#I considered comparing to thirteen stories too

[acid-ixx]

ch.4: again &. again (platonic! yandere batfam x neglected! gn reader)

directory: preq, chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, chapter four

read until the end for an author's note.

tw: self-esteem issues, alcohol abuse, allusions to self-harm.

"baby bird, i know i haven't been talking to you much as of lately. but i just want to let you know that we miss you alright?"

not delivered.

"i really regret ignoring you, we all do. i'm-"

he hesitates, then deletes the last word of his message.

"—we're the ones in the wrong for everything, alright? you blocked me, i'm sure you did for everyone else too, i get that, but we care for you now and that won't change anytime soon. please remember that."

not delivered.

"and it pains me seeing that you're not replying to my messages at all, baby bird. but i promise i'll-"

dick bites his lips at the mistake of addressing himself only rather than that of the family, but a greedy part of him wants you to read the messages and to see only him in spite of everything rather than them, feeling a sense of... need to be the first and only one you see when you think about accepting their apologies, even if he's writing to you whilst simultaneously trying to get his family in your good graces.

dick doesn't know it. why he's suddenly obsessed with you. you? yes you, his stupidly precious sibling, the one who looked up to him, frail and wronged by the world, with so much drive behind that stare. third child of bruce, yet second youngest in the family. the one that got away, the one he has never once saw outside that one memory of glinting, awe-inspired eyes that told more stories than poets, drew more emotions than artists.

nobody saw you outside of your status as the manor's ghost— but compared to your other siblings, he knew you the most. he wants to be the only man good enough to be considered your brother, your oldest brother; an obligation he's willing to uptake just for you. he wants to be the only one with the authority to call you his baby bird. he doesn't know why, despite the thirteen and a half years, it's him wanting, no, needing to see you again.

you, just you.

every bits and pieces of you.

in his mind, it's just him and you. in your tiny little bedroom, with your dozens of sketchbooks and diaries, with only your brother, dick, to accompany you. in your own little world, as you speak to him of your dreams and passions with nothing else in your mind. you'd look up at him with sparkling eyes, look at him like he means everything in the world to you, and he'd see you as his world.

when he thinks of that, the more he hopes of the possibility of you reading his messages; his declaration of never leaving you alone anymore. and with hope comes along this dread that you'd reply with a nasty reply, or that... you'll never bat an eye him anymore.

dick doesn't take a second glance to correct his mistake again this time.

"i promise i'll be better for you baby bird. my little hatchling, my little one. i discarded you, someone so precious. you must've felt hurt, no? i get that, i'm so sorry you have to go through that because of me. but look! you have me now, we have each other now! and that might not be enough yet to mend the bridge i left to fall, but if you just, please reply to me, or anyone else, then we can fix this. i promise, baby bird."

not delivered.

"you won't ever feel hurt anymore, or sad or lonely. hell, even bruce is getting you a new bedroom fixed up, isn't that great!? i'll even convince the old man to make sure your room is close to my old one so you can visit me anytime. i'll even stay over at gotham for even longer, just for you! and i'll spend my time with you, with just the two of us, okay? nobody else can disturb us. i'm sure you'd like that too."

not delivered.

"and we can hang out anytime you want, no? sleepovers, movie nights, journalling— all the cool stuff you wanted to do with me in the past, we can do now! and it'll be fun with you, i can see it happening alrrady, i just know it. you can't convince me otherwise, baby bird."

not delivered.

"that's why i'm begging you to unblock me, little one, or to at least read all my previous messages, please? :( i'm still so sorry over how i treated you in the past. i've nothing to defend myself over how i acted towards you. i was so delusional, ignoring you when all you clearly wanted was to spend time with me, with the family."

not delivered.

"we can even have that dinner together, remember?! at that fancy restaurant you talked about, yeah? my treat, of course. you can order the entire damn menu and i'll leave you room for seconds and desserts. i can even make arrangements to get bruce to rent out the entire restaurant so it would just be the two of us plus the family, but mostly just us— that would be good! then you can sleep at my room after we get home to the manor since we're turning your old one into an atelier just for you! i'll even carry your cute little figure up any flight of stairs whenever you get tired."

not delivered.

"i promise i'll really make it up to you baby bird!!! <3"

not delivered.

"for all the times we neglected you, left you thinking you didn't deserve a spot in the manor (which you truly do, it's us to blame for never seeing it that way), made you feel negative emotions towards us— i'll take your pain and turn that into joy, i promise."

not delivered.

"and if you do manage to read through all this, please remember..."

not delivered.

"i love you so much, alright? we'll find you soon, and you'll be happier with us, i'm sure of it. i love, love, love you so much my baby bird."

not delivered.

he sighs, resigning his thoughts all to himself as he checks his phone every minute for a simple ring of notifications just from you. he prefers to leave his phone in silent mode from the multitude of other contacts bothering him, but god forbade if that means he'd scroll past to a single reply of yours, then he'd rather burn in hell.

and anything is better than the pain inflicted on him when it comes to the thought of you ignoring him.

because after all, he does mean it when he says he loves you, his baby bird, his adorable little sibling.

he'd rather hell than you seeing him any less of an older brother.

what takes longer? is it a seed growing into a bud, a bud into a bloom, or a flower to fully shrivel and die?

how long does it take for it to be considered worthy? deserving of attention and the rightful spotlight to attain its needs for life?

what takes its time? what other variable does it need for it to survive in such harsh conditions? if it's forcefully pried open as a seedling, as a bud growing in a field full of weeds sapping, draining it of its nutrition, or in a scorching, desolate desert, or pestilent lands; would it still be considered a flower?

what does a seed need to grow into a flower? beautiful, treasured, with vibrant colors reflecting off the surface of each petal, growing pollen for every pollinator to spread its bountiful success you call development?

what does it require?

everyone knows the answer, some could only be ignorant enough to turn the other way and reject the idea altogether.

it needs care, nourishment — healthy soil building a strong foundation, its home with roots carefully embedded in the ground, then it also requires water, a source of life given to it in specific times with just the right dose, and sunlight kissing its stems and petals warmly — and finally, love.

lots of love, attention, and patience from mother nature herself and its caretakers we call humans.

but how could a flower receive any, if not, all it needs, if it's raised under a marshy, overgrowth rainforest that speaks of death and cruel poachers that could step on the bloom of any moment?

how could a flower live, let alone survive, if its careless caretakers who took it away from its fertile lands neglect it of its requirements to grow and bloom into its rightful imagery?

just how?

you are a flower.

and you will wilt soon the longer you live in what you once thought was your home.

growing in cracked, dry soil, with no water nor sunlight aiding your growth.

you are a flower.

who had been loved by your creator, mother nature herself; your mother. but you've never once felt the care nor love of your cruel humans you call family, your father had never once saw your budding petals, kissed it, patiently watered or spent time outside in the sunlight with you. your brothers don't notice your dehydrated pets, shriveled leaves and bent stems, nor do they tend to it. your sisters don't decorate the pot you reside it, they don't talk to you every time you sag down in loneliness and isolation as you are forced to stay in the same place and witness the same scenarios over and over again.

not much knows it, but flowers, much like any plant, can communicate, they can feel. and when they do, they do deeply.

and you are a flower. a flower worthy of being pressed into books, storing your beauty forever. a flower worthy of being situated into a stunning arrangements of bouquets, worshipped through birthdays, dates, weddings, and even funerals.

you're a flower, and you're beautiful and deserving of praise and honor from your stages in life as a seed, from a bud, to a blooming flower. yet you're neglected the same way ignorant trespassers would step on growing blooms, uncaring for sabotaging their life completely, and oh-so easily.

you're a flower, a symbol of nature's fertility, resilience, and tranquility.

you symbolize your mother's long standing determination to care for a child whose father looked other ways but her. who raised her seedling with care, watered them with stories of fairytales: fantasies about prince charmings who take their flowers away from barren lands to spoil them with rich soil and neverending sunlight, about princesses who stop by flower shops to awe at the arrangements of bouquets, eyes glazing with fervor as they recount each and every symbolism every unique flower shares.

your mother places you in your favorite, decorated pot: your shared bedroom with her, and she kisses your cheeks, your forehead, your chubby little fingers, the same way the illuminating sunlight kisses at your flushed body whenever you two would go out for your walks.

she was your mother nature, and you were her precious flower.

you were once a blooming bud then, and you wished you would still bloom now.

how could you grow into what you're worth, when even you couldn't grow without the love that was taken from you?

what about the care, the patience, the determination she once held in her warm gaze, now cold and fading with life the last time you saw her; would it all be a waste?

how could you grow now?

and yet you don't even need to ponder for solutions. the answers were clear, clear as the water your petals used to bathe in, clear as the rain that pitters against alfred's car windows the same day you were taken away from your mother's hold—

you simply wilt.

8:31PM.

your friend said she'd pick you up quarter to nine, so you'd at least have the time to prepare and make yourself look good. but right now...

god, right now, you don't feel anything good, not even a wee bit of it at all. ever since he texted you, you feel like shit, utterly repulsed. vile, like the image of you vomiting every contents of your stomach— and now you're going out drinking with an empty one. you can already feel the bitter taste of heavy alcohol mixing in with the acids of your stomach.

you can already feel the breakdown you're having right now as you remember how fucking broke and useless you are for having to ask your friends to treat you to drinking because you have nothing left to offer beyond the fucking taxes you have to pay and the nearly due rent and bills.

you have nothing to offer. you're so shitty. you deserve to die.

the more you stare at the mirror, the more your eyebags seem to deepen, your lips began to dry, and the pit in your chest sunken.

and that makes you exhale even deeper, ignoring the way your throat constricts on itself in instinct.

your eyes flitter to your fingers, nails bitten, skin ripped at the seems with dry blood staining chipped cuticles.

when you looked back at your reflection, you want to cry even more, seeing an image of a moving pile of flesh. all puffy skin and sagging eyes.

you don't remember the last time you felt pretty about yourself.

whether it was in the manor, or back when your mother was the only one raising you— it seems like your memories are in shambles right now.

you don't remember the last time you looked in a mirror, looking healthy, fresh, and proud of yourself for dressing up in your style. in the back of your mind, there will always be hatred, resentment for how you look. and right now, you hate how you every bit of your appearance because...

because you look exactly just like an image of your mother and bruce wayne. a reminder, your punishment for your parents' beautifully tragic affair with one another. a billionaire who courted the lowly dirt-class slut of gotham.

yet you're uglier because you're not them, you couldn't be them. you're not picture-perfect brucie with slick-black hair and a face like fine-aged wine, or the image of your sultry, "man-eater" mother in her lingerie. you're just, you— you've inherited all the stupid flaws you wished you could shave off your damn body.

you remember seeing your father's face in television with your mother beside you by the couch, combing your hair and giggling when your eyes had lit up at the sight of the rich man. you haven't once took your eyes off the news channel whenever he appeared, looking at bruce, always enamored with his aesthetics, only to never notice your mother's tired eyes, or how shaky her fingers would sometimes become.

"momma, that's daddy, right?!" you asked her whilst the side of your body was pressed against hers, with all the enthusiasm a child could muster. your grin was wide, eyes peeled to the screen, enough to ignore the flinch in your mother as you had once thought it was her igniting with the same excitement as yours.

she simply leans down and kisses your cheeks, her eyes, a beautiful shade of your eyes color, albeit lighter in hue, never once left the crown of your small head, ignoring the headline for the news about 'brucie's new fling caught on camera!'.

your mother was so glad you were still illiterate at your age. she wish she could never break off the illusion that it was her who simply birthed to you, with no face for a father. maybe you would've never ask her about why he had never once came to visit your small family, why you could never meet your other siblings, or why he's seen with multiple other women by his side every time you open the television.

you ask at frequent intervals; it makes her wish to strip away the past in which she chose to tell you who your father was. you would've experienced less heartbreak, she would've never seen the way your eyes would dim at her every excuse, or the way she felt your heart crack at the seams, only further breaking hers.

yet after a while, she replies and buries her thoughts, ignoring the tears that lid her eyes. with not so much enthusiasm in her light voice, with the undertones of guilt and sorrow digging deep throat her throat, but it was enough for young, little you to jump on your springy couch with her response.

"... oh, yes, that's your papa...! isn't he so nice looking—?"

"and handsome! i'm so lucky to have such beautiful parents! i wish i was as pretty as you, momma, and daddy too!"

when you had looked up with haste, glinting eyes staring up at her with a wide grin, some baby teeth still present, others absent from your gums, yet you displayed admiration no less; your mother just as quickly wipes her red eyes and sniffling nose with the worn sleeves of her sweater and reciprocates your beaming energy with a small smile.

she wishes you'd dismiss her previous melancholic expression, replacing it with the same fond, yet tired gaze she always offers you, wishing you'd be as oblivious to the pain it brings her to see your hopes and dreams of meeting a father you could only admire through a screen or article. yet you're always so perceptive, so interlinked with her reactions that she's sure that one of the few positive traits your father had given you. she should've expected your words, yet her broken heart finds a path to heal whenever you sense her pain and soft a bandage to the cracks of her bleeding scars with your kindness.

you would always be her little flower. the one she'd nurture in a garden filled with rosy bushes and scarring thorns.

"—you're so beautiful, momma, even if you cry because daddy isn't here with us, or you're too tired taking care of me. you're beautiful because you're my mother, and i'll take you over everything in the world..."

and you tell her, an inaudible whisper to your voice, with eyes that were once wide, beaming with joy, now gazing at her with softness like the wind kissing blades of grass in a gentle dance. you look at her, and she stares back, eyeing your chubby cheeks and lips the same shape of hers, the ends of your lashes curves the same way as hers, and your voice matches her like a lullaby when you speak every vowel in a soothing lilt.

you calm the hurt in her chest, replacing it with a mellow warmth. she even forgot the tears that slowly dripped her eyes, all replaced with the comfortable softness of her precious child's palms, smooth and cozy, resting on both of her cheeks as you pepper her crying face with kisses.

she holds both your palms caging her, and allows the your hold to linger for longer. the silence ensues, yet you both embrace the unsaid assurances.

it's times like these where she realizes you encapsulate the beauty of both worlds.

it's moments like this, she sees herself in you, and maybe she could lead herself to believe that she is beautiful, because she sees her beauty through her child, her grace.

the memory only further deepens the guilt in your heart.

if there's one word to describe you now. it would be disgrace. to your father's honor, and your mother's legacy. for easily letting yourself go, for being so weak, for being the line that jumps between two polar opposites of one another; trying to traverse their path of belonging.

you're a disgrace, a mistake, and you deserve to be treated as such.

it was why you never find yourself beautiful. a person such as yourself would always find allure, worth in all things chaotic - you live in gotham after all - but never find that same value in yourself as you look at your reflection that distorts your image even more, making you uglier and uglier the longer you look.

split ends everywhere, hand tangled, reddish eyes from nearly crying again.

even if you beat at yourself, erratic and impulsive, even if your skin is colored an ashen blue and purple, rotten shades of yellow and red, you think of yourself ugly and repulsive.

no matter how much color you try to bring into your bleak, repulsive life, at the cost of hurting yourself to become pretty— every part of you will always be that ugly, little duckling in comparison of your siblings who always outshone you.

dick with his playboy body, jason and his towering one, tim with soft boyish features, damian's silky tan and smooth skin, and duke's baby face.

you couldn't even have your hair frame you as perfectly as steph's light blonde hair does, or share barbara's proportionate face, or look as gracious yet deadly like cassandra.

you're nowhere near as special, you're not like them. you have features too unique, yet out of place, and you couldn't bring yourself to be conventionally good-looking.

you hate yourself so much. you hate every little mole, every little pimple, every damn imperfection that litter your body, making you even lesser than what you already are.

your family; mother, father, brothers and sisters, god, even your fucking friends! every time you sit by them side-by-side, you'd feel insecure, imperfect, an eyesore and you just want to strip away every part of your limbs one by one if that meant replacing it with even better ones; all for the sake of at least feeling pretty.

you remember the first time you tried to find a sense of style, and damian's comment and– god fucking damn it—!

your hands found its way to your brushed hair, tangling itself through already fragile strands to rip at the seams. you don't care, you don't fucking care, you pray to any god out there to get them out of your head, pleas unheard, you're always left to hurt.

"what are you trying to achieve with that, huh? what even are you trying to think with that horrendous color combination? what are you, a clown? even that damned joker has more coordination than you think you could achieve."

in front of his friend, jon kent, with a scowl on his ever-so angry face and his hand already making a way to grip his sword; an absolute threat to dice you up shall you ever bother being in the same room as him.

he said that to you... you're older, you could've been stronger, could've at least found a semblance of fight in your bones. but no! god, no. your life was ruled with fear with damian wayne being the demon haunting you in the manor, always making living harder, making breathing a heavy task.

how could you ever fight back? not when you've conditioned yourself to tear up at the slightest bit of noise, feel goosebumps prick your skin when you hear someone raise their voice at you, and your heart rate hasten at the slide of a knife against any surface?

you! you who's so fucking weak to even make a comeback. you, who ran away with wide, traumatized eyes. because you're scared, so fucking fearful of an even bigger cut to your skin marked by damian— even if you're accustomed to cutting yourself with even deeper gashes.

because it's him that you fear, not the pain, not anymore. just him and his contempt at you for ruining his pure bloodline just by you being his half-sibling.

you don't want a repeat of your first meeting, or any meeting with him at all. not when you'd drown even deeper in a pit of fear every time you stare at his glaring, emerald eyes. one that tells you he chose to merely not kill you out of the goodness of his heart. but he will, god he will if he feels you've been too comfortable in his presence.

every damn time, everytime you feel fear, you see green. you hate green, any literal meaning of it, every implication of itx even seeing it, and fuck! your outfit has green embellishments.

you feel even uglier, yet the twinge of fear immediately overpowers any concern your had with your appearance. it's as if eyes were suddenly on you, and it's not only yours staring at you in the mirror.

your lips wobble, snot began blocking through the passage of your nose.

fuck, fuck, fuck.

why?! why can't you just forget about them all. why, why, why?!

you bite your lips harshly to conceal the pained whimpers from the back of your throat, but it doesn't work. it only makes the fear worse.

tears rim at your eyes, you merely wipe them away. your heart attempts to beat out of its gilded cage, yet you swallow your quivering chokes and proceed to continue staring at yourself in the mirror, dressed in a rush, with nothing to conceal your ghastly eyebags and sunken skin.

and green. you'll see it everywhere now. fuck, would dick send out damian to kill you now? you don't know, you're scared but you can't chicken out, not when your friend is already near to your apartment. god you wish you had beer in your cabinets instead, but you're broke and unprepared for life and your hair's all in a tangle and you just fucking want to die.

your hands grip at the edge of your sink, you look at your mirror and see the blood on your already bitten lips.

not even concealer can cover the damn scars all over your face all through the neck.

calm down.

you stare even deeper at yourself and ignore the green, trying to think of something else—

something less emotionally scarring, like your appearance. even if it brings you great pain, too, you'd rather that than your family. no more of them, fuck, no more. even if you stare at your eyes and see that familiar mix of colors of your mother and bruce's eyes. the shape of your face, even the curve of your brows all resembled your late mother— and you miss her, her captivating beauty that you never saw aged like fine way before she was taken away from you. you see bruce in the strands of your hair and the way it sometimes fray when too stressed. you see them in every image you wish to erase of yourself.

yet your genetics are nothing to them, not when you can't even care for your tangled hair or ashen skin.

even the dead looked more lively than you ever could.

with a pale complexion, with scars that litter all over your shoulders, wrists, and hidden parts of your body, one you're too ashamed to show anybody— it was no doubt that you looked pathetic and erased the beauty that both your parent's cultivated. and it makes you wonder; would it really be worth it?

would it be worth it if the people around you see you?

you with your melancholic eyes, trying to find an escape in a maze you call your mind? you can picture yourself drinking alcohol until you reach the domain of death, sitting in a stool, alone, as you nearly empty the contents of your stomach remembering the sole reason why you're there in the first place.

would it be worth it if all eyes suddenly were on you? they turn to you to gaze at the ugly bruises on your body, they mock your appearance, call you names, look at your sniveling, red nose and warm cheeks intoxicated from all the heavy liquor you'd down, and whisper. they'll whisper insults, slurs, and every known jab until it's all their words that pierces through your eyes, until the loud bass becomes mere background chatter for all the gossips that ensue.

are you actually going to do this right now?

you don't know, you don't know and you wish never cared as much.

all you could really focus on was your eminent goal of getting out of your stuffy apartment, to rid of the paranoia that somehow, you're being watched over in the confines of your four walls and that the familiar image of green will come attack you. the more you think, the more the hairs on your skin start to raise with every known intention to signal you of your anxiety.

eyes, they may be everywhere.

eyes, eyes, eyes. as you stare at your eyes, you try to ignore emerald eyes, they dilute even further. you gulp, yet your focus remains distorted. images flash at the mirror, and suddenly they're here, with you, with their eyes. bright blue for some, dark green for another, and they all gaze at you with contempt. one's hand claws at your throat, the other pins your wrist down on the edge of the sink. the eyes glare, and they never soften. yours merely shook, unblinking as your breathing becomes heavier; trapped in the cages of their wanton staring.

you yelp, then blink. when you did, they're gone. and you're back to looking at the same image of yourself. you grimace slowly.

ugly, with dry skin and falling hairs. the worst version of you, the normal version of yourself— there was never a best version for you.

as long as it's you, you'll never be enough.

all you wanted was to drink with your friends at a club; some working nightshifts at the location you're going to— yet you want to back down. want to take your phone by the corner of your vision and cancel your sudden plans.

but you're scared, you're so fucking scared of any new messages.

hell, even finding the contacts for your friends was a task in itself you wish to never repeat. with jittery fingers trying to type of messages and blurry eyes navigating through the screen of your slippery, glass screen protector.

you're scared, rightfully so.

you're scared to find his message once more suddenly popping up, your fingers accidentally pressing on it like the clumsy swine you are, and rereading that damn heart over and over again.

you slam your dominant hand against the tiled sink, hard and uncaring for the pain it induced all throughout your body. the tremors of the impact shook you to your core, yet you seethe in your breath and don't allow yourself respite to let the tears flow freely from your already red eyes. you feel your heart beating erratically through your chest, the shivers controlling your body, the shrieks that you contained within you— and you enchain them all with no respect for yourself.

you deserve this. you deserve to be hurt, to be punished for your actions, for your mistakes, for your sins.

even if your hand became swollen, splotched with varying shades of disgusting purples and yellows, you won't treat it with medicine. even if the sharp edges of the sink broke the fragile layer of your already scarred palm, and bled profusely with that familiar shade of red; you won't rush to wrap it with gauze or even spare a droplet of betadine. even if by the next day you'd have to write out your overdue assignments with that specific hand, then you'll force yourself to learn through the other and punish yourself again if you fail once more.

you deserve this.

and as your phone pings, lighting up to show you a notification of one of your friend's messages about being ready to pick you up by the lobby of your apartment's ground floor, you ignore your injured hand and the bruises on your knees from falling so abruptly on tiled floors just moment's ago. you dismiss the ache of your head, the soreness of your eyes and the disgusting beat of your heart.

you ignore the pain that wrecks at your entire body, in favor of destroying it even more, just as you deserve.

you don't recall how many shots you had before you're nearly passed out by the bar, sitting on its stool with your head leaning on one both your arms crossed, drool close to slipping out of the corners of your mouth and heavy eyes lidded, about to fall into the depths of sleep.

you're sure you looked wasted, absolutely drop-dead drunk with no thoughts circulating in your head other than the pleasant buzz in your ears and the flash of colors in the disco balls blanketing the entire room with its neon lights. your face must've been an unearthly shade of red, and you can already feel just how blazen it is, and how your fingertips are ice-cold to the touch (probably colder than the marble you lay your arms upon). in other words, you're actually wasted.

and it's so worth it if it means it gets you to forget. and forget you did, because you can't even dig deep into your head to even remember a single memory of whatever grief you went through earlier in your apartment. not even the throb of your head from when you pulled your hair from its roots, all to the way you slammed your dominant hand on your bathroom sink, bruising it with unnatural shades of purples and yellow.

it makes you omit every type of pain, both physically, mentally, and emotionally. it doesn't cure you of your ails, but god forbid you if you just want to savor moments where nothing but a mind numbing headache is the only feeling present in your current state.

the remix of songs were long forgotten in your mind, they all become an amalgamation of miscellaneous sounds. your body is so inclined towards the flat, rectangular cool surface of the marble glass of the bar that you can guarantee you could sleep here, especially since black behan to cloud both your vision and your mind.

everything feels so hazy, and pleasant, and straight-out peaceful that the screaming tandems of equally drunk clubbers and the occasional sobers holding up their friends who sang along with whatever remix the dj comes up with, or the forming crowd as people began to rock and dance to the bass that shakes up the entire floor to the point you can feel vibrations run along your spine— didn't register within the crevices in your mind.

all you can focus on, is the gratifying pleasure ll alcohol induces in your body. gone is the feeling of fear that emanates off of every inch within your body. your bones don't feel as if it's locking up everytime you feel eyes on you, and your throat doesn't certainly feel constricted with the lack of flow of blood anymore.

god, this is why you've never once regret drinking right after the moment you turned eighteen— not when it's positive effects outweighs all the negative emotions that rule over your body.

you couldn't even notice a man with shades (seriously, who wears that to party? isn't the club dark enough?) sitting beside your drunken form in the corner of your eyes, raptured in the thin line between focusing on reality and drifting off to dream world. you don't even bat an eye to his muffled giggles and the way he twisted his stool just to admire the view: you.

you're oblivious to the entire commotion happening within the depths of his mind because you couldn't feel any aptitude to danger right now— thanks to the effects of the hard liquor overtaking whatever fear you've felt being watched long ago.

or maybe you just felt safe beside the stranger. or, you're merely drunk. you don't know.

fuck, you're so close to passing out.

you don't know where your friends are, where they came running off to but you know you won't be getting out her sooner or later and you definitely don't have a ride home. so your only way back without getting ambushed as a completely vulnerable citizen of gotham, is by a safer, more convenient means of a ride— but that certainly wouldn't be safe if your friends are as equally drunk, or even more so, as you. but does your hazy mind care? no. not when you flip your head to rest on the other side once the other side became hotter that you notice a conveniently attractive man staring right back at you with an entertained grin.

as if your existence alone makes him happy. as much as your mind keeps blanking out, that mere implication made your heart pang just a teensy bit. of pain, or pleasure, or mere joy, you don't know. but you do know that it triggered some unknown feelings and you don't want to feel.

you want to drink some more, feeling solemn all of a sudden just from staring at him. you're sure the obvious frown on your quivering lips and the heavy, hot sigh

and it doesn't help that his face seems similar. the longer you stare, the more his grin seems to sharpen. confidently? or shyly? you can't seem to gain a clear image of him; what when rainbow lights are blazing out through the holes of the disco ball and your eyes recently just opened to your near journey to traverse through sleep.

all you can make out to be is his jet-black hair, side bangs framing the left side of his face, a faint outline of an eyebrow piercing

you also took note of his spiky jacket— yet what draws you the most to him are his sunglasses that he chose to wear conspicuously in a damn club of all places.

he's attractive, to say the least, but he triggers a set of emotions deep into the cages of your imprisoned heart that sets itself free. he gives you a sense of nostalgia, of familiarity that you can't pinpoint but feel; like you've seen him before but don't know when. your eyebrows furrow in and your eyes squint at him, unknowing to the judgement you're subjecting him in. your lips wobble, though, because his presence just makes your heart feel something, akin to pain but not quite, and makes your head buzz that you just want to cry as a reaction.

he, the stranger, don't know it, but he makes you all sad, primal emotions overtaking any drunkenness you feel as deep tremors buzzed into the confines of your chest, until all you're doing is staring at him with pouting, downturned lips and sad, puppy eyes; rimming with salty tears.

you don't know why you feel sad all of the sudden, and you can faintly see through blurry, watery vision how his face shifted from entertained to worry, eyebrows raised and eyes wide open at your sudden mood shift.

maybe you or him could've spoken up, you more so, but you're just so emotionally drained and overwhelmed today that you began sobbing silently without breaking eye contact with the man.

despite you wanting to say anything: an introduction, a question opening up as to why he's staring at you, or even a mere phrase telling him to "back off"; the only words that came out from your parched throat, all from trying to reason in your head on what a proper sentence should be, were:

"you're hot," and if you were sober enough, you would've felt sheer embarrassment and shame from eyeing the boy, but you're not— and because you're not sober, or any bit sane, the next few sentences you spewed out were all coherent, yet wonkily pronounced utterances paired with teary eyes and sniffling nose, as you can't seem to control the feelings of melancholy in your heart and the sudden emotional burst from your ramblings.

"thank you, you too, actually— but are you alright-"

"you're so hot, god, please. i don't know..." you gave him no time to speak as you hiccupped, lips wobbling even more than you can imagine. and you're trying your damn best to rid of the urge to punch at your chest as a coping mechanism through the multitude of emotions eating you up and away. but you never realized you were trying for an absolute stranger, palms fisting into itself as he stares at you worriedly all of a sudden.

"like... you're familiarly attractive, i—" the next few sentences were incoherent as your words bubbled around you like detergent soap. your fingers found itself into your face as you try to wipe off both tears and nearly dripping snot as you continued rambling drunkly.

"you just! you're hot, for me, i don't know... i'm just, we all—eughh... i don't know, i'm so sad..." and you truly are, for no reason at all other than seeing the man. poor him, must've felt so ashamed that he's the reason you're crying but at the same time... nothing can really stop you from ceasing your tears.

at least, that's what you've convinced yourself to believe in. that you're truly incurable of the ailment of being constantly depressed with nobody to aid you with your troubles. not even your friends, nor past therapists that you've consulted.

you've nothing to comfort you, and that makes you even more solemn than ever.

the simplest of emotions felt, the deeper and complex you take it out to be. sadness, or moreover depression, the horseman of apocalypse that destroys any hope you've tried to kindle with your life.

it makes you all the more burst into a wave of even more tears.

"... okay, okay, wait here for me, alright?" he suddenly stood up, hurriedly, probably unsure, or disgusted by you. you're unsure about what he's saying, too caught up crying that you simply nod to whatever he said and continued on with your episode.

as you're left alone, you allow your tears to dry only cry once more. when he left you, you weren't aware but you just felt even more lonely. at pushing away the only company you had after your friends left you in the dust, you feel depressed and regretful and all emotions related to grief and you just want to drink some more but you don't know if you can take it anymore!

god, it all returns to pain. pain you thought you could bury deep once you took multiple swigs of alcohol.

pain that makes you want to bang your head against the marble of the bar—

and you're so close to doing so, but only stopped when your blurry vision sets itself on the man returning with a handkerchief and a cold glass of ice water. at his kind gesture, you simply teared up even more, pouting when he walked your way and looked at you with a sheeping grin.

when he sat right back up on the stool seated to your right, he hesitated with his hold on the handkerchief near your face. but the moment he gathered up his pride and pressed it against the unnatural blaze of your cheeks, you merely leaned closer to his palms, eyes closing as you can feel the tears cease itself finally at the blind comfort he's unknowingly providing you.

"there, there... be careful, 'kay stranger?"

he mutters, a light chuckle accompanying him. it's only now you can finally focus on the cool churn of his voice and the , with your eyes close and the haze of your thoughts washing away, leaving you breathless in your respite— not restrictive, nor lonely, but still short of breath.

this reminds you of the times alfred had to hold you in his arms everytime you threw a tantrum at the manor.

it made you realize that the months, a near year even, after leaving the manor, made you crave physical affection. making you feel like a husk of yourself when not given. you feed off of the scraps of physical lovez to the point that even this man who's wiping away the tears from your cheeks makes your heart beat faster, in a comfortable manner.

sensations. he once told you that if you feel too deeply within, then to ground yourself you must feel beyond interior ranges of emotions.

and that's the technique you've been willing away from your head for so long. because it always requires another person in the room to comfort you, to simply touch you softly, gently like you're porcelain the same way the stranger is pressing damp fabric against your tearstained cheeks and hollowed out eyes.

the pain you've felt was because you're merely touch starved. alone, in a space where everyone has someone, and a no one can't have anyone.

but now that you do have a someone, no matter how dangerous he could've been outside of your impression of him, you feel the pain lessen, the heavy burdens become featherlight at his kind gestures of wiping all the salty tears from your face, the runny snot from your nose with no rush whatsoever.

"feel better now, hon?"

"mhm..." a long, drawled out yawn emits from your mouth, yet you're too comfortable with him to even care, suddenly feeling a wave of drowsiness after your emotional episode.

after he finished wiping your face, and felt it considerably cool down from the damp fabric, he placed it on the bar, one hand on your face keeping you stable. yet his other hand promptly went back to your cheeks.

he chose to do this of his own volitions, even leaning closer as your head finds itself slowly dropping to his clavicle (careful to avoid the spikes from his peculiar designed jacket), looking up at him and staring at his gray eyes.

the man looks down at you as you now realize he's cupping your face. at the implication of your entire ordeal with him, you might've felt flustered sober, but you're just so drunk that any spacial awareness for the proximity between your bodies just disappeared and left you with the need to sleep within the confines of the safety this man left you with.

you don't know it, but yet again the man smiles down at your adorable antics, finding the way you're absolutely trusting of a stranger both stupid, yet endearing. because he's no more stranger, and heaven bless him because he's so glad he's the person who approached you rather than anyone else because you looked so cute, and his crush on you may have lead him to stalk you occasionally just to ensure you're safe— that doesn't erase the gesture that he did it purely because gotham is too dangerous for your own good. and he's glad he trusted his human side of intuition, rationalizing with himself that today just seems to be the day you'd bump into danger if he's not there.

you're so stunning up close... how come tim never once found interest in someone as admirable as you is a mystery. but you trusting a stranger in your vulnerable state is much more.

and he's grateful he's that stranger.

because he may be a stranger to you, but a familiar one. and you feel safe, a feeling you haven't felt in so long that you simply just melt against him like clear putty; because you're transparent with what you feel right now.

and right now you feel warmth. not the uncomfortable one that blazes through your (now) cool face when you were drunk, nor the burning one whenever you thought of your family— but a pleasant one. like sitting near a fireplace as you watch the embers crackle, drinking hot cocoa whilst a quilt covers your body from the cold of the winter. you feel this way at his kindness, at his efforts to help you contain your emotions to a reasonable degree.

"what's your name, kind stranger?" you mutter on his chest (how come your head is laying on it, actually?) hearing the soft thumps of his heart. it's warm, he's warm and every bit of comfortable, as he does his best to move slightly back to remove his jacket and drape it over your body before he could reply to you, chuckling whilst doing so because you looked up at him with your eyes conveying every damn emotion that made you feel soft.

"it's conner, conner kent. call me kon, though. or yours if it's you." he purrs. it took you a minute to register his obvious flirting but what comes after is an absolute flush on your body and you recoiling from his hold as you look back at him, mouth agape. the tips of your ears were warm, and every bit of

an overexaggeration to his flirting, sure. it makes you look less appealing in your eyes, extra sure! but it's been so long since someone last attempted to flirt with you; but most were under the guise of when you were still a wayne and... and not as yourself. you! you who sports so many imperfections that—

"haha! is it strange to say that you look so cute whenever you look at me with wide eyes in the short span of time we just met?"

he slides in through your train of thoughts before you could delve even deeper through self-deprecation. and you're glad that he did because... god, he makes you want to shamelessly gloat as a reply. you've never had someone complement your eyes before, actually...

"i'm..." you look back at him after you stared down at your palms, heat overtaking your entire body. yet again it wasn't uncomfortable, and just the right temperature. you stutter your name afterwards, making sure it's your mother's last name that you highlighted implicitly and not bruce's.

he seems to grin even wider when you introduce yourself. that's when his next reply generally warranted you to nearly burst off your seat out of sheer diffidence.

"well," he says your name, tasting every syllable in his pierced tongue. "your name tastes sweet, dove. but i think your face is even sweeter now that you're not crying — not saying that isn't cute too but you're so stunning now that i look closer at you without any barriers. your eyes, especially, they're like some mix doe and siren eyes, or whatever my other friends talk about in social media. point given, you're drop-dead gorgeous in my eyes."

it all comes naturally from him that your brain merely shortcircuited and fried itself comprehending his message, forgetting you were drunk in the first place replacing it with a flush in your heart, the pit of grief and despair replaced with the lighthearted need to banter or reply meekly at his shameless flirting right after he comforted you.

this is the first time you felt something for someone's romantic gestures, instead of that wave of nausea that accompanies you.

he makes you feel... pretty about yourself. in a good way, in a way you don't feel the need to hide your insecurities for once and instead allow his eyes to flitter around your entire face, analyzing your features because... because he simply makes you feel pretty the more he stares at you.

yet all you did was take his hand on your own, a sudden burst of confidence even you couldn't explain, and played with it, as you pouted in reply before thinking— using his hand-now-turned-fidget-toy — of a good enough response.

you simply said, coughing before continuing, "i don't take back what i said moment's ago. you're hot too, even if my vision was obstructed by my tears."

"oh, really?" he smiled gently and allowed your hands autonomy to play with his. it's like telepathy, he knows it's automatic that you crave physical affection and attention and he's willing to provide you that solace.

"now that you're not crying— you think i'm even more handsome?"

you snort at his question, then took a step back with your thoughts to properly study him. neat, yet messy hair, piercing on the eyebrows and on his tongue (hot), sunglasses and spiky jacket draped upon your shoulders— goddamnit, of course he's hot! and you made it efficiently clear that he is, with your hands fiddling pattern against his soft, yet calloused hands, by squeezing it.

"yes, you are even more handsome, kon..." brief and concise, just how you like it. even if he gave you an entire essay describing you in his eyes, for you, you prefer actions; and you did so by simply being affectionate with the stranger, now acquaintance you have a slight crush on.

you'd never expected this turn of events, but it was a pleasant one and one you'd never really want to trade with anything else now that you've met kon.

so when he opened his mouth to spew something else, your ears perked up to listen and your mind, albeit slowly sobering up, prepared itself to reply to whatever flirting, conversation topics, and anything random it is that he wishes to talk about to you.

you smiled at him whilst he talked, he reciprocates as always.

yet this time, you weren't afraid to hide just how joyous you feel, for once, having a person interested in you not only physically but with your interests, too, as your conversations kept shifting to things about you.

it made inclined to learn about yourself, too. and that makes you happy, and fuzzy in the insides the more he asks you questions beyond your favorites. like in movies, he didn't simply just ask your favorites and you replied with an answer and moved on, no! you both discussed the emotional depth it impacted you with, why symbolism matters so much, and why in the near future you'd both inevitably meet up, you'll both watch it together.

that makes you feel excited.

you even forgot the main reason why you're here in the first place; to drink. now, though, it seems like you just wanted to talk to kon all night long.

fortunately for you, that's how the rest of your night went. with a pleasant buzz in the background, the sounds of remixes all drowned out in your ears as you favor the chatters of the man beside you, with the tremor of his voice a comfortable volume and his tone laced with freshly made honey.

when your friends finally ran back to the bar where you all collectively agreed to meet up at once everyone's shenanigans were finished, they giggled drunkenly whilst some sober ones whistled at seeing your hand unknowingly massaging his palms like a stresstoy and the jacket draped upon your shoulders.

the moment you returned it to him, he joked about wearing it every second now since it reminds him of you, and how it's his favorite piece of attire now beyond all his other clothing. you merely blushed and ignored the cooing of your friends behind you.

you didn't feel concerned over not seeing him anymore, as he had given you a slip of paper with his number on it in through a tissue with paracetamol pills wrapped around it (like the thoughtful gentleman he made himself out to be when he excused himself a second time to get those items, since you'd left your phone with one of your friends; you swore you felt a blush creep into your cheeks and heating the tip of your ears), you instead felt a pang of longing and furrowed your brows, looking at him as if asking if you'll see him around anytime soon as he reciprocates with a sure grin that makes you feel a wave of feather like affection.

he left shortly after, striding to you as your group recollects all your stuff and whispering a, "text you later, dove. stay safe for me, alright? don't let any other strangers get to you."

you're glad this night would end on a good note, willing away any prior doubts towards spending the night in a completely foreign street and expecting fir criminals and thugs to break in but no! you can't help but admit that your new... interest, conner, made your night a thousand times better.

and his little nickname for you... haha, you're so flustered thinking about texting him tonight. you'd neglect your assignments for now if it meant messenging him right after you get home, safely, for his sake.

when your group all came outside though, that's when things shifted.

time is a construct. it's complicated and structured like that as well. it can either be too fast, or too slow. when your friends had taken their sweet time to spend the night dancing about the dancefloor, when you'd taken the precious time to flirt and talk to kon; that's when you all collectively realized that their damn cars were stolen.

the air suddenly shifted to this thick atmosphere when you all stepped out, one that can be sliced through with a sword, and you swore—

god, you swore this night couldn't have been any better with the turn of things, but now. right after you got out the club, it all took a turn for the worse.

this is it.

you're going to die today.

you're going to die, in some dirty ditch, your friends nowhere to be found, with nobody to save you.

nasty bruises already began to form on your skin, one with harsher colors of purple, blue, and yellow on your wrists and other patches of skin; way harsher

the man in front of you was gnarly, but you've no time to judge as he kicks you in the guts.

matted brown hair lay atop his head like a bird's attempt at a near, he has an odor that reeks of sewer rats, piss, and feces, and an unruly beard that houses bits of his leftover.

he holds a weapon whose shape you couldn't make out with your hazy vision, body nearly cramping in on itself once he kicked you again.

straight in the abdomen, with brute strenght accompanied by his worn leather boots decorated with glinting spikes that sparkle under the moonlight's glow.

in the abdomen, spikes.

blood first, then curdling pain next.

no noise rips through your ears, only wringing ever present, but your mouth opens, and you can feel its tender chords crack as a scream erupts from your throat, shrill and resounding from the deepest depths of the cockpit your mouth has to offer you; uncaring for the man in front of who who suddenly covers his ears and grits his teeth, who looks at you like you're mad, yet unlike same way his two other lackeys from behind look at your like you're the creation of carnage itself.

pain shot throughout your body, most especially at the core of the holes that pierced through your clothes and right inside your skin. and as your bulging, teary eyes try to look down with an agape, whimpering mouth, his shoes still connected to your body; you could only hold off so much of that familiar taste of acidic bile paired with that lingering scent of cheap booze.

tears were a byproduct of the misery, as it began to escape from your already puffy eyes. when the man released his legs fron pinning you down, your sobs only worsened as your unpinned, shivering arm try its damned best to cover the already leaking blood.

six holes, the diameter of the more than half of your finger, was what you could make out in your line of sight. the blood that leaked from them looked black, you couldn't find where the gradient of black and red connects, your only certainty in this situation was that you'd bleed to death before help could come to you.

the spikes were as long as a toothpick, a crimson puddle lay dripping on the floor.

your legs were shaking against your will, your eyes frantically search around you yet your pinned once more, his larger body framing against your own, providing no room nor qualms for an escape.

but the only escape you wanted was one from the pain of his pressing against your injury, even more blood spilling out of its confines. your tears only hastened its descent from your shaky eyes.

when your mouth opened for the nth time to wail out, he seethed in a breathe and threatened you, with his breath as vile as his entire being, that smells like every mix of synthetic chemicals from cigarette flavors, all expired, with teeth rotting and sporting yellow and black wallpaper.

gross, so gross. you want to die when the stench hits your nose. you shrivel in yourself, you couldn't breath.

"listen here, little bitch, you quiet down or i kill you. and 'ya either give me everythin' you own in your damn possession, or i'll kick you even more until a thousand little holes will fuckin' make you bleed to death, hear me?"

hearing his statement only made the adrenaline pump even more fight of flight into your heart. but you can't do either, you can't, not when you're still hazy from the fucking alcohol and the self defense tools in your tiny pouch were thrown a few feet away from you.

you've nothing to defend yourself.

oh god, oh shit, fuck.

you want to die, you want to so fucking die than go through the same pain of nearly being abducted or held hostage again.

yet your eyes could only close, your teeth kissing your bottom lips, biting hard to drown out another pained scream. whimpers, god, they're so loud yet you can't help the whimpers and the broken faucet from your eyes. even if you beg your own body to stop, it doesn't listen to the pleas of your mind.

the only thing it can focus on is the pain. recreant, volatile pain.

a moan escapes you, shaky and prolonged. the only other emotion that you could experience after is sorrow.

you didn't expect your pleasant night to end off in such a tragic note, but as your attacker held you by your throat with one hand, a knife pointed against your face, the next that happened was your head slammed roughly against the wall; a dull, beating ache lulling the back of your head after the momentary spark of pain— you're reminded that this is reality, and you're close to losing consciousness quick.

you're going to die.

bloody, a sobbing, dissociating mess, with your thoughts spinning around the same way the stranger and his lackeys laugh — bared yellow teeth, with the smell of ichor prevalent in their clothes, predatory eyes leering at you like you're prey — at your drunken moans of pain.

you're going to die.

"well, you gonna answer me or what, bitch? you wanna die!?"

he shouts you with spit that sprays all over your face, flashing you a grin and by extension flashing you his ugly, bared teeth. some missing were in his gums, others were artificial, most rotten like him.

you're going to die.

alone, in a ditch. bloody, laying in a pool of your own crimson the same way you saw your mother drowns in a puddle of hers.

you'll die like her—

what an honor.

the more you think about the situation, the more you're led to believe that the only way to solve this was through death alone, with no restrictions, no buts or ifs. you've no fight left in your body, or any weapon to fight. you're drunk, defenseless and if you actually managed to escape, you'd still bleed to death in some unknown alleyway. if you're lucky, a stray police may find you and give you a proper burial. but you remember you're in the living incarnate of hell in america, you'll never have a proper death.

this was night in gotham. your death alone only adds to the already astounding high percentages of all the other lives lost to the same twisted fate. you were no different. and to die early than to suffer from torture is better.

i mean, who would give a shit if you die tonight, right? your family— wrong! alfred would panic at your disappearance, but he'll forget about you like he did others, you're sure of it. that's why he still chose to fucking serve the wayne's instead of fully taking your side. if he had to choose between saving you or the people he swore his loyalty onto, he wouldn't hesitate. you're sure. even if the thoughts made the doom in your heart heavier. even if you know your story would never be covered nor acknowledged, you still year

but life is unfair, everything is. that's why you're here now, in a dark fucking alleyway with men who'll more than take advantage of your dying body and leave your corpse in the dump after. life is unfair, yet it's even more cruel in gotham. you should've expected this, should've known that a turn of events could be possible. you'll feel regret in the afterlife, only for a life that could've been well-lived, but never for the choice of living through the torture you call being a wayne.

so you came to the conclusion; confident for once after living for thirteen and a half years walking on eggshells around a manor.

this is not as bad as their neglect.

you smile in response to the guy, genuine and filled with grace as your heart that once pounds against your chest now slows down to a calm pace, finally at peace. with no other intention than to rattle him even more, to the point of choosing you to kill with his own hands as brutally as he likes— so you finally take a well deserved rest from life.

you gather saliva at the center of your tongue, ignore the taste of blood that swirls, nor the soreness of your throat and the crimson dripping down your nose.

when he looks down at you, disoriented at what you're doing, you spit at him, all the beating in your heart hastened, yet slowed down as quickly as you heave in a final breath.

... you're finally going to die.

"FUCKING HELL, YOU DAMN CUNT—!"

you close your eyes, bracing yourself for the knife that would hopefully stab you in the face, or the chest, and think of your last thoughts. you thank alfred for caring for you for those thirteen years, you hope you win your mother's graces in the afterlife even if she discovered your deliberate choices for killing yourself in the spur of a moment, and you wish your old family a happy life living without you, even if they already did so for so long.

all you needed was seconds to conclude your prayers.

but they weren't answered as you wanted them to be, not when you open your wide eyes to what was supposed to be a glint of silver piercing through the middle of your face was replaced by a bullet, quick and precise, shooting through his cranium without mercy, body immediately laying limp within those seconds.

the other two behind him were good as dead, too, your savior not wasting any moment to end their lives then and there.

and as you stumbled from the grip released from your body, your torso nearly crumpling in on itself, a flash of familiar, metallic red enters your vision when you'd look up from your savior who's huge form now meticulously acts as your shield from the brutal carnage that lays upon your line of sight and a pillar of protection trying to help you stand from the pain that shot through your lower abdomen.

but you don't want to stand, you want to drop dead right now. you don't want this, you didn't want this to happen.

instead of gratitude, dread fills your lungs with water and your fingers were left to tremor.

he looks down at you, you couldn't make out his expression, but you could feel the anger coursing through his body, the same as the day you first met him when he was still newly rebirthed, like it's telling you of his unadulterated rage at witnessing the scene before him. his body shakes, heavily, and his grip on your hands tighten, a mechanical groan drawling deep from his automated voice banks that changes his voice.

yet all you feel was fear overtaking your entire body prior to the comfort at the prospect of death.

you'd rather die than this.

even you couldn't believe the whimper of his name from your wobbling lips, as your body, out of instinct despite the pain, tried to push itself against the wall, away from him.

he only moves to hold your waste protectively, like a... brother suffocating his younger sibling with blankets when they complain it's cold. overbearing, disgustingly affectionate; you don't want it.

you feel cold.

this day could've been any worse— and it took a turn to the all worse scenarios you could imagine.

"jason...?"

"angel..."

a single familiar name was spoken, yet a new nickname was introduced. angel: the same way jason swore what you looked like when he sped through his motorcycle after hearing a shriek from all across the streets, finding you, bleeding and beaten to a pulp, with your attacker almost stabbing you.

of course, who wouldn't hesitate pulling a gun against someone trying to kill your precious? jason doesn't even need to choose.

and whether he did it in the name of justice and respect to his moral code, or because finding someone with a familiar face, sharing the same hopeless, yet death-accepting expression as he did back when he died— it all doesn't matter in the heat of the moment now.

what matters is that his angel is hurt and the madness in him festers the longer you bleed out in his arms, defiant and fearful all the same.

reblogs and interactions are encouraged and appreciated.

PLEASE READ: 11,000+ words. AND I LITERALLY HATE THIS CHAPTER (new least favorite fr) 😭 this decision is so impulsive i gonna regret it soon. chapter 5 will be released after a few days and i promise it has more action than this I SWEAR. first parts are always boring. anyways, there're so many song references in this chapter and for the next chapter. if any of you could guess what they are, i'll be rewarding all of you with something special. otherwise, please leave comments for this chapter! what motivated me to write was reading everybody's comments and inputs, about the love they have for this series as much as i do. interactions, asks, comments, they're all important and dear to me and i heavily appreciate it. so more interaction = more content. after all, i'd rather a post with little likes but with no interaction than a post with no interaction but all likes.

otherwise, i can't add anymore to my taglist so taglist requests are closed!

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[scrapyardboyfriends]

I think the main take away here continues to be that these people are just bad at their jobs.

I mean I get that they want us talking because they love nothing more than generating buzz and hype and this is getting us talking. It’s just that they also kind of fail to deliver every time. And it’s not just with the Robert and Seb of it all that they disappoint. Just look at the Tina nonsense. Or what they did to Rishi.

So all of this that has got everyone worked up again is seemingly just a repeat of what they did with Luke and Robert’s maybe appeal and Aaron moving on with Ben. And it didn’t work then and it doesn’t particularly work now either.

And I feel like the biggest reason it doesn’t work is because none of what they’re doing is actually necessary to achieve what are seemingly their goals.

The only thing it does is get people talking for a few days and lets the soap mags use Robert’s picture to get clicks again. And like that’s a goal too I suppose and it does give them a few episodes worth of ultimately empty drama but then they also just piss people off again. But they’ve also never truly cared about their viewer’s feelings either so 🤷🏻‍♀️

With the Ben situation, they went out of their way to provide a loophole for Robert to appeal and get out of prison early. Yes it provided an exit for Luke but none of that was actually necessary to make him leave. The sexuality retcon would have been enough or like literally just a random break up with Vic because he was such a nothing of a character who cared if he stuck around anyway.

But no, instead they had to dangle the possibility of Robert getting out of prison early in front of us and Aaron just to squeeze out some drama for Aaron and Ben and have Aaron ultimately choose Ben, which felt very silly all things considered even if we were supposed to take it at face value and then they gave us and off screen Robert telling Vic he didn’t want to try and appeal anyway because they didn’t have Ryan coming back so there was no point.

But there was no reason Aaron couldn’t have just struggled to move on from Robert with Ben on his own when they first started (badly) attempting to date. Like when the divorce was finalized. If they’d just had him deal with those feelings and have talks with Vic about moving on and feeling guilty because of Robert and actually talked to Ben about this too, that’s still potentially several episodes of drama and makes a whole lot more sense too and doesn’t throw any characters under the bus. Like sure, Robert’s in prison for another thirteen years at this point, Aaron does realistically need to move on and it is what Robert wanted for him. It’s just that this is the first time Aaron is confronted with that possibility. He’s allowed to have a hard time and there was plenty of character based drama there without inventing convoluted loopholes for Robert getting out of prison early and getting people’s hopes up only to do nothing with it.

It becomes just a frustrating short cut of a storytelling device that actively makes the story worse because when you compare Aaron’s wealth of feelings for Robert against the nothing he had going on with Ben, Aaron making a statement that he would “still choose Ben even if Robert showed up tomorrow” is absolutely absurd. And actually undermines the relationship they’re trying to build between Aaron and Ben.

This with Seb and Ross and John and Robert all feels like the exact same play from the proverbial playbook.

This time they’ve gone out of their way to make Seb coming back entirely possible. They’ve killed Rebecca off screen and with no previously known relatives of Rebecca’s, he really should have come to Vic but that’s not their goal.

They just want a few days of drama, a reason for Ross to be angry and bitter for his return and to give Aaron reason to talk about Robert again.

But in my opinion, they could have achieved all of that without dangling the very real possibility of a Seb return in front of us.

They could have just had Ross and Rebecca have a bad break up off screen. She could have denied him access to Seb and run off. That’s plenty for him to be angry about.

And Ross being back and talking about Seb at all is enough to bring up those feelings for Aaron and trigger a talk with John about it all.

Now, like with Ben, there’s absolutely no reason why Aaron couldn’t have the Robert talk with John without all of that considering that they also went out of their way to make John the long lost gay half brother of Robert, which is it’s own level of unnecessary absurdity.

And in fact it would have made far more sense for them to have had this talk like you know months ago when Aaron first learned who John was. But instead they decided that those two were just never going to have a real conversation about literally anything and that John, the man rebuilding the Sugden family, was just not going to be curious about the Sugdens at all and definitely not the brother that was literally the ex husband of the man he was sleeping with. 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️It’s just even more absurd than the Ben thing, which takes so much effort. Haha.

So instead they dangle the Seb carrot and go out of their way to force a conversation that should have already happened just so Aaron can once again “move on” from Robert into a new relationship.

But it’s so much sillier this time because the relationship between Aaron and John is even more pathetic than the Ben one when stacked up next to both what Robron had and what Aaron still feels for Robert all these years later. And because this is literally the third boyfriend he’s has post Robert.

I mean don’t get me wrong, I love that Aaron still has this wealth of feeling for Robert all these years later and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with him still loving him while moving on but he should have dealt with these feelings already but because the stories where he does are so ridiculous, it never feels like he genuinely does and so here we are again.

And I know it’s because they like having those short cuts in storytelling, they like being able to use Robert to get us talking but it’s so infuriating every time because all of that just makes the story worse every time and it’s baffling that they can’t see that.

The specter of the still very alive Robert Sugden is still haunting the narrative five years later on this Halloween because well…they can and it’s easy.

And once again you have a Robert from prison making decisions that will shut down the story as fast as it began because even though all signs point to something happening, it’s not.

And as absurd as it was for Robert not to even try to appeal back then, this is even more ridiculous that Robert wouldn’t want Seb to live with Aaron and his sister. At least with Vic. I mean I suppose you could claim that he doesn’t want to risk disrupting Aaron’s life after he made his sacrifice but this is his son we’re talking about. But fine, this retconned Aunt has a relationship with Seb and she’s probably stable since she’s not an on screen soap character. He probably is better off.

But the story isn’t.

And that’s the thing with this one that annoys me more. Sure, maybe they don’t want to hire a seven year old (though how expensive is a seven year old?) but there’s also nothing really stopping them from doing that. It’s not like trying to get Ryan to come back. This is something they can actually do and it would help Aaron’s character so much as I outlined yesterday and help rebuild the Sugdens. Once again they’ve gone out of their way to build a convoluted story that makes this possible but they’re not going to do it even though this time it would be so easy.

So again, I’m just back to these people being terrible at their jobs. And once again realizing just how much they don’t care about their characters.

[chiaraswritings]

The Pink Pool

Disclaimer: I do not own DC or their characters, or their settings. This is certainly not canon. Also, putting dye and bubble bath in a pool sounds like a bad idea in real life and you probably should not do it. Indulge in this fictional work instead.

Warnings & Topics: Suggestive themes. 18+.

Word Count: 812 words.

Summary: A short Bruce Wayne x gender neutral!reader fluff, a birthday present to remember, and a pink pool with bubbles. 

Author’s Note: It is not my birthday yet, nor would I like a vacation home for a present in real life, but I thoroughly enjoyed writing this piece. I’m going to try to publish many more summer stories in the near future. I hope you enjoy. 

It was honestly a ridiculous idea. Childish. Unrealistic. But I’d been dreaming of this opportunity my entire life.

The boxes were all unpacked, and we had finished constructing the new bed frame. New white sheets were fitted over the new mattress, new plates had been placed carefully in the new cabinets, the new house was completely ready for new adventures and new love. 

He had bought this new vacation home for my birthday and taken the next two weeks off work, just to spend it with me in the new villa. If I recall his exact words, he had given me the green light to “do whatever you want with the place, it’s yours now,” as he had carried me across the threshold. It really was an incredible home, a luxurious four bedrooms and three bathrooms, rose vines wrapping around the arches, white flowers decorating the shrubbery. Though it was nothing compared to Wayne Manor, I had been just a tad bit hesitant to accept the overwhelming birthday present, considering we had only been together for a few months. And yet…well, even if we didn’t last, at least I had gotten the glorious opportunity to live in such a fairytale house for a little while.

As I made my way to the French doors that opened to the spacious backyard, I smiled at the recent memory of him revealing my birthday surprise and the shock I had felt.

“You want to spend how many weeks here?”

“Just two. You don’t want to?”

“I do, but… come on, Bruce, work will never let me have the days off. Not so soon.”

“Quit your job.”

“Now you’re just being ridiculous.”

I will never forget the smile he gave me with his reply. 

“Maybe I am being ridiculous, but it feels too good to stop.” 

I had not resigned after all, but he had called my workplace, much to my embarrassment. Either way, I was on an unexpected vacation for my birthday, and life couldn’t be better. Bruce had to go back to the office for a few hours to wrap up some unfinished work, but then he would be back, ready to kick off the next two weeks of paradise he had promised me. I was anxiously looking forward to tonight, to spending our first night here together in that lavish bed. But first, I had something else on my mind.

Stepping out into the fading light of dusk, I drummed my fingers against the bottle I was holding. My boyfriend’s go-ahead to do whatever I wanted with the place was fulfilling a dream I had been entertaining since I was thirteen years old. Of course, that was years and years ago, but the thought had always stayed in the back of my mind every time I went swimming in a pool. I just had never had the chance to do it.

My freshly pedicured feet strode towards the rectangular pool, the shimmering blue water accentuated by underwater lights. I picked up the bucket that lay beside the edge of the pool, dipping it into the water to collect the amount I needed, my mind calculating the best way to carry out my plan. Pouring some of the bottle’s product into the bucket, I began to mix the liquid with the pool water. Once combined, I stood, my eyes searching for the location of the jets inside the pool. Locating one, I picked up the bucket and dumped the contents into the pool over the jet. 

… 

An hour had passed since sunset. I had heard the car door slam shut, as well as his dress shoes making their way to where I was relaxing in the pool. My freshly dyed pink pool with bubbly foam floating on portions of the surface. 

I couldn’t help but laugh at the surprise on his face. Raising myself out of the pool, brushing the bubbles off of my swimwear, I wrapped my foamy arms around his neck, pressing myself against him, completely soaking the front of his suit. “Hey, missed you.” 

He was chuckling and shaking his head at me. “I missed you too… and I also missed the memo about a pink bubble bath in our pool. I didn’t really wear the right outfit to this party.” 

I laughed, kissing him before pulling away. “Then go change, I’ll be here.” 

“I know you will,” he winked, before disappearing into the house again. I stepped back into the foamy water, relaxing in the water that lapped against my shoulders and splashed gently on my neck. 

When he returned, appropriately dressed in his own swimming attire, I nearly pulled him headfirst into the pool in my excitement. Finally with my lover, in the pool of my teenage dreams, I was happier than I had been in a long time. I wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck. The kiss we then shared was incredibly blissful, just like I knew this night would be.

[writing-intheundercroft]

Interview with a Writer

Thank you for the tag @kaidynsarell!!

Answers and tags below the cut :)

WHEN DID YOU START WRITING

I started writing fics when I was thirteen (RIP Mibba) and probably stopped around sixteen when I got into RP. I definitely stopped in my later years of high school, and rediscovered my love for fanfic around 2021. I had a few drafts running, but never felt the inspiration or bravery to post until HL came out.

ARE THERE DIFFERENT THEMES OR GENRES YOU ENJOY READING THAN WHAT YOU WRITE

I find it really hard to write dark! versions of characters, so I really enjoy getting into a good fic featuring darker takes. I am also terrible at writing action, but have enjoyed every fic I've read that has action sequences.

IS THERE A WRITER YOU WANT TO EMULATE OR GET COMPARED TO OFTEN.

As far as published authors, I think I based my early writing technique on Emily Henry. I've yet to get any comparisons though!

CAN YOU TELL ME A LITTLE ABOUT YOUR WRITING SPACE

I wish I could write on my phone, but I get far too distracted! Most of my writing is done curled up on the couch with my cats after everyone else has gone to bed. I consider it my enrichment time and try to write for at least 30 minutes a day.

WHATS YOUR MOST EFFECTIVE WAY TO MUSTER UP A MUSE

I make a pinterest board for every fic I write, and a spotify playlist! Currently, my most active playlist is the one for my modern au dad!Seb fic.

ARE THERE ANY RECURRING THEMES IN YOUR WRITING? DO THEY SURPRISE YOU.

Making Sebastian Sallow miserable? In a serious way, the transition from youth to adulthood. Or writing realistic relationships.

WHAT IS YOUR REASON FOR WRITING

My therapist once said to remember what made you happy before life got in the way. So writing silly love stories, no matter how many people read them, has brought a ton of joy and meaning to my life in the last year. And on top of that, all the lovely online friends I've made as well!

IS THERE ANY SPECIFIC COMMENT OR TYPE OF COMMENT YOU FIND PARTICULARLY MOTIVATING

I love when people pick up on little details I've put in the chapter from previous chapters. I spend a lot of time pouring through old chapters trying to link up everything, so that makes me feel like the effort was worthwhile.

HOW DO YOU WANT TO BE THOUGHT OF BY YOUR READERS

I hope my readers find me relatable and approachable, because I love nothing more than talking to readers!

WHAT DO YOU FEEL LIKE IS YOUR GREATEST STRENGTH AS A WRITER

Call me back for the answer to this when I finish my long fic LOL. But otherwise I'd say its coming up with AU situations and linking them up to the characters in a way that makes sense.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT YOUR OWN WRITING

Writing is such a fun release for me. There's something to be said about rediscovering a love you once had after spending years away from it. I love everything I've written and I hope you guys do as well.

No pressure tags💕💕

@myokk @pluviowriting @kaviary-blog @applinsandoranges @cuffmeinblack

[ladyhindsight]

I want to say it really ticks me off when this fandom (and Cassandra Clare to some extent) acts like TMI isn't for children. I've seen posts comparing Cassandra Clare's work to Colleen Hoover. As far as I know Colleen Hoover is an adult novelist who basically makes abuse fetish smut so like great comparison to a YA author guys in the fandom!

Clare's choosing to include things like normalizing abuse (Maia and Jordan) and incest are really terrible. Clare always hides behind the fact that the reason the incest existed in her story was "symbolic" for like how love can make us do evil things. But children can't understand something that complex and Clare does NOT do a good job at making this theme clear in the story and SHE DOES romanticize their incestuous relationship as so bad it's good (Clare fans go reread the scene in book 2 where clary has to kiss Jace in front of everyone and then go reread book 3 where they're constantly kissing and cuddling and sleeping in the same bed in a romantic way) and it's just really upsets me because I've witnessed first hand (I've been in this Fandom since 2013) child fans normalizing and becoming attracted to incest fetish because of these books. I've seen so many children normalizing incest because of Clare's continual refusal to JUST APOLOGIZE! She literally writes these LGBT books with incest fetish and rape fetish tied into it and eventually a conservative is gonna find these books and it's gonna be all over for Miss Clare and the LGBT community will probably be blamed for her bullshit because we're always blamed for gross books like these.

I also wanted to say (and you don't have to post this ask if it's divulging too much I don't want to offend anyone) but I'm an incest survivor. I read these books when I was thirteen years old (they were in my schools library listed for my age and up) and they really really hurt my recovery because at the time I thought what had happened to me was normal and when I read these books I thought it was totally okay and normal what happened to me. I won't go into any more detail than that but these books made it so hard to seperate the "love" from the "abuse". I've talked to others in this fandom and many other girls have said that these books normalized abuse to them because Jace is so controlling and abusive to Clary and she does nothing to stop him. The abuse is also normalized by the Fandom too I see posts all the time joking about how "Jace isn't a hero who helps people he's a hero who helps his girlfriend!!!" And "haha Jace doesn't let clary have her own tooth brush or space or any friends! Sooo kawaaaaiiii!!!!!" Or "if clary died Jace would be worse than sebastian lol so smexyyy!" Like as if that isn't disturbing and disgusting to normalize to MINORS!

I just wanted to take a moment to talk about the people who suffer the most from Cassandra Clare's continuous deflection of any wrong doing. You wrote these books about incest Clare, and children read these books and cannot understand your "complex" symbolism for how incest is bad but it's oh so good. It makes me want to burst into tears sometimes but instead I'll just send this ask and forget about it.

Oh,

P.S.

Fuck you Cassandra Clare for writing a Trump supporter female character who is against incest to try and say all the people who hate incest are Trump supporters or conservatives. I am a victim of a serious fucking trauma and I am not a fucking conservative because I want you to be held accountable for your fucked up books. You have spit in the face of rape victims time and time again and I genuinely hope some day you get torn to shreds by the public for everything you've perpetuated to CHILDREN.

Every once in a while I think about this interview Clare once gave that I saw on YouTube. She said that her readers often told her (at the time of the interview) that they are older than they consider the target audience of her books to be, and Clare commented something along the lines of, if you read her books, no matter the age, you are the target audience. Which is a nice thought, but the tonality is still very juvenile—even in her later works that are supposedly new adult genre. They differ in no way in style or tone from those works that are categorized in young adult fiction.

Colleen Hoover? Yuck. Perhaps it tells something about the mentality of those readers who liken Clare to Hoover.

Clare’s writing, tone, and capacity to handle serious and complex matters have always sucked. Each topic is handled with surface-level attention or used as a vehicle to ruminate and moan over the main couple and their obstacles in love. The writing has never went into any great length to realistically include themes such as incest (societal or personal level approach and attitudes) or abuse because the characters’ need to be liked and loved and be above the characters that are only used as a fodder for ridicule and betterment of the main characters in comparison. All while Clare tries to create a guise of them being “complex” because of the fact. It’s one of the reasons I have found comparing G.R.R. Martin’s style of implementation of different themes to Clare’s meaningful (as there have been convos about this some time back on the blog) because they are not nearly the same even though it is an easy comparison her readers like to make.

When it comes to idealizing abusive behavior, similar attitude within the readership can be seen in Isabelle’s character when she thinks Valentine is hot for being a villain. Young adult literature is littered with characters exactly like Jace who do not face responsibility for their abusive behavior because that is what the author chooses to prioritize and coddle, simultaneously failing to realize the impact that kind of behavior realistically has on others around them. Jace’s behavior isn’t acknowledged because others are meant to serve him and conform around his needs. Even Clary, who is the protagonist and heroine of the story. It’s never really about her—even her pain—it’s about Jace.

When I read TMI for the first time, I was incredibly conflicted with feeling the way I did (hateful and uncomfortable with many decisions and characters) because authors know better, right? This is how it is supposed to be, right? This isn’t supposed to be about anyone else than Clary and Jace, right? So why anything would be done different or better or given more attention to?

Fuck that. And also fuck Zara Dearborn because we know what Clare’s doing. And it’s embarrassing.

I am incredibly sorry that you had to live through such a horrible thing. I can’t even imagine the pain and confusion you’ve had to endure and work through. There isn’t much I can say but I hope you are faring better today and had good and trustworthy people around you to support you during the recovery (and still do). How could you offend anyone with your thoughts when you’ve survived it and know the destruction it causes? Never apologize for that. I wish you happiness and all the best in life.

[deuterosapiens]

So I started reading Chuck Palahniuk's novel Fight Club on something of a whim. Yes it was a book before a movie. Yes, I stopped Under the Whispering Door to read it (which I will pick back up now that Fight Club is over; it will not languish on the shelf of unfinished books like so, so many other things).

Like many a person, I've seen the film a fair number of times. It's one of those highly quotable films that makes up about thirteen percent of all film references that aren't Mean Girls (quick aside: how well do these two films specifically compare? There's probably some interesting parallels for another time, though that's not important). Unlike many a person, my first experience with Chuck Palahniuk's writing was the short-story "Guts," which is fairly unpleasant for the squeamish, rather than this. It felt like the logical place to start with his novelist work. I've got Choke ordered as a potential follow-up (Sam Rockwell makes all movies better).

All the discourse and discussion of what it's really about has all been had and I'm afraid I can't really add anything interesting to the discussion. Is it social satire? Is it a critique of toxic masculinity, anarchy, the destruction of the hetero-male image? What's it stand for, what's it believe in? What ideas does it promote?

The reading I found the most interesting here, which is the one I found the most relatable or relevant to me, given my own personal drama, however, was that it's a perfectly good critique of toxic escapism. I'm fairly certainly this was not exactly what Palahniuk had in mind when it was written.

Consider this: a person becomes bored with their life and runs off with a fantastic stranger to a new world. No one on earth would bat an eye to that description applying to basically every piece of escapist fiction ever written. And yet, if you boil it down to the essential elements, removing the fat, this is an adequate description of the events of Fight Club's first act.

The fantasy becomes worse and it takes a destructive toll. What was initially a medicine has become an addiction, and, like all addictions, eventually the fantasy isn't enough. Fight club is no longer enough and so Tyler kickstarts Project Mayhem. I consider this an important point as the novel makes it extraordinarily clear that Tyler Durden isn't starting Project Mayhem for social reform, but because his friend, the unnamed Narrator (I think the sequel calls him Sebastian, but I obviously haven't read Fight Club 2 yet; yes there's a sequel; it's a graphic novel as opposed to the original which is a novel that's quite graphic, but not a graphic novel; where was I again?), is no longer having his escapist needs met through the fights.

Project Mayhem grows out of control and the Narrator realizes, too late, none of this is okay. It's then that he realizes the tomato in the mirror, that Tyler is a dissociative self created to cope with just being actually bored as hell of living. Okay, technically he created Tyler because he was interested in Marla Singer (sort of, the part of him that was interested in her became Tyler, it's a bit murky, the details, but that's not strictly important).

So, in-universe, everything that happens is the literal exact result of an actual fantasy going too far.

What I find best about this reading though is how it plays with the ending. A brief note: the film ending, with the explosions set to the Pixies' "Where is my Mind?," doesn't happen; instead the explosives fail, and the Narrator is left recovering in a hospital after having shot his face-out (where Project Mayhem members await eagerly his recovery and the recovery of the Tyler Durden persona).

You have someone who has ran away to some other world as a means of escaping their own problems, who learns that this fantasy is causing them more harm than good, who then takes action to recover themselves and return to the real world. Still, there will always be that possible thread, the lingering will, desire, to leave reality behind again and succumb to the fantasy.

I think a lot of us, who used books or games or movies or what have you to ignore our day-to-day routine problems, can relate to that. To finally wanting to confront the problem you've avoided head-on, and feeling that tug, a little pull in your mind, something drawing you back to the distraction. The easy-way, always available if you want it.

Perhaps I did have something to say about Fight Club the novel after all. I know I broke the rules (the first rule of fight club: you do not talk about fight club; the second rule of fight club: you do not talk about fight club), but perhaps that's the point. The delusion by itself is no fun; madness spread to others (folie à deux) is a riot.

Perhaps that's why we need a Marla, a tether to ground us (even if painfully), when the fantasy can no longer be differentiated from reality.

[just-a-girl-who-likes-sharks]

why weren't you a big fan of 1984, do you think? I would love to here an in depth analysis :D

I would like to start my answer with saying that, as a whole, 1984 is a provocative critique on society and humanity. The world building was solid, the system created into this world was impressive and thought out. The point of this book was to show how dangerous a modernizing totalitarian society is and in that regard, this book definitely succeeded. I can say with 100% certainty that, had it not been for the main character Winston, I would have loved this book.

Instead I hated this book with a passion because of the characters. Now, I can read books with unlikeable characters if they’re well written and the way they behave makes sense storywise. Gods know I read The Secret History with all its unlikeable characters and I still consider it an extremely good book.

What made the characters in this book awful is, plain and simple, misogyny. Starting this book, I knew what I could expect considering this novel was written in 1949. I’ve read books by men from that time before so I was ready for some outdated views sprinkled between the pages of an otherwise good story. Instead this book gave me a main character who in the very first chapter fantasises about violently assaulting and raping a girl because… she walked passed him and didn’t look at him. Because she wore a red sash that indicates she is part of the anti-sex league and would thus never sleep with him. And because of that, because he knows she would never allow him to touch her even though he wants to, he fantasises about bashing her head in with a brick and then violently raping her. This fantasy went on for an entire page and made me really hope that George Orwell never married because I pitty whatever woman married the man who could write such filth in a way that is supposed to make us feel sympathy for Winston as a character.

What made this even worse, is that the woman in question, Julia, becomes the love interest later on. It is revealed that she is part of the anti-sex league as a facade and is instead very promiscuous. The way this woman was written was disgusting to say the least. She and the main character start a relationship that starts after she declares her love for him, even though they have never spoken before. All they do is fuck and talk about how much they love to fuck. Half of Julia’s dialogue is about how much she despises other women and the other half is about how much she adores Winston. Winston even tells her about his violent fantasies about her and she just laughs and thinks it’s funny.

Winston, too, talks in depth about how much he despises women. Wether he talks about his mother, his wife who vanished, or the random lady who puts up her laundry and minds her own business, he always takes the time to remind either Julia or himself how much he despises every single one of them. I doubt he even loved her, especially considering that there’s a thirteen year age gap between them and when talking about their relationship, he always says that she is a girl and he is a man. George Orwell always makes a ppint of comparing Winston’s aging body with Julia’s young and perky and beautiful body!

Reading this was like readong one of those Reddit posts from an AlphaDudeBro™️. Can you imagine the icky feeling already? That’s what the entirity of this book was.

If you read all the way down here, thank you very much!

[seancamerons]

1, 10, 15, 16

Thanks for leaving me some fanfiction asks too!!

How long ago did you start reading or writing fanfiction? Damn, I had to been when I was around about twelve or maybe thirteen. I don't know if anyone remembers the-ndotcom message boards, various Degrassi message boards (mainly Degrassi boards aka DB, anyone around, I honestly doubt it?), and of course, fanfictiondotnet my online life in the mid-2000s.💗

When I was third grade, I remember writing things that resembled fanfiction. Typically based off of some shows I saw (such as Sabrina the teenage Witch, TGIF line up was awesome) or books I read like The Boxcar Children or Junie B, for these writing journal prompts for school the teacher would assign us. When I say it's all cringe and embarrassing as hell, Let's just say I'm glad no evidence of that writing existed. That wasn't even the tip of the iceberg there, I also wanted to *be* a friggin' author. I'd even include these cheesy bios for each 'book' I would make for myself bc I'd always see them in books I read in childhood.

Fast forward to 2003, my first fanfiction (when I knew I was writing fanfiction) was a doozy for Degrassi written about Sean, Craig, and Emma in some weird season 2 timeline with a love triangle, an ill-fated camping trip, Sean's newly sober mother made an appearance in the form of a camp organizer desperate to reconnect with her son and bring him home much to his chagrin, and other things I forgot about and wouldn't wanna think much on. I was basically winging it. I'm afraid it's gone. I had notebooks and notebooks filled with stories around this time.

10. Worst writing habits? Abandoning and giving up without a doubt. A horrid habit that becomes tempting when I get writer's block, and then I just start the hell over and make something totally new and forget about it drop it like a bad habit, and the cycle comes back around like a shitty boomerang. I then will read the old one months or even years later and be filled with regret or have five million new ideas for said abandoned story. Maybe then I rework it in the future someday or in a whole dif story which has been done before. I am already my own worst critic, but I hate super flaming, negative criticism that shit doesn't help anyone except be tempted to give up.

Some fic I abandoned needed to be, such as the Zoemund vehicle in a weird alternate season thirteen titled The Starlet and Dealer. Not that I need to explain myself, but I didn't feel right writing something portraying a couple with literally no chance on any planet, not even interested in men on the whole didn't make much sense. Also who would read that considering all that? It's available on fanfictiondotnet who cares? I moved on it's never gonna have an ending.

Backtrack has more of a chance of getting an ending, and yes, it's an *almost* ten-year-old fic, just saying.😄😄😄

Another habit is simply beating myself up, comparing myself and just simply hating on myself which I gotta stop doing. Honorable mention, stuff like not being in the mood to write, or getting too much on my plate and then not writing.

15. One-shots or multi-chapters? Multichapters Angst? Yes. Fluff? Yes. Smut? I'm not that brave ha, not for a lack of trying. I usually do the ol' Disney-style cut away. I'm so lame. Hurt/comfort? Yes. Fantasy? Nah. Romance? My bread and butter🥰. Which one is your favorite? Hmm I'd say romance with multiple chapters all the way! Which one is your least favorite? My least favorite is when the protag gets pregnant and the whole story is just fucked after that because it just doesn't interest me. It's just so unoriginal and a little predictable. Unpopular or popular opinion who cares, not every love story or romance ends with a baby or a pregnancy 🤷‍♀️. I'm down for a wedding that would be something fun to tackle in writing. No, really though, out of the listed, I'd say I don't care for fantasy.

16. What’s your favorite headcanon or trope? For semma related fic's stories, I like incorporating things such as emphasis on photographs, flashbacks to past events, and some other memories from their past relationships with one another or things we didn't get to see. For example, Emma had this little box with moments like movie ticket stubs, Sean's old denim jacket (before he started wearing hoodies), Emma's retired dolphin pants, obviously photographs, a few burned mix CDs, letters, and or notes passed from class, and more miscellaneous items.

As for Emma and Jay another Degrassi pairing I write often, for example, I like including a treehouse motif. It's a long story, but in my invented backstory for Jay, Connie (Fancy) is his mother, She left his father for Mr. Edwards (Darcy and Clare's father) she met at the strip club. They had an affair resulting in pregnancy so there's a drama with that. Obviously, Jay and Darcy clash (naturally) and act like they're not related at school is an arrangement beneficial to both for Darcy's popularity and Jay had a reputation to uphold and also there's Jay's young maybe five year old half-sister from Randall and Connie named Christina affectionately nicknamed Chrissy. Jay resents his mother for leaving their father and making this new family with these stuck-up people he seems to detest and what it did to his father who had fallen in a reclusive depression since their divorce.

Chrissy idolizes Jay and serves as an honorary shipper for Emma and Jay, and sometimes provides comic relief. At Jay's dad's house is where the treehouse comes in, and Jay's super attached to it and his father too who he is still close with. The treehouse is a special spot for Jay. He eventually brings Emma into his world and treehouse, and the setting symbolizes a lot in their relationship. All this lore was created long before Jay or Darcy had a canon backstory or last names purely based on speculation. There's also related Jay/Alex lore about their past relationship, invented things from their dysfunctional childhoods. I also have a host of headcanons for Emma, Manny, and JT's childhood memories growing up together.

For tropes, I dig the first love/true love, mutual pining, enemies to lovers, slow burns, and secret relationships/forbidden love is always fun to write. I recently attempted a fake dating story Faking It/(a03)

This all is a lot of fun to write. Thanks Emma! I hope you also like writing responses to these type of questions! I’m always available and down for more questions about fanfiction! 💌

[bigskydreaming]

So the first season of Wheel of Time introduced statues/figurines of only eight of the thirteen Forsaken, implying that only eight of them were sealed away in the Bore with the Dark One, even though there were still originally thirteen. The other five died back during the Breaking of the World so we’ll only have eight in the modern era.

This makes sense because realistically if the show’s only counting on going to eight or nine seasons, eight big bads plus the one biggest bad is a lot more manageable than thirteen plus the Dark One, especially if you want to focus on one primary threat per eight-ten episode season. And the way the Forsaken spread out in the books and each fomented global upheaval and unrest by contributing to each of the major plotlines DOES make that a fairly easy way to go.

But of course that begs the question which eight made the cut and will show up in the actual show.....the eight figurines we saw showed four male Forsaken and four female, but ironically its a lot easier to figure out at least three of the four guys who were likely cut than which one of the five female Forsaken was left out.

We’ve already past the point in the narrative when Aginor and Balthamel would have been introduced, so its safe to say they got axed even if their original impact still lingers. The other five Forsaken DID still exist in the show’s narrative so Aginor still was the creator of all Shadowspawn, etc.....but he’s just longdead now and presumably the Dark One can’t or doesn’t want to reincarnate him and the others in the modern age. But realistically, these two didn’t do much until the later books (although I AM bummed if we really are never going to get the Osan���gar/Aran’gar storylines as those were the only times these two were interesting and the books did uh, NOT handle the subject matter well at all. But then again, I’m not convinced the show would do any better job portraying Aran’gar and her storyline, for instance).

Be’lal is almost certainly cut too, as pretty much his entire impact in the books can be summed up as give Moiraine an opportunity to be bad-ass. Seriously, I think he was in like, four chapters total. King of unearned hype, that guy!

Wait, no, that was Demandred.

But Ishamael and Asmodean are a given, and of the five female Forsaken, Lanfear’s a definite and I’d argue they’re going with Semirhage, Moghedien and Graendal for the other three women. Mesaana has too much overlap with the others....she uses Moghedien’s tactics, has a comparable backstory to Graendal but just, the less interesting version, and personality wise she’s a lot like Semirhage, just....less intense, and far less feared in-universe. She DID have a pivotal plotline in the books, so the question is more....which of the others’ stories will hers be merged with. I’m guessing they’ll combine her plot arc with Moghedien’s, as the Spider was largely nomadic but now will likely be based in the same place Mesaana was in the books, as Moghedien was like Asmodean in the books....her plots were largely her reacting to what the protagonists did but neither initially had a big scheme of their own like the other Forsaken. So it makes sense to set her up with Mesaana’s instead.

Plus there’s no way to combine Semirhage and Mesaana’s stories/direction, Lanfear doesn’t make sense to take it over as she would consider that beneath her, and Graendal would be bored by that particular scheme, lol.

Which just leaves the last two male Forsaken, and three options: Demandred, Sammael and Rahvin.

IDEALLY, they’d keep both Sammael and Rahvin, who are very different personality types.....and ditch Demandred, who was a lot of hype and very little substance. They made a big deal for thirteen books about his epic grudge against Lews Therin Telamon but he literally only showed up in the final book and maybe three chapters of the other books? He really didn’t do much at ALL.

And Sammael had a similar grudge against the Dragon, so IMO it wouldn’t be hard to merge Demandred and Sammael’s arcs and focus on the latter’s feud with Lews while giving him enough of Demandred’s storyline that they go with the latter’s climax while maybe Rahvin and Sammael’s initial story arcs get merged and given to Rahvin.

I do however think there’s a strong possibility they just merge Rahvin and Sammael’s stories entirely and go with only one of them (likely Rahvin, given his location and focus in the books, and again, Sammael and Demandred’s personalities and gripes are too similar) while keeping Demandred BECAUSE the books were so much hype but little follow through with him, and this in theory is a second chance to do a better job with him.

But I think that’d be a big mistake as Rahvin and Sammael are the more interesting dynamic with the other Forsaken (and each other) while Demandred brings nothing to the table Sammael doesn’t already. Plus, aside from his parallel feud with Lews, Demandred’s only real interactions with the others were his perpetual alliance with Semirhage and Mesaana, and if the latter isn’t making the cut, its far easier to just ax Demandred and keep Semirhage solo (as her ego and issues with Lanfear would demand if the latter sticks with her lone wolf routine here too) or merge her into the Rahvin/Sammael/Graendal alliance.

[enashinonome]

9, 10, 32, 33, 34!!! also HI :)

hi maddie!!!! thank you for sending 🌸

9. do you have a “type”? if so, what is it? mascs make me feel some sort of way…when girls are handsome, chivalrous, and charming it’s hard for me to resist!

10. did you do anything gay as a kid that makes sense when you look back on your childhood? i considered myself a fierce ally of the lgbt community…although i thought i was straight for the first ~13 years of my life, i felt lots of sympathy for and kinship with other gay people. other than that, i don’t really know…i was into a lot of hyperfeminine things when i was younger and still am today, so i don’t think it was obvious through my interests.

32. tell a funny story about something really gay you’ve done. when i was thirteen, i developed a massive crush on this senior from my sister’s theatre club. i’m pretty sure she was my proper gay awakening. i wanted to do something special for her that didn’t make it obvious i had a crush on her, so i baked a bunch of blueberry muffins for her, but passed them off as being for the entire cast of the show. which was impossible anyways!!!! there were like, 45 people in that cast!!! but i managed to give one to her, she signed my pamphlet with an “I LOVE YOU. FR”, and we made good conversation! although our height difference made her kneel slightly to be able to talk to me, and she asked me what my name was despite me assuming she knew, which my friends will never let me live down. i don’t like her anymore, obviously, but i still admire and revere her and listen to her music on spotify ^_^

33. do you get crushes/fall in love easily? i honestly don’t know! because there is no universal standard, i can’t compare to it. however, i’ve only had a couple of crushes in the past year or so. i joke all the time about being flimsy, about how it’s always about some girl with me, but that’s just because my crushes tend to stick for a little too long. so i’d say maybe not easily, but when i do, those crushes hit hard.

34. who’s a sapphic person you look up to? i was hoping to get this question! it’s definitely my sister ♡ she’s the only other sapphic person in my immediate family, and i know i can trust her because i’m out to her. (i came out to my mom, but she told my cousin that she thought i was too young to know and am probably just confused…)

my sister had never dated anyone before her current girlfriend, and hadn’t kissed anyone before her, either. and they’re in the sweetest, happiest relationship ever! it gives me hope, knowing that my sister got lucky.

and i love her girlfriend too; we talk about pokémon and anime and kpop a lot, which is nice because my sister never liked any of those things. for my middle school graduation, she gave me two kpop albums, which really showed me how much she cared about me in conjunction to my sister. and we had barely just met then!!

my sister and her girlfriend are like my parents. i love them a lot, and i look up to them because they care so much for each other and for me. <3

[redheadedfemme]

No Country for Honest Assessment

I've been continuing with this comic despite the batshit craziness of some (ok, a lot) of its worldbuilding. (Reviews of Volume 1 and Volume 2.) I guess that means the overall story is compelling enough to continue? That is probably true, but this is the first volume where I feel the writers deliberately pulled back from examining their story's premise in a way that would have added a lot more meaning and heft.

Nearly forty years in the future, when a group of people are trying to find their way out of a future America that has cut itself off from the rest of the world (never mind the global community/economy/information exchange is such that this couldn't happen; this is only one of the handwaves you have to look past to go with this), said group has reached the third of thirteen balkanized American zones: Possibility. As described in the comic:

Once populated by all the creatives responsible for the stories and myths and music and styles and culture that made America what it was to the world. The dream. Out of all the zones, Possibility was tasked with making new creations that would redefine this land so that when the doors re-opened, the American dream would be renewed.

To pass through this zone, our group has to create a brand-new American masterpiece: a story, painting, sculpture, artwork--something that grapples with the myth/dream of America. Although one character immediately throws out a poem that works perfectly well for me:

Roses are red, violets are blue, America's awful, and fuck you too.

I mean, this sums up the country in a lot of ways, past and present. But, y'know, if they had used that we wouldn't have a story.

The person who ends up being tasked to do this is one of the characters of color: Ace Zenyatta. He considers how to tell the American story and comes up with this:

Yes, I've been thinking about the quintessential American story. Immigration, assimilation, race, class...all part of it. But one story has captivated Americans since the beginning. Three words. Rags to riches. So many American stories follow that model. Someone comes from nothing and ends up on top of the world.

And I thought, really? The two white writers are having the black guy say this? Without mentioning America's history of slavery, genocide and Jim Crow, and how that plays into restricting who can actually achieve this rags-to-riches fantasy?

This would have been a very rich vein to tap if the writers had had the balls to really grapple with it. (Also, bringing in a writer of color might have helped.) As it is, they come close in a couple of places, but they end up pulling their punches and ducking away. This pretty much spoiled the impact of this volume for me.

Look, I'm sure many people read this comic just for its overall batshittery. It is pretty over-the-top compared to others. But it's disappointing that they come up with a storyline that is supposed to explore the mythology and dream of America--and they don't actually do it.

[constantineshots]

i wrote this at like five in the morning so i do want to add a few things. not because anything here is necessarily wrong, but because i just fucking hate thomas constantine. like with a burning passion. and this gets personal, but! warning for abuse, alcoholism, and animal killings ( in relation to magic ).

every time- or, well, nearly every time- we see this man he just gets so much worse than we thought he was. i mean, hell, he becomes an alcoholic after some sort of accident, and then, without much explanation, when mary gets pregnant, he forces her to have an abortion which not only kills john’s twin ( apparently? or john strangles the twin with the umbilical cord. i forget which, but i think it’s the umbilical cord ) but kills her, too, because it weakens her womb and when she gives birth, she dies then, and then he pits all this blame and rage on john himself. a kid who didn’t do anything wrong when it came to the death of mary.

then he was what, arrested for stealing underwear, if i recall correctly, and john leaves home at seventeen because. well. there’s a variety of reasons there- he could, thomas was abusive and he didn’t want to deal with it anymore. then later on, thomas is murdered by the family man. good. deserved!

and john wasn’t really an easy kid, i won’t say that, but you don’t get to blame him for things he didn’t do. sure, he was the weird kid who killed bugs and may have, unknown to many in the series, killed that one man. he is also the kid who hid his childlike innocence in a box to get rid of it so he was no longer vulnerable, which he did as a child in his earlier days of magic. he also killed a cat ( i believe it was a cat ) that had been magically connected to his father and hid the cat under his mother’s tombstone, in order to make sure that not only his father would never find it, but that his father would remain sick until he went back and got it, because the cat wouldn’t decompose due to the spell or something.

then he ran away. he was considered a “hippie” for a little while, even while he was home, until he eventually saw the sex pistols and formed his own band. i like to think he liked the freedom and self expression of punk rock that he couldn’t have earlier on in his life, but i couldn’t say for certain- i just know that he liked it and oftentimes, people say he was in the band so he could get laid. i can’t say his life got any better from leaving home, but that’s a story for another time- especially in regards to the hellblazer special ( in which there is sexual abuse, so be warned on that ).

when i got around to this character, i was thirteen. i won’t compare my life to john’s and say we’re quite the same ( for obvious reasons ), but i think that there’s a lot of metaphor for abused children written within him. i started reading hellblazer on the school-assigned ipads that were handed out because my parents didn’t want me to have technology in the home . . . even though my six year old little brother had it. and it- hellblazer- resonated with me.

“you were thirteen! you shouldn’t have been reading that!” yeah well, whatever, i was. because i watched the nbc constantine show, looked up the inspo at school, and bam: hellblazer.

regardless, my mom left. i didn’t even recognize my birth mother as my mother when i was seven years old. there’s this bright memory of me asking who she is. my father met someone else, my stepmom, who’s an alcoholic and won’t admit it. they get married within the year. and for whatever reason, she hated us, then acted like it was our fault. i have two younger siblings entirely by blood, and then my youngest half brother, and an older step brother. she was terrible. not to get too deep into it, but there does come a point in time when you’re not being treated right before you realize that the only way you’ll get through it all is if you get mature and fast. you fight, and it doesn’t work because you’re just a kid; what do you know? so you hide away all that vulnerability and when teachers come past like “oh, you’re mature for your age!” it takes everything in you not to give that burning retort of why you’re that way and instead just smile and say “thank you”.

now, i’m fumbling and wondering if i’m too old to be enjoying things that i do currently like, now that i’m twenty-one, even though none of these things have an age limit on them. or if i’m being weird by being so heavily attached to a character like this one.

so thomas constantine is, in my mind, just this glaring symbol of abuse that boils my blood on many accounts. as someone who had to essentially raise my siblings, comfort them- cheryl should never have been in that position. as someone who’s been abused and had false rage pointed at me, john shouldn’t have been in that position.

if you’re planning to have kids, you love them unconditionally, no matter the circumstances. you make sure you know your children are loved. or you end up with kids like me, who don’t like affection, who mature too quickly, who are struggling to piece together their childhood, and who struggle to form long-lasting attachments because they’re too busy wondering when that’s going to fall apart, too, and might unintentionally fuck it all up on their own.

anyways, that’s my little rant on why i hate the man so much.

reading hellblazer and thought you might appreciate the extremely fucked up epitaph on john's mother's tombstone (hellblazer issue 31) like goodness what a way to fuck up your child??? what in all weird british passive aggressive bullshit is this?

i don’t know enough about epitaphs to know if it’s passive aggressive or not, but with the way his father called john “killer” to his face and said a bunch of other horrible stuff to him in regards to his mother’s death in order for john to blame himself, this is probably a reminder every time john goes to visit- which. isn’t often, if i remember right, if at all.

though we do come to find out that his dad goes to hell for a variety of reasons, but the one i’m focusing on at this current moment is the fact that he had tried to force mary to abort both john and his twin ( who, in an alternate universe where he lived instead, is also named john, and is known as “the golden boy” ) and that’s what killed her. his father- who i hate actually calling that because he doesn’t have the right, fuck thomas- essentially just shifted the blame on john and gave john a horrible life because of it.

[heretherebegaydragons]

Places where Jonny Sims brought The Mechanisms into The Magnus Archives

A non-exhaustive list of themes, concepts and interesting situations Jonny might have consciously or subconsciously brought with him from The Mechanisms when writing The Magnus Archives:

Mechanisms

Broken Horses - Ulysses Dies At Dawn

“I wonder if devils get nightmares of all of their victims as well”

Magnus

MAG 142 Scrutiny, MAG 146 Threshold and MAG 120 Eye Contact

The Archivist having nightmares of and with all the people he’s taken statements from, his victims.

Mechanisms

The article Archive Footage on themechanisms.com

 Ivy, who has the title of archivist, is described as being a book, not a reader

Magnus

MAG 160 The Eye Opens, mentioned in the statement of Jonah Magnus

The Archivist being described as more of an archive than an archivist.

Mechanisms

Red Signal - The Bifrost Incident

“All the doors are open now!”

The metaphor of an open door signifying that eldritch horrors has arrived and apocalypse is forthcoming

Magnus

MAG 160 The Eye Opens, last line of the statement/ritual

“I. Open. The DOOR” (written phonetically).

The metaphor of opening a door signifying the summoning of eldritch horrors and the start of the apocalypse

Mechanisms

Ragnarok II: The Calling - The Bifrost Incident

Odin, a servant of an unknowable eldritch deity, started the apocalypse and is very happy about it

Magnus

MAG 160 The Eye Opens

The laugh right at the end.

Jon, a servant/avatar of an unknowable eldritch deity, started the apocalypse and is very happy about it

Mechanisms

Ragnarok V: End of the Line - The Bifrost Incident

The tragic, queer romance of Loki and Sigyn ending in dying together, one killing the other, to temporarily save the world from eldritch horrors

Magnus

MAG 200 - Last Words

The tragic, queer romance of Jon and Martin ending in dying(?) together, one killing the other, to save their world from (and doom another to) eldritch horrors

Mechanisms

Hereward the Wake - Tales to Be Told vol. 2

“But he loved his servant Martin”

The titular Hereward is gay for a subordinate called Martin

Magnus

All of s5 and a considerable amount of s4. First confirmed in MAG 161 - Dwelling

Jon, main character, is gay for a subordinate called Martin

Mechanisms

Olympians - Ulysses Dies at Dawn

“Now, when the inevitable reality of death is so unpleasant, you better believe people will do anything to avoid it”

Death is known to be eternal and unpleasant, and this drives rich people to do anything necessary to survive, including killing a lot of people via. the Sphinx

Magnus

MAG 155 - The Cost of Living

Death is, to the rich woman giving the statement, known to be an eternal, painful state, and her wish to avoid this at any cost drives her to kill a lot of people

Mechanisms

Ragnarok II: The Calling - The Bifrost Incident

“I’ve done it! Though I never knew the dreams that ate at me were true”

“The Void sings it to me”

Odin hearing music in her dreams calling her to carry out a ritual that brings an eldritch abomination into this world and thereby causes an apocalypse

Magnus

MAG 151 - Big Picture

“I still hear the music in my dream”

Simon Fairchild likening the call to make a ritual for an eldritch abomination to bring it into this world and thus cause an apocalypse to hearing music in one’s dreams and desperately wanting to recreate it.

Mechanisms

A Rebel Yell - Once Upon A Time (In Space): Apocrypha

“Guess you gotta pay The Piper in the end”

A character called The Piper who causes great losses on both sides of a war by betraying a lot of the resistance and then blowing up a planet of the oppressing force when they don’t pay up, thus serving not a specific side but the war itself

Magnus

MAG 7 - The Piper

A character referred to as The Piper who is an embodiment of the war

Mechanisms

Orpheus, Dionysus, muriatic acid and the strange whirring thing

“Know enough about the events leading up to a situation, and you’ll know exactly what will happen next. So much for free will”

Magnus

The entire concept of The Web, as it understands all the little details that will lead to a certain outcome, knows exactly which future a certain change will bring. And the existential questions about free will this gives Jon in particular

Some of these are more probable than others, and there most certainly plenty I haven’t noticed, so feel free to add your own

[hqcult]

21ST ## the miya twins

you visit hyogo to celebrate your 21st birthday with your extended family. you met atsumu and osamu, who were oh so excited to meet you.

. tw manipulation, pseudo-incest, noncon, cunnilingus, masturbation, exhibitionism, voyeurism, mindbreak, implied double penetration, dark content . wc 4.3k

looking back, the twins are good fucking actors. they deserve some oscar-level award with how much they smiled those sweet honey smiles and lured you into a sense of security before baring their fangs and pulling you down to hell with them. but they never would’ve gotten the chance to act if you hadn’t been there as their audience. so, the truth remains the same—this is all your fault. you never should’ve insisted coming to hyōgo in the first place.

ever since getting adopted at the tender age of thirteen and moving to tokyo, you’ve seen everything there is to see, ate at every restaurant with a 5-star review on google. you’ve done them all at least thrice by now and it’s getting boring.

so, when your adoptive father had jokingly talked about coming to hyōgo to meet your extended family for your 21st birthday, you perked up in your seat and your eyes twinkled like stars. 

your mom didn’t want to go at first, of course, claiming you’ll get carsick but your parents eventually gave in after seeing the pleading look in your eyes and the genuine excitement in your stance.

long story short, you did end up getting carsick. quite a few times too, actually. but you were already driving along the expressway and your mom’s sister was already expecting the three of you. so, naturally, you guys pushed through, your dad making sure he drove as smoothly as possible in order not to trigger another barfing session from you.

it was twilight by the time your dad pulled up on his sister-in-law’s driveway and the first you see were two identical faces—twins? for step-cousins? well, now that was something. you’ve never really met twins before so it was a whole new experience and it excited you greatly. 

not to mention how you and atsumu instantly hit it off, your personalities aligning. yet when you sat next to osamu during dinner, the younger twin found it wasn’t as hard talking to you compared to his brother. in fact, he found it interesting how easy it was to converse with you, the words flowing out his lips. you were just so painfully compatible with them that why oh why did the universe have to make you their half-cousin?

the shift in their behavior wasn’t at all gradual but can you really blame them? you were such a good daughter, such a beauty. and they guess the whole ‘pseudo-incest’ taboo thing amplified your appeal all the more. 

well, at least in their defense, atsumu and osamu genuinely wanted to get to know their new cousin in the most innocent, platonic way and not this weird thing they’re feeling right now. but you were so damn irresistible that they couldn’t keep their feelings in check.

how kind of ‘samu to grab the coffee container at the topmost shelf for you during breakfast, not knowing he purposely puts it there every night so he can “accidentally” rub his morning wood against your ass.

your ‘tsumtsum is such an angel when he doesn’t hesitate to take off his outerwear and lends it to you whenever you forget yours, not knowing he snatches them from the laundry basket and leaving you no choice but to use his. the sweet scent you leave on the jacket is enough to throw him off the edge and have him climaxing as he fucked his own hand.

nobody noticed, everyone was distracted by their achievements at such a young age. all their mom had to say is how osamu yet again made it to dean’s lister or how atsumu got scouted for a national team.

your mom and dad didn’t notice, lost in the daydream of always wanting to have their own son only to end up with you. blinded of their dazzle that the rotten pieces of them were fully camouflaged by the glow.

it all came to a peak when the twins were pulling all-nighter playing games like always. 

atsumu needed to use the restroom, and just as he’s passing by your door, he heard a questionable sound that made him stop, frozen and unbelieving.

carefully, he tiptoes closer to place his ear against your door, praying to whomever that the floorboards don’t creak and disrupt whatever you’re doing. silence, seconds of it. then click, a switch turning on, he hears low vibration and a shaky whimper, a slick sound that reminded him of—

you were touching yourself.

holy fucking crap.

atsumu can only stare at the door with a knowing curl in his lips as he quickly pushes down his boxers. the risk of getting caught masturbating so out in the open making all the blood rush south.

“guess yer not as innocent as i thought ya were,” he mutters, spitting on his palm before wrapping it around his dick.

he shut his eyes close, clinging desperately into the imagination of how it would feel like to fuck your cunny instead of his hand. how the view would be like as he forces your legs up and into a mating press as he rutted his hips into you. at least you were loud, the moans he can hear as clear as day and he’s thankful he needn’t depend on his imagination anymore like all the other times.

you better be fucking thankful that the rest of the rooms were downstairs or else your parents and their mom would’ve heard by now. eh, atsumu didn’t mind. he got off on the risque idea of getting caught in the act.

when your pitch grows whinier and he hears your quick rufflings on the bed, he knows you’re close. he can hear the frantic and changing levels of the vibrator as you fucked it into your walls. 

“fuck,” he hissed, the mental image of you masturbating and putting on a show for him making him teeter over the edge.

he grunts, low and animalistic, as spurts of his cum stains his hands and the floor. he didn’t care. he pumped himself through his orgasm and it was the best he’s ever got in a while. who knew all he needed to hear was his little step-cousin lewdly touching herself? naughty, naughty girl.

when he heard your panting after cumming against your little toy, he took his cue and speed-walked towards his and osamu’s bedroom to get a cloth he’ll use to clean the front of your door. but just as he caught you in the act, he caught his own brother red-handed, too.

the tiny specks of cum on the wall where osamu stood is a ghastly sight but atsumu couldn’t care less. 

silently, the twins exchanged a knowing glance.

“ya heard ‘er too?”

someone knocks on your bedroom door on the eve of your birthday. 

osamu was tasked to wake you up while atsumu started the car. you didn’t respond. were you… he slowly opens the door, he spots you immediately in the bundle of blankets atop your bed. when he stalks closer, you looked so cozy that osamu almost got tempted to ditch the idiot and come snuggle with you under the blankets instead. 

but he has two heads and the one he’s using to think is located south.

he wakes you up with a gentle shake on the shoulder. “‘samu?” you mutter, voice low and croaky from your deep sleep when you see a blurry tousle of gray hair.

“let’s do a countdown for yer birthday, angel. come on, put on a jacket. ‘tsumu’s already startin’ up the car.”

osamu’s blunt nails dug half-moon crescents into his palms as he saw your tiny pajama shorts and the slip top when you shoved the blankets away. he swore his palms would’ve bled, especially after seeing you bending over to look for a hoodie inside your luggage. 

he stared so openly, it was almost predatory in a sense. 

as you scamper down the stairs with the younger twin’s hands dangerously grazing the top of your rear, you thought it’s plain old protective ‘samu being worried you’ll make a misstep and break your neck.

“where’s everybody?”

“just us three, angel. ‘lil cousin bonding before yer big party tonight, y’know?”

you giggled. how sweet, you thought.

you didn’t sense a thing. didn’t see a single red flag even if it was being waved across your face like what they do in bullfights. osamu felt a little sorry for how they’re blatantly manipulating you but it’s too late to back out now, much less let the guilt eat up his insides. he shouldn’t be a hypocrite considering he jacked off to your moans, too, that night. 

he’s really no different than atsumu and it’s a tough pill to swallow.

“shotgun!”

it wasn’t osamu that stops you, but atsumu, from scampering into the front seat. the older twin quickly locks the door before lowering down the passenger side’s window. 

“nuh-uh, birthday girl. ya can’t sit here or the surprise’ll be ruined!”

you grumble, frowning as you scoot yourself in the backseat of the car. atsumu twists his torso towards the back, asking you to wear the blindfold he’s handing you. it was a little tough with how stubborn you are but ‘tsumu’s just too good with his words.

you drove for thirty minutes before the car pulled up somewhere. the world is tranquil outside, so you couldn’t have driven to the nearest city. your initial guess is a beach, but there were no splashes of water. maybe a cliff-side or a forest?

the car’s ignition turns off and you call out to the twins. 

“‘tsumu? ‘samu? where are we? can i take my blindfold off now?”

“just a moment, doll.” there’s an excited lilt to atsumu’s voice and you can’t help but fidget in your seat, feeling the excitement crawling up your spine as you think of what their surprise could be.

you hear them clamber out the car. you scoot closer to the door just as the backseat opens, a silly smile on your face. “you guys didn’t have to do this, you know, but i appreciate it so mu—”

someone tackles you to the seat and the air gets knocked out of your lungs. he’s heavy and you felt the muscles underneath his shirt as you tried to push him away but to no avail—you know it’s a man, it has to be because you felt the broad shoulders and something poking at your thigh. you feel him nosing the side of your neck and his hands crawling under your shirt. his freezing skin against your own is what snapped you out of it.

“atsumu! osamu!” you cried, calling for help.

you inwardly gasped, realizing something. maybe they were hurt! maybe your assaulter had creeped up behind the twins just as they opened the door for you, knocked them out cold, before trying to have their way with you. at the thought of the twins getting hurt, you thrashed, fought, and screamed with newfound fervor.

“couldja calm down and shut yer fucking trap?”

when the blindfold flies away and you see the man straddling you on the backseat of atsumu’s car, how you wished your assaulter had never taken it off.

atsumu had never looked this scary from your point of view, then again he never straddled you like this in the weeks prior. never looked at you like how he’s looking now—there’s clear hunger and lust in those eyes. you’ve seen that look one too many times from boys back in your university when you had your one night stands. but it had all been consensual and you loved them looking at you that way but this is different.

so, so different.

you can’t look at him in the eye, not when he’s staring at you like that. it felt like you’re pushed into a corner, vulnerable and bare even with the clothes you’re wearing.

“please, get off of me.”

“get off ya?” he repeats, mirth in his eyes as he hauls you up to a sitting position. he finally shuts the door behind him. “but i’ve been wantin’ to do this for weeks.”

to further emphasize his point, he grounds his hips against yours, making sure the tip of his already erect cock grazes against the bud of your clit. his boxers and the thin fabric of your shorts isn’t helping. he groans wantonly, angling his hips to do it again until you slipped out from under him and maneuvered your way to the other door.

osamu! osamu will stop him, you thought with teary eyes as atsumu growls and quickly pulls you back by the forearms, your back to his chest as you try to claw your way out of the athlete’s grip.

“‘samu! ‘samu, help me!”

but when the said twin opens the door and slips inside the car with little to no surprise present in his face, a type of fear you’ve never felt before runs up your spine. the look in osamu’s eyes reflected that of his twin’s and with sinking realization, you knew he wasn’t there to help you.

“happy 21st birthday, angel.”

and then he’s ducking down to kiss you. his lips are soft and they moved tenderly, in contrast to the barbaric way they tore at your clothes, the cold making you shiver in your underwear.

dealing with one sick person is enough, but with two, you’re not so sure. you only had two hands, if you pushed osamu away, atsumu would have free access and vice versa. your legs couldn’t move either, thanks to the cramped space of the backseat.

while holding down your hands, atsumu marks every inch of untainted skin he could see as osamu swirls his tongue inside your mouth. you’ve never felt so disgusted and dirty, but above all, betrayed. even if it was a few weeks since you’ve met, you still saw them as family. sure, you weren’t technically blood-related but in the papers it’s a different story.

when osamu pulled away, you averted your eyes but his hand reached up to hold your chin, forcing your eyes to meet. you feel his other hand trailing up your thighs, fingers dangerously close to your clothed sex as he watched you like a fox. he wanted to commit this moment to memory. every twitch and small gasp you make as his cold fingers pinched at your clit and traced your pussy lips.

“staying quiet, princess?” atsumu comments, hands snaking around front to squeeze and grope your breasts over the bra you wore. “ya weren’t like this when i caught ya touchin’ yerself last week.”

your eyes widened. when you tried turning your head to look over your shoulder towards the other twin, osamu shoved two fingers inside you.

your reaction was immediate. the pleasure and pain mixing as a loud gasp escapes your lips. “eyes up front,” he murmurs, the firm hold on your chin going higher to encase your whole jaw.

“oi, ‘samu, didn’t think you’re the possessive type,” atsumu says, teasingly placing his chin on your shoulder as he smiles that lazy smile you know osamu hates. “not that i’m going to lose.”

the older twin slips your bra off just as osamu takes his fingers out to lewdly lick up your slick. he moans, keeping his eyes trained on your horrified face. “sweet. but not wet enough for us, angel.”

“what—no—!”

“let me have a go.”

before you could even react, atsumu’s spinning you around to face him as he shoves your shoulders down. due to the cramped space, your head collides with osamu’s thighs, narrowly missing the tent in his joggers. the weight in his thighs makes the younger twin fidget and squirm as he hastily reaches for your hand, pulling his bottoms down just enough for his cock to spring out. you wince when it hits the side of your face. osamu loved the disgust in your face when he spat at your hand and used it to get himself off as he started stroking his cock.

meanwhile, in one swift motion, atsumu is pulling your panties down and licking a stripe up your cunny, the tip of his tongue prodding at your clit as his hands come up to slap your pussy. “how dare ya be so quiet,” he hisses, sucking harsher on your clit to pull a reaction out of you. “let me hear ya whine and moan, babe. i’m fuckin’ sure as hell my tongue is better than some cheap ass vibrator ya used.”

but your lips are stubbornly sealed as you arched your back. like hell you’d play into their wants and sick fantasies. they were your cousins! forcing you to enjoy this is just downright wrong. and knowing they’ve eavesdropped and silently lusted over you while having those innocent little smiles on their faces… were they not in the least bit guilty for deceiving you? deceiving your parents?

“give ‘er somethin’ bigger. i think she’s askin’ for it.” osamu says, kneading one of your breasts and tweaking your nipples as he continued to pump himself using your hand. 

because he lost to rock paper scissors, he’s going to fuck you after atsumu and no matter how furious he was, a deal’s a deal.

like an idea switching inside his head, atsumu falters, staring right at you with sparkles in his eyes before his lips curled into a devious smirk.

“no, no, no,” you scramble, trying to sit up in order to push him away but osamu is quick to pin you down. “atsumu—no—you don’t want to do this, please—!”

“shut it, princess. i know what i want and that’s to fuck yer sweet little cunny right ‘ere,” he mocks by planting a sweet kiss against your lower lips.

“can ya stop with the dirty talk my dick’ll go soft, ya scrub!” osamu hisses, his hands wrapped around yours getting tighter as the lewd sounds of his slick gets louder. 

no matter how much osamu denies it, he’s getting off on seeing you squirming under atsumu and god he never thought to have a voyeurism kink but here we are.

atsumu shoves his boxers down and you turn away from glancing down at his cock, osamu had to ruthlessly pull your hair and make you look as you slowly start tearing up. he was bigger than most guys you’ve met in college and you dread the painful stretch it’ll take for him to shove that dick inside you.

“shh, princess. don’tcha worry, yer all prepped to take me.” he scissors your pussy lips, the sticky wetness creating lewd sounds before pushing his stained fingers into your mouth. “hear that? go on and taste yerself.”

he gave you no choice, fingers pushing your tongue down until you obliged to his wishes. from behind you, you hear a low grunt and a pant as osamu throws his head back. he was close, you could tell and you surely didn’t want your face to be near his cock once he cums.

“‘tsumu, god damn it! hurry and fuck ‘er already!”

osamu was close and his mind was clouded. he needed to see you get railed in order for him to teeter towards that delicious edge of pure ecstasy. needed to hear the noises like the ones you made that night.

“i got it, i got it. fuckin’ impatient bastard.”

“atsumu, stop—!”

but he doesn't bother to listen, pushing his cock deep all in a single thrust. you were right. the stretch slightly stings and you bet it would’ve hurt more had he not bothered to suck and lick at your pussy earlier. “it hurts,” you sob, trying to curl in on yourself while keeping atsumu from leaning in.

but your strength is no match for him as he peppers light kisses down your neck, osamu helping with pushing your hair away to expose more skin. “shh, shh,” the faux-blond coos. “it’ll get better, i promise ya. yer gonna love it so let me move, okay?”

“no, wait, take it out, wai—!”

he starts thrusting, timed and rhythmic as his hands reach under your thighs, slightly raising your lower body to meet the angle of his hips. you couldn’t deny that it felt good like he said. the heavenly drag of his dick inside your walls, feeling you squeeze around him just as he nearly pulls out, only to thrust it all back in again. he wanted to keep this “making love” pace as long as he wants but he’s getting irritated but how you still wanted to keep your pretty lips shut.

that’s when you truly felt the vehicle jolting back and forth, brought by the sudden way atsumu manically fucks you like some animal. the change of pace surprised you greatly, choking on your saliva and letting out a pornographic “ah!” as he started railing you in the backseat of his car. you were way past the point of no return as immense pleasure spiked your nerves. all thoughts of somehow fighting their advances being shot out the window.

“that’s it,” atsumu pants, swinging your legs up against your chest to fuck you even deeper. “come on, make some noise, princess. i want people to hear how good i make ya feel even if they’re miles away.”

after all this is over and the lustful haze they forced you under is gone, you’ll regret the way you moaned and groaned and whined like how you’re doing now. embarrassing, how even as atsumu leans closer to kiss you, you don’t push him away. a mess of saliva and sweat mixing as his pace doesn’t relent and the fierce jolts of the car only adds up to your pleasure.

“‘tsumu!” you screamed, one hand holding onto his hair and the other scratching at his back. “i’m close—shit!”

he replies with a moan of his own, drawn out and whiny, feeling your walls suffocating his cock as he continues to drive it in and out with a speed you’ve never experienced with your past rendezvous. perks of being an athlete, you guess. “don’tcha dare fuckin’ cum until i tell ya to or else.”

but that little devil is making it harder for you to obey him as one of his hands snakes in between your bodies to start toying with your clit, drawing firm circles and figure 8’s to draw in that eventual release. “no, no, ‘tsumu don’t!” you tried reaching down but his hand only tugs it back, firmly holding your wrist as he continues his ministrations.

it’s too much. you were feeling it all too much and in the heat of the moment, you forgot everything else—you arch your back and felt your climax crashing over you as your cum steadily makes a mess off the backseat with every thrust atsumu made.

he stops.

his head hangs low, looking at the view of your interconnected bodies before scoffing in disbelief. menacingly, he raises his head to make eye contact with you. “didn’t i fuckin’ tell ya to cum only if i tell ya to cum?”

the faux-blond grabs at your hair, ruthlessly tilting it back as you feel a sticky sensation running down your nether lips. you shake your head, eyes wide like a deer in headlights.

“but—!”

“i don’t care. i warned ya, didn’t i? so don’t fuckin’ hate me after all this is over.”

suddenly you feel your fight surging through you again like a tidal wave. this is wrong. how dare they do it even after you said no. how dare they do it and make you enjoy it?

“aw, cute. angel’s still got some fight in ‘er left.”

you thrashed against atsumu as soon as he swiftly pulls out of you. he doesn’t even break a sweat while restraining you with his bare hands.

“let me go! you fuckers! i’ll tell—”

“tell who? our parents? this isn’t elementary school, princess. ya get what ya fuckin’ deserve and it’s not our fault ya like swingin’ that pretty ass so much.”

you growl as a retort, attempting to bite atsumu’s hand off as he swiftly spins you around to lay on your stomach. you cringe, feeling your sticky essence against your skin. you didn't have time to feel humiliated, not as you came face to face with osamu’s still erect and angry dick.

you weren’t dumb, you knew why the faux-blond made you face his twins’ way—this is to be your punishment, he said, all the while feeling him scramble about behind you. it wasn’t only ‘til you feel atsumu’s tip prodding at your ass did you realize what’s going to happen.

“go on and give our ‘samu a nice suck, yeah? put on a show and if ya dare use yer teeth, i’ll personally make sure ya regret ever coming to hyōgo.”

you came back at dawn, during the sunrise. it’s glow basking the whole house in a nice orange tint. “what are you guys doing up so early?” your mom asks when she sees the three of you piling in from the front door.

she was too busy rubbing the sleep out of her eyes that she missed everything—the way osamu’s oppressive arm wrapped around your shoulder got tighter, the way atsumu gave you a nasty side eye, and especially the fearful expression on your face.

“no - nothing, mom. they just wanted to have a birthday countdown for me.”

“oh, right! happy 21st, sweetheart.”

[heliopauseentertainments]

1,6, and 15 for Reforged?

Reblog if you are a fanfiction author and would like your readers to put one of your fic titles in your ask + questions about it

Fic Context: Reforged

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

Originally, for the fic overall, I was inspired by a post by... I think their handle was squid-in-disguise (but I can't find the original post anymore and the ship-centered blog I reblogged it from almost 2 years ago apparently deleted). When I finish and type the final promo post, I'm going to try and tag them if I can verify OP's handle.

It was a fairly general prompt for if Rodimus visited Caminus and was hailed as a deity. I definitely took it in a different direction than was originally asked for. The original idea had "Megatron had secretly been in love with Rodimus the entire time" and I didn't lean into that as much.

I also went way deeper into Camien religion and history than I think anyone asked for, because I think that's interesting.

I also got to draw parallels with the Original Thirteen (from both IDW and Aligned). Added three drops of my experience with Judaism, threw the whole thing in the blender, and BAM.

TL;DR: I saw a post with an idea and no one stopped me. This is how many of my fics happen.

The rest of the answers are under the cut for length

6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

We'll take away the sheer length, which far outstrips my other works.

This fic is special/different because:

It gets the most interaction and attention than all of my other fics combined. Something about it resonated with readers and this makes me very proud. I consider myself a very obscure fic author, so I was surprised that anyone even looked at it.

I started writing it on the tail-end of MegaRod being a popular-ish ship. I walked in right when content basically stopped being made (or at least incredibly slowed down to me and two or so other people that I know of). It was just a weird time to get into the ship, which is now almost a rarepair, but especially a weird time to drop a massive novel for it. This ties into the previous point: I'm surprised anyone looked at it.

It's my longest running writing project ever from starting to completion. (I've got up to chapter 98 drafted and only a few chapters after that left to go). Compare that to The Hollow Man, a novella that I slapped out in a month.

It's probably my most obvious example of "canon blending" right now. It's predominantly IDW1, but it's full of both subtle and blatant AU changes, on top of cannibalizing bits and pieces from other continuities, most noticeably Aligned.

It's the first piece I've had that got companion pieces, other little fics set in the same universe or bonus scenes.

It's the only fic of mine that my spouse threatens to write a crack/unhinged version of. For example: trials being based on the Great British Bake-Off

I'm sure there's more but that's what I've got atm.

15: What did you learn from writing this fic?

Novels are hard. Don't write them. I like to think I'm a one-shot and novella specialist, so 40k+ word beasties are not my normal wheelhouse. Some people are best at novels specifically! I do not think I am one of them! Now watch me put my foot in my mouth for Solar Flare.

If you do write one, give yourself a word count and/or a chapter cap. Do not accidentally write something longer than Lord of the Rings (the novel, not the trilogy, but maybe don't write something the length of a trilogy either).

Your brain will sometimes build in foreshadowing for you. Convenient and terrible all at once!

Characters will sometimes provide a story path that you did not plan for. Sometimes this is good! Sometimes this can get away from you and you're at a runaway word count again.

Outlines can be helpful to keep your plot from wandering too far off. I had a very rough outline for this fic of what I needed to hit and whenever something veered too far off, I had something tether it to rather than completely losing the thread. This doesn't work for everyone.

[ckjbun]

What kind of ability would Higuchi have and its potential name?

Hi to whoever is reading this! This is my first self-written post so I’m still figuring out how all this works and I’m sorry, if it gets a bit chaotic. Anyways, recently, I came across a question regarding Higuchi from Bungou Stray Dogs. It was about what Higuchi’s ability would be called and what type it would be. So I won’t go into details whether she has an ability or not. I believe she has since she is named after an author (and Asagiri himself kinda confirmed it via Twitter). Thus, I just want to write my thoughts on the potential names and kind of ability. 

Since abilities in the BSD world are always named after rather well-known works of the authors, I compared some of the famous works of Higuchi Ichiyo. Now mind you, I haven’t read her works myself. I mostly relied on comparing summaries and analyses of them. Since there are not a lot of summaries, I read two lesser-known stories myself. I will add the links of the summaries/analyses of the works down below. However, while comparing I found two works that would fit Higuchi. Now, first what do I mean by “fit”? Well, it might be best to start explaining what I think about the type of Higuchi’s ability.  

I believe Higuchi has not an offensive type of ability. Nothing like Atsushi’s, Akutagawa’s, Kyouka’s etc. If she had, I’m sure she would have used it already, since she’s fighting a lot with her guns, why wouldn’t she use her ability as an addition, why would she hide it? There are two possibilities why we haven’t seen her ability yet. First possibility would be that her ability is not visible like Odasaku’s or Ango’s, maybe it’s even an ability that she hasn’t even discovered, just like Fukuzawa hasn’t realized he has one before the ADA. Second would be that she can use her ability only under stringent conditions. And I believe it’s the latter, hear me out. 

Remember this scene from Chapter 14? Higuchi reaches out to hold Akutagawa’s hand but then pulls back because she remembered him saying that he doesn’t need her help. Now, you could argue that holding the hands of injured loved ones is a gesture of closeness, a way to show them your support, a way to tell them that you’re staying by their side. And Aku doesn’t want this support, so that’s why she retracted her hand. But something bothers me here. In this scene it looks like Aku slapped Higuchi’s hand away, doesn’t it? And then he says, he doesn’t need her help, instead of support. I know, you could say support and help are almost the same. But to me, help is something that you do more “actively”, while support can be something passive. What if Higuchi’s hand represents this “active” help? And what would actively help Akutagawa in this very moment? A healing ability for example. Coincidentally, in the panel before, Hirotsu asks Higuchi what power she posses to make them [the black lizard] obey. Is this a hint that there is a hint about Higuchi’s ability in the next panel? Maybe. But let’s look at the next panel. It’s the title page of this chapter. 

As you can see, Higuchi has a bandage wrapped around her leg and they seem connected to Akutagawa. In this chapter, it is revealed that Higuchi contemplated about leaving the Port Mafia but her reason for staying is implied to be Akutagawa. This is perfectly symbolized by the bandages in this title page. The bandages coming from Akutagawa are holding her leg back, stopping her from walking away from the PM. But maybe there is a second interpretation? If you’re looking at Akutagawa’s left hand, the bandages are starting to come off. What if this means Akutagawa is healing and doesn’t need the bandages anymore? Instead it wraps around Higuchi’s leg, restricting her movement. What if Higuchi’s ability allows her to help someone else (doesn’t have to be necessarily a healing ability) but in exchange she needs to sacrifice something? Anyways, I think she has an ability which allows her to help other people in a non-combat way. With this in mind, I was looking through several works of Higuchi Ichiyo, searching for something that “fits”. Meaning that I was looking for parallels and themes in irl Higuchi’s stories that could be “converted” into an ability. Just like the coat that the protagonist of Rashomon stole in order to now die of hunger was used as Akutagawa’s ability which seems to be able to eat everything, or like the wish that one’s brother does not die in war in Thou Shalt Not Die became Yosano’s ability and serving as a basis of her background story. Anyways, I’d like to present the works that could be used for Higuchi’s ability and draw some parallels. 

1. The Thirteen’s Night

The story revolves around a poor woman, called Oseki. Thanks to her marriage to a rich man, her family was able to live a better life and her brother found a job. But on the thirteenth night of the ninth month of the lunar calendar (one of two special nights for moon viewing), Oseki visited her parents with the intention on asking her parents for approval for divorcing her husband. Before entering, she overhears her parents talking about how lucky they are that they have such good children who don’t cause trouble and that they are very thankful for this marriage. Hesitating at first, she finally goes in and admits that she wants to divorce her husband because he abuses her mentally. He insults her constantly and tells her that she's worthless, stupid, and uneducated. Her mother is outraged. But her father, even though he acknowledges her suffering, reminds her what her husband has done for this family and that she would lose her son since women couldn’t get custody of their children after a divorce at that time. Agreeing with her father, Oseki decides to go back to her husband: 

“It was selfish of me to think of a divorce. You're right. If I couldn't see Tarō, there'd be no point in living. I might flee my present sorrows, but what kind of future would I have? If I could think of myself as already dead, that would solve everything… Then Tarō would have both his parents with him. It was a foolish idea I had, and I've troubled you with the whole unpleasant business. From tonight I will consider myself dead — a spirit who watches over Tarō. That way I can bear Isamu's cruelty for a hundred years to come.” 

– In The Shade of Spring Leaves, translated by Robert Lyons Danly

Just like BSD Higuchi contemplates leaving the PM, the protagonist here wants to leave her husband. The PM is like the husband. It allows her to support herself and probably her family (at least we saw that she has a sister). But there is constant abuse. Akutagawa is clearly the biggest source of abuse that we can see. But it’s not only him. In Chapter 14, Mori asks her if she is really suited for this job. Telling her indirectly that she is useless or that she is too weak for the PM. Later, you can see the Black Lizard doubting her capabilities, even threatening her. But just like Oseki she stays because of a loved one. What really concerns me is Oseki saying that she will consider herself as a dead spirit watching over Tarō. What if Higuchi, in order to use her ability, has to sacrifice part of her lifespan? Or maybe she loses a feeling? Like e.g. she loses the ability to feel happiness, making her a bit more dead inside? If you draw this parallel, you could also say that when ‘consider myself dead’ is the condition of the ability, then ‘watching over Tarō’ is a hint to Higuchi’s ability. An ability that allows her to watch over and protect her loved ones? This theme fits Higuchi perfectly, since a big topic in Higuchi’s story line is how she wants to help and protect Akutagawa. So it makes sense that her ability might be something that would help him (**intensely squinting at the recent events in the manga, especially chapter 88**). Moving on to the second possibility before the pain starts to set in. 

2. Takekurabe (literally: "Comparing heights", "Child's Play" in the Robert Lyons Danly translation, "Growing Up" in the Edward Seidensticker translation)

Now this is considered as Higuchi Ichiyo’s masterpiece. So the chances are high that the ability is based on this story. The story accompanies a group of children who live next to the Yoshiwara quarter. There are two rival gangs: the main street gang (’omote-machi’), lead by Shōtarō, a cultivated young boy who is the grandson of the owner of a pawnshop, and the back street gang (’yoko-chō’), lead by Chōkichi, the impulsive firefighter’s son. (Maybe a parallel to the ADA with (cultivated) Fukuzawa and the PM with Mori who’s a doctor which belongs into the same category of occupation as firefighters?). Among the main street gang, there was Midori, popular and pretty, who lives in the brothel where her sister works. Shōtarō probably has a crush on her. But Midori probably has feelings for the other main character, Nobu, the son of a Buddhist priest. Even though he returns her feelings, he distances himself from her out of his self-consciousness. Later he joins the rival gang after repeated request by Chōkichi. Anyways, they spend their days very care-free, attending school, playing with each other after school. One day, some conflict arises between the gangs and Midori, while protecting someone else, gets slapped by Chōkichi with a sandal. He then proceeds to tell her that their gang is backed by no other than Nobu. Midori feels humiliated and stops going to school. Soon she also stops playing with the other children. After some time passed, Midori is seen with her hair all done up. She has become a distant, lady-like young woman. This probably means that she got her first period and is old enough to become a prostitute or that she just had her first client as a courtesan. Little by little, the children grow up. Nobu is sent off to be trained as a priest and Shōtarō has come to accept the responsibilities of his family’s shop. 

There are several themes in this story that I’d like to point out, namely unrequited love, Midori’s transformation and underlying unchangeable fates. The first one is obviously a big theme in Higuchi’s story. Midori and Nobu are unable to express their love for each other because of their positions in life. Just like Higuchi is unable to express her feelings for Akutagawa. If you want some hope, AkuHigu shippers, maybe Aku has also feelings for Higuchi but is still very confused and self-conscious about it just like Nobu. Anyways, because of their positions in the PM, it would make everything very complicated if Higuchi confessed. Additionally, Midori feels like she was humiliated by her love when she got slapped by that sandal. I’m sure that Higuchi gets humiliated by Akutagawa a lot. The next theme is Midori’s transformation from a tomboyish to a lady-like, distant woman. We all know Higuchi looks really badass in her suits. But again, look at the title page of chapter 14. Higuchi is dressed up all prettily and lady-like in a dress, and her hair is done all up. Just like Midori after her transformation. Midori’s transformation stands for Midori accepting her occupation as a prostitute even though she doesn’t want to. In this chapter, we see that Higuchi has accepted her job in the PM, even though she doesn’t want to do this job. At the end Shōtarō sings the following: 

"Growing up,

she plays among the butterflies

and flowers.

But she turns sixteen,

and all she knows

is work and sorrow."

– In The Shade of Spring Leaves, translated by Robert Lyons Danly

I don’t know about you guys, but to me that necklace that Higuchi is wearing in that title page looks like a butterfly to me. This is really farfetched but maybe this could be a hint about when Higuchi joined the Port Mafia? However, the biggest theme in Takekurabe is the underlying unchangeable fate of the children. Shōtarō was destined to become the next owner of the pawnshop, Nabu was destined to become a Buddhist monk and Midori would become a prostitute. Maybe this gives us some insight into why Higuchi joined the PM? Maybe one of her parents was a PM member? I also like to think that since Aku is in the PM, since she wants to be with him, she can’t but stay in the PM, and this is her fate. Nevertheless, fate is a central theme in Takekurabe. This is the reason why I think, if the ability is based on this story, Higuchi’s ability would be something like changing fates. Changing fate of someone else but in return she must sacrifice something. 

Okay, so this post has become quite long. But I still wanted to mention two other stories Yamizakura (Flowers at Dusk) and The Sound of the Koto where I saw a lot of parallels. I just want to briefly tell you the story of The Sound of the Koto. In this story a woman abandons her son in order to leave her husband who has a bad reputation. The husband then turns into an alcoholic and dies later at a party because of alcohol intoxication. The boy becomes hardened to the world, despises his mother for leaving them, and even contemplates suicide. The story shifts then to a woman playing the koto.  I want to give you an excerpt for the end of this story: 

“On this night the sound of the woman’s playing helped another to be reborn. Through fourteen springs and fourteen autumns, the boy had been buffeted by the rains. His heart had gradually toughened until it had become as hard as stone. No arrow could penetrate it. He seemed destined to follow the example of his father, to die among the fields or in the mountains, where his remains would be bleached by the elements. Some were convinced the boy’s life would end in prison chains, while his bad name spread to every roadside. 

But now, at once, the tenderness buried in his heart was freed by the midnight strains of the koto. For the first time in many years, he felt tears come to his eyes. Or were they jewelled drops of dew? He would not exchange them for anything. 

He, who had known neither love nor compassion, and who had no idea what the player of these refrains could even look like, felt a moment of happiness as the music drifted over the garden wall. […]

[…] How could a stormy wind blow now? The clouds in his heart had disappeared. Once more the woman began to play. The sound of the koto would be his friend for a hundred years, the seed for a hundred years of yearning. He had entered a world where a hundred different flowers wer in bloom. 

– In The Shade of Spring Leaves, translated by Robert Lyons Danly

This boy somehow just reminds me so much of Akutagawa. Just like this boy, without any parents and home, wandering around in this world, Akutagawa has become hardened to the world. I’d like to think that Higuchi’s ability could free Akutagawa from his pain, just like the sound of koto does for this boy. 

So, now I said everything I wanted to say, I guess. If there is really anyone reading this and reading this until here, thank you so much! I appreciate it very much that you kept reading even though my thoughts are probably quite chaotic. I’m sorry if there are any grammar mistakes or weird sentence structures or anything like this. English is not my first language. I’m very happy, if you could point out any mistakes or have any suggestion for improvement. Lastly, I just want to remind you that these are my thoughts, I love discussing so feel free to comment your thoughts but I’d like you to keep in mind that there is not necessarily a wrong or right, theories are theories, interpretations are interpretations. Everyone has another interpretation. They can only be proven wrong by Asagiri sensei himself. Until then just keep the discussions friendly and tolerant towards other people’s thoughts and opinions. 

Sources:

All manga panels used in this post are from easygoingscans

Higuchi Ichiyo (樋口 一葉)

Higuchi Ichiyo: "In the Shade of Spring Leaves"

In The Shade Of Spring Leaves: The Life Of Higuchi Ichiyo, With Nine Of Her Best Stories, translated by Robert Lyons Danly

In the Shade of Spring Leaves – Ichiyō Higuchi, Part 1

“Flowers at Dusk” and Other Notes – Ichiyō Higuchi, Part 2

“Encounters on a Dark Night” and Other Notes – Ichiyō Higuchi, Part 3

“Child’s Play” and Other Notes – Ichiyō Higuchi, Part 4

HIGUCHI ICHIYŌ: BADASS WOMEN IN JAPANESE HISTORY

The Thirteenth Night (Wikipedia)

Female Subject, Interrupted in Higuchi Ichiyō's "The Thirteenth Night"

GAME OF TRADITIONS: TRADITION IN THE THIRTEENTH NIGHT AND DIARY OF A MAD MAN

HIGUCHI ICHIYŌ IN MODERN JAPANESE AND EUROPEAN DRESS: Modern Japanese versions (gendaigoyaku) of Higuchi Ichiyō’s Takekurabe and their Relationship with English, Castilian Spanish and Catalan Translations

Separate Ways Summary

Literary Analysis of “Separate Ways”

Flowers at Dusk

Nigorie (Wikipedia)

From the Margins of Meiji Society: Space and Gender in Higuchi Ichiyō's "Troubled Waters"