#I'm weak for one (1) man: so WHAT if he's fictional

[thatuselesshuman]

Six of Crows: Representation Done Right (in my opinion)

Six of Crows, for those who don't know, is a series written by Leigh Bardugo, who you may recognize from works such as Shadow & Bone and King of Scars (sister series to Six of Crows). Six of Crows is the second series in the collection, and tells the story of 6~7 teenagers with a chip on their shoulder and the ability to treat overthrowing a government figure like it's just another Tuesday.

It is one of my absolute favorite series ever, and I would gladly give my firstborn to Leigh if she asked. It has many things going for it: beautiful plot, angsty teenagers, sad backstories that spell out peak fiction, and amazing characters. In this Tumblr essay, I'm going to focus on that last point, mainly in regards to how representation ADDS to the characters, instead of feeling like a shitty Target t-shirt during pride month (forced and hella cheap).

Disclaimer: I am in no way qualified to be talking about this. I literally have just about every privilege imaginable except being a rich old man. However, I do read a lot and love literature in all shapes and sizes, so know that my yaps are coming from a good place.

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Now, with that out of the way...

The 6 main characters of Six of Crows (SoC for short), are Kaz, Inej, Jesper, Wylan, Nina, and Matthias. They are all very different, so I'll go through them one by one and explain what, why, and how representation.

Kaz Brekker:

So, in terms of usual representation, Kaz is one of the more basic of the group. He's not a minority of any noticeable kind, like LGBTQ+ or a POC (person of color), but he is physically disabled. Due to an accident, Kaz walks with a limp and uses a cane.

Now, I know some people who would say that physical disability isn't as important when it comes to representation, since it's "unrealistic" for a disabled person to be kickass. And to those people I would say: have you ever met a disabled person? Like, genuinely, I'm physically disabled myself and use a cane much like Kaz, and while I could never pull off some of the crazy shit Kaz does, some of the strongest people I know have worse disabilities than me. You and I do not live in a world where a disability determines someone's worth.

And, to that point, I think Leigh proves this exceedingly well. Kaz isn't strong in spite of his disability, he is strong because of it. His disability isn't something shameful or something he needs to hide, it's something that people actively fear. He'll be the first to call himself a cripple, and the last to seem weak in any right.

But if that's all it was, the representation would be decent, but nothing special. What makes it special is that it's realistic. There are certain things Kaz can't do. A lot of simple things like walking cause him pain. In spite of this, however, Kaz wouldn't get rid of his disability. In the story, when given the chance, he chooses to keep it. Why? Because he turned a weakness into a source a strength. Kaz is literally my role model for this reason.

To conclude this, I'll leave you with a quote that can explain this way better than I ever could.

"There was no part of him that was not broken, that had not healed wrong, and there was no part of him that was not stronger for having been broken."

Inej Ghafa:

Past Kaz, I debated what I would talk about with each person. Most of them have multiple things that count for representation, which is good, but I decided to chose one for each. For Inej, I decided to focus on her Suli background.

(I'm not even going to lie, this one was the most challenging for me to write bc I wrote it last 😭)

In media, a lot of stories fall into the trap of saying the same three things about POC: 1) they aren't Caucasian 2) They have a life (sometimes) 3) they aren't white. Aka, what we would call the "token black character." No substance, usually feels very forced and fake. These type of characters seem to be written in purely for "representation" reasons, which actually leads to the representation being trash because the character's feel like corporate cutouts instead of people.

Inej, on the other hand, has a culture that feels alive. The Suli culture has conscious thought put into it on behalf of Leigh. They have proverbs and a language, they have costoms and a tangible effect on Inej. She is Suli and she is more interesting for it. Her culture doesn't feel tacked on or forced because it's a staple part of who she is, there is no Inej without the Suli.

And that's not to say that's Inej's entire character, as that wouldn't be good good either. No, Inej is many other things too. She's a girls girl, a fantastic acrobat, she's scarily good with knives, she's kind, she can be a bit scary, she's so much more than her ethnicity but that, is also a distinct part of her character. Her depth is not her ethnicity/culture but her ethnicity/culture is a part of her depth.

Jesper Fahey:

Jesper! We all love Jesper, right? I could talk about him being a different ethnicity like Inej, but I'd say a lot of the same things. Instead, I've decided to focus on our favorite bisexual disaster.

Now, for those unawares (i see you lerkers who haven't read SoC), Jesper is a bisexual character who is in a relationship with another character, Wylan. They're relationship is very wholesome, and their kiss scene is one of my favorites in the book (topped only by Kanej, sorry Nina and Matthias). I could just spend this part of the essay waxing poetic about their relationship, but that's no fun is it?

The main thing I want to focus on is how SoC treats their relationship (ie LIKE ANY OTHER RELATIONSHIP). They don't make a big deal out of it AT. ALL. past the normal relationship things. Hell, Kanej's relationship is treated as more different because they're both angsty teenagers, and that relationship is straight. The biggest trap authors fall into when it comes to LGBTQ+ relationships is that they make them either something super taboo or something so stereotypical that it hurts to read. Even though stories where the relationship is taboo are valid because of worldly bigotry, it's equally as important to stories where the relationships are just a fact of life, same as any other romantic entanglement.

In the same vein, I also want to mention the lack of stereotypes. We all know the stereotype right? One macho strong guy who's super masculine and one submissive (usually feminine-coded, go figure) guy who is typically younger, but that's more interchangeable. I, among others, hate these stereotypes for many reasons. Leigh, thankfully, avoids all of it masterfully. Yes, Wylan is a bit more reserved, but he is in no way weak. Jesper also isn't a strong macho guy, he's thin lanky teenager who likes to gamble and shoot things. He's not the super 'dominant' one in their relationship, because their relationship is EQUAL.

In conclusion, Jesper, in his relationship with Wylan, manages to dodge most-if-not-all typical downsides that would lead to certain elements to being bad or a bit bland representation. Jesper doesn't feel like a poster board LGBTQ+ guy they slap on shitty political add campaigns, he feels like a real, breathing person that just happens to have a (healthy!) relationship with a guy.

Wylan Van Eck:

I know I talked about Wylan some in Jesper's, but for this part I want to focus on Wylan's dyslexia.

In SoC it is explicitly stated that Wylan in unable to read because of severe dyslexia, leading to him being neglected/abused by his father and eventually him running away to join the Crows.

Now, let's start with the practical side of the equation. Although, as I said in Kaz's section, a disability doesn't define you, it is an unfortunate reality that some people try to use that to define you. This is unfortunately the case in Wylan's story, where his dad neglects/abuses him, sends his mother to a psych ward, then ultimately tries to have him killed. What I like about SoC, however, is that it doesn't just say "that's just how the world is, suck it up" and move on. No, it goes so much further.

During the course of the story, Wylan grows from believing his father and feeling shame about his condition, to using it as an accepted part of himself. He grows as a person not because of his shitty father, but in spite of his shitty father. Many people, having seen Wylan's story, may say that Wylan's father is what made him who he is, and therefore Wylan's father was necessary. You know what SoC says to that? It gives those people a big ol' middle finger.

Wylan, in order to grow in both self-confidence and happiness, had first get AWAY from his father. Wylan isn't who he is because of the abuse he endured, no, the abuse was a hindrance to his growth. He was only able to become who he was after he had people who cared about him and truly didn't care what others deemed "shameful" about him.

These things both make a statement about how society treats people who are different, and makes Wylan seem like a real person. It is simply not reality that a totally fine person can spawn out of a broken, abusive household, but it is also not often that the person is broken forever with no other qualities. Wylan is not his dyslexia or his trauma, but instead he is a normal boy with many interests and tendency to blow things up that had to grow out of his self-hatred sowed in him by his father.

Nina Zenik:

The wise, the woman, the icon, Nina Zenik. I love Nina to a fault. She is one of the few that her story extends outside of the Six of Crows/Crooked Kingdom timeline into King of Scars/Rule of Wolves. That's not to say we don't see the others, but a good chunk of her story is seen in the KoS series. Now, even though this is the case, we're going to mostly focus on Nina in SoC/CK with how she artfully uses and discards gender roles at her whim.

We all know the traditional 'gold standard' for women, right? Blonde, ultra feminine, skinny, and above all: submissive to men. There's nothing explicitly wrong with most of these attributes, but when they're forced on everyone? That's when it becomes a problem. Through Nina, Leigh shows that, while most of these attributes aren't inherently harmful, you can still be a badass while not exactly fitting the mold.

Nina is a bold and outspoken girl with brunette hair, a plump body, and a love for all things food and fashion. She's the first to tell Kaz that his haircut is ass and the first to down every waffle in the room. Not only are these attributes realistic to women, since I too love myself some waffles, they also break the traditional 'gold standard' while still keeping Nina feminine.

Some authors, in the pursuit of breaking gender roles, make a super tomboy character that basically forsakes being a woman. While those people do exist and are valid, most women aren't like that. I don't think those characters are always good representation because they aren't breaking gender roles, they're just reinforcing the idea that you have to act like a man to get anywhere in life.

Nina is good because she still has feminine attributes. She loves fashion. She's a girls girl. She's sexy and she knows it. While you don't have to have those attributes to be feminine (obviously), it shows that you don't have to abandon your feminity to be badass.

Matthias Helvar:

Matthias! Some of you are wondering how I'm going to connect Matthias to representation, aren't you? He isn't a POC, LGBTQ+, or even disabled in any (canon) way. He is like me, truly the default settings of the world. This seems to disqualify him from the representation talk, but I would disagree. He aids the representation not by being apart of it himself, but showing how two different cultures can coexist, even with opposing values.

Matthias is from the country of Fjerda, which is characterized by it's highly traditional ideas about women, religion, and just life in general. They believe that women should be subservient to men, and that Grisha are witches that should be killed without mercy by a special army called the Drüskelle. And guess what? Matthias just so happens to have been raised as a Drüskelle!

Throughout Matthias/Nina's backstory, Matthias first captures Nina as a Grisha but then falls in love with her. Nina soon 'betrays' him and they have a falling out, but they eventually rekindle their relationship (that was a small no nuance summary for a huge arc spanning multiple books, so I suggest you read SoC/CK if you haven't). Through this arc, we see Matthias go from bigoted to acceptance WITHOUT losing his culture or religion.

I think a lot of stories get the bigotry -> acceptance pipeline wrong in that a lot of the time, a character completely loses their culture and/or religion in the process. While that does happen sometimes, it shouldn't be the meta. Not being a bigot boils very simply down the principle of not being an asshole, regardless of your culture. I have my stakes in this as I'm Christian, yet here I am making a whole Tumblr essay on representation. You don't have to lose your entire culture to not be an asshole.

Leigh does this very well with Matthias, as by the end of the story, he's still a Fjerdan and still wholeheartedly believes in Djel, but he's changed in that he's no longer an asshole about it. He still has that part of him, just without the added bigotry. My favorite part of his arc is at the very end when he tries to convince a fellow Drüskelle that he doesn't have to live that way. He coexists and accepts other cultures without losing himself, and that's very important when it comes to representation.

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In conclusion, what makes representation good representation is that it adds to the character, not takes over the character. No one wants a character where their only character trait is that they have dark skin or that they like someone of the same gender. They want depth, they want humanity. Representation isn't a crutch to add depth to an otherwise blank character but a tool that can reflect real life in the way that none of us are exactly alike, and we don't have to be.

[ashleyfilm]

Seeing Clearly

Hi Everyone, this is my first fan fiction. I love Joel Miller and Pedro and I just wanted to write something about him/them. I was inspired by the many many many fantastic fics I've read and all their writers. You all are amazing. I don't know what I'm doing so, if I do something wrong, please let me know and I'll adjust. Please leave comments, I'd love to know your thoughts. And if you feel inclined to reblog, that would be so nice.

Chapter Warnings: violence, cursing, gore, blood. (There Will Be Smut, eventually) Minors - DNI

Characters: Jackson!Joel Miller x F!Reader Plus Size. I will give her some physical descriptions because she is me for this one but I've taken to writing her and You (Reader) so hopefully you can still imagine yourself. Black hair, glasses, tattoos, big body, wears dark clothes, won't stop talking, a little annoying. Joel is tv show Jackson Joel.

Story Summary: Joel just saved your life, begrudgingly. He doesn't know exactly why but he brings you back to Jackson and you ingratiate yourself into his very small circle and his life. This takes place after season 1 of TLOU and season 2 doesn't exist in my brain because no.

Chapter Summary: Joel saves your life and takes you back to Jackson.

Chapter 1: Him.

It all happens so fast. You step on that fallen fucking branch and it snaps. It feels so loud in the eerie quiet of the forest, like an explosion. Your heart almost burst in your chest, and the clicker you were hiding from, praying would pass you by, turns on the stumps left of its heels and comes towards you. Its limbs flailing, but at a speed that seems impossible. Next, you’re on the ground, pushing the things’ rotting neck and shoulders as hard as you can to keep its snapping jaws from your face, when suddenly, with the sound of a shot, the head splinters, and bloody debris falls onto the skin of your face as the clicker’s strength weakens and its weight falls against you.

Your brain can’t catch up with what is happening as the corpse is lifted off you and the sound of a man’s voice starts to come through as if you’re hearing it under water. “ANSWER ME!” You finally make out the words, “WERE YOU BIT?” You find your voice, shaky but still strong, matching the man’s intensity, “I DON’T KNOW.” You hear him sigh, almost as if he’s irritated rather than fearful. You still can’t see him clearly, the viscera of brain matter from the clicker being shot above you still blurring your vision, along with the loss of your black framed glasses that helped you see, even if the prescription wasn’t exactly right. Damnit, where are they now? You wipe your face as best you can and move your mass of black hair streaked with gray out of the way as the man, who you can now see is large, broad shouldered, only being able to make out his shape without your glasses. He grabs at your collar and moves your head from side to side to check your face and neck, and then pulls you up to a standing position. You’re weak on your legs after the, let’s face it, near fucking death experience you just had, and reach out to the man, grabbing his hand for balance, after you seem steady and not a second before, he pulls his hand back and squeezes his fist like you burned him. Okay, man, just trying not to fall over again.

“Roll up your sleeves and show me your hands and arms, both sides. NOW!” You do just that. His brow furrows at the site of the tattoos covering your arms, like he’s wondering how you got them all, and trying to figure out if it was before the world ended, or after. How old you would have been, and if you could have gotten them all before. You can see the gears turning, then it seems he finally deems you unbitten and therefore not an immediate threat, but certainly not safe. “What are you doing out here alone, where are your people?” He says while looking around him, checking his six or whatever the fuck, you wonder if he was in the military or something, he seems like a soldier but also like maybe the Jason Borne kind. You never got to see the sequel they announced before it all happened, sequels usually sucked anyway. God, you miss movies.

“What is wrong with you, kid, you got brain damage? Answer my questions,” the man says, still more irritated with you than anything else. Kid? You’re fucking 40. Whatever. “Um, no brain damage that I know of, but I have a theory that I had an undiagnosed concussion as a teenager, um, but I’m out here trying to not get eaten by clickers, or raiders, or murdered, or worse and trying not to starve. Also, no people. I have no people.” You ramble quickly and the man sighs, AGAIN. You look down and see a rough black outline in the grass below and- “Oh, thank fuck.”

You reach down, clean them off on the part of your black long sleeved shirt that doesn’t have blood or clicker gunk on it and put them on with a long sigh of relief, “Do you know how hard it was to find glasses that actually helped me see and hold onto them and not break them in this shit show of an existence…” another sigh of relief as you open your eyes to finally look at the man who saved your life and already seems like he wants to take it back from you and Holy shit. He’s hot, there’s no other way to put it. He’s the hottest person you’ve ever seen on planet earth, and you’ve just ran your goddamn smart mouth like a fucking moron this entire time. Without the decency to be quiet and nervous in front of, again, THE HOTTEST PERSON YOU HAVE EVER SEEN. You choke on your own thoughts and wide-eyed look into his eyes, they’re chocolate brown and filled with life and emotion, he’s gruff and scary but his eyes…god, they betray him. His hair is just below his ears, curled and brown with slices of gray throughout. His face is worn, scarred, like he’s been through shit, you know because you have too. His nose is like a roman god’s, aquiline and fucking beautiful. He’s got a patchy beard the same two colors as his curly hair and his lips are full and pouty with a mustache and you wonder how it would scratch if he put his mouth on your neck. Wait, what the fuck. I mean he’s hot but instantly thinking of him kissing your neck… relax bitch.

He clears his throat, looking at you like you have two heads and sighs. He really likes to sigh. Then he finally speaks in a stern but soft voice, “Okay, look, don’t know why, but I believe you when you say you’re alone, your eyes look like you haven’t eaten in a few days, that true?” You nod and he seems relieved that you don’t start speaking again, so you stick with it and stay silent. His southern drawl continues, “I come from a community. If you want, I’ll take ya there. Food, shelter, medical. You gotta contribute and you gotta behave. Might want to watch that smart mouth of yours until people start trustin’ you, or maybe forever.” You look at him, tears threatening to fall, turning away to shield him or yourself, you’re not sure. Food. Shelter. Medical. My god how is this possible. He takes this time to look away from you and retrieve jerky from his pack which he holds out for you, and you take it. “Thank you...” you say in the quietest voice you think you’ve ever used realizing you don’t know his name. “Joel, name’s Joel Miller.” He nods and points his head in the direction he wants you to walk. Looking at your hair he says, “C’mon Ash,” and he follows just behind you. What you don’t see is the uptick of his lip on one side that reveals a dimple you’ve yet to witness on his beautiful face and his eyes linger on you for far too long when he should be watching your surroundings. That’s what you don’t see.

[sallowsswan]

Slytherin Boys W/ Ballerina!Reader as Pas De Deux 🩰

SO I'm back at it again with more ballet stuff! Last time I did headcanons for Mattheo if he was dating a ballerina. This time however, we're going down the route of what Pas De Deux (pair dance) the boys would do with a ballerina reader if they danced together.

Lorenzo Berkshire

White Swan Pas De Deux (Swan Lake)

Choosing one for our boy Enzo was EXTREMELY difficult because I secretly headcanon him being a danseur already so picking just one dance for him was hard. I went with the famous white swan pas de deux from Swan Lake where he is the role of Prince Siegfried and the reader is Odette. It's a beautiful, and heartbreaking pas de deux where Odette and Siegfried get to know each other better with it ending in Odette putting her trust in Siegfried to make a vow of true love in order to free her from Von Rothbart's spell. (In this video the pas de deux is performed by famous dancers Svetlana Zakharova and Roberto Bolle. The part at 5:09 where he embraces her makes we weeeeeeep)

Theodore Nott

Giselle act 2 Pas De Deux (Giselle)

For Theo's I decided to play a little into the headcanon of him being a casanova and went the route of Giselle. Theo's character would be Albrect (sometimes known as Count Albrect, Duke Albrect, or in other versions Prince Albrect) the reader's character is Giselle, who died of a broken heart when she found out Albrect was bethrothed to another woman. Another beautiful and heartbreaking piece as Giselle is trying to protect Albrect until dawn from the wrath of the willis (spirits of young maidens that died before marriage) who wish to make him dance to his death. The queen of the willis Myrtha uses Giselle to lure Albrect away from the safety of her tombstone by making her dance a seductive pas de deux that lures him in like a siren singing a song. (In this video the pas de deux is danced once again by famous dancers Svetlana and Roberto. They're one of my favorite dance partner pairings!)

Draco Malfoy

Sugarplum and Cavalier (The Nutcracker)

My first fictional love, I had to give Draco one of my favorite pas de deux which is from The Nutcracker between the sugarplum fairy and her cavalier. I don't think I need to explain which roles these two are, it's a beautiful piece with beautiful music performed near the end of the story. (I've inserted my FAVORITE rendition of this dance performed by famous dancers Anna Tsygankova and Matthew Golding)

Mattheo Riddle

Black Swan Pas De Deux (Swan Lake)

When it comes to my headcanons I said that Mattheo liked Don Quixote and Giselle, but this man also in my headcanon has an absolute WEAKNESS for Swan Lake. So when he gets to be the part of Siegfried and the reader is playing Odile? He's absolutely giddy because this pas de deux is alluring and seductive as Odile is playing poor Siegfried like a fiddle making him believe she's actually Odette. (For this video the pas de deux is danced by one of my favorite dancers Gillian Murphy with Angel Corella)

Tom Riddle

Opening Scene (Swan Lake)

I could've easily went full delulu and gave Tommy a pas de deux, but come onnnnn. I'm giving this man the role he was MADE FOR. The opening scene from ABT's Swan Lake. He's the role of the sorcerer Von Rothbart while the reader is Odette. So enchanted by the beautiful princess he runs into in the woods he tries to charm her only to find her displeased and so what does he do? Takes her for his own and changes her into the form of a swan to keep her close to him. (For this video it's from ABT's Swan Lake they recorded back in the early 2000's with Gillian Murphy as Odette, Marcelo Gomes as the handsome human Von Rothbart and Isaac Stappas as Von Rothbart's other form)

Blaise Zabini

Nikiya and Solor act 1 (La Bayadere)

I'm not too familiar with Blaise, so forgive me everyone but I didn't want to leave him out. I chose my favorite pas de deux from La Bayadere where Blaise would be Solor a warrior and the reader is Nikiya a beautiful temple dancer. The two are secret lovers that are reunited and dance together before swearing their love under the sacred flame. (For this one I went with yet again Svetlana and Roberto because they ATEEEEEE this pas de deux up with their chemistry alone!)

[katuschka]

Olalla Chapter Eleven 1/2

Josh Kiszka x f!OC x Jake Kiszka 4.572 words

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, intended for adult readers. Any resemblance to real persons is purely coincidental. Also, if you're under 18, go find some other entertainment elsewhere.

Warnings (are spoilers): descriptions of injury, mentions of blood and stitches, nightmares, secrets and insincerity, fluff, smut, mutual masturbation, rough sex, hair pulling, very light BDSM (sans BD), and as always, an unhealthy dose of heavy emotions and feelings

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Can I believe you? Can I ever know your mind? Am I handing you mine? Do we both confide? I see it, eat through every word I sow See what you need to, do you doubt it's yours? Now I'm learning the ropes never get this close I've been wounded before Hasn't let me go

Agnieszka, December 22nd, 5:30 pm

“It’s nothing, Neszka.”

How I missed the sound of his voice. Sweet and raspy, like crystallized honey. My grandmother used it to hide the bitter taste of cough drops, but I could always feel it on my tongue anyway. She never fooled me. And neither did he…

It didn’t look like nothing, and he didn’t sound like it was nothing. Even though he tried to smile in a vain attempt to fool me. Still, the result was more like a crooked sneer and it certainly didn’t reach his eyes. Despite his weak reassurance, it only kept me worrying, because that’s exactly how he looked, too: worried… There was also something else in his eyes; something that I couldn’t decipher yet. I gently ran my fingertips across the dark bruise right under the stitched gash. The snowflakes in his hair melted down and fell in tiny droplets on his cheeks. I wiped those as well. He closed his eyes in reaction to my touch and his expression softened momentarily, so I dared to speak again. 

“Don’t lie, Joshua. This looks days old, you have three stitches, and I’m only just learning about this now?! Who did this to you? And why?” 

He opened his eyes again, but didn’t answer and didn’t look at me. Instead, his gaze fell on the malachite pendant that I still wore on a silver chain round my neck, close to my heart. It was a perfect symbol of the kind of love he kept giving me: cleansing, transformative… and toxic. He swallowed hard and clenched his jaw, and I felt his hands slide from my shoulders and down my arms until it was just his fingertips that traced the sharp curves of my elbows. I could barely feel that touch. My questions hung heavy in the air, creating an invisible emotional gap between us, and I couldn’t fully understand why. I hated it, though! This moment wasn’t supposed to be like this. I just wanted to hug him again, while desperately yearning for him to hug me back.

But something was suddenly different. 

I had feared it would be like that eventually… that one day he would no longer give me answers. I had nightmares about it. And now he was slipping away just like he had been in those dreams that kept haunting me. Our “affair” had always been more like a dream anyway. My fairytale man, wrapped in satin and adorned with sparkling gems. My other-worldly prince, written by Brothers Grimm. He kept on bleeding and in return it kept me dreading moments yet to come. 

“Talk to me,” I whispered, still hoping that it was just me being paranoid again. 

And then, out of the blue, he cupped my cheeks and kissed me lightly, the stitches that held his lip together scratching mine. He could have razor blades there and I would not care, because after all those months apart, my baby kissed me again. I shivered, and as if on cue, he ran his fingers through my hair, cradling my skull like the finest china. My body felt light. Then he finally spoke. 

“We had a fight… me and Jake. But hey! I don’t want you to worry about that. It’s ok. It was nasty, but it’s between the two of us.”

I pulled away from his embrace indignantly. “How can I not worry about that? You both assured me you were ok, and… why? What is it this time? Does he also look like this? Is he outside? I want to tal…”

“Shhh, we’re ok. And no, they already left. We’ll see them tomorrow.” 

With that, he grabbed his duffle bag that he had previously dropped on the floor – a clear indication that he wanted me to drop the subject, but I wouldn’t give up so easily. I felt like there was still more of what he was not telling me. We all had completely different plans just a few hours ago, so whatever was going on, it definitely didn’t seem like they were ok. “But the dinner, Joshua…” 

I could tell he sensed my growing unease, because he frowned. “Relax, Olalla. It’s just a last-minute change of plans. We’re all awfully tired, and especially Lisa. She’s not used to transatlantic jetlags, and the final drive really took its toll.”

I couldn’t argue with that. Those cute, tiny wrinkles that often appeared around his eyes when he got tired were now more pronounced than ever. He offered me his hand and smiled again, even though it must have been painful, and together we went upstairs. 

“You must be hungry, though,” I said when we entered my living room. 

“Yeah…a bit, but I’m really craving a hot shower now.” He put his bag down and took off his down jacket and I immediately hugged him from behind, making him huff and grimace over his shoulder at me. “Ugh, no darling, I stink!”

“No, you don’t,” I chuckled and mumbled with my face buried in the soft fabric of his woolen hoodie while he stroked my arms that were firmly wrapped around his chest. He smelled like cozy winter evenings spent by the stove after long, adventurous days; his own musk mixed with a whiff of cinnamon and vanilla and pine wood. I could spend hours just standing there like that, but his stomach suddenly rumbled loudly, making us both cackle again. “But how about you just go take that shower and I’ll run downstairs to prepare us some savory stuffed toasts in the meantime, hm? Maybe even tomato salad?”

“With sour cream and spring onions?” he crooned softly.

“Absolutely.” I whispered in his ear. I loved how he always sounded like a small kid when we talked about food, and I was always ready to give and make him everything he wanted, even if it meant to spend hours in the kitchen. “And then we can pretend to watch tv…”

“Pretending to watch tv with you is my favorite pastime,” he smiled softly with a mischievous glint in his eyes, before his face twisted in pain again as the lip stretched too much. “I’m sorry I can’t kiss you properly.” 

And you refuse to tell me why…

I decided not to push it. Instead, I just kissed his cheek and excused myself. There were things I refused to tell him, too…

When I came back from the main kitchen with a tray full of munchies, I found him sprawled across my bed, lying on his stomach and already fast asleep. He was almost naked, safe for one towel still wrapped around his head and another one already just haphazardly draped over his butt. My heart melted at the sight, so delightfully domestic and bohemian at the same time, but the nasty creature living deep inside me wanted me to wallow in unjustified disappointment. I always hated that self-centered bitch that kept poisoning my thoughts. The fact that he was here with me should have been enough… and yet I still felt like it was not. 

The feeling came with old questions, ones that I had been trying to disregard ever since they left by the end of September and his sweet kisses and incessant babbling about life having no rules could no longer distract my mind. What now? Am I enough? Does he want me to be his life or just a vacation? Those thoughts had been relatively easy to ignore while I had something to look forward to, and him coming back for Christmas was a chapter yet to be read. I banished and locked those thoughts somewhere at the back of my head, where they kept haunting me at the dead of night, but my days were filled with childish anticipation. 

He was finally here, in flesh and blood, and as I watched his back rise and fall peacefully, I could feel the charm slowly evaporate in the air, but I was not yet ready to admit that. Two more weeks, and then what? 

Careful not to wake him, I gently freed him from those damp towels, before I covered those perfect ass cheeks with a spare blanket from my closet as he was lying on top of mine, looking like an angel that fell too hard. Pale, beaten and once again so awfully thin. 

I sat on the edge of the bed and stroked those damp curls for a while, deliberately avoiding the already barely visible scar that still made my heart skip a beat everytime I saw it, before concluding that it would be best to just let him sleep. I checked the old clock on the wall; it was only 7, but it already felt like midnight. 

There was no room for me on that bed. I turned off the light, closed the door carefully and spent the rest of the evening on my couch, eating my toast and trying to keep my mind occupied with my favourite book, which proved nearly impossible. The unshakeable restlessness deep within my chest only made me re-read the same paragraph over and over again, until the words became blurry and the wind on top of the mountain kept turning the pages and my fingers, too numb with cold, could no longer hold the large, leather-bound volume. It slipped from my grasp and fell down the slope, releasing a roaring avalanche that buried the whole town under snow, all because I wanted the story to come true. The sun came up then, burning the remaining debris to a cinder. I watched the destruction from above and I cried and cried, with my eyes fixed on the crimson sky, until I heard those voices calling me again.

Olalla…

Neszka…

VEELA…

“Olalla! Babe! Wake up, honey!”

His real voice finally roused me. I opened my eyes, disoriented, and flinched lightly when I saw Joshua hovering above me, his expression a mixture of tenderness and worry. “What happened?” I croaked, with my throat parched and hurting. 

“Well, you tell me. I woke up in the dark, hearing your cries coming from… here.” He crouched down and cupped my wet and puffy face, looking just as confused as I felt. “I’m sorry I fell asleep like that, but what are you doing here? It’s nearly morning. And why the hell are you crying?” Before I could even respond, he looked around hastily and with a strange, alarmed expression on his face, as if searching for something. That startled me too, as all those feelings from my dream still resonated deep within me. I tried to sit up, perhaps too fast, and my vision blurred before everything went dark for a split second and I was only vaguely aware of grabbing at Joshua’s shoulder to steady myself. That brought his attention back to me. “It was just a nightmare,” I breathed out, still hyperventilating, but getting better already. 

He frowned and grabbed my hands in his, while studying my face intently. “I figured… but babe! Bad dreams shouldn’t affect you this much! Does this happen often?” My silence only confirmed that they do, and he continued: “What are they about? When did you start having them?”

I couldn’t tell him the truth... 

The truth was confusing and scary. 

“It’s ok.” I said instead.

“I don’t think it’s ok. You’re shivering. And your hands are awfully cold!” 

“And you’re completely naked,” I pointed out the obvious, partly because I saw his dick in its full glory for the first time in months and it seemed almost comical in that particular situation, and partly because it allowed me to change the subject. Successfully, I should add, because he forgot about my shaking hands in an instant…

“Don’t act like you’ve never seen those jewels before,” he retorted playfully, quasi offended by my blunt comment (and stare). 

“Oh I’ve seen them before, but they never fail to dazzle me,” I continued to play along. “You are very obviously not cold.” His eyes widened momentarily, but I knew too well that his light-minded ego would always prevail when stroked. Humble and vain at the same time, Joshua loved flattery and admiration, even though it usually made him blush. 

And I wished I could speak just from my own experience, but it was rather an acquired knowledge and my very first attempt to use it to my advantage. I couldn’t understand why I suddenly felt so annoyed by the sheer fact that it worked…

“Perfect answer, darling. Ten out of ten,” he would have grinned if he could; instead, I watched his nostrils flare as he tried to keep a straight face. “Now come to bed with me. Lemme share some of that heat with you.” He stood up and offered me his hand to help me on my feet. 

“You go ahead, I need to use the bathroom first.” I stroked his shoulder reassuringly with the other hand as I tried to move past him, but he wouldn’t let me go. 

“Are you sure you’re ok?” 

I assured him that I was. I just needed to be alone for a second…

The black of the night turned to blue when I finally climbed into bed, naked and freezing. Cold showers often helped me get the echoes of my nightmares out of my head during waking hours. Joshua couldn’t help me with them and there was no way I could possibly let him… because I couldn’t even tell him. The worst part was that even though I did all I could to avoid thinking about them, they were much more than just echoes from the very start, evolving and transforming over time. Watching his bruised face filled me with complex emotions I could not yet fully comprehend. We were all playing a dangerous game. If anyone asked me at that moment what I really wanted, I’d choke on the response. I didn’t really know. The only thing I knew for sure at that moment was that I needed to feel him close to me. That was all that mattered; that was what caused all the mess in the first place. 

Joshua lay sprawled on my bed with familiar ease, like he’d always belonged there. He didn’t stir when I entered the room, seemingly asleep again, and I cursed myself for letting him wait for too long again. I slid under the blanket and tentatively touched the hot skin on his chest. I ran my palm across his ribcage and felt it slowly rise with one long and deliberate intake of breath. “Hey,” he whispered sleepily. 

I finally laid my head right next to his and relaxed for a bit, just taking in the serenity of the moment. It felt like we had to rediscover and relearn each other again, but that was ok. My grip on his warm, dry flesh slowly loosened and my fingers slid down onto his belly where I let them rest. “Hi…,” I mumbled back. He turned towards me, pulled me closer, and started nuzzling my neck affectionately. 

It always fascinated me how silence changes with light. Every part of the day has its own kind. It could be oppressive and deafening in the middle of the night, only to turn to cotton wool wrapped around your head as the sun came up behind the blanket of thick clouds. Especially when those thick clouds keep on falling from the sky to cover the land with a glimmering white blanket. 

It’s also the time when the most intimate moments are shared, because it feels like you have all the time in the world. All the impatience I felt just hours ago was suddenly gone. He dozed off again after a while and I let him. We just lay there next to each other in the muffled silence with our shoulders pressed together and his hand in mine. My mind cleared momentarily and I knew – above everything else ��� that I truly loved him. 

“Kocham cię,” I whispered again, just like I did months ago when we were lying below the starry sky. It wasn’t meant for his ears back then. I told it to the heavens, like a confession. I was now telling it to the spirits that lived in the snow-covered woods. 

“You said this before. What does it mean?” 

His low voice startled me, making me flinch. I turned my head quickly towards him, only to see his open eyes staring back at me with an amiable curiosity. They looked almost black in the dim morning light. “I.. I did, but I thought you were sleeping, and… you remember?” 

“It took me more than a week to recollect everything that happened prior to the fall, but yes, I remember. A lot of it felt more like a dream though, covered with this strange haze an’all, and I often thought that maybe it was just my mind playing tricks on me. But you said that, didn’t you. It was real...” 

“I did…,” I breathed out croakily. “Yes, it was real.” 

“So, what does it mean, babe?”

“Oh Joshua…” I started crying and immediately cursed myself for it. I had told him that I loved him a few times before, so this shouldn’t feel like such a big deal, but I felt overwhelmed anyway. His brows furrowed with worry and alarm, and he cupped my cheeks tenderly. 

“Hey, babe, what’s going on? Did I say something wrong? Or… is it bad?” 

“No, it’s not bad. It means I love you and I said that when I was certain and in peace with the fact that you never would. And you weren’t supposed to hear it. Or understand… I’m sorry. This is stupid. And I keep acting like an idiot! Why am I always like this?” I sniffed and took a deep breath, struggling to calm down while he kept on scrutinizing my face with concern still etched on his. 

“But I do! I do love you. That’s why I’m here, Neszka. You know that, right?” He snuggled up to me and pulled me even closer, pressing his naked chest to mine. “And you’re not an idiot. If anything, I think I behaved like one last night. I’m sorry.” 

“No, I’m…”

“Shhh… No more talkin’,” he whispered in my ear with his lips almost touching my earlobe and the deliberate slow and warm exhale that followed gave me goosebumps all over my body. The mood shifted immediately and I became acutely aware of the rhythm of his heartbeat. I could feel it quicken in response to my shaky moan when he ran his hand through the hair at the nape of my neck. “I really wish I could kiss you now,” he whispered against my shoulder, sounding a bit crestfallen, so I nipped the right corner of his mouth and then continued to cover his cheek with featherlight pecks before I looked into his eyes again. 

“You can do myriads of other things. But no more talking,” I teased.

“Right!” Joshua almost growled and deliberately tugged at the fistful of my hair, making me shiver again, before he let go and let his hand travel down, his fingers brushing against my hardened nipple. “Are you cold again?” he teased. 

I did not respond to that. At least not verbally. I just arched my by back and let his wandering hand reclaim my body: starting with my chin, then wrapping his long fingers around my neck, and sliding further down through the valley between my tits, across the plains of my spasming belly until he reached the damp crevice between my legs and cursed when he felt me weep all over his fingertips. “Fuck! That’s hot.” 

“Yeah, so you see, I’m not cold.” It was time to reciprocate and I took a similar path. I ran my middle finger down his spine, making him gasp when I didn’t stop where it ended, digging my fingernails into the soft meat around and pulling him closer to me. He was rock hard and pulsating against the flesh of my hip and my heart fluttered with relief. 

I snaked the other hand between us, wrapped my fingers around him and started pumping him slowly, making him hiss and moan. In response, he slid two fingers deep inside me and followed my rhythm. 

It was slow and lazy and overwhelmingly intimate and I watched him watching me. There was no more talking, but we continued to speak without words, searching for hidden thoughts behind each other’s eyes. After a while, I couldn’t take it any longer and I whispered “more” and he nodded. We let go of each other and he motioned to me to turn around. 

It was just like the first time, when he buried his face in my hair the same way he buried his dick inside me, and I was close to losing my mind when he bottomed out and shivered and moaned loudly right into my ear. I reached behind and grabbed him by the nape of his neck, keeping him in place. He was going to sing just for me this time, I’d make sure of it. 

We remained still for a few seconds with our limbs intertwined and I relished in the way he whimpered when I clenched around him. He then moved languidly a few times, hitting my g-spot just right with each stroke with his palm pressing down on my underbelly as if he was trying to feel himself becoming part of me. Claiming me, invading me. It was sexy, but I was far from satisfied. I needed him to obliterate the contents of my head. Violently, if need be. 

“Joshua…,” I panted in between moans.

“Mmm-hm?”

“Fuck my brains out baby, please…”

I heard him exhale with a hiss through his teeth and nose before he pulled out and turned me on my stomach in one swift motion. I whimpered into the pillow in anticipation and gasped a second later when he spread my legs apart with his knees and ran his fingers through my slit, almost possessively. “Ass up,” he demanded hoarsely, and I happily obeyed. 

The teasing bastard kept me waiting then, running his palm up and down my back before he smacked my ass with unforeseen force. “Ye-es,” I breathed out shakily. 

“Yes? Like this?”

“Please…” I needed him to destroy me, to punish me for thoughts he didn’t even know I had; thoughts that always came unwittingly and involuntarily and that once again made me hate myself and question everything I had known about myself or love. 

Because I loved him. I loved him even more than I had ever loved Dominik and that was the reason why I couldn’t stop participating in this madness. 

It was a mad kind of love. So let us be mad…

And he was. Whether it was his own secrets and frustrations seeping through, or just his desire to give me what I wanted, I welcomed it all. I needed to feel the power and I knew he had it in him. I had experienced it before, just like the extreme tenderness that felt mostly undeserved. I needed to be scorched by his inner fire because I knew I deserved it. 

Joshua entered me roughly this time and pulled my mind back into the cool, light blue reality of my room. And then he pulled my hair and I cried out, overwhelmed by the sudden rush of maddening arousal and the feeling of deep satisfaction that came with it. 

He forced me up onto my elbows and then set up a pace that quickly knocked me back on my pillow, so he pulled my arms behind my back and pressed my wrists together above the small of my back. I could hardly move, completely at his mercy as he kept on destroying my cervix until my thighs started to shake violently. 

We were loud. Or god, we were so loud, and I should have felt shame, because the house certainly isn’t soundproof. 

But it only served as a testimony that I belonged to him and he was mine and the rest of the world be damned.  

It seemed to disappear anyway. My brain short circuited and I was able to register just a few sensory perceptions.

The dull ache in my upper arms. 

His sweat dripping on me from above. 

His high-pitched moans and his heavy breath. 

His fingernails digging into the sensitive soft skin of my wrists and lower back. 

The increasingly pleasant feeling deep inside my pussy increased in intensity, until it became almost unbearable and cold shivers ran up my spine. 

I whined, with my whole being hovering somewhere between pleasure and pain, and he let go of my hands. I pulled them up and grabbed the pillow, trying to ignore the sharp pain shooting through my shoulders. He bent down and pressed his cold, damp flesh on my back, while whispering in my ear: “Are you ok?”

I was more than ok. He didn’t slow down, he just let his tender side cover me like a comfort blanket momentarily and at that moment I completely lost it. My whole body stiffened and I cried out as the waves of pleasure washed over me, one after another…and another…and another. 

He came shortly after me. His thrusts became more and more erratic until he suddenly stopped – shivering – and let out a ragged breath. One more sharp intake of breath and then thrusted forcefully into me for one last time and spilled his seed inside me with a high pitched wail. He remained hovering above me for a few more seconds with his forehead pressed in between my shoulder blades. I think I was holding my own breath the whole time.

Then he collapsed next to me, looking content and completely spent. 

I wished I could have stayed in bed with him until midday or even longer. We cuddled for a bit afterwards, but I had my responsibilities in the kitchen, so after a while I reluctantly climbed out of bed, took a quick shower, made myself some coffee and got dressed. When I checked on him to ask what he wanted for breakfast, I saw he had fallen asleep again, looking relaxed and peaceful.

With a heavy heart, but knowing he was ok, I left him there by himself again and went down, because it was already half past eight. 

At around 9:30, my phone chimed. At first I thought it was Joshua, still too lazy to get out of bed. I opened the message with a smile, but it only made my heart skip a beat.

Kuba Starlight: Are you still in bed?

I was peering at the screen for several seconds in disbelief, trying to make sense of it, before I typed a quick answer. 

Veela: Hello to you, too!:/ I mean…huh? And no, I’m already up.

He responded almost immediately. 

Kuba Starlight: Is he?

Veela: Jake, WTF?! Veela: No. He’s still in bed… AND we need to talk, BTW. 

I expected him to type another weird response right away, but he didn’t, so I put the phone down and went back to making perogies. Ten minutes later, I nearly screamed when I saw him standing in the kitchen doorway, his silhouette half obscured by the dim hall behind him. 

“JESUS CHRIST! You nearly gave me a heart attack!”

“Sweet of you to think so highly of me,” he chuckled. “But I’m still just Jake.”

@thewritingbeforesunrise @fleet-of-fiction @writingcold @lvnterninthenight @its-interesting-van-kleep   @takenbythemadness   @edgingthedarkness @myownparadise96   @gvfstuddedmajesty @josh-iamyour-mama @jazzyfigz @tripthelightfantastix @sanguinebats @wetkleenex-gvf @peaceloveunitygvf @kiszkas-canvas @fleetingjake @lizzys-sunflower @hollyco @emojakekiszka @gvfmarge @Dayumclarizzel @lipstickitty @clownstarr @musicislove3389 @i-love-gvf @blankvz @psychedelectable @allof--mylove

[faelapis]

alright! we got one whole person interested, so here's my hot take:

the first "how to train your dragon" movie is WAY better than httyd 2.

i know everyone loves like, the cool warrior mom design, the romance and the "epic animation moments" in 2... but can we for a moment be honest and say the whole "hiccup becoming a leader / which dragon is the Good Alpha" plot was dumb as hell? also, the villain sucked?

the original httyd is pretty good about keeping the structural problem grounded in real societal fears. namely, fear of the unknown and of beasts. it makes sense for any ol' village dealing with such a problem. it was intelligently designed around a solid premise.

httyd 2 is like. actually, dragon taming is a big thing, even outside berk. and theres a Scary Foreign Man dragon tamer who is bad and just wants power. it's okay to other him. being a good guy is about being a protector instead of an evil, power-hungry guy... which hiccup never was anyway... so no real growth there. just be good instead of bad. wow. what a theme. very thought-provoking.

people act like httyd 3 being bad came out of nowhere, but httyd 2 was the original sin to me. it totally dropped the societal themes in favor of generic good vs evil fights and "worldbuilding" - despite having no more interesting stories to tell.

it also kind of ruined hiccup for the sake of developing him. like. his whole thing is that he can't fight, so he has to find other ways to contribute to society. he's the anti-macho hero. which ends up being important in convincing the village that dragons can be peaceful. he's empathetic to the other, because he's been othered.

meanwhile in httyd 2, hiccup's like. Cool Warrior Man, who needs to step up and be the hero king when his dad dies. he can fight just fine, because he has a cool dragon to fight with. so he's just like any warrior, but one who fights with weapons instead of brute strength. aka most fictional warriors who arent just "the heavy."

the first movie isn't beyond criticism, obviously. the animation was a little meh compared to httyd 2 - i get why visually its seen as an upgrade. plus, httyd 1 also did the thing of having like a last minute evil dragon to defeat... but that wasn't the point. the POINT was the village and its fears. the POINT was overcoming that.

whenever people list why they love httyd 2 and consider it superior, its like... lists of details. like, look at the upgraded character designs, the cool flying scenes, the affection between hiccup and astrid, or the clever way hiccup's prosthetic leg is designed.

but these are film *details*, not fundamentals.

if you told me the sequel to httyd was going to have a much more generic story, ignore the themes of the original and makes its deliberately lanky and weak protagonist into Handsome Hero Warrior Boy, i'd be like. that sounds kinda bad. but the Animation Details (tm) i guessssss

i know hiccup is still "himself" in 2 to some extent, btw. he's an inventor, he's intelligent, and he initially tries to talk to the villain. but none of that ends up mattering. its arguably looked down on by the movie, which really, really wants him to step up to be the warrior king like his dad. aka a generic Hero Strongman.

i'm not totally against evolving the themes of a work to fit new conflicts, btw. sequels should generally be different from the first movie. that's fine. that's expected.

but while the new conflict in httyd 2 IS born out of the results of the previous movie, that evolution feels very literal, not thematic.

namely, the evolution is "more people have dragons now." it builds the conflict from there. its based on worldbuilding, not on theme.

i don't think a very interesting evolution.

it kinda went from, in httyd 1: "the theme is fear of the unknown. how prejudice/ignorance manifests, educating oneself through compassion, the dangers of worshipping violent masculinity, and the importance of questioning what you're taught by society."

to, in httyd 2: "the theme is dragons. who has them? what they want with them? how can the Good Guy humans protect dragons from the Bad Guys? also, being a Good Leader means being a strong Hero Man who protects his friends," without asking any deeper questions related to the themes of the first movie.

and i'm like. guys. guys.

the theme shouldn't just be "dragons."

the theme of the first movie was NOT just "dragons." the first movie could've been about people being afraid of unicorns. or large birds. or unusually intelligent bears. it was not just about literal dragons, it was about societal fears and trying to overcome our base gut instincts.

i think this is what really plagues httyd 3: it builds on the themes of the second movie, not the first.

httyd 3 asks further questions that only really revolve around the literal relationship between humans and dragons. it does not understand any broader themes of what that relationship represents.

it clearly thinks its very intelligent for asking "what do the dragons themselves want?", but that question is not respected enough to be explored in any thematically coherent way.

the only real weight its given is the argument that there will always be "bad humans" out there, and so, dragons are safer in the wild. which sure is... an argument. but its a very "othering the problem" kind of argument.

it acts like its caring about the agency of dragons, but its not really. dragons were not actually portrayed as "oppressed" in berk society after the first movie, nor lacking agency. they were only at risk of "bad individuals", to which that solution is stupid. the racialized bad guy in httyd 2 didn't steal all his dragons from berk. he caught and subjugated them, mostly from the wild.

all while looking like... this, by the way. i feel like we don't talk about that enough. all the good guys are white nordics, while the only man of color is scary, domineering and cruel. in a series of movies that was once about having empathy for the other.

MAYBE if berk had been really oppressive towards dragons in httyd 2, we could've had a theme. maybe if they treated them like a dangerous commodity that must be tightly controlled despite their nominal acceptance and inclusion, we could've had a thematically tight 3-movie arc about like fear and oppression or whatever.

but that would require, yknow... making the movies be about broad societal problems, instead of just evil individuals. and only the first movie cares about making any real societal critique.

also, the solution in httyd 3 would've still sucked. these movies, in terms of writing, really decrease in maturity from 1, down to 2, to the plummeting depths of 3.

there is no relationship of oppression that is solved by completely segregating society and going our separate ways (httyd 3). just like there is no oppression that is solved just by defeating bad individuals (httyd 2). we have to learn to coexist as equals, to educate ourselves and be compassionate to the other. even if we're afraid.

that's the dream only the first movie kept in its heart.

[cherryc1nnam0n]

I'm bored and I don't wanna write something so have this rant about the (fictional) men I love and why

Hello people

This is Cherry speaking and today I am presenting top men that I love and why are (most of them) them all serial killers who wear masks and are dead? We'll find out here

1. Brahms Heelshire

I mean just look at him, skrunkily wall boi who has never showered, the man with a mask that makes him look so fuckable and submissive and he fucking whines?! Ngh, so hot

I need to lick those man titties with all my might and ride him until his legs give out

But unlucky for me he's dead as fuck so yikes, he's not dead in my mind or in my blog

2. Billy Loomis

Crazy Ghostface boi who can rearrange my guts any time he wants and breed me all he wants mhm mhm

I fucking love Billy because look at him, he's a psychopath but he looks so hot while being it

Who wouldn't love this man??

But again, another one dead, killed by Sydney (fuck you Sydney), but not before leaving his offspring but we won't talk about that now

3. Eddie Munson

The exception to being a killer because he was framed it's my beautiful boi Eddie <3

I love this boi with all my heart and he can touch it with his dick all he wants <3

I fell in love with him when I saw him on Stranger Things 4 and I haven't since then <3

But my boi was eaten alive by a swarm of feral bats and bleed to death in Dustin's arms but he's still alive in my mind, and Tumblr's mind <3

4. Mark Hoffman

My crush from Saw since I watched the movies when I was 6

I have always loved older men for some reason so yeah (daddy issues)

He's not a good apprentice from John because he kills people and doesn't give them the chance of survival but I still love him <3

But as all of them, he was tied up on the original room from Saw and left to die there

It's presumed he's dead because people only survive 3 days without food so he's probably dead as fuck like all of them bois in this list

Still, he's still alive for me so he can breed me all he wants <3

5. Ethan Landry

Another Ghostface crazy boi who died a virgin (not in my mind if you know what I mean)

He was killed in an awful way but he's still hot and submissive and breedable and oh my gosh he's so hot

I am literally obsessed with him and you'll see my latest likes are all Ethan so yeah, fuck me (Ethan) I guess

6. Billy Hargrove

My asshole of a boyfriend who was too weak in spirit to fight off Vecna and died thanks to it

I love him <3

He's my favorite boi that can hit me and fuck me all he wants until I fry and he won't even stop by then so mmmmmhmmm

But again, ded as fuck lol

7. Hannibal Lecter

Cannibal daddy can eat me alive whenever he wants, I have excess skin so he can have all he wants mmmm

He's so pretty and sophisticated and so mmmm

I love him and he can eat me all he wants and breed me too

(I don't remember what happened to him if he died of not but yeah)

8. C!Technoblade

My pig boi who is a genocidal and an anarchist will always live rent free on my mind

(Along with his creator Alex, RIP Techno, we miss you a lot)

But on the DSMP I headcanon he had a lovely wife and two kids who loved him a lot and now they're alone and sad </3

But he's alive in my own AU so it's fine

I love my pig boi

9. Jim Hopper

I mean look at him, he screams DADDY in all his forms

I love hunks for some reason and he's one of them

He can have me whenever he wants

Only exception to being dead lol

Man titties

But anyways. That's everyone I can name off the top of my head so if you until here have a nice day and I love you <3

[themissinghand]

Genshin Impact: The Overworked God [1]

Part 2

Summary: In which one of the lore writers who help write the world of Genshin Impact was suddenly thrusted in the very world they created. He doesn't know how this happened and the way home seemed like a pipe dream.

Well, testing characters is one thing, but playing God?

Oh boy.

Note: SAGAU if you squint but not really. Mainly fluff and healing mainly between a tired worker and the oldest Archon.

Male OC!

Warning: Genshin themes with mentions of war, and death. And OC needs some rest.

"Good morning, your Grace." 

"5 more minutes..?" 

"You are the Creator."

It took approximately one hard pinch to the elbow and 55 seconds later that Kai decided (albeit begrudgingly) that this was his reality.

Always negotiate the terms and pay for any job.

Payment is obviously going back home, but also monetary compensation, enough to retire early as a billionaire. And maybe a nice villa. Or bed.

Until Kai goes home, he might as well get an easier life here.

Which clearly did not go as intended.

"I will not be the babysitter for any Archon." Kai already has countries to run, royal families to manage, and human relationships are ever so complicated. He doesn't have the time nor desire to babysit gods for goodness sake.

And besides, the 7 Archons comes so much later in time! 

He's a game writer, not a politician or babysitter! It's only because he played kingdom simulation games before and read too many fictional works that he could figure things out. 

Celestia is supposed to be his assistant since he's the Creator, but isn't he working too hard!? At this point, he's gonna retire early! 

"But your Grace, you cannot manage the world yourself. Archons can help manage them for you!" 

Yes, Celestia gave up in speaking in elegant and ambiguous ways after their first negotiation session. 

Kai thought about it for a bit before agreeing, anything that spelled less work for him, he'll take it! 

"But, I'm not going to be a babysitter!" 

Archon war? 

Stop making me do more work! 

What happened? It was peaceful for such a long time! 

Was it because there were too many gods or powerful creatures? Damn Celestia, you're supposed to keep it under control! 

Kai has a migraine everyday, so this wasn't surprising, but did the gods have to fight each other, just so only 7 left?! 

Celestia!

"It must be done your Grace! Isn't this what you and your team wrote?" 

"Well I changed my mind." 

"Your Grace! If you go out there now, they will use you and your powers!" 

"But I can't watch people die just because some stupid god or creature that wants power!"

Celestia remained silent at his outburst. 

"Tempus. It's too late, it had already begun." 

"Celestia!"

"Everything is your will after all. You wrote the story, didn't you?" 

It was then did Kai realize that Celestia didn't follow him, but rather the words and designs set by his team in the real world. 

Celestia is like an AI robot, one that only acts in accordance to the wishes of it's Creator. 

But isn't he the Creator right now?! Does this mean he needs more power to be recognized, or overthrow the set system? 

Kai stomped out in fury and for the first time, not as Kai, but the God of Time and Creation. 

Tempus.

Tempus never thought he would play God, but here he is, relying on his godly powers to save what's left of his creation. 

"Tempus." 

Kai sent his final message to his country's royal family before turning to greet the rude guest.

"Morax." One of the 7 victors of war, a newly appointed Archon, entered without announcing anything beforehand and immediately strides towards Kai. 

When Morax stops in front of him, there's an awkward silence between them, and Kai knows this man is waiting for something.

"No." But Kai declines. He's got why too much things to deal with and he's not going to do something he's done too many times. 

"Guizhong is dead." Kai frowns, ah, of course. 

"Please." Morax pleads, and Kai is put at odds when seeing the Lord of Geo so weak, so desperate.

"Morax. You know I cannot."

"Kai." He almost hisses, and Kai could care less.

"I'll do anything to bring everyone back."

"They will die no matter what."

Because I wrote it.

"Shut up!" Kai does not flinch when the God of Contracts claws at him. He simply stares into those golden eyes of fury and desperation.

"Turn back time! Do it!" The entire world quakes at his call, and Tempus is stuck. 

Stuck between pity and reality.

"If I do, what will you do? What can you do?" Tempus responds, tired of this entire show. He groans when he felt strong claws around his neck.

"I'll save Guizhong! I'll stop the Archon war!"

"You'll only suffer and regret." Like him.

"I will not." The resolve in his voice is undeniable. 

"If only you had been there with me then Guizhong-"

"Will die. If not by the war, then by her people."

"What?" Morax freezes, and Kai could hear the bitter realization hit him. 

"If not by her people, then by fate. If not by fate, then by Celestia, by YOU! You of all people know even Gods die, Morax. It's a war." Kai is sick of it. 

Tempus tried everything, but he is a powerless, useless god against his own pen in his home world. 

Morax inhales, then exhales.

"Do it. Turn back time."

Tempus sighs, a distant memory of a determined, hard-working, and adorable adepti resurfaced in his mind. 

He remembers laughing and writing Zhongli's character-

"One chance." Then the Lord of Geo lets go and bows.

"Thank you." Tempus puts a hand on Morax's bloodied shoulder and closes his eyes. 

This conversation turns into one of the past.

The Archon war occurs, and Tempus watches Morax fail.

If he prevents one red flag, another arises.

Everything repeats, like a never-ending cycle of torture.

"Morax." 

"Tempus." The God of Time stops behind his sitting figure in front of Guizhong and many of his colleagues' graves.

Tempus puts a glazed lily on each of the graves and offers his own condolences.

"Morax. It's over now. Return."

"And where would I return?" Tempus holds out his hand. 

"Then, come with me." 

Morax accepted and followed. 

For some reason, Morax holds onto his hand like his lifeline, and Tempus allows him.

Just like that, the two Gods made their way to Temporium, a land where time moves differently than in the rest of the world. 

Temporium is a wonderful nation.

Old as time, this country is the first nation Tempus raised from the ground. It is also the country that he chose to call "home". 

The royal family is the one that manages the country and Tempus is merely a guide and protector, helping them navigate the dangers of the past and the future.

His protective shield around this land slows down or speeds up time within the shield, creating a safe haven that is immune to any outside influences. 

Kai wants to make this country similar to his real home. 

Before he was thrown into this madness. 

Tempus leads Morax into a transparent dome known as a green house and stops. 

"Morax. Time is limited. So cherish it."

Surrounded by flowers and greenery, there stood a woman with a gentle smile.

"Morax?" 

Tempus watches them reunite and thinks that losing sleep is worth it. 

Looking up into the skies, Tempus thinks that since he was able to change fate, just slightly, it means Tempus is stronger, but not enough. 

Celestia is wavering. 

But he's too late.

Too many died, and too many suffered due to his hand. He can't just turn back time, for he will also revert to the past "him".

Nevertheless, Tempus swore to change the plot, and maybe, just maybe, end this never-ending madness. 

Seeing as to how Morax and Guizhong are fine, Tempus disappears and reappears under a cherry blossom tree.

There was another person he saved, a sister and leader to many. There, two sisters cried in each other’s arms like no tomorrow.

Tempus watches solemnly, and repeats the same disappearing and reappearing, many times.

Tempus shouldn't be at this tea party. 

"Morax. Let's rebuild Liyue."

"Guizhong. They betrayed you." Morax clearly looks like he was withholding his rage. 

"I know." Guizhong acknowledges, but isn't afraid. 

"But even so, I understand their reasons. To protect their land from an unwanted war."

Her kindness knows no bounds. Truly, no one deserves her. 

"Thus Morax, this time, we will rebuild Liyue with the adepti, and we will stand together. As always."

"Guizhong. I...cannot afford to lose you again." She smiles wistfully, and then looks at Tempus. 

"I too am afraid of disappearing, and without Tempus, perhaps I would have perished. It was he who saved me and led me to his realm to heal. For that, thank you." 

Morax too bows in gratitude.

"I apologize that I cannot save everyone." 

"That would be too much to ask from you, Tempus. For you are not an omnipotent, omniscient or omnipresent God." 

For the first time, Tempus feels slightly relieved at someone's words. 

"I'm sure you did your best and already changed so many people’s lives."

Huh. A soft smile blooms on his face and the two seemed surprised. 

Truly, no one deserves her.  

Eventually they leave, and Tempus, sends them off peacefully, wishing them the best.

Then, Liyue is built once again.

This time, they build the foundation and protect the city together.

But again, even the gods cannot go against time.

When Guizhong dies, she dies as she scatters her wisdom all over Liyue, to her people, to her country and to her loved ones.

This time, she dies without regrets.

This time, she dies because Celestia told her it was time.

There was no forewarning, but it looked like she knew. 

She spent the last of her time with Morax and Tempus before she fades and flutters away like dust.

Again, Morax receives a stone dumbbell, challenging him to unlock.

But this time, there was one thing that changed.

"Morax, I hope you can befriend Tempus. He's the oldest of all gods, the one who has drifted the longest among all. Yet, he is perhaps the one that is the loneliest and wisest, or perhaps that is why he acts the way he acts." She says after she gives him her dumbbell.

"If I have one regret, it would be that I have never gained his trust."

"Guizhong, that's impossible-"

"Morax, he has never shown us more than courtesy and kindness. Maybe I am greedy, but I want to become a friend to all." She smiles.

"That is why, I hope you can be his friend in place of I."

"Of course. By your gift, I pledge to fulfill your will." Morax holds her hand as she disintegrates.

"Thank you Morax. I hope only happiness and prosperity follow you."

Like dust, they slip through his fingers and disappear.

Like all of his comrades, friends, and loved ones.

And Tempus could only watch from the distance like a powerless God he is. 

"The loneliest and wisest huh..." 

He could only laugh bitterly.

"Tempus."

"Morax." The god replies with a low hum, "What brings you here?"

"I want to give you my gratitude."

"No need." Tempus does not turn to greet him, but simply continues to write. Morax watches him write with a mysterious utensil, a pen.

Tempus truly is worthy of being called a genius amongst geniuses.

A god who built a country, and protected his realm despite the Archon War, and survived. No wonder he is heavily respected and worshiped by his people.

"Teach me."

The god stops.

"What are you talking about?"

"Teach me how to build Liyue."

"It's already built."

"How to govern as a God." Without Guizhong and his friends, Morax is incapable of running a country. His hands were made to fight and seal monsters, not to care for people. 

"You do not need to govern a country. Barbatos-"

"He's a fool." Morax heard a muffled laugh.

"But his country is still functioning quite well isn't it?" Tempus turns around, his azure eyes meets his golden ones.

"Tempus."

"What will I get in return? God of Contracts?" Tempus smiles before he stands.

"What do you need?"

"Trade." Morax blinks.

"Free trade amongst civilians. No taxes or barriers." Morax doesn't quite understand his terms, but he's willing to learn.

"I accept."

"You don't even know what I said didn't you?" Tempus crosses his arms and shook his head.

"I believe you are a fair person and one who will teach me what I need to know.”

“Just like old times isn’t it?”

This was Morax's first contract, and certainly won't be the last. 

Time passes quickly, and soon, Morax and Barbatos become the two of the original seven left. 

Despite this, Tempus does his job as both a Creator and babysitter job well. 

He ensures Gods fulfill their duty and if they need help, they can seek him out. If Tempus ever saw something worth his time (which is like...every time), he too would interfere, gaining the Archons' favour. 

He realized the power of the butterfly effect. From saving Gods such as Guizhong and Makoto, even with what little power he had during the Archon War to extend their life, it played an immense part in changing the Archons themselves.

Again, too much work, and too little time. 

Even if he slows down time, he could never get enough sleep. 

It's also blatantly obviously the Archons are treating him too well, but he originally thought it made sense with all the effort he put in to change the plot. 

But their affectionate gestures increased after they found of he was the Creator.

Tempus really shouldn't have told Morax this a while back and allowed him to tell the other Archons. Luckily, he prevented them from telling anyone else under the pretense that it was his order. 

Even so, Kai finally feels a little more at ease. He could finally get some sleep. 

Could he really complain about the children (Archons) when they gave him the most premium material to sleep on? 

Or hear a private concert from a certain bard?

Or try out the best food in the jungles?

Or let him sleep under the giant cherry blossoms whenever he wants?

Or take him out to a hot springs in Liyue?

"Kai. How are you feeling?" Zhongli asks from behind him, who is washing his long, long hair. 

"Good...Thanks...Zhongli."

Kai can finally relax a bit and it’s well deserved. Taking care of kids is hard. Much less 7 at once.

At least they’re paying him back with interest.

Zhongli couldn't help but smile proudly when the sleepless God fell asleep in his domain.

He'd be sure to brag about this at their next Archon meeting. 

Not knowing it would be their last.

[sadist1224]

A FREE IDEA FOR FAN FICTION

Sorry for the mistakes, English through translator.

In general, this post is for readers too, but mostly for the authors.

I'm too lazy to write a whole fanfiction, but I'm not too lazy to illustrate it, in general…

ROYAL AU!

I NEED A ROYAL AU!

I have already read enough medieval stories, and I have not yet seen such a plot, so I will summarize it briefly.

The main character is the reader /"Y|N"/ you are the indirect heir to the royal throne. That is, you seem to belong to the royal blood, but you are not close to the board at all. Your father is the king's cousin, so you don't have much chance to rule, and you don't need to. You and your family have been slandered in every way possible to keep your parents away from the capital and the palace. Of course, as a child you were in the palace, at balls and so on, but that was a long time ago.

You and your father lived on the outskirts, in a small estate with an adjacent village. You weren't poor, but you weren't rich either. You know what it's like to live in the common people, what hunger and disease are. You don't need the throne because you have a deep resentment and dislike for the crown, which is why your family suffered.

You had almost no childhood. Your father had his own crazy mission - to teach you everything he knows himself. Politics, economics, even military affairs and fencing. Sometimes it came to paranoia. One of his lessons turned out to be a disaster for you and now your back is decorated with a long torn scar (you can make up a story).

And one day, your father is called back to the capital. He doesn't tell you the reasons, but he's coming back after a month. Really sick. Over the next week, you had the feeling that your father had been poisoned. He's dying in your arms. Weak, exhausted, not like himself.

And a year later, 4 horsemen with the coat of arms of one of the most powerful clans in the kingdom come to your estate. 141, headed by the family of John Price. Along with him come the "dead knight" Simon "Ghost" Riley - his right-hand man and chief adviser, John "Soap" McTavish and Kyle "Gaz" Garrick (you can also add Roach and others here).

Price announces to you that practically the entire royal dynasty was killed in a coup and now you are the first in line to the throne. At first, you give up the crown and send them back, BUT then you agree.

1) Price uses blackmail (how exactly and what kind of blackmail is at your discretion)

2) You need to find out what happened to your father (the main reason you agree.)

3) You really don't have a choice (why?yes, the dick knows, we need to come up with)

FURTHER SPOILERS!

The irony is that you were chosen for a reason. The former king and his family were frankly terrible rulers, and in fact it was 141 who staged the coup (but the reader will learn about this as the story progresses)

Price's plan was to put someone on the throne, in the role of a puppet. In that case, he would have the power. And Price is not a bad person, he wants only the best for your country, but he cannot entrust its development to anyone.

That's why he chose you, but you ruin his plans almost immediately.

You're really taking control of the country into your own hands. You don't let yourself be controlled, you are constantly learning and developing. You're really smart! It is important! More importantly, you can't trust anyone from the royal court. After all, in addition to 141, there is another clan - CorTak (who is in charge of it, who is in it and what they do is up to you. THE ONLY THING is to add Koenig, I love him, and women, because without them there are only men in the palace).

Whether CorTak will be involved in the coup is also up to you to decide.

The main conflict can be tied to foreign policy. For example, Shepard is the ruler of a neighboring country, and his representative in your kingdom is Graves.

Maybe Shepard wants to take over your lands? Was he involved in your father's murder? ???

You can also add Laswell to your side, as an ambassador on your side.

A FEW HEADCOUNTS OF CHARACTERS:

JOHN PRICE

Cunning, smart, wise. Do not think that behind his "calmness" there is really "calmness"He has a good command of his face. A great political player, an excellent leader with his dark secrets and injuries.

Military, fighter, fencing at the highest level. Kapets is so strong. He can be mean. I'm used to achieving my goals. He usually avoids harsh immoral things, but when things "smell fried", he will do anything to protect his clan.

Did he have a wife? Maybe, but he's got a lot of mistresses. Rather, he is single, or frankly does not love the woman he married.

Really RICH. He's a lord or whatever. He has lands and he is one of the king's confidants, his adviser, even if the king is dead, John still holds this position.

She can blackmail the reader, and in principle, at first treats her with distrust and prejudice. After some time, he begins to deliberately annoy her, attract attention to himself and behave quite boldly (for example, enter her personal space). Sexual tension is 100%. But he's still a gentleman.

SIMON RILEY

I think he probably has an estate with a village, but most likely it is empty, or he is being looked after by several servants. He hardly ever shows up there.

Otherwise, it is a canonical rough, hard, cold Ghost, with its own backstory. He serves Price faithfully.

Sleeping with Johnny? I don't mind, we're all a bit perverted here.

JOHN MCTAVISH

Ahhh, typical Johnny. A funny guy, a fucker, shamelessly flirting.

He can run after skirts. He'll end up with Simon anyway. \(-_-)/

He has a BIG family. Right now, yes. I think he's from a small town in Scotland. Maybe Price found him?

KYLE GARRICK

The same story as with Sope.

I also have a family, but I don't think it's rich.

In general, sexual relations between 141 are welcome. Let's be honest, "141 x reader" is much more interesting when chemistry flows between all its members.

Speaking of love lines: 141 x reader + KorTac x reader.

You can put Vaqueros and Graves in here. I love everything, I like everything.

DESCRIPTION OF THE READER

I repeat that the reader is smart! This is really important! The reader is not naive, he does not have pink glasses.

Stubborn, arrogant, strong in spirit and character. responsible and independent.

He also manages his face well, but not at the same level as Price.

About 22-24 years old.

The reader has a lot of skills, but he will have to learn a lot more to run the country.

He doesn't like luxury. More for practicality than beauty.

She knows etiquette, can play the piano and violin, and she loves music, but she rarely gets to do it.

He doesn't like dancing. She's cold enough for balls and social evenings, but she can't do anything about it.

He reads solely because of the information. Uses any free minute for any activity.

He doesn't know what rest is. The guys have to forcibly drag her out for walks. She won't say, but she's grateful to them.Sincerely loves to laugh.

She can be sarcastic. I like to put people (especially those who deserve it) in an awkward position. It amuses her.

SOME SCENES THAT TAKE PLACE.

Damn, I can see how Price is sending Sop and Gas to convey some information to the reader, which is not very important, but he requires transmission right now. Imagine the guys' faces when they find you naked in the bathroom, sitting with your back to them, with a book in your hands. And in fact, you are not embarrassed by their presence, but begin to nightmare them, amused by their reaction. Or maybe Price won't send anyone, but will go looking for you himself. Or will it be a Ghost?

In general, I need such a story on AO3 or here, it doesn't matter. I just hope someone gets inspired by it and writes it. And also. Leave a link in the comments to the fanfiction, if any.

[skloomdumpster]

I keep trying to work out why Silva went to such lengths to build up this hyper-idealised image of Andreas in Sky's mind and I keep coming up short. I mean, okay, he probably wanted Sky to have decent male role models (and Silva felt guilty about killing Andreas) but Sky already had one of those in Silva. Silva was all the things he claimed Andreas was. Which makes what he did even more baffling.

I feel bad for Sky too - imagine being told growing up every five minutes what a great, noble warrior your dad is and then the real thing shows up - and he's basically an overgrown high school bully - Silva didn't just lie about how Andreas died, he lied about his entire personality. In Sky's shoes, I'd be pissed too.

I wondered once or twice even if Rosalind had Andreas under mind control - not regularly, but often enough that she'd done permanent damage to his mind in some way. Or maybe he'd been hit on the head one time too many. Beatrix was a better strategist than he was - and less easily manipulated - and she was 16.

Of course, Andreas may have just been Like That™ to begin with.

I cannot put in enough words how much fun this ask was to get!! CACKLING at the Andreas' comments.

Alright so I thought at length about the Silva conundrum, I remember thinking the same, literally why are you making up this saint about a bully? Why are you generating distance between you and the son you raised? The boy who wants to be your son?

And the it dawned on me that the goal is exactly that.

I think Silva felt incredibly guilty over Sky and that this enormous sensation of duty and guilt has been his north for longer than anything else has. Silva is a man who describes his father's attack to a Burned One and the fact he took upon his young (10 years old!!) shoulders the burden to give his father a mercy kill. It's Duty Duty Duty.

And I think it's important we differentiate duty from obedience. Andreas is obedient. Andreas hears orders and ignores his own criticism of them, he follows trough no matter what. Silva is dutiful. He has morals and a strict honor code and he'll sometimes fuck himself up over these, he'll get tunnel vision when he has 1 goal in mind (cough "your duty is to Alfea!" said to Sky about spying on Bloom)

All this just to say, I think Silva didn't see himself as a good role to Sky not even for a second. Not when he was a drunk and had a baby he didn't even really want, not when he was sober and had to deal with the fact he had taken a father from this kid - had murdered Andreas, and certainly not when Sky started asking questions and he wanted to give a good answer so he projects some of his traits, some of his own father's traits into a fictional Andreas and only digs the hole deeper. By doing what he thinks is right: killing Andreas, taking Sky under his wing, lying to Sky so he can have a good role model, Saul only makes himself less and less of a good guy in his own eyes and so he NEEDS to push himself from Sky and well... Rinse repeat.

A vicious cycle you cannot be free from unless you're willing to go through dismantling all of it. I wonder if a small part of Saul felt soul crushing relief when Andreas came back and ruined everything. Yes, he revealed Saul was a liar in more ways than one, he showed Saul was a murderer... But also he showed Sky he was not the Andreas from the stories. Which certainly hurt like hell to Sky, but must've felt a little good from Saul's perspective, since he was painting an Andreas who could easily step in and take his son and that simply wasn't reality.

I'm probably rambling, sorry!!

Now, about Andreas, I AGREE SO MUCH. Honestly, about Andreas AND Saul! Strategic my ass, these two are terrible. But I do think Saul has a much clearer head during combat, he can explore his team's strengths and the enemies weaknesses, where Andreas is brute force.

Which, sure, is pretty bad when we look at it head on, but it's not something without its place in a war. Rosalind promoted him for a reason and I can see it, when you're a bloody war where there's no place for hesitation, no place for mercy and obedience is all your commander asks from, Andreas is the perfect soldier. He's a man who'll push through whatever is front of him with sheer brute force and that's what the Burned Ones called for most of the time in the battle field, someone relentless and blood thirsty. In the long run? Not so much!

I think it shows how Andreas is as a character: pragmatic, brute, loyal - that he doesn't question Rosalind's orders and fucks up his relationship with Bea by doing this. Why did he lie about what happened in Aster Dell? Anyone with a brain would understand he'd have a better luck twisting what Aster Dell stood for (a corrupt place) than twisting his role in its destruction. Yet he does that!! He's not a very bright man and that's alright, being smarter than he was would've probably gotten him murdered sooner tbh.

[cinderella-ish]

New Fruits Basket Fic Recs!

Since I posted my initial batch of fic recs, I've come across several more I want to recommend! Some of these were just hidden in my bookmarks and didn't get posted back then; some I *thought* I'd bookmarked but hadn't, and most of them are new to me since August. I'll be adding them to the various sub-lists later this evening. Hope you see something you like!

5 Times Shigure Claimed to be Selfish + 1 Time He Admitted the Truth, by TolkienScholar23 T | Gen - Shigure & others | WIP | Hurt/Comfort "If you're looking for somebody to help you, I'm quite possibly the last man you should be asking. I'm weak, unsympathetic, and utterly worthless--the worst kind of man." So Shigure insists, and most people don't question him… and yet, somehow, his younger cousins tend to find themselves on his doorstep every time they're in trouble.

A Little Trip to Heaven, by ThreeCows101 E | Tohru/Akito | Short Story | Dark Akito isn't jealous. She just needs to see what's all the fuss about.

At Least We're Being Honest, by blackiceboba T | Kakeru/Yuki | Short Story | Fluff & Romance Yuki tries to tell Kakeru about the curse. Manabe thinks he's saying something else. Awkwardness ensues.

Be Here Now, by 8_characters_or_less NR | Tohru/Kyo | WIP | Angst & Hurt/Comfort 3 years after the Soma curse breaks, Tohru and Kyo have been living a peaceful life away from the trauma of the past. But all of that is about to change as Kyo is diagnosed with cancer.

Building Zero Thirteen, by hillnerd G | Tohru/Kyo | WIP | Drama & Romance Tohru has a new job at the Sohma estate- she finds herself given new duties bringing food to a mysterious figure on the estate- all she knows about them is they don't speak to her and don't seem to enjoy leeks or onion.

Burnished and Broken, by AnxietyAvocado T | Tohru/Kyo | WIP | Angst & Hurt/Comfort Akito got her endless banquet, but her Zodiac is no longer hers in heart and mind. Yuki is back at Akito's side, and he knows he needs to do whatever he can to help Kyo through his confinement. Tohru is living on her own, but with the Sohmas-- especially Kyo-- missing from her life, she feels adrift. Their stories converge once more as the younger Sohmas work to free Kyo and find a way to create their own happy endings, including bringing Tohru back into their lives.

The Cost for Silence, by AveSolace T | Tohru/Kyo, Machi/Yuki, Haru/Rin | Novel | Drama & Suspense Someone has an axe to grind with the Sohmas. Whether over money, business, legal issues, or some other grudge, someone has managed to find the perfect piece of blackmail to use against them. And this person is willing to keep the incriminating evidence to themselves--for a price.

Dreaming of Spring, by CalebCleveland T | Tohru/Kyo, Katsuya/Kyoko | WIP | Drama On an early spring morning, Shigure wakes from a dream.

Heart-to-Heart, by eroshiyda G | Gen - Saki & Momiji | Flash Fiction | Angst Hana and Momiji talk about their feelings.

How to Accidentally Terrify Your Entire Family, by itsalreadyhalloweenright G | Gen - Hajime & his sister | Short Story | Fluff & Humor Shirasi Sohma, youngest of Kyo and Tohru Sohma, desperately misses her brother Hajime after he's moved far away for high school. So one Friday, she decides to through some clothes into the bottom of her backpack and take the train to go see him for the weekend. Without telling anybody ahead of time.

I'd Do it All Again for You, by Oinkadoink T | Tohru/Kyo | WIP | Angst & Drama Someone falls off the cliff, but it isn’t Tohru. Fate isn’t as kind to them. In spite of this, Tohru's resolve to keep Kyo from being caged doesn't waver. It just gets a little more complicated.

In a Year or So E | Kureno/Akito | Short Story | Angst & Dark Kureno, through the seasons

Left Wanting T | Tohru/Kyo | WIP (discontinued) | Drama & Romance Tohru Honda, newly graduated but not sure what she wants to do in life, lives with her best friends Uotani and Hanajima in an apartment. She gets a job working for the infamous Sohma family as just another maid for some of the lesser family members’ homes. But when Tohru unexpectedly gets reassigned to one of the Inner Circle family member’s houses, she accidentally uncovers the very dark secret the Inner Family has been hiding from the world.

Locked Up but Not Locked Away, by RoseWolf133198 T | Tohru/Kyo | Novella | Hurt/Comfort & Romance After the Somha Family curse takes on a different form, Kyo’s released from his cage due to mysterious circumstances. Once back at home,will the orange cat of the zodiac be up for a sweet reunion with his riceball.

The Nine Lives of Kyo Sohma, by 8_characters_or_less NR | Gen | WIP | Angst, Fluff, & Hurt/Comfort Collection of oneshots about Kyo

not every wound will heal, by blue_crabs_from_maryland T | Gen | Short Story | Angst & Hurt Comfort The kids aren't all right.

of cats and curses, by faerialchemist T | Tohru/Kyo, Adora/Catra | Short Story | Crossover with She-Ra and the Princesses of Power “I’ve only seen these cats get so excited about someone sitting outside a pet store with one other person in my entire life,” a warm and almost suffocatingly kind voice said, snapping Catra out of her thoughts. “And he had that same disgruntled expression that you do. Poor kitties try to make friends with the very people who don’t want to be made friends with.”

our dreams are not our own, by AnxietyAvocado G | Tohru/Kyo | Short Story | Angst & Romance they say that your dreams are your soulmate's memories

Please, Let Her Live, by goldfishoflove G | Tohru/Kyo | Short Story | Angst Sohma Kyou doesn't pray. Why would you, when you've met your god and she hates you? After Tohru's fall, Kyou is desperate, and Akito hears him.

reaching across years, by ohmygodwhy T | Gen - Ayame & Yuki | Short Story | Angst Shigure had sounded serious. A little bit regretful. And then he’d asked Ayame to go to their parents’ house and collect some of Yuki’s things, if he wouldn’t mind, like clothes and textbooks and his extra inhaler and such. Ayame had said: okay. Shigure sounded surprised, like maybe he didn’t actually expect Ayame to agree to help, but Ayame said, again: okay. I’ll do it. I’ll do it tomorrow, in fact.

Spring Fever, by EmilNomel E | Tohru/Momiji | Novelette | Smut Kyo is gone and a lonely Tohru goes to check on Momiji, who's home with a fever. But Tohru doesn't know that what Momiji has come down with is "Spring fever", thanks to his rabbit spirit wreaking havoc with his hormones. Momiji tries to keep her away, but once she arrives, the heat of the fever begins to overtake them both.

The Sun Will Shine Again, Someday G | Gen - Kyo & Yuki | Short Story | Angst Tohru had a fever. Just a little thing, that's all it was. Too much stress, too much worry. It really shouldn't have had the effect it did. Instead of getting better, she got worse. She emphatically refused Hatori's help. She said she was feeling better that evening and that she was tired and wanted to go to bed. The last thing I'd said to her was, "Shut up and go to sleep, then." So she did. And she didn't wake up. Not the next day or the day after or any day after that. In fact, she never woke up again.

this isn't easy, it isn't clear, by lucybeee T | Tohru/Kyo, also Kyo & Yuki | Novelette | Hurt/Comfort "I don't know anything about babies," Kyo blurts. Yuki chokes on a sip of water and coughs a little. "Uh...excuse me?"

[karatekels]

Mediation - Chapter 7 - TIGmas Day #9

Welcome to the continuation of the transition from "I don't know karatekels, this may be a bit farfetched" to "oh, this is obviously just crack fiction to get two TIG characters to bone the same woman".

And YES, I've accepted that and I hope you all enjoy this very convenient, likely unrealistic plot. Or maybe I'm crazy and you think it works? Let me know!

Previous Parts: Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6

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Mediation

Chapter 7: Reconciliation

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Cash’s POV:

The uncomfortable silence brought on by your departure stretches on, neither man willing to be the first to break it. Terry’s body is still somewhat turned towards him, but he stubbornly refuses to look Cash in the eye.

Cash, meanwhile, is still reeling from the new information that has come to light in the past hour or so. Learning that Terry’s adamant refusal to hear him out over the years wasn’t because he hated Cash himself, but because the betrayal had shaken him to his core has Cash lamenting the other man’s stubbornness. All this time, Cash thought that Terry had been angry with him, but in reality he was mainly angry with himself, at the changes that the hurt Cash had caused had drawn out of him. Knowing that the younger man had resorted to excessive force – and to the point that cases had been dismissed because of his mishandling of suspects – after years of being a compassionate cop by his side was particularly disturbing. That wasn’t the Terry McCain he’d known, the one close enough to be a brother to him.

And then there was you.

Cash knows that you aren’t in love with him the way you are with Terry. He isn’t overly bothered by it; your relationship was still far too new for either of you to be in love with one another. But to hear from your own pretty mouth that you felt enough for him that you were unable to choose between him and Terry, that you needed them both in your life…

Well, that has him happier than he can remember being since before he went to prison.

Sure, it may have complicated things between the three of you even more than their already twisted dynamic, but for the first time in over half a decade, someone firmly wanted him in their life. Of course, the sex had been amazing, but there were plenty of other avenues he could go down to scratch that particular itch if he had to. Being genuinely cared for, despite all the things he’s done, was far more priceless to him. And you all but insisting that Terry had to make peace with him if he wanted you to remain in his life was just icing on the cake.

“So, is she right?” he asks, in a far better mood and more than willing to break the silence now that he’s had a moment to reflect on everything that today has given him.

“About what?” Terry asks stubbornly, still looking at the floor. Cash’s gaze softens as he looks at the pained expression visible in the younger man’s profile. He had been happy to show the new kid the ropes when he’d first joined the force as a rookie, but they’d connected as friends so quickly that Cash had assumed that the mentor/mentee dynamic had disappeared shortly into their time together as partners. Apparently, the same had not held true for Terry.

“Do you actually hate me, or do you just hate what happened, and how it went against the way you used to see me?” he presses, trying to be gentle. Trying to rile the man up was a viable strategy when he’d thought that Terry was angry, but the depth of his hurt required a different, more delicate approach.

“How many different ways can I say I don’t want to have this discussion?” Terry snaps, turning his body away from Cash. He tries to ease the tension by incorporating the man’s one known weak spot: you. He privately hopes that you won’t be mad at him for it, should you ever find out the specifics of this conversation.

“Look, I could be way off base – you’ve known Y/N much longer than I have – but she seems like the type to swallow that key over letting us free before we’ve done what she wants.”

“…No, you aren’t wrong about that,” Terry reluctantly admits after a moment of silence, chuckling to himself. Cash smiles but says nothing; if the past few years had taught him anything, it was the importance and value of patience.

“So, she knows what you want to tell me, huh?” Terry finally asks him, looking at him out of the corner of his eye. Cash stays still, not wanting to spook his friend into putting up his walls again.

“Yeah, she knows,” Cash says quietly, staring at his hands, twirling his ring around his finger. “Had to prove to her that I wasn’t lying about last night when she came in here guns a-blazing.”

“Oh. Oh.” Terry says, and Cash assumes he’s thinking back to last night, judging by the way the man’s dark brows furrow. “So she didn’t know about this until today? That’s probably why she…”

“Jumped into bed with you so willingly? Yeah, probably,” Cash jokes with a snort. Hoping that the other man isn’t too offended by his cavalier reference to the night before, he tries to soften the blow. “I shouldn’t have slept with her. It wasn’t right,” he adds with a frown.

He doesn’t regret the decision to have you – you both needed it, at least once – but he does wish it hadn’t caused Terry so much pain, that he hadn’t had to see it with his own eyes.

“When have you ever made a decision based on what was right?” Terry sneers, and Cash sighs, staring over at the other man until he looks him in the eye.

“Do you really discount every good decision I’ve ever made based on one mistake, Terry?” he asks, genuinely curious.

“One mistake? Please. You lied to me for a year. We were partners, we were best friends; I trusted you with my life, Cash, and I had to watch you throw yours away.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” Cash snarls, standing and turning to look down at Terry. Much like the younger man, he didn’t want anyone’s pity either. “Do you think I don’t know that I fucked up my life for good, that I didn’t screw you over in the process? I know, Terry! I’ve had five years to sit with my regret; some days I can’t think of anything else.”

“So then why did you do it?!” Terry explodes, springing up off the couch and shoving Cash in the chest, nevermind that the cuffs made him follow right after as he stumbles back. “We were good, we were solid, we did the job right! We were on the same page about everything!”

“Look at how you ended up reacting, Terry! I had to keep it from you.”

“But why do it in the first place, Cash?” Terry presses, a clear note of vulnerability and desperation ringing in his voice.

“I needed the money,” he replies, bracing himself to tell the man the reason he’d done all this in the first place. Running his hand through his short grey hair, he idly wonders if it will be enough to make Terry reconsider his attitude towards him.

“And you thought going against everything you’ve ever stood for was worth making a few bucks?” Terry scoffs dismissively, trying to cross his arms across his chest defensively until the cuffs jingle, reminding him of their presence.

“I didn’t have much choice! I didn’t have time!”

“Why?! What wasn’t there time for?!”

“My Ma,” Cash breathes, his eyes closed.

He feels Terry still next to him. He can’t even hear the sound of the man’s breathing, and presumes he’s stopped.

 “I’d forgotten when she died,” Terry murmurs apologetically after a moment. “It was a beautiful service.”

“Yeah well, glad you got to see it,” Cash hisses, his heart filled with vitriol as he recalls memories of being denied day parole, both to visit his dying mother and to attend her funeral. Devlin still had enough sway with some of the people working in the prison to ensure his misery, even after his death.

“I’m sorry, Cash.”

There is a prolonged silence as they each take a moment for their grief.

“The doctors told me that there was a new experimental treatment for her type of lymphoma, but it was expensive. And it was taking her so fast…” Cash explains through gritted teeth, trying to keep his tears at bay. He hadn’t cried about his mother outside of a therapist’s office before, not once, not even when she’d died.

“You could’ve come to me!”

“And what could you have done, Ter? I wasn’t gonna put that on you.”

“You at least could have told me – I could’ve talked you out of being an idiot.”

“And that’s exactly why I didn’t. Look, I’m not proud of what I did. I regret it like you wouldn’t believe. It lost me my job, kept me from spending the last bit of time I had with Ma, from saying goodbye… it lost me you.”

Terry looks over to Cash’s face at this last confession, his eyes vulnerable and yet untrusting, and Cash forces himself to hold his gaze. Terry had to see that having to keep the truth from him, to lie and steal and go against everything that had brought them together had been torture for him as well.

“When everything went down the way it did… I assumed I had lost you long before,” Terry confesses in a broken voice, sitting down on the couch again and taking Cash with him. “I felt like I didn’t know who you were anymore, and I didn’t know how long that had been the case for.”

“For what it’s worth, I was very careful about what jobs I took on – nothing that would risk innocent civilians getting hurt. I know that doesn’t make it okay, but hopefully you see it as a little less evil.”

“Did… did you know about Devlin? How deep into it he was?” Terry asks, and Cash has no problem telling him the truth. It’s all he’s wanted to do for years, after all.

“I didn’t know much, just that he was willing to give me work in exchange for a cut. I knew he pinned some of his crimes on me to extend my sentence, but I didn’t find out about how deep it went until afterwards.”

“Why didn’t you try to fight those charges? The ones you knew were Devlin?” Terry asks, still frustrated and with his sense of abandonment on full display.

“Mostly because I didn’t think anyone would believe me, and I didn’t have the money for a good enough attorney to prove it.”

“Why else?” Terry presses, picking up on a second reason.

“I didn’t want Devlin or any of the other guys to take it out on you.”

Terry stiffens. “What?”

“He visited me in prison once, in ’93, a month before he was officially announced as the next Chief, to brag and gloat, mostly. Said he had to make sure his reputation stayed squeaky clean, and suggested some ways to make sure I kept my mouth shut.”

“Devlin was planning to kill me? Even before all that shit with DiMarco went down?”

“He was at least willing to threaten me with the possibility. Knowing what I know now, he probably would’ve done it. If you were getting a reputation as a violent cop, it would’ve been easy for him to make it look like a mob hit.”

Terry grimaces, privately processing this new bit of information, and Cash allows him a moment or two. He’s more grateful than ever that he hadn’t pushed Devlin to see whether or not he was bluffing; if he had, Terry would most assuredly be dead – maybe taking you out too.

“I don’t like who I became when you went away,” Terry admits with a frustrated sigh. “I was just so angry that you’d willingly turned against everything we stood for. I took it out on any lowlife fucker I came across, I had no mercy; I didn’t care. I couldn’t take it out on you, so I took it out on anyone I could before they were behind bars along with you.”

“Did you ever come close to giving me the chance to explain? I know you got my letters.”

“No,” Terry says, spitting the word out forcefully. “I couldn’t bring himself to see you behind bars, to see what you truly were, or what I thought you were at the time. Y/N was probably right – I wasn’t scared of facing what you’d done, I was scared of what I’d done.”

“What do you mean?” Cash asks, confused.

“I mean that you accepted that what you did was wrong and moved on. You got rehabilitated, you got therapy, you worked on yourself… I haven’t. I got so caught up in this weird vendetta against crime in this city that I just… I couldn’t bring myself to think about what I was doing, or why. I just got worse. Y/N helped keep me from really crossing a line, but only just.”

“Ah, our little beacon of morality on the path to reconciliation,” Cash says fondly. The weight that’s been lifted off of his shoulders – off of his soul – is immense, and he thinks he sees a similar change in Terry as well. Finally, everything was out in the open between them.

“She jumped at the chance to help me with the scrap metal take down the second I said it might give you reason to hear me out, you know,” he adds, hoping they can perhaps bond over the well-meaning complication that you presented.

“She was talking you up way before that,” Terry corrects him, giving an affectionate smile at the thought. Cash isn’t naïve enough to think that the smile is for him, but he’s hopeful that one day it might be.

“Wait, what?” he asks, having just processed what Terry had said.

“She’s been trying to get me to see reason since the day she met you, maybe even before that.”

“How? Why?”

“It’s just who she is. She sees something hurting someone she cares about and she tries her best to fix it, regardless of what anyone else has to say about it.” They both chuckle, thinking back to their memories with you and your tenacity as you tried to force them to confront their situation.

“Before we get off-topic… are we good?” Cash asks hesitantly. He tries not to get his hopes up; all he had wanted from Terry all this time was for him to listen, and now he had. Forgiveness was a separate matter altogether.

“No.”

The word rings out clearly, and this time the rejection hits Cash full on. But he braces himself, focusing on his breathing until the tightness in his chest abates somewhat. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.

“I mean… not yet.”

Cash forces his gaze over to the other man, wanting to confirm the meaning behind Terry’s addendum, and the man is giving him a soft smile.

“I – really?” he asks in disbelief, and Terry barks out a laugh.

“Alright, fine; we’re not good, and never will be,” Terry jokes, and Cash rolls his eyes dramatically.

“Piss off,” Cash snaps with a scowl that doesn’t reach his eyes. Inside, his heart feels like it could be coming back to life. “You just bounce back awfully quick for someone who’s held a grudge for the better part of a decade.”

Terry shrugs nonchalantly in response, the movement tugging at Cash’s wrist. You weren’t due to be back quite yet, but he’s looking forward to getting out of these cuffs.

“Ter, I… thanks,” Cash says sheepishly, uncomfortable with being vulnerable for so long. The two men awkwardly clap each other on the back with their free hands, and an awkward silence resumes once more.

“Y/N is probably going to take every second of the hour we agreed to,” Terry points out off-handedly, though a wicked grin is starting to steal across his face. “That’s not for another twenty minutes. Plenty of time to give her a nice surprise to come back to – as a thank you for all of her meddling. Whaddaya say?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Cash says with enthusiasm. The two immediately set to work, and a warmth blooms through his chest as they work together again for the first time in ages, even just for something as juvenile as a prank.

“Speaking of Y/N… what are we going to do about her?” Terry asks as they continue setting up their prank. Cash sighs, pausing to run his hand through his hair. It wasn’t the ideal solution, but he doesn’t think there is one unless they can find a way to clone you.

“I’ll step aside,” he offers, and he means it sincerely even though it hurts. “She wants both of us in her life or neither of us, and the two of you have had more time to develop a relationship. She cares about you enough to push you to finally hear me out; it’s the least I can do for the two of you.”

“Cash…” Terry says, pausing a moment to keep his resolve. “I was an asshole. I’ve been an asshole for years. You deserve someone that gets you and is willing to fight for you, and… if something was meant to happen between the two of us, it probably would have by now,” he admits reluctantly.

“Ter, you just started tolerating being in the same room as me again less than ten minutes ago. I’m not doing anything that might jeopardize that.”

“It won’t,” Terry insists, but he hesitates at the look Cash gives him. “Even if it does, maybe it’s my turn to sacrifice. You’ve been through enough.”

The two men bicker back and forth as they continue their work, an eye on the clock telling them that you were due back within a few minutes now.

“She might not want either one of us,” Terry muses pensively as they crouch behind the kitchen counter, getting into position. “She’s stubborn, and probably not willing to choose if she’s scared the other one will walk away.”

“I think her killing us both because of this is a more likely option,” Cash retorts with a low chuckle that he immediately cuts off at the sound of a car door slamming shut outside. You have returned.

“So we let her decide who she wants, and the other will accept it?” Cash confirms, whispering now as they listen for your approach.

“I don’t think she’d let it happen any other way,” Terry hisses under his breath, right before you open the front door.

“Am I about to walk into a bloodbath?” you call from down the hall.

Maniacal grins steal across both of their faces.

Reader’s POV:

“How the fuck was I meant to react to this, you idiots?!” you snarl at both men sitting on the couch before you, and you can tell that they’re just barely keeping up their guilty routine, their shoulders shaking as they try not to burst into laughter.

You scowl at both of them, contemplating clunking their heads together.

The house had been ominously silent upon your return, and as soon as you’d rounded the corner, the pizza boxes that you were carrying dropped to the ground (though they thankfully remained closed).

The living room was a wreck.

The sofa and chairs in the living room had been overturned, the blinds were crooked, and various objects had been knocked over. Your heart had sunk down to the aching pit in your stomach – you didn’t see any blood, but there was no sight or sound coming from either man that you could detect. A surge of adrenaline accompanied the panic and dread growing inside you, and you’d screamed out for both men, frantically running deeper into the house to search for them.

Nothing else in the house had been disturbed, so you had sprinted back to the front door to throw your shoes back on to go look for them. How could you have been stupid enough to leave them alone? If either of them was seriously hurt, you’d never forgive yourself!

“Going somewhere?”

You’d frozen halfway through lacing up one boot at the sound of Terry’s voice, a sense of dread threatening to overwhelm you. If he was the one here and talking in Cash’s house, that meant…

“T-Terry?” you had called out in a weak voice, still unable to bring yourself to turn around, afraid of what you would see.

“Yeah, sweetheart?” came his answer in a soft purr, the darkly flirtatious tone startling you enough that you’d turned around to face him, seeing him leaning up against the wall in the hallway leading back to the living room and kitchen. Forcing your body to breathe somewhat regularly, you had tried to give him a closer look. He didn’t seem to show any signs of a struggle on his body, but he seemed far too relaxed, except for his eyes, which were almost feverishly bright as they’d stared over at you.

“Where… where’s Cash?” you asked in a high, squeaky pitch, uncertain if you even wanted the answer. Terry’s devious smile only confirmed your fears.

“Don’t worry, doll. I took care of him.”

You had stumbled back slightly at his words, not able to do more than gasp for breath, and Terry made no move to come after you.

There was a tense silence between the two of you, and you didn’t know what to do with yourself, with Terry, with any of this.

The silence was then broken by a disembodied yet oddly familiar snort.

“You can’t tell me she actually bought that.”

Terry’s shoulders sagged, the vicious expression dropping off of his face.

“Well now we’ll never know,” he’d huffed with a scowl, turning to speak to someone around the corner.

“I – what?” you had babbled, your heart stopping when Cash came into view, unharmed and still cuffed to the wrist that Terry had hidden from your view.

They’d both given you nearly identical amused looks that were quickly wiped off their faces at your screech of absolute fury. You’d charged at them, then, spending the next few minutes cursing them out and trying to swing at them, but they had been frustratingly agile in evading your movements, even joined together as they were.

Men were absolute monsters, you’d decided then, growling at them and shoving them back to the couch which had been returned to its proper state.

It seems that the distraught expression that had stolen across your face as you reflected on the past few minutes is too much for either man, both unable to keep their laughter under wraps any longer, going to pieces until you literally hiss at them, feeling so angry you could spit poison.

“You two are absolutely unbelievable,” you snarl, and both men have the grace to at least look mildly sheepish. “You almost gave me a heart attack! Why would you do something like this?!”

“We thought it would be funny,” Terry mumbles, averting your gaze and reaching his free hand up to nervously scratch the back of his head.

“What’s the big deal? I would’ve thought you’d be happy to see us working together!” Cash adds cheekily, utterly unabashed once more. You shoot him a nasty glare, but it only makes his smile grow.

“I left for one hour to give you the chance to grow the fuck up and actually listen to one another. Did you even bother to do that? Or did you just decide on this temporary truce so you could fuck with me?”

Your hands are on your hips as you sneer down at them, still absolutely furious. You’re vaguely aware that beneath the seemingly bottomless well of anger, you’re relieved to see that neither man is hurt.

“Oh please, the setup only took fifteen minutes,” Cash scoffs, and Terry visibly winces, likely anticipating an explosion from you.

“Cash, shut up,” Terry suggests firmly, though his eyes are locked on yours with a pleading expression. “We talked things out, Y/N, I swear,” he says softly. Something about him seems lighter somehow, you notice distantly, and you know that he’s telling the truth.

“So what, I’m supposed to believe that six years of grudges just disappeared within the span of an hour, and you’re both in cahoots again?” you ask skeptically, crossing your arms across your chest.

“Of course not,” Cash says with a roll of his eyes. “But we came to enough of an understanding to put our differences aside and get our revenge on you for being so damn pushy.”

“Excuse me?” you hiss venomously at the older man, but he merely smiles broadly at you, so you turn your gaze over to Terry. “Is that true, Terry?”

Terry clears his throat nervously, refusing to look at either you or Cash.

“We’re very grateful that you didn’t give up on either of us, Y/N,” he says carefully, clearly wary of setting you off further. “We just thought that this might help us breeze past the awkwardness, lighten the mood, show you that we can be in the same room without killing each other, yeah?”

You narrow your eyes at both men, still suspicious.

“So that’s it then? You’ve done it? Kissed and made up and all that?” you ask sarcastically, raising an eyebrow.

Before you can register the movement, both men have tugged you down so that they can plant kisses to your cheeks like they’d rehearsed it a hundred times.

“Now we have!” Cash informs you cheerily, nimbly dodging your slaps and laughing.

“Not me, you morons!” You exclaim, your face heated as your body responds to being sandwiched between both men. If they’re telling the truth and are trying to take steps to repair their friendship, you’re going to have to learn to not blush every time they touch you. Especially touching you together like that; it was enough to nearly make you moan.

“Well we sure as shit aren’t kissing each other,” jokes Terry, helping Cash secure your wrists when you show no sign of stopping your attack. You wrench yourself out of their grip, still flustered as you look at them from across the room, throwing yourself into an armchair with a huff.

“Well I’m glad you two are all chummy again; you’ll have each other at least, because I’m never talking to either of you again,” you snap.

“Not a chance,” Cash says dismissively, immediately calling your bluff. “There’s no way in hell you’ll stay away after putting all this work in.”

“Come back over here,” Terry adds, giving you a pleading expression.

“Why should I?” you grumble, angry that you’re the one on the receiving end of all of this nonsense.

“To take our cuffs off, for one.”

You don’t even blink, retrieving the key from your pocket and throwing it across the room to them. “Done.”

“Don’t be grumpy just because you weren’t part of the plan for once,” Cash says teasingly.

“That is not why I’m grumpy!” you protest, regretting the words as they leave your lips, watching the predatory look spread across the older man’s face. “I’m not grumpy!” you amend, glaring at Cash.

“Sweetheart –” Terry tries to interject, but Cash cuts him off.

“Going to miss your alone time with us?” he goads you, and Terry smacks him in the chest with his newly freed hand.

“Knock it off, Cash,” he warns the older man. “I’m not trading her out for you, so stop pissing her off.”

“You’re no fun,” Cash huffs, looking back at you to give you a wink.

Your brain doesn’t know what to make of any of this. The two of them were acting so… comfortable with one another, even after everything. If you could barely fathom a world in which they managed to make amends and both stay in your life, imagining a world where they were able to joke and flirt with you was an impossibility.

“I – I don’t understand what’s happening here,” you admit rather helplessly, looking from one man to the other.

“Isn’t this what you wanted? For us to all be together?” Cash asks innocently, pointedly ignoring Terry giving him a look out of the corner of his eye.

“Yeah, but I didn’t think that you’d get over things so quickly, joking about… you know,” you trail off, blushing furiously.

“I never said anything to suggest I wouldn’t bring this up at every opportunity,” Cash leers, and Terry chuckles, sending you for another loop.

“I believe I told you this morning I would be talking about it with you regardless of if we went anywhere,” Terry adds, and is this all part of their dumb prank too? Were they trying to drive you insane?

“Yeah but… together? In front of each other?” you challenge. “Terry?” you press the younger man, knowing that he had the deepest feelings of the three of you. He gives you a gentle smile in response.

“You’re stuck with both of us, Y/N,” he says simply, as though all of this could have a straightforward solution. “Just like you wanted.”

“And because you’re likely too stubborn or loyal or whatever you want to call it, you won’t want to choose between us,” Cash chimes in with a casual shrug. “At least not right away, which means we both get to bug you about this whenever we want.”

“Or, I could leave right now, and hate you both!” you return cheerfully, but they immediately see through the ruse, and you scowl.

“Sure, sweetheart,” Terry agrees condescendingly. “Whatever you say.”

“So what, you expect me to endure you both being annoying just for the privilege of your presence?”

“Yeah, pretty much!” Cash confirms, clapping his hands together loudly. “Glad we’ve worked all that out." You huff dismissively as they both give you wide, smug smiles.

“I give it two weeks before one of us backs out or maims the others.”

---

 Epilogue

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[silent-sanctum]

Objection! Yet Another "In Defense"

Okay! My alarm bells went off and it has come to my attention that yet another user has posted a "Jotaro is a misogynist" allegation post. Since Yoongi ain't raise a weak bitch, I am here to give my own counterarguments to the post in more comprehensive detail.

This will be my "Should pineapple be on pizza or die" / "Is mint chocolate actually good or is it the spawn of Satan" type of debate.

I am going to die on this hill that while he is in fact a man of many, many flaws, misogyny is not one of them no matter how convinced some people think he is. I will live up to my bio and that's the truth.

But before I begin, I'm going to put up a couple disclaimers because if I know the Internet, people love jumping the gun almost immediately when encountering someone who has a different opinion than theirs.

Disclaimer #1: Whatever I state (or even what OP has said), is all within the realm of HEADCANON because we aren't Araki. We did not make the canon universe, so all my yapping will be assumptions based on the material presented to the audience. Disclaimer #2: I am in no way shape or form fighting OP, alright? These are just my rebuttals against the arguments she has mentioned. She's entitled to her own opinion. I'm entitled to mine. 'Tis but a food for thought of mine. Spicy edition. Disclaimer #3: I don't want anyone commenting/reblogging this saying "lmao don't you have anything better to do than to argue with people online?" Because I just finished a whole day's worth of examinations, for which I studied a whole week, and got good scores from it. I can do whatever the hell I want during my resting period, anonymous user. Even if it's making this huge ass post defending my hyperfix. Thanks.

With that out of the way, let's get on with the meat of it all.

"You people can't recognize misogyny if it isn't in your face "Women should die" kind of bullshit."

Oh I'm aware. Bold of you to assume that we don't know how deep and how silent misogyny can run in today's society. More so in Asia and the Middle East.

And it's slightly insulting to assume that because I want to defend a fictional character and that he isn't misogynistic popularized via memes, you say that "Oh! You don't know misogyny at all! It's annoying!"

You say that because I know in the West, misogyny is the more "in your face" and obnoxious type. But as an Asian woman, I very much know the levels of audacity men can harbor against women that aren't just limited to, as you quote, "Women should die" behavior.

Misogyny is similar to a spectrum. It can be as obvious and proud as the Andrew Tate's, the "Alpha" men, and the basement-dwelling incels. It can also be as quiet and condescending as a regular guy in your day-to-day. They won't preach toxic masculinity, but would instead infantilize, belittle, differentiate, or alienate women and see them as someone inferior to the male sex.

I can sense red flags. I'm hypervigilant about how men behave around women and whether they see them in a different, negative light. So I know what the hell this word means.

And I'm not saying OP is one (I genuinely don't), but women can be misogynists too. Ironic, I know but they exist. Some women are drawn to misogynistic men as well. Booktok is an example of that.

Phew. With that introduction out of the way, let me first make my little assumption on why this whole debacle started before I start breaking down each argument.

When you look at it from a bigger picture, he doesn't get to interact with many women in this series with an abundance of male characters. So it's easy to jump to conclusions about their stance on it when you decide to base a whole character on the beginning episodes.

I think the reason why some people are convinced that Jotaro is an "anti-woman" is because he yells at women... for the first few episodes. Let me see what else. *Flips note* Oh, that's primarily the reason. Okay.

What bad things had he done? Called Holly a bitch and yelled screaming girls to shut up. That's it. Any other things I left out was intentional because I will be discussing that separately.

I won't expand on the whole "but Part 3 happened because he loves his mother" shtick because it's in the first argument. But when you come to think of it, he doesn't really say "bitch" as much as people expected him to outside of Holly. He doesn't even say it unwarranted or like he wants to.

Onto the screaming flock of school girls. Before he tells them to shut up, here's what happened. They congregate, start calling for his attention, and one of them grabs his arm.

What does he do? Does he yank his arm off in disgust? Does he shove her even slightly? Does he tell her to "back off bitch" or "get the hell away from him?" No.

He simply looks at her and does nothing. Ignoring her so to speak. Because he doesn't like the attention of being seen as a piece of meat for them to ogle at. He only tells them to shut up when they start becoming obnoxiously loud.

"But he was very rude and pushed those two women on the plane!"

Ma'am/sir, they're on a plane about to crash unceremoniously into the ocean, and the flight attendants decide to prioritize fawning a minor over their own lives. In the process, they block his path to the cockpit. Who wouldn't get frustrated in a situation like that?

Onto the arguments:

I agree that there are misogynistic men who can still love their female family members but still be an "anti-woman" towards others. But I can cite examples on how he interacts with women who aren't family in contrast to how a misogynist would.

Case A: The School Nurse

And we have one of our first earlier examples from Episode 2. When we first meet her, he's sitting in the infirmary and she's there almost giving him a light lecture about getting into trouble. He wants his knee patched up and she's about to do that because that's her profession.

How does he behave around her? Does he show body language signs indicating he's undermining her skills as a nurse? Does he call her a nagging bitch for lecturing him? Does he dismiss her words?

No. He evades her hands from reaching his hat, and when she's about to snip his expensive pants he reasonably asks "what are you doing?" She explains her intention and he sighs, simply saying that he'll take them off himself.

Does he show resistance? No. He does what is told so his knee can be treated.

AND after Kakyoin reveals himself, he gets pissed at him for using the nurse as a puppet, saying his whole speech and ending it with "Especially if it's an innocent woman!"

I've seen some use this sentence as him being misogynistic because they perceive it as a sign of belittlement when in actuality, it's not.

You have to know that he lives in 80s Japan- Patriarchal Japan where women are most likely going to be treated less than men in general even up to today's day and age. (I doubt you've heard but there's currently active crimes against women in Korea. If shit can happen there today, it can happen in Japan too). Let's face it and I hate to say it but it's the truth: Women are part of the minority. That's a reason why gender equality rights are being fought for, and why feminists exist to begin with, as well as the creation of the MeToo movement.

Jotaro knows women are more prone to be taken advantage of in this country, more so during this period. And he hates that. He despises that. Hence why he responded with such words to Kakyoin with that much vitriol.

He acknowledges he's not a perfect guy, that he's a punk true and through, but he has enough dignity and moral values to see that when one portrays women as lesser than men and uses them for personal gain, it's vile and evil.

Case B: Anne

Miss little stowaway! Let's see his behavior around her. OP has mentioned her at the ending, being on the fence and all, so I'm here to shed some light.

Back in the boat when she's still posing as a boy, how does Jotaro see the situation: It's a child in the middle of trouble. He looks at it not through the lens of "I applaud this boy for fending himself", but more so through "People are already intervening so I'm gonna sit this one out."

She goes overboard and he jumps in to save her. And then he finds out Anne's a girl. Does he think differently of her? No. She's still a child who needs saving.

He becomes her passive big brother figure. He wants to assist her off the small boat, but she declines and sticks a tongue out, and he sighs. Saw someone's head get mutilated? He shields her eyes. Anne is getting inappropriate attention from an ape? He intervenes and sees the orangutan as a disgusting animal, both in a literal and figurative sense. Falling off a cliff? He safeguards her. Caught in a dead end? He helps her with a quick "good grief".

Case C. Tomoko

Another example! But let's switch it up a bit to Part 4 this time. A testament on how his personality was really just him being a teenager going through an identity phase, replacing that punk persona for professional stoicism.

When he visits her house to look for Josuke, he meets her. She sees him, thought he's Joseph, and immediately goes in for a hug, motorboating his chest with a string of "Love you's" spilling out in that pitchy voice.

Does he call her a bitch? Does he pull her away because she violated his boundaries? Does he make some belittling comment about her behavior in his mind?

No. Jotaro stands put, gets put off because she's all up on him rubbing her face on his chest, tells her frankly to look over him again and says he's not Joseph.

And then he asks if Josuke's at home. Tomoko's zoning out. And what does he do? He doesn't groan. He doesn't roll his eye at her blanking out. Instead, he notices she isn't responding so he repeats his question to her face with the same polite tone so he can snap her out of her thoughts.

And when he leaves, he says one more thing to her. It's easy for anyone to say something along the lines of "Toughen up, it'll get better" / "It'll pass" / "Hang in there". But what does he say instead? He offers condolences and mentions that if Joseph was less senile, he'd support Tomoko, knowing that she's been wanting to meet the old man again.

Yes. That's because he is mean to everyone. Equally. Hell, I think he calls men "bastards" more often than he calls women "bitches". In which part of the show did he show any sort of condescending remark that women were weaker? How often does he spout out "bitch" in the entirety of the show?

He protects them because, for one, his enemies have supernatural abilities that ordinary civilians can't see. Which one will make him more of an ass? Protecting them or turning a blind eye?

It's like saying that a man shouldn't help a woman struggling with her heavy luggage up the staircase because "Hey aren't we all equal? They should struggle as much as we do!" Which is such an asinine concept to adhere to.

It's not seeing them as weak. It's called having basic human courtesy. He's going to help because they're people who need help, not because they're women in need of saving.

How is that any different from him wanting to protect Koichi? From him wanting to protect Josuke?

"She's no mere woman. Jotaro stumbles upon a woman stronger than him and he couldn't comprehend it."

OR.

He knows something's wrong with the nurse so he makes that comment. "She's no mere woman" as in "She's behaving erratically than what a normal person should be behaving." Man or woman. She has a welcoming personality so of course he'd be thrown off guard when suddenly she's stabbing students in the eye and cheeks with unnatural strength.

And the way you worded this was as if you're saying Jotaro is allergic to strong women. When it wasn't the case at all. In part 3, he fights against strong women Stand users (Enyaba and Midler) just like he does with the male enemies. In part 6, he teams up with strong women Stand users (Jolyne and Hermes).

He even outright states and believes that Jolyne can make it through the chaos because he knows she's strong and capable. He's proud of her strength and abilities.

Again, in which part does he not comprehend that women can be strong? That it's so mind-boggling to the extent you had to include "fucking" to emphasize your point?

In fact, I think he'd respect and appreciate a woman who knows her self-worth and power. Sees a successful female colleague? *applauds in stoic.*

Again, I agree that age does not excuse anyone to be misogynistic. It can happen at any age. Because it's a mindset. It's rooted deep in the psyche. But I've already made my case about teenage Jotaro so I'm not gonna reiterate.

With the whole Kira deduction thing in Part 4.

Let me restate this- The time this part was set in is the late 90s. Setting? Japan. A patriarchal country where gender roles were more rigid and inflexible. During that time, I hate to break it to you, but the country was not that expressive nor progressive as compared to the West. It was common for women to be housewives doing the chores and tending to the kids, while men did the heavy labor out of the household.

So you cannot blame Jotaro for making that logical deduction. He was born in Japan, knew by then how his country works at 28 years old, and thus is able to make a deduction based on the patterns of how society was structured during that period.

Sure you could say some women worked too, but the majority of them would be the typical housewife. In 80s-90s Japan I say again.

"Traditional Japanese"

This, fellow readers, is what you call a "Preference". It can be harmless and not necessarily condescending. But even then, with the inclusion of the parenthesis, you could say that this was a choice based on the mindset of a teenager's train of thought.

Jotaro likes his quiet time -> learns from the world that apparently traditional Japanese women are usually the "quiet types" -> resulting in the aforementioned preference.

And just like any other preference, it can change with time as you grow older and wiser. As you can see, he dates and marries a foreign woman who's not "traditionally Japanese" and even had a kid with her.

It doesn't necessarily mean he wants a housewife who can cook and clean for him. At the age of 17, that's the least of his concerns. All he wants is for his partner to know when it's appropriate to be quiet and when it's appropriate to be excited. He prioritizes his peace. As simple as that.

I can see why people like to see him as part of the autism spectrum and I respect that.

And yes, I acknowledge that he's a huge asshole. No denying that. That's just how he is at that age.

And again, we don't see him say "bitch" that much anyways for it to be a verbal stim of sorts. I recall he says it twice or thrice. And that's it.

Personally, I'm not that sold into the headcanon (and this is coming from someone who probably has ADHD and has a sibling diagnosed with autism). Introverts can be callous. Some can look apathetic. Not every one of us will be shy and timid.

"He could've shoved her off."

And you know why he doesn't? Because as much as he tends to bark and yap about how annoying and doting his mother is, he loves Holly. He likes her hugs. He lets her give him goodbye kisses to the point it has become a pattern in his life. He likes her cooking. He's going to travel the whole world for his sick mother to get better.

And Holly knows that. A mother knows her child more than anyone else. She's unfazed by his words because she knows the good son she raised underneath that tough abrasive persona. Heck, even Suzy Q knows that too.

Also a cute little assumption. After they fight Midler and after Suzy talks to Jotaro, you can see his hand lingers on the phone. It's as if he's contemplating. I'd like to think that's a moment where he wanted to call Holly, to check up on his mother.

I agree that being gay doesn't excuse someone from being misogynistic. Like I said, it can happen to anyone of any gender or age.

Gay people can be misogynists. Point blank period.

Personally, he's a demisexual king in my eyes. But others are free to give him any orientation they see fit. Gay, trans, bisexual, aroace- You name it. The fictional world is your oyster! Go ham!

I believe that a fictional character's sexuality is a headcanon in on itself unless explicitly stated by the creator. Telling someone that character is straight? Headcanon. That character is gay? Headcanon. Claims a character to be non-binary? Headcanon.

"He's just a baby boy uwu uwu"

Okay OP with the "we're infantilizing him" allegations! That's new!

(That... was passive-aggressive of me. Apologies. I'm aware we call him "baby girl" often but with the way those two words were put into that sentence combined with the emojis gave off a different connotation.)

I don't know why but whenever we say that Jotaro isn't *insert one negative trait*, y'all are quick to say that we are proclaiming that:

"Oh my god~ He's not like that~ He's Saint Peter coming from the heavens pure as light."

Like what? No seriously... what??? I have never seen anyone treat him like he's the perfect human being.

Hell, I can even say that he's NEGLECTFUL. Yes! He's a neglectful father no matter how good his intentions were. He was an absent parent who technically neglected his child. There! I said it!

We KNOW he's an asshole. We KNOW he has a multitude of flaws that are not admirable. He's reclusive as fuck. He's brash and abrasive. He's seemingly distant when he talks to people. Socially awkward outside of work. He's impulsive when he wants to be.

I love character flaws. That's what makes a character so fascinating.

So please, if you have any strong opinions, keep them to yourself. Not everything has to be shared online. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

I can see a shit ton of flaws in this reserved, stoic mountain of a man. But I draw the line when it comes to some traits that seem not entirely fitting of his character.

The ending paragraph...

Me, an Asian woman constantly facing the audacity of men my age objectifying women and promoting toxic masculinity on a daily basis:

[thelaurenshippen]

this month's mixtape is Desperate Hollow! I write notes to all of my playlists and this month, I also wrote a ton about the process of working on this story, so if y'all are interested in that too, I'm happy to post that writing here! just let me know. but for now, music and rivals-to-friend-to-enemies-to-lovers feelings.

here are the basics that you need to know: Tex Bullock (a name he chose at 11) joined the notorious Barlowe Boys after he was orphaned at 8 years old, with Barlowe taking him under his wing. Sawyer Watson was similarly orphaned years later and fell in with the gang when he and Tex were both 14. they did not like each other at first. but fast forward thirteen years and they've become the best of friends, with feelings beyond friendship buried in both their hearts, when a confrontation with Barlowe leads to Sawyer shooting Tex in the chest and leaving him for dead. 

fast forward again, seven years this time, and Sawyer has been living in a dead-end town (Desperate Hollow, of course) when who should roll into town, horseless and clearly running from something, but Tex. 

that is, more or less, everything you need to know that happens in the first few chapters. okay, let's get into it: 

1. "Bottom of the River" - Delta Rae

This playlist was started so long ago, in 2019, and since then I've honed so much about the story, even though I haven't touched this playlist. As a result, a lot of the songs are seeking a vibe that I hadn't quite clicked into - this is definitely a vibe song. It sounds to me like dragging yourself across dusty plains, hoping that salvation will come find you soon, either in the sight of civilization or in death. Essentially: where Tex begins.

2. "Born This Way" - Bear and a Banjo

Though both Sawyer and Tex have their own playlists (which I'll be sharing over the next two months) as well as several different ship mixes, there are certain songs that are more one or the other on this playlist. Sawyer's life before joining the Barlowe Boys was fairly peaceful - as a Black man living in Montana, he didn't exactly have it easy, but he had parents who loved each other and loved him. That sense of family is something he never quite gets back with the gang.

What happened to my freedom, separated my family/Bringing me to the foreign place/Now I'm focused on surviving in the midst of evil/Don't think it's ever gonna be the same

Fun fact! This song is actually from a fiction podcast about a fictional musical collaboration. 

3. "Devil's Backbone" - The Civil Wars

Meanwhile, Tex was raised by a criminal father, his mother having died when he was eighteen months old. So when Barlowe found him and showed him the kind of affection and guidance his father never did, it was easy for Tex to fall into line on the criminality side. Sawyer is a lot more moral than Tex in a lot of ways - he's never killed anyone, whereas Tex has earned himself a pretty fearsome reputation. Sawyer doesn't always approve of what Tex does but...that doesn't mean he doesn't have a weakness for him all the same. 

Don't care if he's guilty, don't care if he's not/He's good and he's bad and he's all that I've got

Also, Sawyer was raised in the church whereas Tex's dad was probably? Irish Catholic but I don't think he ever talked about God with Tex. Neither one of them is very religious anymore, but I love the line Oh Lord, oh Lord, what do I do?/I've fallen for someone who's nothing like you

4. "Tell That Devil" - Jill Andrews

I found this song because it's the theme for  Wynonna Earp, a delightful supernatural Western with lots of queerness. 

I gave you all I got to give/I know that ain't no way to live/so I told that devil to take you back - so much of the conflict between Tex and Sawyer is about loyalty, to each other and to Barlowe. I think this could work in multiple ways--either one of them saying it to Barlowe, or Sawyer saying it to Tex. 

5. "I'm a Wanted Man" - Royal Deluxe

This is a Tex song - both how the world sees him and the way he sees himself. 

I would kill again to keep from doing time is more or less a plot point, and you should never ever trust my kind is a central conflict within him. 

If you asked me to change/I don't know if I can/I'll always be who I am

Royal Deluxe is all over these playlists - they make "outlaw rock" which in my view, is essentially cowboy-outlaw roleplaying fanfic. I'm so glad it exists. 

6. "I'm Bad" - The Last Vegas

More of a vibe song, but I do think this is a little bit how Tex sees himself sometimes. He doesn't relish violence, doesn't actually really want to be an outlaw, but it's pretty much all he's ever known -- this is my note from 2019 or whenever I first wrote the notes and I don't have much to add to it (other than to say I'm not sure Tex doesn't relish violence. It's complicated. I did tell you the story got darker). Hindsight being 20/20, if I were to remake these playlists now, this would go on the Barlowe playlist. But this and the Tex and Sawyer playlists have been so baked for so long, I can't conceive of any other song placement. 

7. "Raise Hell" - Brandi Carlile 

If Tex has an anthem this is it. For some reason, I didn't end up putting it on his personal playlist, because I think it fits the ~vibes~ better.

I've been down with a broken heart/Since the day I learned to speak/The devil gave me a crooked start/When he gave me crooked feet - This is sort of the companion to "Born This Way". Tex's father took a lot more shape since I wrote this initial note, but it applies even more now. Tex was never going to walk straight (dual meaning intended). 

I dug a hole inside my heart/To put you in your grave/At this point it was you or me/And mama didn't raise no slave/You took my face in both your hands/And looked me in the eye/And I went down with such a force/That in your grave I lie - I was coy with my notes on these lyrics previously, but it does work on multiple levels - Tex and Sawyer both have to bury each other in their hearts after that deadly confrontation and, for seven years, Sawyer thinks he put Tex in his actual grave. Which, from his perspective, might as well be his own grave for as much as he wants to exist in a world without Tex. Anyway, yeah, graves are a thing in the book. 

8. "Dangerous" - Royal Deluxe

Mostly a vibes song - I like to think of this as a theme song of sorts, for when Sawyer and Tex were in their early twenties, perfect partners, taking the West by storm and becoming figures of legend. 

9. "Blood on My Name" - The Brothers Bright

As I said, Sawyer is the less violent of the two, doesn't like being an outlaw at all really but that doesn't mean he isn't deadly. Tex wears his anger like a well-worn coat, but Sawyer's rage is buried deep.

Yes, Sawyer's rage is buried deep, but it's also different from Tex's - it's a simplification, but Tex spends most of his life angry at himself, Sawyer spends that time angry at the world. After Sawyer shoots Tex, those positions switch. Tex is the one who has blood all over his reputation, his name, but Sawyer's one kill (so he thinks) haunts him in a way killing never bothered Tex. 

There's a reckoning a-coming/And it burns beyond the grave/With lead inside my belly/'Cause my soul has lost its way/Oh, Lazarus, how did your debts get paid? - brain goes brrrrr at this re: Sawyer, but I've got to save some thoughts for the actual book. 

10. "Gun in My Hand" - Dorothy

Why did love put a gun in my hand...Why did love put a knife in my heart - I mean, that really says it all.

All the talk of redemption, revenge, opening up scars...delicious. 

Was it for the thrill of pushin' my hope to the edge - if I think about this too long I'll spontaneously combust. 

11. "Desperado" - Rihanna*

Okay, okay, okay - this is the keystone song of both this playlist and their relationship. I love it. It's modern and cool but has that old West swag and, okay, look, this might be a stretch, but "Desperado" sort of sounds like "Desperate Hollow" said with a drawl and GAH. I love this song.

I'm not tryna go against you/Actually, I'm going withcha/Gotta get up out of here and/You ain't leaving me behind/I know you won't, 'cause we share common interests/You need me, there ain't no leaving me behind - the premise of this story initially really hinged on one fact: that Tex and Sawyer needed each other to get out of Desperate Hollow.

There ain't nothing here for me anymore/But I don't wanna be alone - I have so much to say about this lyric but I don't think I can without writing an essay that gives away the whole book, so I'll shut up.

If you want we could runaways/running from any sight of love - again, if I speak--

12. "Heaven and Back" - Emily West

I don't know, I just wanted to end this playlist on a kinda romantic song! this is one of those songs that just feels like them and I can't describe why.

A big reason this song is on the playlist is that, back in 2019, I was building a pitch for a big studio that ended up going nowhere, but the exec I was working with sent me this song at the same moment I was putting the final touches on this playlist and it just clicked in my brain. 

I want you to be my man/I want you to be more than a friend/I dare you to break our plans

[captain-krow-drozdov]

Two things I wanna know! (feel free to ignore obviously ^^ )

What are your top 5 favorite characters and why are they your favorite? Could be current favorites, favorites over the years that you still like, favorites in general, etc. Also any media

And/or gimme 1-5 of your ocs - whether they're your favorite, most recent, the one you've been having fun with recently, etc. Tell me some fun facts about them, and why you picked them!

Hope you're having a great day/night - and remember to stay hydrated!

Yippee! Aight!

Currently Rotation Of Favorite Fictional Little Guys In No Particular Order~

1. Serial Designation N [Murder Drones]

- I Recently Binged This Show And Immediately Fell In Love With This Traumatized Sunshine Boy. I Want Good Things To Happen To Him But I Also Desire To Put Him In A Blender <3

2. Shadow The Hedgehog [Sonic The Hedgehog]

- I Originally Didn't Like Him Ironically I Took One Look At His Character Design And Decided He Was Prolly Just A 'Too Edgy For You' Character And Wrote Him Off Only For A Lore Video On YouTube To Grab Me By The Ankles And Drag Me Into The Depths Of Hell ↑ No Regrets Btw (TLDR: Found A Lore Video And Have Been Obsessed Ever Since.)

3. Rodimus Prime [Transformers/MTMTE]

- Im Charmed By Hot Headed Idiots Trying Their Best Not To Mention He Is So ADHD Coded And I Am A Weak Man.

4. Chilchuck Tims [Dungeon Meshi]

- Immaculate Vibes With This One. He's Tired ✨ He's A Dad Doing His Best ✨ He Is Simultaneously The Braincell Holder And An Idiot. Im A Sucker For Tired Dad Characters That Totally Don't Care About The People They're Traveling With *Wink*

5. Vash The Stampede [Trigun]

- Yet Another Traumatized Sunshine Boy. (A Pattern Has Been Established I'm Afraid) We Love A Human Character That's Actually An Eldritch Creature. He's Doing His Best And With An Optimistic Attitude Despite Literally Everything Going On In His Life.

[↑ All These Idiots Are A Different Flavour Of Traumatized :3]

Now Time To Pick Some Favorite Children~

1. Atlas Drozdov

- Reason: He's My Most Developed OC And Is Technically The First OC I Actually Took Seriously And Put In The Effort To Make Him An Actual Character And Not Just A Self Insert

- Fun Facts: He Is Based On The Azure Winged Magpie Both In Design And Personality Traits. He's Technically A Runaway Prince Turned Drifter.

2. Vernon "Kōtvi" Greenwood

- Reason: My Second Oldest OC This Idiot Forced Me To Figure Out How Magic Works In My World And Had The First Established House

- Fun Facts: Was Based Off Of Maned Wolves And Green Witch Aesthetics. They Are Technically The Origin Of The Planets (Kōtvi) Magic And Also The Origin Of Dragons

3. Alistair "Alice" Narcisa

- Reason: He's The First OC I Gave A Romantic Partner And He's The Reason I Had To Sort Out The Gods Of My World

- Fun Facts: The First Character To Be Blessed By The Gods And Thus Technically Immortal. Also The Reason Why Airships (Steampunk Winged Pirate Ship Style) Exist.

4. Rein James Elwood

- Reason: The Second Most Developed OC And Sent Me Down A Month Long Rabbit Hole On Vampire Lore

- Fun Facts: The Oldest Character That Isn't A God. Owns The Gilded Songbird Tavern. The First Vampire Character I Made.

5. Vincent "Vin" Lloyd

- Reason: First OC To Use Mobility Aids And Was Also Based Off A Cat I Had

- Fun Facts: Best Friend/Partner In Crime To Atlas. The Most Down For Violence Librarian You Will Ever Meet. Shapeshift Into Pale Orange Tabby Cat.

That Was Fun =3 Now Off To Go Get Hydrated!

[stayarmytinyzenmoa-l]

WHAT I'M GOING TO NEED A PART TWO OF THE YANGYANG ONE AS WELL

Again, why not?

Mischief Managed [Pt. 2]

TW: Language, Ghosts, dead bodies, gun use, break-in-and-enter Genre: Comedy Pairing: Liu Yangyang x Reader YN Pronouns: Not specified Word Count: 0.6K Prompt: “Who says I can’t be a sexy ghost?”

[NCT Masterlist] | [NCT Spooky Season Masterlist] | [Part 1]

Notes: I just really like Yangyang Disclaimer: Please remember that this is an AU and a work of fiction, obviously the idols mentioned/written about in this story would never partake in these actions. The idols mentioned in this work are meant to be seen more as face claims rather than the actual idols themselves.

Feedback is greatly appreciated!! Thank you for reading!

Needless to say, your jaw was on the floor. Quite literally, you'd landed face-first when Yangyang shoved you over before getting killed himself, but that's beside the point. You stood next to Dejun with your mouth open in shock and Yangyang literally matched your expression. You both looked at each other, at Dejun, at your dead bodies, then back to each other again, what the hell did he just say?!

Now Dejun was pacing around your apartment, muttering incoherent things to himself while you and Yangyang regrouped behind him.

"Dude... I thought he was your friend!" You half whispered/half yelled, and Yangyang shook his head.

"Shit, so did I," Yangyang grimaces.

"What did you do?"

"What do you mean 'what did you do?!' How am I supposed to know?!" Yangyang throws his hands toward Dejun.

"Oh my god... oh my god," you pull at your hair, "okay, okay, what are we going to do?"

"What do you mean 'what are we going to do?'"

"What are we going to do?! We just found out Dejun wanted to kill you! That's murder, right?"

"Sure?"

"It is! First-degree murder!"

"Okay, lawyer, what can we do? We're dead! Not to mention we can't leave either!"

"No, we can't, but since we got shot I'm pretty sure the police will be here soon, we can find a way to communicate with them!"

And so, the police came, and so you and Yangyang put your ghostly heads together to get Dejun imprisoned.

"I got this, ghosts always did this in the movies," you cracked your knuckles and grabbed your lipstick first, writing on the mirror that Xiao Dejun was behind the deaths, but instead the police just took pictures of it and hummed. "Oh my god, they're just like the movies too!"

"I got this, (Y/N)," Yangyang floats back to his body and dips its hand into the bullet wound.

"Ewwww," you cringed.

"Shh!" Yangyang traces out Dejun's name on the floor.

"Yangyang."

"Wait, almost done."

"Yang, you spelled Dejun's name wrong."

"I did?" Yangyang stands up and looks at his work. Dejan. "Shit."

"Oh my god..." You buried your face in your hands and you floated over to where Dejun was being questioned by the cops. You slipped his wallet out of his bag and pulled his ID out before slipping it into your dead body's hand. "This should be more than enough." You watched the police loom over your body.

"Look! This one's holding the ID card! This must be the killer!" The police pulls the ID out. "Oh, Dejun, man, you dropped your ID card."

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" Your shout sent a red hue through your ghostly form and Yangyang's turned blue for a second before your color returned. "These people are hopeless!"

"Maybe I can possess one of them!" Yangyang floats behind a policeman with a rather weak constitution. "Whelp, here goes!" He dives into the policeman and you watch him freeze for a second, getting used to the body before shaking his head, he turns to you with a thumbs up and a wide smile.

"It was him! He has to be the killer!" Yangyang announces, pointing to Dejun.

"Mark! Pipe down! You're an unpaid intern getting college credit!" The larger policeman says.

"Yes, sir, sorry, sir," Yangyang separated himself from the body and you groaned.

"What the hell was that?!"

"I got scared!"

"Oh my god... we're never getting justice."

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Pre-Dracula vampire fiction (1)

Since Halloween is upon us, I decided, as a treat, to rescue my "live reading" tweets about the most important books of vampire fiction (according to Myself, of course) in the form of a reading log. (The things between [ ] are notes I'm interpolating now, for clarity.)

And, since Dracula Daily is coming quickly to a close, I'm inviting you all to a deep dive into the almost two centuries of vampire tradition that Stoker had behind him when he wrote Dracula.

We will start with Augustin Calmet's treatise on the undead (1749), then we will jump to a special edition I have of The Vampyre (the first vampire piece of prose, that we know of, from 1817) with some fanfic short stories based on it attached and then we will visit the Dracula's Brood anthology and a few similar ones (that you only find on Amazon BR). Depending on my ADHD, we may or may not have some highlights of books on folklore vampires (mainly my complaints about them, but there are positive highlights).

ANYWAY LET'S GOO

17/07/2002 - 12:35 am

"I'm reading the vampire reports analysed by Augustin Calmet (a monk that lived around the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th and OH MY GOD MY BRAIN IS SCREAMING. It's too much information in a huge tangle. But the reports he collected ARE the materials that most classical vampire writers read.

I've previously read summaries of his work, not the book itself. I'm reading this free version: https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/29412 This log is my way of organizing all the info in a way that is useful to me.

17/07/2002 - 12:56 am

I'm reading a PT-BR version of the vampire reports, they start at page 243 of the Gutenberg ebook.

In case you don't know, Calmet's treatise is his way to give a Catholic Church perspective on what are essentially paranormal stories that were spread by magazines and newspapers as true. [It was written in 1745, a few years after the Vampiromania started in Europe (we will talk more about that later).]

He talks about ghosts, vampires, revenants, angels, demons and more. We will focus on the vampires.

17/07/2002 - 12:57 am

We start with the first (highly controversial) folk ethymology for "vampire" as a derivation of "oupire", both meaning "bloodsucker". They are classified here as a type of revenant, or "those who come back".

[You would THINK we know what the word "vampire" actually means and from which language it originally comes, by now, given how much interest there is on the topic, and you would be naïvely, DELICIOUSLY wrong.]

17/07/2002 - 12:58 am

Another cool fact he adds is that vampires only *sometimes* cause their victim's deaths. As for what causes the vampirism cases known at the time, he lists four possible things: 1 - nothing, it's just superstition; 2 - people buried alive [yikes]; 3 - dead people that God allowed to come back and haunt the living; 4 - Satan shenanigans

17/07/2002 - 12:59 am

I think cause 3 is cool, because when was it the last time you've read a story of a person that became a vampire because God Himself told them "no, no, they really screwed you over, go back and drink a couple liters of their blood to teach them a lesson"?

17/07/2002 - 1:05 am

Here Calmet enters a tangent about cases of actual ressurrections, Lazarus-style. I'm skipping that, it doesn't interest me. Let me get back to action on page 261, with M. Vassimont's case.

17/07/2002 - 1:13 am

Hahahahahaha oh my GOD this is my favourite case. So, the vampire is the ghost of a shepherd that sometimes appear as a man, sometimes, as a dog. He attacks people [not by drinking blood, but] by making them feel weak, and he also ties the tails of two or more cows together [because he is also a petty jerk, apparently].

So, when the peasants decide to stake him to pin him on the ground, he flat out LAUGHS at their faces. The corpse mocks them, saying that the stake is just a stick to shoo dogs, and keeps tormenting him until he is dragged out of the village and burned to ashes.

17/07/2002 - 1:22 am

I love so much the mental image of a group of peasants around the coffin, tired and soaked with blood after staking that jerk and he just keeps LAUGHING at their faces.

17/07/2002 - 1:28 am

Calmet keeps repeating the signals that a corpse is a vampire: its blood is still red and liquid, rosy faces and flesh that is soft, pliable and devoid of worms. And to illustrate it, he offers cases of people that didn't decomposed after death and how things around them sometimes move by themselves.

17/07/2002 - 1:29 am

It's interesting because the vampires in those reports are considered revenants, too, but they don't rise from their tombs and drink blood. Instead, they cause poltergeist phenomena in their former homes, throwing rocks and messing things around.

17/07/2002 - 1:37 am

Another case of vampirism. This time, the vampire appears to his son after his death and asks for dinner. The son feeds him and the old man disappear. The next day, he does the same. The next morning, the son dies. When they exhume the old man's corpse, it's *breathing*.

[TO BE CONTINUED...]

This was an eventful early morning. It was 5 months after the beginning of the quarantine and I my home office work didn't have official hours, so my sleep patterns had already gone to space at that point.

At this point, I think it's important to notice how vampires bring signs of life to the corpses they inhabit, and sometimes these signs not necessarily include the corpse moving around. I mean, for all his laughing around, the jerkish vampire shepherd above never did anyting to stop the stake or his own burning.

You will see so much more that sadly never made its way into fiction tomorrow. At the end, I'll make a summary of what was a vampire at that point, before the Germans muddled it all (yeah, the Germans, bet you didn expect it - although the French also had a hand on it). Stay tuned!