a good place.”

“I do feel like he is happy now, but I can’t stop thinking about what happens when he’s not. What if he gets depressed again? What if something does happen between us that isn’t fixable? Then he blames himself and it all goes to shit—again. How many times is he going to go through that cycle before he moves forward and stays in a forward momentum?”

I . . . want to ask him to talk to someone, a therapist, or whatever. Just . . . someone. How do you think he’ll react? Or should I just forget it?”

Darlene sighed as she thought, and I could see her nibbling her bottom lip.

“He trusts you. If anyone can suggest it, it’s you.”

“But should I?”

“I don’t know, Y/N. I mean, yeah. He’s got a fuckton of baggage, but I hate to stir shit up when he’s happy.”

“We shouldn’t have to walk on eggshells. No one’s happiness should be that fragile . . . that temporary.”

Darlene shrugged.

“Just maybe give me a warning before the shit hits the fan so I can get the fuck outta here.”

I laughed softly.

“You always assume the worst—and I get it. Well, I mean I think I understand it. I didn’t live through what you’ve lived through. And hey—this isn’t just about Elliot. If you ever need anything or anyone to unleash on, I’m here.”

Darlene looked at me and nodded her head, almost imperceptibly.

“I’ve made my peace with my shit childhood. But sometimes—"

I waited expectantly.

“Sometimes I wonder how much of it really fucked me up. I don’t—I don’t trust anyone. Like, ever.”

“Are you sure you don’t want a job?”

“What?”

“Considering what you do, I’m not surprised you feel like you have to look over your shoulder all the time. Even if you wanted to just set up a legit business for yourself, I could help you do that. Maybe you wouldn’t feel like everything was about to crash in on you at any moment. You could be totally independent.”

Darlene looked at me like I was crazy.

“You legit see the good in everything, don’t you?”

“I see the bad, but I choose to ignore as much of it as I can. I used to . . . not. That was one of the best things I learned from my therapist. She helped me climb over that wall of impending doom. Granted, it’s still there at times, but she taught me how to confront those feelings so they don’t paralyze me. I know my demons are nothing compared to yours or Elliot’s, and I know I have it easy because I can always rely on my parents to help me. But that kind of thinking leads to its own sort of darkness.”

I just want Elliot to be happy, really happy. And you, too.”

“Thanks. I don’t know if you realize what it’s like to just have someone care. That’s why I love Elliot so much—he’s always cared about me. I’ve never doubted that.”

“You shouldn’t. He loves you.”

“I haven’t always been the best sister.”

“None of us are—we have the longest relationships of our lives with our siblings. We are bound to fuck it up with them on occasion.”

Darlene laughed before growing serious again.

“Just promise me this?”

I nodded.

“If he bails on you, tries to push you away, don’t let him because it’s not really . . . it’s not really him.”

“Okay,” I promised.

“Think Elliot’ll be mad if we open a present early?”

“Oh, no way! Absolutely not! In fact, off to bed with you. Santa has to stuff the stockings.”

Darlene gave me a look of suppressed confusion and happiness, her mouth turning up in a sort of quirky smirk.

“Are you for real with this happy Christmas shit?”

“Yes—go to bed.”

Darlene shakes her head and slides off the sofa. She offers to help me clean up, but I tell her to get some sleep.

“Merry fucking Christmas,” Darlene says as hugs me.

“Santa is going to leave you coal,” I said as I gave her a final squeeze and she told me to shove it.

* New Year’s *

“I’m glad it’s just the two of us tonight. I feel like it’s been a whirlwind of parties and people.”

I brought Elliot his drink, enjoying the soft glow of the Christmas lights that sparkled on the tree Elliot helped me choose and trim. My apartment was over-decorated with lights and garland and the woodsy smell of pine was still strong because Elliot had gotten caught up in the holiday spirit, only pulling back when I told him it was all fun and games until it was time to take it all down.

Elliot’s bright, grey eyes were trained on my face as he said, “Because it has been. I’ve never socialized this much in my life and I don’t even know who the fuck I am anymore.”

“Excellent! I hope I’ve ruined you for any other person,” I said with a confident grin.

“That’s a guarantee. I’ve never been—” Elliot slammed his mouth shut and it would’ve been comical except for the look of horror on his face.

“Don’t do that.”

He shook his head.

“You can’t wait for the hammer to fall all the time. It’s a horrible way to live. You’ve never been what—say it.”

It’s clear Elliot is at war with himself in a Hamletian parody: to tell me, or not to tell me.

I huffed and leaned in to kiss him.

“You’ve never been . . .” I trailed off, a smile on my face as I placed kisses, playful and feathery, all over his face until I started teasing him with little licks under his jaw and down his neck.

“Come on, El. You’ve never been . . .”

I worked my fingers under his shirt and ghosted them along his stomach, feeling the muscles twitch as he fought not to giggle.

“Hap—hap—happier!” Elliot laughs out, unable to take my torture any longer. “I’ve never been happier.”

I grinned at him, his outburst before Thanksgiving feeling like it was a thousand miles in the past, nearly buried after the happy holiday season.

“This reminds me of Memorial Day weekend,” I said, looking over Elliot’s head as I reminisced.

“Oh yeah?”

“Do you remember? After that big meal we made together? We talked and smoked—and cuddled.”

“You told me you wanted to stop time,” Elliot said, looking at me with the slightest smile.

“Because you had me all fucked up.”

“All fucked up.”

“Don’t move—we’ve got one more Christmas present to open,” I said as I hopped up and went to dig around in the opened gifts still under the tree. I hated to put Christmas away until I absolutely had to.

“Here it is,” I mumbled as I pulled the plain black box out of the Kate Spade tote Erin had gifted me.  

The commotion on the television drew my attention as I realized we had about a minute until the ball dropped. I placed the black box on the coffee table and looked at Elliot.

“It’s almost midnight,” I said with a smile.

“Yeah? You wanna kiss me or something?”

“I do,” I said with a smile. “This is an important kiss, after all.”

“Oh?”

“A kiss at midnight means we’ll be together for the next year.”

“So you believe in superstitions now?”

“Listen,” I whispered, pulling Elliot onto his feet.

Elliot looked toward the TV as the ball began to drop. When he turned his eyes to mine, I was lost, lost as I realized they were nothing more than a reflection of my own deep happiness.

“3, 2, 1—”

Elliot’s lips crashed onto mine and he kissed me until I was light-headed, straining for gasping little breaths, unwilling to break this moment.

“Happy New Year,” Elliot breathed as he rested his forward against mine.

“Happy New Year,” I echoed.

“I never thought,” Elliot said with a surprising burst of laughter, “I never thought I’d be sharing a New Year’s kiss with . . . anyone,” he finished as he tugged me along with him back onto the couch, both of us plopping down in a bit of a tangle.

I looked at Elliot’s perfect three-point grin and felt my heart skip a beat.

“I think I’ve gained weight,” Elliot chuckled, shifting on the couch as his jeans strained against his normally damn near concave stomach.

“Guess you’re just going to have to forego pants until you lose those stubborn holiday pounds?”

“Oh?” Elliot said, but this time his voice was husky, a seductive purr as he reached for the button on his jeans, sliding it open and opening his pants.

I laughed, “Is this a glimpse into our future? Late nights on the sofa in front of the TV, your pants popped open because you ate too much?”

“Would that be a terrible fate for you?”

“No,” I said, smiling as I leaned in to kiss him lightly.

“What’s in the box?” Elliot asked as he peeked over my shoulder.

“Oh—shit!”

I pulled back and reached around to the coffee table, grabbing the box.

“A little present from Erin—would you like to do the honors?”

Elliot smirked and reached for the box, quickly pulling the lid off. He chuckled as he looked at the perfectly packed, pretty fat joints.

“More than a little present, I’d say,” he stated.

“This is a perfect opportunity to recreate our Memorial Day weekend. Thanks, sis,” I grinned as I got up to find a lighter.

Elliot and I each worked our way through a joint. It was good weed, and my state of consciousness quickly gave way to that fog, that sleepy-happy state of relaxation that only came with a good smoke.

Elliot’s face seemed to be permanently etched in a perfect three-point grin as his head rested on the back of the sofa, his eyes closed.

“What’s got you grinning?” I asked, feeling every word on my tongue as I continued to watch his face, the Christmas lights in my peripheral all blurring together so prettily.

“Guess what?”

“What?”

“We’re more than friends now,” Elliot said as he opened his eyes, lazy and half-lidded, his grin still planted on his face.

I chuckled as I slid onto Elliot’s lap and pushed his chin up so his eyes were locked on mine. I traced my fingers over his brow, his nose, his cheeks, his jaw, his lips, and I pulled back and reached for his hands.

I kissed across the knuckles of each of his hands, looking for any mark, any tiny scar from the incident in the server room, but I found none—it was like it had never happened, except that here he was, underneath me and looking at me with eyes that didn’t bother to hide the love he felt, and it was all because of that terrible night.

If good didn’t exist without condition, then maybe bad didn’t either?

“If it never happened, we wouldn’t be here now, would we?” Elliot asked, reading my thoughts.

I shook my head slowly as I let his hands fall to resting on the top of my thighs, near my hips.

“This face, El,” I breathed as I scooted closer to his body, “If I could draw, I would replicate it in all its perfection. And in your eyes, I would write the thousands of truths you carry inside so I could read them, know them, and in turn, know you.”

I was high—but I wasn’t so sure it was the effect of the weed anymore that made me feel so lightheaded.

Elliot’s eyes filled with a desperate sort of desire, and I wasn’t entirely unconvinced it was because he wanted me to stop talking, wanted me to stop looking at him so deeply.

“You do know me. And you love me anyway.”

“I love you because I know you.”

I kissed him gently, then with a sense of urgency, and again, it could have been attributed to the high, but I was suddenly filled with a sense of paranoia, a thought that nothing would ever be this good again, that nothing would ever be like this night again.  

Elliot’s tongue twined with mine as his fingers gripped my hips. I broke the kiss and pushed his head back so I could have access to his jaw and his neck. I licked along the sharp line of his jawbone before I placed sweet kisses down his neck. As I worked my way back up, I deepened those chaste kisses, sucking lightly in spots until Elliot’s fingers were threatening to snap with his tight grip.

“Touch me,” I whispered in his ear before I pulled the lobe into my mouth and sucked.

His hands moved, sliding under my shirt and going straight to unhook my bra. His nimble fingers managed it quickly and he switched his angle so that he was now massaging my breasts as they dropped free from my loosened bra. Elliot’s fingers were simultaneously working my nipples and I felt a rush of arousal between my thighs.

I was working the other side of his neck now, still pulling breathy moans from his throat, as Elliot began to tug at my shirt, trying to get me out of it and my bra. I sat back just enough to help, tossing the pile of fabric over the back of the couch. Since I was already leaning back, I reached for the hem of Elliot’s sweater and pulled it over his head. He had forgone a t-shirt underneath tonight and I was delighted to be able to dip my head and lick along the top of his chest, placing wet kisses across his skin and then onto the smattering of freckles that dotted his shoulders.

I pressed my body into his in a tight hug, my eyes rolling back a bit at the sensation of warm skin on warm skin.

Elliot moved forward, wriggling to the end of the couch and he stood up, after a moment’s struggle to get his hands under my thighs. I hooked my ankles together and he carried me to the bedroom, laying me on the bed and sliding into place between my legs.

I was still lost in the warm feel of our torsos, pressed together as Elliot’s hands pushed my arms up over my head so he could touch as much of me as he could reach, fingertips to waist, he ghosted along my skin until it broke into gooseflesh and I shuddered.

He was watching me with those big eyes, memorizing my face in yet another moment of passion before he pushed himself up so he could kiss across my chest.

Elliot’s lips quickly found one of my nipples, and I felt another flood of arousal as I watched his full lips pucker around it as he sucked. I ran my fingers up the back of his head and tangled them in his hair, enjoying the soft thickness.

Elliot let go with a slight pop and blew a cool stream of air over the wet patch, causing both nipples to grow impossibly hard and even more sensitive. Elliot smirked as he kissed his way to my other breast and repeated his sweet torture.

By the time he was kissing his way down my stomach, I was done, squirming with desire, the muscles of my abdomen twitching under his tongue.

“Stop,” I breathed. “Stop, stop.”

Elliot froze and looked up with wide-eyes, and I pushed out from under him.

I stood and shimmied out of my jeans and panties.

“Lay down,” I instructed, and Elliot’s face relaxed as he realized I just wanted to switch positions.

Elliot’s jeans were already falling off his hips, so with a good tug, I pulled them off and made quick work of his socks and his underwear. I took a few seconds to let my eyes rake over his naked body, his muscles taught, his cock hard, his eyes soft.

I smiled and kept my eyes on his as I straddled his hips. Elliot reached down to grasp himself, and he ran the tip of his cock through my wetness. I stayed poised above him, and I reached up to grasp his jaw, my thumb caressing the spot between his lower lip and his chin. When our eyes were locked, I lowered myself onto him and we groaned together, both overwhelmed at both the sensation and the feeling.  

I moved slowly, watching his mouth form a tight line as he struggled against releasing his pleasure.

“Let go, El.”

Elliot’s eyes swept over my face before he exhaled, his mouth falling open. He ran his hands up my thighs and swept around to grasp my hips. I loved the feeling of his strong hands on me and I sped up my movements, his cock hitting just the right spot.

I wanted him so much and my high had worn off to a quiet buzz, I knew my orgasm wouldn’t take long to achieve, but I wanted to come with him tonight—I felt a desperate need to be in sync with him, to be as close to him as I could be.

We were both covered in a light sheen of sweat, our bodies hot, flushed.

“Close,” I breathed.

“Y/N,” Elliot said in a moan. “Y/N, Y/N, Y/N.”

Elliot’s deep, raspy voice saying my name, again and again, drove me toward the edge, and I sped up my movements, my hands clutching at his chest as I began to bounce in earnest.

“Fuck,” Elliot hissed. “I’m coming.”

And my walls clenched at his warning, squeezing around him while he emptied himself inside of me, his heat spreading over my inner walls, making me feel so connected to him as we both worked through our climaxes. Tonight, like our first night together, wasn’t about fucking; it was about feeling, about us showing one another everything we didn’t want to taint with words.

We stayed connected, arms and legs tangled, but we said nothing—nothing needed to be said, and soon Elliot’s head was settled on my chest in a haunting, much more intimate mirror of the first, chaste night we had ever spent together.

Surrounded by everything that was Elliot, I knew I wanted to forget about the incident at my parents’ house, so I did, pushing it away until I thought it was gone.

I felt Elliot relax, falling asleep in my arms, but as this Elliot, my Elliot fell asleep, another part of him was waking up, that angry part of him I wanted so desperately to forget wasn’t going to stay asleep for much longer, and it would be all my fault.

[thelilnan]

Endgame thoughts and spoilers (entirely about Steve and Bucky bc that’s just who i am)

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So I say all this as a die hard Steve/Bucky shipper, to the point that I’m getting a tattoo somewhat soon once I calm down abt this shit/write my own fix it so I can deal with it.

Steve’s entire storyline has Bucky inherently woven into it. They’re best friends since childhood and Steve initiates a secret operation against direct orders when he himself barely has any military training because Bucky might still be alive behind enemy lines. Once he figures out Bucky is the Winter Soldier, he completely changes his tactics in order to get through to him beneath the brainwashing, even risking his own life to do so because if he fails his friend one more time, what’s the point in carrying on? Then Civil War happens and Steve once again puts everything he’s ever earned up to that point on the line for Bucky.

Then Infinity War happens and what does Steve do when he finally sees his best friend again, somewhat sane, ready to fight by his side after literal decades of brainwashing and abuse?

Shoulder pat.

Which is frustrating.

And then Bucky gets dusted and his last word is “Steve” and I can’t tell you how hard I fucking cried, UGHGDFH. And Steve realizes hey... he’s Gone now. He’s fucking Gone.

So how does Steve spend the entirety of Endgame?

Pining over Peggy.

Like what the absolute fuck is that. Not that Peggy isn’t great but they knew each other for like 2 years in the 40s and as much as I’m sure it sucked to just know you missed the boat on someone by 70 years, it’s not like Steve never knew what became of her. They had regular talks in Winter Soldier. Steve was able to get some sense of closure knowing that Peggy had a life after him. She was married for god’s sake. And then she passed away peacefully in Civil War and Steve was given the opportunity to not only move on but to focus his efforts on saving the other bit of his past, his best fucking friend.

But literally. Every chance Steve gets to pull out that pocket watch. Like some sort of. Bitch.

It’s just... frustrating. I know Marvel and its directors/writers will never actually give us Steve/Bucky because why the fuck would they, but they don’t even know how to handle them as friends. Everything gets tabled for this love interest whose storyline is very much Over but apparently Steve got too fucked up over someone living her life without him that he had to fuck up the entire timeline to get it back. SHE HAD A LIFE WITHOUT HIM. SHE WAS MARRIED. So what becomes of THAT guy then huh? How does the timeline fucking change because Steve couldn’t fucking get over some made up heartbreak and accept his life WITH BUCKY ALIVE in 2019.

I want to also point out that Steve says in Winter Soldier how hard it is to make connections (date) with people who don’t have a shared life experience. You know who has a shared life experience? Someone from 1945 who was robbed of the chance for a normal life and was changed into a super soldier. Another kid from Brooklyn. James Buchanan FUCKING Barnes!! And what’s worse is that Bucky doesn’t have the social skills anymore to make friends like Steve did, or at least not right away. So with Steve gone, Bucky is ALONE AGAIN. And it’s all Steve’s fault, how fucking great. How fucking selfish. 

It’s fucking SELFISH.

I’m just. I would’ve preferred if Steve died? 

Whatever. Fix it fic to come.

Mâd about it.

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oh also??? the fact that Thor (there’s a lot of problems with Thor’s story in Endgame) never mentions Loki at all despite watching him get the life choked out of him after they had finally made up after 1000s of years of differences? not that getting closure w his mom wasn’t important (though it was literally never mentioned since Dark World) but he didn’t even mention Loki. so that’s fucked up.

[proteusspade]

I don’t generally wax nihilistic about the younger generation. Online Roleplay, however, has slowly opened my eyes to what I at first took for the latest passing fad in RP, and now realize may be a symptom of the way the generation after mine was raised and educated. I definitely spent a lot of time on the computer as a kid, no denying that. (I also had greater computer access than many children in my own generation.) However, to use the somewhat cringey term, my “screen time” was nothing compared to what a good proportion of kids in the generation following mine had -- time watching videos, too, occupied a fair chunk of my childhood, and I won’t deny that, either, or insist in a superior tone that I spent my childhood “playing outside, drinking out of a hose”. I played outside and I spent time on the computer. I read, and I watched videos. I played make-believe and I played games on Bonus.com. One is not exclusive to the other. But, due to increase in the ease of use and affordability of portable technologies as child-entertaining devices, one has begun to significantly *overshadow* the other.  The “aesthetic” trend I began to observe in RP has damn near taken over. GIF RP, celebrity faceclaims, settings that have no plot relevance on the RP, no social relevance on the RP, no technological relevance on the RP, only there to fit an aesthetic, have become the new normal. I need to explain how *insane* that is as a Milennial. The thought of creating a character around a celebrity’s appearance never seemed to cross our minds back in the day. The thought of using *any* reference that was not custom-made to fit our ~~unique creation~~ seemed crazy -- if you couldn’t draw, you found someone who could, or used a doll maker, or (most shocking of all!) described your character using text. You know, text, words, the medium you’re roleplaying in. But now many roleplays forbid you from participating without an image, often without a specific type of image (anime or celebrity faceclaim).  Ditto the “aesthetic” historical settings, which unfortunately I have to admit are *not* an issue unique to the generation following mine, whatever the fuck we’re calling it today -- my generation definitely does this shit too, and this is no doubt partly due to our *appalling* schooling. I still don’t get the point of this, though; if things are going to be treated as if it’s modern day, you realize your char can still wear a flapper dress? Like... they still function fine today, and given most of these characters are spacevampnekodemonangelwerekitsunes with wings anyway, they probably won’t look any more out of place than usual. (... well, I guess some things never change.) Overall, however, the worrying thing I’m seeing is a complete lack of awareness of what other players would be aware of. This can range from astonishingly unclear storytelling and descriptions, ‘he walks in’ type posts that tell other players and characters NOTHING, to expecting players to metagame as a matter of course just to keep things moving, often having no understanding of why metagaming would ever be a bad thing. I am seeing a complete lack of awareness of our own characters (the number of times younger RPers will make new characters, throwing out the ones they’ve played once if ever, because they didn’t take the time to develop them and are wondering why all their characters come out the same -- I feel so bad for these kids, they feel like they’re bad writers somehow) -- also in how players cannot figure out what their character is seeing, hearing, or sensing, often ‘not knowing what to do’ when they’ve been given very obvious hints or even told exactly what needs to be done by other characters, feeling they have to “come up with it themselves” without any outside input.  Less explainably, I am also seeing a complete lack of respect for other roleplayers -- everyone knows what AFK and BRB mean, but these terms are not used anymore to inform RP partners that one will not be actively RPing for a time. Instead other RPers are treated as a resource of infinite patience that will somehow psychically know that the scene is now on pause. ... I’m seeing this among my own generation too, increasingly, and I don’t know what this even is. I am seeing far shorter posts which give other players/chars much less to respond to, observe, or work off of.  I am seeing far more frequent instances of several people all RPing in the same scene, but never interacting or approaching others, just waiting for others to approach them. I am seeing people respond to posts as if they haven’t read them, and are continuing their own personal novel. (Again, also a problem with my generation. At least partly an issue of overexcitement, but I think also a problem of reading comprehension.) I am seeing people struggling, painfully, to understand how to use words to tell a communal story.  I am realizing that the generation following mine have been stuck in front of visual mediums, allowing little opportunity to develop a vivid imagination. Needing to rely on things they’ve seen, unable to conceive of things they haven’t. They have been reading less, (many schools have limited or banned library access outside class times, many schools punish children for reading non-assigned materials), have been allowed to play face to face less (and yes, I say allowed -- I know that a huge amount of play restrictions are due to safety-paranoid schools, parents, and laws that punish parents for ever having their children out of their line of sight.) and have been given less time to develop the imaginative and social skills which are essential to RP, and which are bred on the playground. As frustrated as your RP makes me, kids, I know you deserve better. If I talk bad about your RP sometimes, I’m sorry. It’s not you. I don’t like how they call you annoying and put something on so you’ll be quiet. You’re not annoying, you’re wonderful, you’ve been robbed of essential tools to grow these parts of you. Cultivate your imaginations, and stick it to the people who fucked up your childhood and then gave you the blame for it. ... oh, and if you’re young and RPing... please don’t cyber if you’re under 18.

[space-cops]

Every odd question fir Sangriel!!!

boyhowdy text wall ahoy. i didnt bother editing this or reading over it so oops theres gonna be mistakes. answers below the cut 0:

1) Sangriel Amato Heartspell. His name doesn't mean much of anything, besides Amato meaning beloved in Italian. San's surname was originally Keldaris (of Loretta Keldaris, wife of Gia Realdor, who took on her surname) until he changed it after his family's. problematic escapades. 

3) He had a pretty fucking nice childhood. He grew up well off, took all sorts of classes and extracuriculars, all that shit. San's actually a skilled ballerino and is quite fond of dance as a whole. One of his fondest memories is his mother helping him with stage makeup for the first time. San's worst memory is the loss of his grandparents during the attack on Silvermoon. 

5) Sangriel has no siblings but many, many, MANY, cousins. So fucking many. He grew up with all of them, so to him they may as well be brothers and sisters. All of them got along very well and though he doesn't talk to many of them anymore, they're all still on good terms (as far as he knows).

7) He and Mesdrea are childhood friends!! After the attack on Silvermoon, her family moved south towards Southshore, and his family remained in Eversong.  He had no idea whether or not she or her family had survived until he leaves home and decides to travel to learn more about the arcane. Mesdrea was part of the Syndicate at the time and he joined her there. When the organization started going off the deep end, the two bailed out and returned to Silvermoon together. 

9) He is not fond of animals, so of course they read that and immediately pile onto him. Sangriel isnt particularly good at caring for pets which is the real reason why he isnt fond of them. He'd honestly love to have a fish if he didnt think he'd accidentally starve it to death. 

11) No diet requirements! This terrible boy is a walking garbage disposal.

13) He hates cabbage and cauliflower in all forms. terrible. bad foods.

15) San got his father's skills for cooking, which is to say he's..... not the best. He isn't terrible though! He's got a handful of dishes he can cook very well! Just dont expect him to cook dinner all the time and have it be completely edible.

17) Oh fuck yes. Selfies, pictures of dumb things he finds, loooots of pictures of bodies of water esp waterfalls. Half the time he doesnt share them he just likes hoarding the photos to look at alone later. San's not shy or embarrassed by them he just doesn't wanna share.

19) San hates existential "We are stardust and eternal" sorts of things. He feels that most of the time they are disingenuous strings of words pulled out of the asses of people who think they're holier than thou. also theyre boring. 

21) He doesn't necessarily have a temper that is constant but he's very easily riled up. When he's angery he's more likely to lash out with words and snide remarks than anything physical, especially if he knows something particularly damning about the person in question. It takes a lot to get him to that point though. He'll bitch and whine and yell loooong before that.

23) San likes firm mattresses, and would sleep on the floor if mesdrea didnt insist on him having something between him and the hardwood. He doesn't snore, but is drawn to heat sources aka anyone with the misfortune of sharing a bed with him, and clings to them desperately. He sleeps with Only One Pillow, and mesdrea thinks there's something wrong with him for it.

25) He doesn't think he's terribly funny, though Mesdrea loves his sarcastic sense of humor (san thinks she's biased bc they're friends). Sangriel loves witty humor, and though he won't admit it, will absolutely laugh at a properly timed and/or worded crude joke. 

27) San frequently has moods where he feels as if he's accomplished nothing with his life (you're still so young, his mother always says!) and it throws him into a funk for a couple days at a time. He'll cry somewhere towards the end of it after everything's sort of come to a head, and he does very little to hide it. Normally he'll end up snapping at the smallest things, like not being able to open a package or dropping something on the floor. At that point he kind of just spends the day sobbing on and off until it's out of his system. He's a little dramatic but its still genuine sadness :(

29) If any teasing is done it's minimal. Normally San won't do either, but he leans towards being more protective if the person in question is someone he's fond of. Teasing would consist of a tasteful joke at most when he first finds out, and nothing more. It's mostly to try and get the person to smile, though he knows it won't always work. 

31) San absolutely drinks, and is actually terrible at holding his liquor. He gets drunk fast then crashes and burns not long after. He's actually a fairly fun drunk, and loses the insecurities he has that makes him quick to snap and anger when sober. San's a miserable person hungover and tends to spend that time hiding under blankets and pillows alone. He won't admit it but he mother hens those around him that are drunk or hungover while he's sober, though he's not above intentionally making loud noise when Mesdrea is hungover bc she does the same to him. 

33) It depends on what he's wearing. Lounging around or going out it might be boxerbriefs. Some stupid tight pants?? probably some small bikini/thong thing?? of course he wears lacy shit on special occassions though. Of Course. Who do you think We Are.

35) Guilty pleasure is thrifting, esp for clothing he can alter. A totally not-guilty pleasure is sitting on the balcony of drea's flat with a bottle of wine and tossing tiny bits of food out to the birds. he keeps score of how many pieces of food end up in someone's hair/hat too. he has to. 

37) San is actually an avid reader, mostly of non-fiction and esp arcane theory. If he reads anything fictional it's science fiction. Asshole looks dumb as fuck but he's well read. 

39) He loveslovesloves sending letters and messages to people. Mesdrea was the only person he spoke to for a long time at one point and it was only through letters. It's special to him idk

41) San's solidly Gay. Really Really Gay. He just finds?? Lots of things attractive and in no specific way/shape/form. San would say he doesn't have a type and he's right. He's pretty bad with relationships though. The intimacy that's involved kinda...bugs him.. and it mostly has to do with his own insecurities and self-worth. Maybe if he found someone that helps with that he'd? be in a relationship? But for now he's 100% fine with flings. They make him happy.

43) He's not very religious. The light's cool and all. Naaru look neat. The moon is rad so Elune is too, he supposes. An'she is chill. It's just stuff he doesnt want to concern himself with. 

45) People that don't know him see him as an overdramatic, flashy, pompous asshole and they're not wrong! He absolutely is, but that's all they see. People who have been robbed by him see a strange thief that somehow used magic to steal in broad daylight. Mesdrea sees him as someone who is actually a very loving person that is particularly good at making masks to hide who he actually is and how he actually feels. San tries very hard to see himself as someone who is good and worthy of, well, good in return. But most of the time he only sees what's wrong with himself and the things he's done and then ignores all the good, so over time he created the grand facade of this amazing illusionist thief that regrets nothing and cares for nobody and looks Fabulous™ doing it. 

47) San has a love/hate relationship with formal settings. He loves the pomp and circumstance of it all, the dressing up, all the fake bullshit and the backstabbing. He hates that his family isn't able to enjoy the things they used to, though, and that's because their father had them basically ostracised out of their social circles and then gambled all their wealth away :\\\ So he loves them, but hates that he can't share that fun with his family, so he doesn't attend anything formal.

49) The copper ring his mother gave him is most prized possession. She gave it to him on his 20th birthday. The runes on it are a small blessing, Light's Strenth. He'd been planning on running off without a word, but his mom is pretty in tune with his antics and she stopped him as he was leaving to give him the ring. His mother's fairly religious so the ring means a lot to her, and while Sangriel is not, the ring is still incredibly important. When he knows he can't safely wear it on his hand, he keeps it on a copper chain.

[wp-yahoo-style-1042-yahoopa-blog]

How Muslim style star Leah Vernon decided 'to be myself, unapologetically'

Leah Vernon by Victoria Kaempfe

Leah Vernon is the consummate modern hyphenate. When asked to describe her career, the 30-year- old blogger turned Instagram star turned YouTube star says, “Right now, I’m a body-positive activist, Muslim feminist influencer, and a writer.”

So how did the Detroit-based internet phenomenon hone her multifaceted skills? Through her love of fashion, of course.

“Back in the early 2000s, I was really obsessed with modeling,” Vernon tells Yahoo Lifestyle. But, she clarifies, “I was also a short fat black girl who was really poor. So I didn’t fit any of the molds of what it was to be a model.”

Vernon’s mom and brother were booking modeling jobs, however, and Vernon would accompany them when they would work — an experience she describes as “heartbreaking, because I thought it would be so cool to do this, but then it’s like, ‘No — you don’t look the part.’”

Leah Vernon by Rob Eves

So Vernon decided instead to focus on her writing. She started a blog “that failed miserably” and a YouTube channel that also went nowhere. Then, in 2013, she decided to try again, launching a new blog called Beauty and the Muse, the name for which just popped into her head one morning.

Initially, Beauty and the Muse was strictly devoted to fashion and fashion-show coverage. But the response to Vernon’s take on those topics led to something unexpected.

“I was getting fan messages from around the world, people saying, ‘I’ve never seen a fat black Muslim girl talking about this stuff’ — and I was getting these messages from girls half my size,” Vernon recalls. “So I went from talking about fashion to body-image issues to religion to feminism.”

But also, Vernon says, her focus on fashion also came as a direct result of the ways she struggled as a child and young adult.

“When I was younger, my father wasn’t really there at all, and when he was, he was fat-shaming me,” she says. “He would make fun of how big I was compared to my stepsister and the clothes I would wear. Because I was a big girl, I didn’t have clothes that were fashionable.” That wasn’t all.

As one of the only black children in her neighborhood — and one of the only Muslim children too — she says she would regularly get called “a nun” by teasing boys on her street, who would mock her hijab and the way that she dressed.

“It only got worse when I got older,” Vernon notes. “I was homeschooled my entire life until I was 16, when I went to college. And then I went to college and I didn’t know where I fit in.”

Vernon says that when she went to college, she struggled with the decision of whether to wear her hijab, or, as she puts, it, “To stand out or not, to feel normal or not.”

Furthermore, she says, “My weight was up and down, and I had an eating disorder — I felt like if I was thinner, I would get the boy, get the job, get the attention.”

After marrying early, Vernon reckoned with even more identity issues resulting from what it means to be “married to a Muslim man … and how a Muslim woman should act, how she should be seen relative to her husband in society.”

“I was getting really tired of having to fit into all of these molds of what Muslim people wanted from me, of what black people wanted from me, of what thin people wanted from me. The turning point for me was that I was very angry and I didn’t know who I was. And then I realized you can be fat and educated, you can be fat and fierce as fuck, you can be fat and Muslim,” Vernon says. “You can choose to be miserable and angry and allow other people to dictate your happiness and your self-image or you can say, ‘No — I am a strong, independent woman who is all of these things and more.’ And I decided I was going to be myself, unapologetically.”

Which is why Vernon wishes she could tell her younger self “to stop taking validation from outside sources — that will never fill you. That’s what I found out as I got older and I started to look within. I realized I was the only one who could change my own mindset.”

Leah Vernon by Remy Roman

Likewise, Vernon says she wishes she could tell all younger girls looking to her as a role model to “stop seeking validation and do what feels right. If you want to wear black lipstick and black nail polish, do that. I used to! And people made fun of me for being this weird girl and I’m this bombshell woman now — and I would never be me without her. So keep saying weird shit and being your weird self, unapologetically.”

And despite achieving indisputable influencer status through social media, Vernon is also wary of its pull.

“The validation we seek can be overbearing, especially with social media. We all want engagement and likes and popularity. But that comes when you’re OK with yourself,” Vernon says. “No lies, when I stopped giving a fuck about being in the in-crowd of the Instagram crowd is when my career blew up. I’m living my truth — so I would tell other people to live your truth too.”

Still, Vernon says being a role model isn’t always easy.

“Being an influencer and a role model, sometimes you feel like people want things from you that you cannot give them. I’ve become people’s therapist, I get sent private messages, people ask me questions about everything from abortion to what to do if their husband is cheating on them,” Vernon says. “I never went to school to be a psychiatrist or a psychologist. And people really value my opinion, but I don’t want to tell them the wrong thing, or sway them to do something they might regret.”

Instead, Vernon says that what she hopes she can do for her fans and followers is “give you that spark to give you that confidence about wherever you’re headed in life.”

Likewise, as a self-identified feminist, Vernon says she also hears from plenty of people who say, “Oh, do you hate men?”

To that she replies, “Yeah, I’m a powerful feminist — and some people who call themselves that are ridiculous, but there is the other powerful part of the group fighting for people’s rights. I would rather feminism not be needed. The world should be equal, right? People would rather not have to spend time marching and creating blog posts and signing petitions because we should all already be equal, right?”

But once again, for Vernon, it often all comes back to fashion — especially when it comes to feminism.

“I feel feminist as fuck when I can express myself through makeup, or not. Through fashion, or through being androgynous. The ability to express myself through beauty and fashion and to push the narrative of feminism and equal expression for women and girls who in other countries can’t do that is a part of what my feminism itself is,” says Vernon. “Everyone understands fashion. Everyone has a fashion sense. So that’s why I push my message of feminism and women’s empowerment and expression and art through [beauty and fashion] because it’s universal and if I can put a message in there and if girls can feel you can wear what you want to wear, put on your face whatever you want — or put nothing on your face at all — then I’m furthering the message. You have the option as a woman and a girl to do what you want to do.”

For evidence of that, look no further than Vernon’s latest video on body positivity, in which she shows herself dancing through the streets of Detroit.

“I’ve never danced professionally or on camera like that,” she explains. “I wanted to push feminist expression and say, I’m fat, black and Muslim, dancing in the streets of Detroit looking fierce, looking bomb. You can look this way or any way and look super fierce and confident and you can be yourself unapologetically.”

After all Vernon — who is presently working on her memoir, a series of “essays about me — fat shaming, mental illness, divorce, modeling, my childhood and all the stories good and bad that make me, me” — makes more than clear that to her, body positivity is nothing more than “living the best life in the body you have now.”

“Body positivity isn’t just for fat women, but for all bodies. We put all these limitations on ourselves — if I lost 10 pounds., I could do this. If I had a bigger booty, I could get this kind of man. We put all these restrictions on ourselves based on our size and socioeconomic status and we put all these limitations on ourselves, and why?”

She concludes: “Body positivity is my foundation. It’s me. And I will always keep pushing that agenda for men and women alike.”

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyles

Long Beach Settles Lawsuit After Police Forcibly Remove Woman’s Hijab

Muslim-American Woman’s Calm Response to Verbal Harassment Goes Viral

Curvy actress admits that her ‘weight was an issue for casting directors’

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