#and find that the exact same thing was happening decades ago too

[violet-thunder]

I’ve been a part of IRL queer and trans communities for almost 15 years, and I’ve watched every single one those remorselessly communities chew up and spit out transfems. None of them ever having been able to keep a transfem around for more than a year without getting a “bad vibe.” They’ve all kicked people with no other safety net to the curb, completely cutting them off from any of the benefits of an accepting community. Every transfem I know is either dead or living in poverty with no lifeline besides, perhaps, an extremely unhealthy tgirl skyrim house. Trans guys are just as quick to engage in this type of behavior as cis people! It’s like. Insane to me that I’m getting called delusional over this, I’ve watched this exact thing play out dozens of times. It’s happened to me and every transfem I’ve ever known IRL multiple times. Like. Everyone knows about the tranny hovels. Where do you think that comes from if not from the community widely excluding and discriminating against us? That’s not a situation that happens unless you have literally no where else to go. How do you think we would end up in such uniquely precarious situations if there were not power to leverage over us?

[heliads]

HEY HEY HEY!! can u make a the darkling x reader soulmate au?? one where reader is a powerful grisha and has lived nearly as long as he has? they walked the earth and met each other a few times, not knowing they were the same people. sometimes, a romance almost happened, but because they knew they would outlive them, it never happened. How about aleks meets reader by chance in a village near fjerda and they recognize each other for the first time and realize they are each other's soulmate? ♡ U!!

HEY HEY HEY!! your au is that your scars stay on your soulmate's skin.

masterlist

You would think that the centuries would go by faster once you’d experienced enough of them. When you grow up, it’s like the years pass with greater and greater speed, but there must be a leveling point to that mad exponential curve, because you reached it a long time ago. The decades don’t fly by anymore, they drag like the heels of your boots in the soft mud connecting the Wandering Isle to Novyi Zem.

That particular sinking earth is gone, much like most of the places from your memory. The land bridge between the two nations, which was already tentative at best back when you were born, has long been pulled under the current of the True Sea. Now, the recollections of old work boots falling into dirt have just as much hold as the place itself. Everything you knew is gone, constantly replaced by newer, flashier people and cities.

It haunts you sometimes, more often than not. You lie awake at night with a melody stuck in your head, one you haven’t heard in over two hundred years. There’s no chance that anyone remembers it except you, so you hum it to yourself, wondering if the ghosts of friends past can hear you or if they, too, are just ash and dust by now. Supposedly, they would have been folded into the welcoming arms of the Making at the Heart of the World, but you still harbor a hope that they’re still looking out for you.

Hope is all you have. As if it doesn’t mess with your head to trust your footsteps through a Ravkan town you’d lived in for decades, only to find that it’s doubled in size and population since you were last there. Or, when you finally remember that you owe a neighbor a favor, only to recall that their great-great grandchildren died out a century past. Nothing in this world is yours, not in the way that it was at the start. You can keep reinventing yourself, but it’ll never make anything stick.

All that musing over places long gone, and you still can’t convince the hours of the clock to turn by any faster. You’d like nothing more than for the years to skip by, to finally bring about your end of days or at least a change in them, because if you have more centuries under your belt, it’ll mean you’ll have searched all of the lands as many times as you can, and maybe then, you just might be able to meet your soulmate.

That, of all things, might calm your restless spirit. If it were not enough to have far more centuries in which to live out your life than the rest of the Grisha, you have to do it alone, too, knowing that most everyone you pass has someone out there built for them, someone to keep them company in a way you will never understand, no matter how many generations you live.

You often wonder if your soulmate might be out there somewhere. It’s an easy matter to spiral over. They could have been alive at the very start of your life, and died centuries before you could even meet them. Maybe there were only a few days in which your lives overlapped, or maybe you were born on the exact same day and never knew it until they died and you stayed, relentlessly, alive.

Or, worst of all, they could still be out there now, forever condemned to orbit the land at the other side of you, forever crossing paths but never meeting, always one step behind or hours ahead of schedule. There is, hypothetically, a way of telling if the person before you is your soulmate, but it only works if you have the fellow in front of you and the certainty only mad love can bring you.

In this world, in a world full of pain and pleasure, power and pride, the only way that you know for certain that you are connected with your soulmate are your injuries. They’ll show up on your soulmate’s skin, exactly at the same time and the same places as you receive them. They won’t feel the sensation of hurt as you do, and the bruises and cuts will fade as yours do, but in the minutes and hours in which you are bloody and damaged, they will be, too.

Scars last. That’s how most people know. When you see a childhood injury reflected on someone else’s knee or arm, you can tell it’s them. It’s as if a hook has been pulled through both of you, tying you together in a celebration of glitter and gore. It’s horrific, and it’s love, and no one has dared to mess with the process for the millennia in which soulmates have been around.

Least of all your soulmate. They marked you a long time ago, and although you weren’t there to see it happen, you can’t help but wonder at their rationale now. A scar curls around your left hand ring finger. It looks like a burn, and it must have been a serious one too, judging by the fact that it’s lasted this long. 

You can imagine your soulmate somewhere out there, forcing a white-hot band of metal around their finger and keeping it on despite the unendurable pain until they knew the scar would last forever. Imagine what that must mean to them, to you. There is a message that they’re trying to send to you, patterned in the syllables of their scorched flesh:  I love you to the point of agony, and past it. What a terrible sort of devotion for a soulmate. What a devastating burden of love for you to bear.

It makes you sick to your stomach, at times, and other days, it just makes you numb. Perhaps this is what you get, the Saints’ way of evening the scales. Everyone knows that the greed of a Grisha never goes unchecked, and maybe this is your diving retribution at last. You strove for too much too quickly, and now you have an excess of time in which you can ponder your failings, all alone for all eternity. It would make a sad sort of joke were it not at your expense.

After all, you should have died a long time ago, soulmate be damned. You started out life as a Heartrender, although you left the typical roles of that particular type of Corporalki behind long ago. At first, you merely shattered bone and spilt blood, but then you learned how to do more. Why kill one man when you can end dozens of lives with just as much force? Then, why kill when you can turn your attention towards yourself, healing not just surface wounds but deeper things, erasing the signs of age and wear until you were just as strong as you were at your prime?

Some would call it immortality. Others would curse it as witchcraft. You don’t need anyone’s misguided explanations anymore, though, your power will long outlive both them and their whisperings. It is power, plain and simple, and it is yours. You don’t just transmutate flesh and bone anymore, you shape life itself. Your life. Your life, extended forever, waiting for a soulmate who can keep up with you or die trying.

At times, you hate it, this prolonged life that you’ve given yourself. At the same time, the thought of dying without accomplishing all that you could is terrifying. The easiest thing to do is to keep living, keep drawing breath and wondering when things will change. If they don’t, well, at least you were here to see it. 

After all, have you ever been satisfied with your lot in life? You send a silent plea to any Saints up there, if they're still listening at all or merely content to keep pulling their strings and directing you down darker, rougher roads. Let me rest. Please. They send only one word back, after everything:  No.

So you continue your journey. Ravka needs your attention for a time, then you cross the True Sea to Kerch and Novyi Zem, and another century has passed by the time you think about returning to the eastern shores. The Shadow Fold makes things more difficult, certainly, but death is no enemy of yours, so you find ways of crossing, even if they take a while.

This time, you decide to cut through Fjerda on your various journeys. The wintry landscapes take your breath away, as they always do, but it’s a little difficult to marvel at the wonders of the country when they’re so fiercely dedicated to exterminating your fellow Grisha. You take it upon yourself to take out a few branches of the witch hunters, those treacherous drüskelle, and so you have a purpose for at least a little longer.

You get to take action upon this initiative while stopping in a small town close to the Fjerdan border for the night. While attempting to book a room in a local inn, you can’t help but pick up on the uncanny sensation of racing hearts somewhere closeby. You step away from the inn, distracted, and chase the sound of blood pounding through veins until it takes you into the surrounding woods.

There, you stumble upon what had been causing you such an uncanny sensation. A young woman, a Grisha Tidemaker by the looks of it, is attempting to evade capture by two upstart drüskelle captains. She hasn’t yet mastered her gift, and they’re well armed, so the situation is not good, to say the least.

Grisha are your people, even if you’ve become somehow separated from them by your many years. You fling out an arm and the two drüskelle go flying into the distance, clutching at their hearts as they burst in their chests. One more witch hunter materializes out of the gloom, but before he can fire off a round at you, a wave of shadow cuts off his breath and he falls to the ground, choking into stillness. The Tidemaker runs off the second the coast is clear, leaving you alone with this new stranger.

You turn around slowly, but the man emerging from the woods doesn’t seem to be a threat. He’s some kind of Etherealnik, but you’ve only heard of so many Shadow Summoners in your time. Perhaps there’s another one again.

“I came out to help,” he says, voice relaxed despite your hands raised at him in anticipation of a strike, “It appears that you didn’t need it, though.”

He doesn’t seem inclined to attack you, but you don’t trust the way he’s still hanging back in the shadows. You can’t see much of his face, nor his demeanor. “I’m no stranger to the drüskelle. They’ve always been the same sort of fools.”

“Always?” The stranger asks, allowing a note of humor to enter his words, “Have you been around long enough to judge them, then?”

You sigh. “Longer than you’d think.”

Instead of being put off by this, the stranger just grins, moonlight flashing on his teeth. “You’d be surprised what I think. I’m older than I seem.”

You look curiously at him. The man steps out of the shadows and into a patch of moonlight. Your breath catches in your throat. “No. That’s impossible.”

He’s not lying when he talks about being older than his appearance. You’ve seen this face before. Several times, if you’re not mistaken. A rebel against the Ravkan king a few centuries ago. A scholar of the Saints. A son trying to care for his mother. He’s been here whenever you passed through Ravka, but you never dared to assume that he could be anything but a familiar face passed down through the generations.

For some reason, on this night, you stop letting yourself doubt. This is a man who has been alive quite as long as you have, if not longer. Perhaps it’s the unearthly shine of the moonlight on the Fjerdan snow, transfiguring this scene into one of your memories, or perhaps it’s the fact that he’s taken his gloves off so he could summon his shadows, and you can see the imprint of a burn around the ring finger of his left hand.

No. It couldn’t be. After all this time, your soulmate cannot be the same young man you’ve crossed paths with half a dozen times before. What a cruel joke to play.

“Y/N?” He asks slowly, eyes as wide as yours.

You told him your name in one of your lives. He trusted you enough to say his back to you. “Aleksander?”

“Show me your hand,” he tells you, voice as steady as it’s always been.

When you hesitate, he crosses the clearing in a flash, standing in front of you. One of his hands curls around your wrist, holding it still, while the other holds up your fingers to the moonlight. He looks at the burn there, his burn, and at last, he smiles. It’s a proud look, almost vicious.

“You know,” he says slowly, “I always thought I’d marry you. I was a child then, and foolish, but I find I don’t mind the idea much anymore.”

He cocks his head to the side, staring openly at the scar he’d bound to both of you. You had wondered if you would fear your soulmate when you first met him, but instead, you just feel whole. A broken half has finally been reunited with its other part.

“Do you remember when we were both in Kribirsk together?” You ask slowly, haltingly, “I got a house right by the Unsea so I could study it. I think you were there for the same reason. We were the only two people in that whole town who weren’t afraid of it.”

He nods, eyes white with moonlight. “You fascinated me even then. When you left, I didn’t know how to live with myself. I started a whole new life just so the old one wouldn’t have to figure it out.”

You’d done the same thing. It took every bit of strength in you to go. You hadn’t wanted to leave the little house with the captivating man next door, but the other townspeople were starting to ask why you hadn’t aged since you’d shown up there decades ago, and the questions are only ever the start of your downfall. You’d cursed his name and yours in turn for the next few years until the heartbreak subsided.

“Before I left, though. We were alright.” You whisper.

He takes your other hand. “We’ll be alright again. It’s us now. Just us.”

“Just us,” you repeat, and for once, you let yourself believe it. You have it, your soulmate, him.

And at last, after centuries of wandering the land and sea alone, of second-guessing every shadow, of wondering what you did to deserve so much time by yourself without love, you realize that it has come to an end. All of it. There is no more solitude for you. Here by your side stands your soulmate. The long day has passed, and the rest of a quiet night shadows your threshold. It’s time to go home, so you think, but you’re already there.

requested by @cassiecrown, i hope you enjoy!

grishaverse tag list: @rogueanschel, @deadreaderssociety, @cameronsails, @mxltifxnd0m, @story-scribbler, @retvenkos, @mayfieldss, @eclliipsed, @gods-fools-heroes, @bl606dy, @auggie2000, @baju69, @crazyhearttragedy

[moongothic]

So a few weeks ago I ran into this, old, old Crocodile meta post from 2015, the OP of which hasn't been active on Tumbr (at least on that account) since 2018. And this post (along with some of the OP's other posts) has been living in my head rent free since then.

There was just something there about seeing these old meta posts, completely detached from the current state of the story, the fandom and the Crocodad Propaganda... It just made for a truly refreshing read, but they also had such great observations about Crocodile I hadn't even thought about or noticed*, and somewhat most importantly... validating my own feelings/observations about things I've been kind of afraid to vocalize myself lest I apper completely delulu. Like I dunno I do worry sometimes if I'm just reading into things too much just to make massive reaches to get The Reading of the character that happens to support the Crocodad theory specifically, instead of trying to get a more objective reading instead. So seeing someone else make either those exact same or similar observations nearly 10 years before I did is so validating, and really just made me want to discuss some of those things.

*(Like this whole post about how "DON!" is often used to add emphasis and show the true beliefs of characters, and how Crocodile doesn't really say things with a DON!, almost like his heart isn't in most of the things he does or says. I dunno it was such a good read)

Sidenote: I do want to quickly comment that I don't agree with the OP on some of their readings about stuff, and more importantly, due to the age of the both the original posts and the OP not being active anymore, I didn't want to, like... Treat them as if they just posted it recently and interact with the posts as such. (I dunno, when people go digging through my decade old main blog and start reblogging shit I posted in like 2014 it just. I dunno, it's just kind of uncomfortable. Like you're allowed to browse my past but I wished people let my ancient cringe stay in the past. But that's just me) Like for example I feel like OP has a fundamental misunderstanding what being "trans" really even means (thus I don't agree with their take on trans Croc), but again, OP's take is old and so I don't want to hold it against them. They could have grown since then and come to better understand what being trans means, and regardless of that they don't have to buy into the theory either. And I absolutely do not want anyone to start trying to pester them about it or anything (again, they posted these things nearly 10 years ago), regardless of if they're still active or not. But yeah, that's why this is a whole separate post rather than a reblog with commentary.

So OP in their post speculated how in this moment (chap 206), based on the face he makes and the serious look he gives to Luffy, Crocodile seems to find the idea of someone being willing to die for someone else's sake absolutely incomprehensible, as if he's trying to wrap his head around the mere concept. That, or he used to know what it was like to hold someone/something that dear to you, but has long forgotten what it was like

Rereading this arc a while back I couldn't help but to take notice of this panel too and that unusual, somber(?) look on Crocodile's face. But because I'm a Crocodad Truther, of course I couldn't help but to feel that this was a face of recognition, of Crocodile understanding Luffy exactly in this moment, that willingness to do anything for a loved one. Especially because I have been speculating Crocodile might've been doing all of this with the goal of nuking the World Government out of orbit to protect his long lost baby boy (it's just that he simply finds Luffy's insistence on protecting this random ass princess from a random ass country he has zero ties to ridiculous, as opposed to like, doing all of this to protect immidiate, close family)

So again, despite the different reading it is validating as hell to see someone else think this panel in particular was odd. But the more I thought about it, I did kind of start leaning towards OP's reading. Now this one was originally pointed out by opbackgrounds, how in this scene (chapter 196) while Crocodile is meant to be laughing and mocking the royal guard for "throwing their lives away" to protect Cobra, he isn't actually smiling. We don't even get to see his full face with his eyes blacked out, so we don't get to see Crocodile's true feelings in this scene

And that does kind of reframe what he says in the second panel. For a long time I wondered if the implication was that Crocodile does actually value people's lives more than he lets on (especially with his seeming willingness to blow up a million people in a violent, orchestraded coup), just having a "small sacrifice for the greater good" kinda outlook (as we know, casualties can't be avoided in war, Croco and Luffy both agree on that) (where as I would IMAGINE Dragon having a more "no sacrifices, we have to save as many people as possible" kinda principle)

But now, looking at these two moments together, and knowing Crocodile has trust issues for unknown reasons, there is also that option that, perhaps... No one has ever shown that kind of loyalty towards him, a willingness to follow him to the grave or support him, to stay by his side? And if so, maybe, in these two scenes, Crocodile does recognize that kind of deep loyalty and trust and love, and has to cope with the fact that he has and may never experience it himself, that he's doomed to be alone, surrounded only by people who "respect him" out of fear (something that could be extra painful while knowing someone had just recently betrayed him by leaking his info to ruin his plans/after figuring out it was Robin, his very literal partner in crime. Like talk about rubbing salt into a wound).

And y'know, that is an extremely sad reading and I feel so bad for my poor little meow meow (that man needs a hug so bad), but also that doesn't really add to pushing The Crocodad Agenda, which is very unfortunate. Especially because I feel like between the two readings, Crocodile recognizing loyalty no one will ever show him (and being hurt by the fact) feels like a more comprehensive and simple reading, than if one is about him showing he doesn't fully believe in what he's doing is right and the other about him relating to Luffy on a deeper level.

But then, as OP pointed out in their post, for the entirety of page 2 of Chapter 207 while Luffy is keeling over from the poison finally kicking in, Crocodile looks like he's fully letting down his walls to express genuine relief, as if the those beliefs Croc had carried and convinced himself were true were just confirmed

What're his beliefs again? That trust in others is worthless, and you can not afford to have ideals if you're weak, great strenght being the only thing that allows you, if not straight up justifies you, in doing whatever you please? Now, maybe it's just me, but if Crocodile was showing relief here over his belief that trusting others is worthless after being reminded time and time again of the love and loyalty the Strawhats have for each other and the Alabastan kingdom has for everyone in it (etc)... I dunno, I feel like that would be kind of weak, if that's where Crocodile's internalized beliefs were wavering. But if Crocodile's whole Utopia-plan had been about destroying the WG to protect his baby boy (and release the whole world from the WG's oppressive rule while he's at it) at whatever cost, while he deep inside knew what he was doing was fucked up beyond belief... Yeah, Crocodile trying to convince himself what he was doing was "justified" would make sense. Him having his beliefs potentially even waver a little bit through out this whole ordeal would make sense. Crocodile in this moment experiencing relief that what he had told himself was the righteous would make sense.

Everybody remember's Doflamingo's speech from Marineford, about how history is written by the victors and its them who decide what is right and what is wrong- the winner becomes "justice" itself. Vegapunk kind of called back to this concept during his broadcast too, and yeah, Crocodile did kind of introduce us to it back in Alabasta. If he had won, he would have been "justified" in what he had done, because it'd be him who'd be deciding what's right and what's wrong.

Now I don't really have anything else to add to that post in particular (though I absolutely love the reading on the Crocodile vs Robin part and now that I've read it I can't unsee nor disagree with it), but OP did make a separate post speculating about some of design decisions Oda made regarding Crocodile, starting with discussing the logo for Baroque Works. And they pointed this out

Bro wrote this in 2015, they have no idea, oh my god, dude had no clue whatsoever

So quickly looking that one up and yeah, wings have sometimes been used to represent the sun (most commonly with the sun, as a winged sun?) and yeah, that actually has a lot of meaning in the current state of the series re: God of Liberation the Sun God Nika. But what's more is that this is actually the SECOND time we're actually finding a way to link Crocodile to sun-symbolism, the other being Crocodile being a reference to the Egyptian god Sobek (protector god, god of military, go to Wikipedia), who has an alternative form (/fusion with Ra) called Sobek-Ra, where he is a sun god. And what was Crocodile trying to do in Alabasta if not falsely "liberate" the country from its original rule. Also worth noting is that seemingly the winged sun was most commonly used in Egyptian iconography, so if Oda ever did research Egyptian mythology for inspiration in Alabasta (which, considdering the sheer amount of Stuff in the story as a whole is more than likely), then it is very possible he could have read about the winged sun and used it intentionally.

But what I do find interesting is that, yeah, wings kinda are a symbol one would considder "heroic" or related to "freedom". And, as I have been going on and on about, if Crocodile's ultimate goal in creating his funny little "utopia" was to overthrow the World Government and "free" the whole world of their rule. Like. That really lines up with the whole symbolism with the sun and the liberation and the freedom and shit, like. Why does it line up so neatly good dear god

I dunno how to end this post, these were just a few little things that I had been thinking about after coming across OP's blog and, yeah, just wanted to discuss them.

Again, OP hasn't been active for years, but if they did suddenly come back please don't bother them or god forbid harrass them/try to get them to change their mind about trans Croco. Just don't start shit, please.

End of post byeeeeeeee

[crookedkryptonitebeliever]

since yves is like mega old and has lived through two possibly three centuries is there a chance he might outlive reader? he pretty much watches reader wither away with age until they’re taken by death meanwhile yves stays looking youthful the whole time. or does he slowly change reader’s biology overtime to become more like his, never aging and always full of young energy. i feel like it’s something he might do but also be hesitant on as being alive for such a time can have a mental toll on someone and that’s probably something he doesn’t want reader to go through. but i doubt he wants to live without reader as well.

Another Anon Asked: So what's gonna happen when Yves's s/o grows older and notices that he's not aging? Will he still keep his story a secret?

Tw: dementia, prolonged existence despite suffering, mentions of euthanasia

His database should contain the information on whether you have the prerequisites to potentially live as old as him and not have your mind deteriorate into nothingness. He would know if you're the right person to divulge his secrets to, or manipulate in such a way that you will never notice him staying youthful even after four to five decades, Yves would know if living longer than the average human lifespan is something that you would want, even if you didn't or did want it now.

And he knows, death is almost always the most merciful option on a human's soul. He remembered what it was like. He knows how it is like to be himself, and it isn't a blissful way to live at all. Most likely, Yves will have you learn how to walk on a four-legged walker, talk to you every day despite having the same exact conversation a mere hour ago, cleaning you up when you couldn't do it yourself anymore, ensuring your diaper isn't giving you a rash and spoonfeeding you each liquid meal for hours.

Don't think he isn't hurting under that stoic facade. The nerves in your eyes and skin aren't functional enough to feel the tears drip down while he sings to you. Your ears aren't picking up the small, but extremely unusual wavers and chokes in his soothing voice. Your mind couldn't register the amount of time passed being in Yves's arms as he cradled you, not once did you wonder when he found the time to eat, drink, or sleep.

Like you, Yves ages. But not quite the same as how you do. His control over his own emotions will falter, his logic will fail, and become more and more outrageously human.

Yes, he knows euthanasia is the most cogent and logical course of action. It is the most humane; putting you out of your misery and letting you rest in peace forever. But Yves can't. Even when you wake up struggling and screaming in terror, imprisoned in your own biological hell as you try to make heads or tails of your situation. However, your mind is too far gone to achieve such a simple task of understanding you are safe, you are home. Yves just can't bring himself to give you that mercy, he is too selfish to.

There was only so much he could do, and he did everything he could to delay the inevitable. Curse the world for not finding a cure to this wretched disease, curse the world for not putting enough effort into researching this calamity, curse your biology for tormenting you like this, curse himself for not preparing for this sooner, but that doesn't change anything. Yves doesn't know what he hasn't discovered yet and time is so precious, so unrenewable.

Very few things in this realm terrify Yves. Your confused and fear-stricken face as you tell him over and over again that you don't know where you are, scares him. It truly does, but he cannot show it. He made this decision against his own judgment, after all. The least he could do is to be brave and assure you that you are loved and cared for no matter what. He finds it endearing that you think he is facing the same circumstance as yours, giving him words of support, albeit incoherently, as you wipe away his tears of sorrow. You thought that he was also as lost and disorientated. In many ways, yes, Yves is also lost.

Even when you're demented, he still can predict that you were going to do that. It's the same as always, the only difference is that he cannot cure it. He cannot bend realities out of this one, because he is unable to bend your reality. Yves can only provide forecasts of it.

He is torn. Yves is directly hurting you by not letting you die, but he can't let go. He promised though, that you will not turn into an everlasting lowlife like him, but he couldn't bear to shorten your lifespan when he knows you could live past a hundred with the right care, attention, and equipment.

Yves maintains his sanity by turning to his beliefs, he has to; for your sake and his. He gently rocks back and forth, hushing you to sleep as he tenderly brushes strands of grey and white away.

Yves pressed a kiss on your forehead, whispering ardent apologies and remorse into your ear. You're far too unconscious, far too gone to register them, but Yves does it anyway, evidencing the decline of his rationality.

Yves prays and begs fervently that you will find it in your heart to forgive him one day. That is all he asks of you.

[dani-says-stuff]

The Art of Distraction

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❥ Back to the Control Center

❥ Nate Hardy Masterlist

- couldn't wait to bulk post, i'm actually pretty proud of this one

- i didn't end up using the exact line/prompt in the request because it didnt really fit, but it's similar enough for the point to get across

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Nate Hardy x fem!reader

Summary: Based on this request

i tried lol, i dont know if it's as spicy as you were hoping it to be, but i packed it with extra stuff just incase that part came out super cringy.

Word Count: 2k

Warnings: cringe, suggestive(?), mentions of a haunting that i completely made up for background, very very loosely based on the witch's forest video, inconsistent capitalization, my usual grammar warning... i dont think theres anything bad in here but to be honest i cant really remember

Dialogue Key: Probably dont even need this, but just for consistancy

Y/N

Nate

couldnt really find a great gif for this fic, but i think its funny so im dropping it here.

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It had been a few hours since you had returned home and you'd yet to stop shaking. You'd been on investigations with Nate and the boys in the past, but this one in particular threw you way more than you thought it would. 

For the entire car ride back home, the events wouldn't stop rapidly flicking through your mind. Nate's arm resting on the console and his hand softly placed on your thigh did little to ground you as it normally did. The thought of reaching down and intertwining your fingers as you'd done many times before didn't even come to mind, your hands too busy picking at your sleeves to do anything else. 

Dark midnight skies barely visible through clusters of twisted curling tree branches. 

Thick wooden trunks placed around you like a maze, they all looked the same no matter which direction you went. 

Dry dirt and bits of gravel kicking up in clouds behind you, scraping up the backs of your legs from the speed at which you were running. 

Branches strewn across the overgrown path splitting and cracking loudly beneath your feet. 

Your throat, raw from screaming out to the boys. 

Your heartbeat, deafening in your ears. 

Nate's one-sided conversation through the duration of the ride back barely made its way to your ears, it felt like you were underwater or your ears were stuffed with cotton.

The only thing you could hear clearly was the memory of your own panicked screams earlier that night. 

━─━────༺✧༻────━─━

It had started just as any other investigation had, and for the first time in a while, it wasn't happening in a building. 

The first half of the video held a strangely nostalgic vibe. In the days of a better quality Sam and Colby channel, where they were now able to book the big shot hauntings and go to different countries with loads of equipment, would sit a small video similar to those of their early days.

They were once again investigating an area that wasn't highly publicized, the only ones to know of it being the eager locals with decades of ghost stories to share. 

It was said that there was a witch who lived deep within the forest many centuries ago. She dwelled in a quaint cottage where she would practice her spells and hexes... or at least that's how the villagers of the time saw her.

It didn't matter that the woman was in the woods alone because her family had all perished from sickness.

It didn't matter that she was cooking up the same herbal home remedies as everyone else.

When the drought came and wiped out the village crops but the witch's garden in the woods flourished due to the untouched aquifer beneath her land, they were furious.

It was said that they marched upon her house late one night, torches and pitchforks held high, enraged at the witch in the woods. They yelled, taunting her to emerge so they could take her into the small town square. When she refused, they tossed their torches at the structure, laughter overpowering the screams of the woman inside as the house was engulfed in flame. 

It was thought to be an old wives tale, the witch deep in the woods brooding silently as she worked on enchantments was hardly anything new. It was simply a story passed down from parent to child in hopes of keeping the energetic children from venturing off too far on their own. 

But then they started finding things.

The ruins of a small house, a foundation of stone left behind in the middle of the forest.

Old, hand-made historic brick, placed in a careful circle like the makings of a well.

The bones found throughout the property, most likely scattered by animals and winds over time.

With the influx of people from the small town once again venturing into the forest, it was only natural that the witch would awaken. 

So, you all ventured into the woods with no more than a flashlight each, a spirit box, and a REM pod to see if you would be able to communicate with the spirit of the witch that haunted the woods.

When the sun set was when everything went wrong.

The REM pod began going off rapidly, pointing in every direction, no clear responses being drawn from the item. The spirit box chirped to life despite never being turned on, spouting one word.

Run. 

Branches cracked from close behind you, startling your group of four to do exactly that. 

You made it a few feet when you tripped over something cold and solid, just tall enough to catch the end of your shoe as you ran. Your flashlight tumbled from your hand, rolling across the ground to show two very terrifying things. 

One, the lack of the three boys running along behind you, meaning that you had managed to run off in a different direction than they had. You were now completely alone in the forest that was difficult to navigate in a group. 

Two, a short stone wall standing before you, encapsulating the leafy floor you were splayed across. You had managed to run straight into the remains of the cottage. 

If matters couldn't get any worse, the very thing commonly experienced by those who ventured to this area happened to you. It was said that if you ventured onto her land, the witch would drain the power of your devices and most often—the batteries of your flashlights.

Any sort of light brought near the ruins in the dead of night would be promptly snuffed out, assumingly because of the tragedy that occurred the last time beacons of light were brought to the location. 

Your flashlight began to flicker. 

Once.

Twice. 

And then the light was gone, submerging you completely in the stale darkness of night. 

Everything after that was a blur, all you could comprehend were the quick flashes terrorizing your mind. 

Dark midnight skies.

Clusters of twisted tree branches. 

A wooden maze of towering trees. 

Dry dirt and bits of gravel stinging your legs. 

Burning muscles. 

Overgrown paths.

Panicked screams of both you and Nate as you scrambled blindly through the wood. 

Your heartbeat pounding in your head.

Just as it felt like you were running aimlessly then, you felt as if you could make no progress now. 

No matter how far you ran—no matter how much time had passed—you stayed terrified. 

━─━────༺✧༻────━─━

Both bedside lamps were on as you burrowed yourself under countless layers of blankets and sheets, your body curled in a tight ball. After all, if your blankets are covering you, the monster under the bed doesn't know you are there.

All that peaked out from the fluffy mass on the bed were your eyes, gaze solely focused on the Disney movie you'd turned on moments before, proving to yourself that witches aren't really as scary as they appear.

Good always wins and bad things can't reach you. 

Nate entered the room about fifteen minutes into your movie, hair still damp from the shower and one of your favorite shirts of his draped over his shoulders. It was an old T-shirt from who knows how long ago, but it was soft from wear and one of the most comforting things in the world to have pressed against your skin when he pulled you into his chest at night. 

His eyebrows furrowed at your eyes, wide and alert, quickly darting to him when he entered the bedroom, "Babe?" he spoke softly, slowly approaching and kneeling down by the bedside, fishing for your hand beneath the blankets, "Are you ok?" 

His eyes were sincere and brimming with worry as he looked upon you, gaze scanning over what he could see of you, assessing any damage that may have occurred in the brief time he left you alone.

You nodded slowly, eyes abandoning the movie and choosing to find solace in him instead. 

Once deeming you in no worse condition than he left you in, his head moved finally noticing the laptop perched on the mattress and the movie that previously held your attention playing out on the screen. 

A teasing smirk graced his features, "Really?"

Heat rose to your cheeks and you somehow managed to descend deeper into your cocoon. Your words were muffled by the comforter blocking the lower half of your face, "I needed to get my mind off of it." Nate laughed quietly at your explanation making you double down out of embarrassment, "I needed something to distract me so I could sleep." 

"A Disney movie?" he spoke, equal parts teasing and condescending. 

"What?" you whined rolling your eyes at him, "It always worked when I was younger." 

He hummed, standing up and plucking the laptop from the bed, quickly shutting it off and placing it to the side despite your protests. 

"Well," Nate spoke, waggling his eyebrows at you a few times in order to get you to laugh, "now you don't need 'em."  

You raised a single eyebrow, scanning him skeptically, "Why's that?" 

"Because," he trailed off, leaning to press a loving kiss to your forehead, "I'm going to be the best damn distraction you've ever seen."

"Oh really?" 

He hummed again, pressing a kiss to your nose.

You tilted your head slightly to the side with wide puppy dog eyes staring up at him, not quite getting what he was implying, "And how exactly are you going to do that?" 

Nate pulled the covers down to your chin with a soft, lovesick smile, "Like this." he whispered, finally placing a kiss on your lips. 

Your eyes fluttered closed, a warmth flooding your body unlike the one gained from the blankets. This was a warmth that came from the innermost parts of your soul, igniting each and every nerve, setting them on fire. 

He slowly peeled back the blankets to reveal your form, arms covered with goosebumps from the stark temperature difference flew up to wrap around his neck the second they were released, fingers sinking into his hair. His own arms swiftly moved around your waist, pulling your bodies even closer as he moved onto the bed hovering over you, never once daring to break the kiss. 

The only time his lips left yours where when they moved to trace your jawline and trail down your neck leaving you breathless. 

He moved across your skin, leaving a tapestry of red and purple in his wake, painting your skin the same colors as the fireworks dancing behind your eyelids. With your mind focused on him, there was no room to think of anything else, he moved in a way that you couldn't fathom wanting to think of anything else. 

His hands dipped lower and lower, teasing beneath the hemming of your sleepshirt and caressing your warm skin.

He leaned back, removing his lips from you after what felt like hours, pupils blown wide and a loving, lustful haze clouding over his eyes. 

The only reason he parted was to drag the shirt up off your body with his own quickly following suit to be thrown blindly into a corner, lips hungrily returning to your own the minute the barrier was gone. 

He held your attention fully until the sun breached the horizon line, chasing the moon and darkness of night away as it found its rightful place up in the sky. The night was over, any thoughts you had of terrible twisting branches and evil witches dissolved in the light of morning—at least the ones that hadn't been valiantly chased away by your very own knight in shining armor. 

You lay in bed beneath the single bedsheet, head resting against Nate's chest as he absentmidedly traced shapes across your back, humming a random melody as he did so. The warm light of day breaching through the cracks of the drawn curtains, bathing your tangled limbs in soft gold. 

He was right, you didn't need to distract yourself with the technicolor animations of your childhood. You didn't need to dull your senses with endless hours of princes and princesses saving the day anymore. 

Not when you had your very own fairytale sitting right in front of you, ready and waiting to do whatever it takes to give you your happy ending. 

With that thought and a sweet smile gracing your lips you closed your eyes, finally able to get some sleep. 

[cantcompetewhereudontcompare]

This got long so for the sake of the tags I'm adding, to not clog people's timelines in case they happen upon it, I'm adding a cut off. But this message is diabolically wrong, and I'm here to prove it word for word.

1- I haven't talked about morals in terms of Louis, and all I said about Zayn is that he's a domestic abuser. You sure are very sensitive about someone just repeating facts, huh?

2- Real people can't queerbait. Wearing quirky clothes wouldn't even qualify as queerbaiting anyway. This argument against him got stale in 2020. Keep up.

3- He hasn't said a single thing in support of Israel's government. All he said, 10+ years ago, mind you, was that he wanted to perform there. That's raging zionism to you? Are we not in the year 2024 seeing the damage and destruction of Israel in real time? And what actual raging zionists condone and how they behave?

And what if I told you that Harry was courted by Israel to perform there for Love On Tour, by literal Israeli politicians like Idan Roll, mind you, and Live Nation Israel was DESPERATE to get him to perform there, offering him millions and he flat out refused. Because he said in 2013 that he wanted to perform there but it is now 2024, he has toured the world as a solo act twice now, in very lengthy tours, and he has yet to perform there. And his last tour ended months before October 7th too. So the single thing he has said that could be interpreted as supporting Israel (Israel fans, mind you, not their government or their actions) 11 years ago didn't even end up happening when he was offered millions.

The tweet supporting Israel is debunked. This is the only screenshot of it that exists, and it was fabricated by the same person that fabricated this, the same exact day:

Unless you want to believe that both of them tweeted the same exact thing on the same day and somehow not one single screenshot exists? Not a single article by western media?

The picture of him holding the Israeli flag is him actually holding the Spanish flag:

"He did a power fist when a reporter at a press conference said she was from Israel" he did that with like, every reporter:

When he "signed an Israel flag" it was for a dying fan who got to the 1D concert through Make A Wish. "Zayn refused" no it was after March 2015, so he wasn't in the band anymore. I guess he shouldn't sign a flag if a fan who has cancer and is dying asks him to?

"He followed a zionist journalist" no, he didn't. He followed Lliana Bird, the co-founder of Choose Love, formerly known as "Help Refugees"

Which is an organization that has raised $2 million for Gaza

and has been calling for a ceasefire, consistently, since last year. Like, here:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Choose Love (@chooselove)

"Oh but she wrote a zionist article" except she didn't, she bothsided things like hell, for sure, but she was incredibly kumbaya about the whole thing (like I presume Harry and his friends are, because they're libs at the end of the day). This is the article, from 2014, btw. Here's an excerpt:

Do I personally agree with it? No fucking chance, but this is what most pro-Palestinian people will agree with lmfao. Like, it's an incredibly radical position that you can only find being massively supported online to be fully pro Palestinian and understand that while you can't condone extreme acts done on civilians by Hamas, at some point radicalization is impossible to avoid and a logical conclusion of the heartbreak and pain Palestinian people have been subjected to for decades. Like, it's NOT a popular opinion. Lliana IS the mainstream opinion for pro Palestinian people. And this was her opinion 10 years ago, considering her organization is fully supportive of Palestine (and Lebanon) now, I presume she has inched more towards the "other side" than in the past.

And Harry supports her organization!!

He has for several years now:

Like, this was for his first solo tour:

"But he raised a hammer" he grabbed a toy from the audience and waved it around, like he does with multiple things at almost every single show. Maybe he saw the Israel flag, maybe he didn't, going from that to "oh he supports the slaughtering of children" is fucking ridiculous and no one outside of stan twitter would even entertain shit like that. Once again, that was 10 years ago.

He was 20, and he probably had as much information on the war between Israel and Palestine as the average person: ie, almost nothing. It wasn't until recently that we started getting more information from social media that people learned of what truly was happening and had been happening for 75 years. Mainstream media is STILL lying about it, hiding facts, to our faces, even though it slips through the cracks thanks to social media.

People didn't massively support Palestine or even know about what was happening until AFTER October 7. A lot of people still don't know!!

"He could've educated himself" sure. And we all should educate ourselves on this sort of thing. I still have a lot of blind spots about a lot of terrible situations happening all around the world, and I'd like to believe I'm fairly radicalized and informed. That does not make someone a genocide supporter. Ger your head out of your ass.

"But he dropped a Palestinian flag" no, first of all it was a scarf with a tiny Palestinian flag on it. The idea that he managed to see it in a split second with literally no lights whatsoever is laughable. You think this man is superhuman. The amount of times he has grabbed and dropped things quickly is astronomical. You know why? For this very reason. To avoid controversy if he happens to be thrown something unsavory. He doesn't grab things he can't recognize, as much as he checks things before waving them (ever since he was tricked into waving a flag with a Larry message on it, back in 2015). There's so many videos of him doing the exact same thing with multiple stuff, just watch him interact at any given show.

The only other argument for his supposed "zionism" is that zionists have spread rumors of him supporting them, like a fan claiming that he saw her from across an arena holding an Israel flag and idk waved at her? Or a comedian claiming he said he wanted to go to Israel in like, 2017 (why hasn't he gone then? lol he's saying he wants to go to random people but he doesn't just go? when begged by their own politicians to go? How does it work?) It's just zionists doing typical hasbara, where they act like everyone supports them. The ridiculousness of him specifically seeing this fan (who had to use someone else's video in which it just looks like he just waves in the general direction she was in) and waving at her because of her Israel flag, which was covered by the people in front of her, mind you, shouldn't even have to be explained, but alas.

They do this with lots of celebs. It's typical for them. And most of the time it isn't real. Israeli fans were celebrating that Harry was finally going to Israel last year because Live Nation Israel was desperate to secure the deal and spreading it all over the internet in Hebrew, only for him to decline (and he flat out declined and said he was never gonna perform there, btw, I know this for a fact, but can't exactly divulge how I know, the fact that he... well, didn't, should be enough, I suppose).

Do I wish he would speak up? Absolutely. Do I think he's a terrible person for not speaking up? No. He's just a white lib.

4- His friends are not him. He's friends with people who are morally questionable, like literally most people on planet earth who have friends. I would personally disavow people who are pro Israel, no matter how little or big their support is, because I'm informed on the subject and care a lot about it. I don't actually talk to my irl friends about this, tho. It's not exactly a subject that comes up unless you're prone to discussing politics, and a lot of people aren't, and I respect that. So I could very well be friends with people who ignorantly (or assholently) support Israel, without me knowing. I don't expect that Harry is as informed on the subject as me, and least of all, that he's sitting down with Ben Winston and having heated debates about the Israel Palestine situation.

Ben Winston took Harry in when he was 18, alone in London and away from his family. He was a friend when he wasn't even famous. He and his wife supported him and gave him the consistency he yearned for in crucial years of his life. I despise the man, but Harry is never gonna drop him.

It's an immensely privileged situation, for sure, but that is reality for most celebrities, especially white male celebrities. And truth of the matter is that 99.99% of celebrities have zionists in their circles, because it's incredibly prevalent in positions of power in America (it's by design, and no it's not because they're Jewish, most zionists in America are actually evangelical. It's for the same reason scientology is so prevalent in Hollywood. It's a very large discussion that we can have some other day). I don't personally condone it but to act like it somehow translates into their own personal beliefs is absurd.

If Harry had expressed an ounce of sympathy for the government of Israel, or chosen to perform there despite everything, or signed a pro Israel petition, or literally any other form of support for Israel, then MAYBE I could entertain this criticism. But what he's guilty of:

Playing with a toy with the Israel flag in 2014, like he played with a bunch of other toys with flags of a lot of other countries, including American flags (and boy, we need to have that argument at some point)

Saying he'd love to perform in Israel in 2013, and then never performing there even though he was offered millions and begged to do so

???? existing in Hollywood?

Stan twitter has been trying to twist itself into knots into him being a zionist ever since he became massively successful as a solo act. Literally grabbing randomly photoshopped tweets and pictures, twisting him following Lliana, photoshopping an Israel flag onto a picture of him, twisting him signing a flag for a fucking DYING FAN. Like, man, if you have to do allat then maybe he just ain't a zionist?

And lastly about the subject, his family (mon and sister) and plenty of his very close friends (like Molly and Tomo) have been calling for a ceasefire and being openly pro Palestine on socials ever since last year. But of course, Ben Winston being a dick overwrites all of them, right?

5- There's no indication that Harry has ever cheated on anyone. It's possible he did, but not a single one of his exes has claimed so. Taylor openly admitted that while he was hooking up with other people so was she, and she repeatedly said that they were friends, even right after they broke up. Going to LENGTHS about it too, btw

Camille has been supportive os him even years after breaking up. Like, this is her interaction on a photo of him performing a song he wrote about her at the Grammys, after he won a fucking Grammy for it. She seems really cut up about it...

Do I need to mention Kendall?

Or Olivia?

His exes have literally NOTHING but good things to say about him. All of them!!! No exceptions. Even Caroline Flack, who he briefly dated (ew) when he was 17 had nothing but positivity to say about him. Even girls like Georgia Fowler, who he was seen with once, were positive about him years later.

I fear you're alone on this "cheating" thing. If he did, we don't know, and his exes don't seem to gaf, so why do you?

6- Homewrecker is such a ridiculous thing to say. You can't wreck a home as an outsider. He's never been married and he doesn't have children, so he couldn't have wrecked any homes. If you mean Olivia Wilde, chances are she did cheat on her ex with him, but where exactly do you get that Harry knew?

Mind you, Olivia's nanny came out with a tell all about the cheating, with text messages to boot, and she herself said Harry had no idea. This is from the "tell all" article:

It's likely Harry ended things with Olivia because of this article, finding out that she had lied to him lmfao. So how exactly was he a homewrecker? If he didn't know and was actively lied to by his girlfriend for two years, and ended things after he found out? (Mind you, look up the dates for this article, for the canceled Chicago show, for Olivia showing up in Chicago out of nowhere, then leaving, for his mom and sister showing up in Chicago out of nowhere, how many times they were seen together and what their faces looked like after the article, etc).

Unless you mean when he was groomed by 32 year old Lucy Horobin when he was 17, who also lied to a 20 year old member of another boyband, back in 2011, who explicitly said he didn't know Lucy was married lol

So, are you calling a 17 year old being groomed by a 32 year old married woman, who likely lied to him, "a home wrecker"?

Don't bother replying because you're blocked. But thank you for the list of things to debunk. And have a taste of Zayn being a cheater and a home wrecker (his own home! btw!)

Like this, when he was engaged to Perrie Edwards and was completely unapologetic about it, until he was caught. Then went on to twitter to say it wasn't what it looked like, but the girl has explicitly said that it definitely was lol (she went to a reality show later that year)

Or what about this?

When the whole Cristabel Riley thing happened, remember? Harry was involved too. But he was an 18 year old single boy, seeking consensual sex with girls who were of age and weren't even fans, but groupies. Zayn? Zayn was with Perrie (they'd been dating since early 2012, this happened over the summer of that year while they were touring America)

Remember when he was caught over Skype with the Riach brothers, talking to girls? They were in a hotel in New York after 1D's MSG show. The MSG show Perrie attended.

The article and the video about it have suspiciously been deleted off the internet, but here are the old links to the article and the video

But here's a post about it on a pop culture forum (it does not pre-date Perrie, as I said, this was late 2012 in New York while 1D was performing at MSG. Perrie literally attended the show).

Here's a Ziam blog (lmfao) talking about the timing going by the hotel in the background, just in case. It's pretty irefutable.

There's that infamous video that I can't find now, taken from a peephole, where Zayn sneaks a girl into a hotel room, and you can see it clearly. Also dating Perrie. The other phone call that was recorded, also dating Perrie. The groupies who have posted pictures from his house on their public social media as he was dating both Gigi and Perrie, which I won't link out of an abundance of caution (does the name Christina ring a bell?)

There's this with TOWIE's Abigail Clarke while he was with Gigi

There's Gigi filing a harassment report and Perrie being very open about her issues with him.

I don't give a fuck if he fucks every single woman in Pennsylvania. More power to him. There's nothing wrong with sex, but to have his fans (because you are his fan) come here and call someone else a cheater and a homewrecker is certainly ironic.

Zayn has cheated on every partner he's ever had multiple times. It is heavily documented and one of his exes has made it extremely clear. So I would look inwards if I were you.

Celebrities are problematic just like the rest of us. Nobody is perfect or has perfect friends. I strongly disagree with pointing out moral issues with celebrities to justify not liking them. I actively encourage people to embrace their inner hater without feeling the need to find morality issues for it. Just hate for the sake of hating otherwise you'll be a hypocrite.

But there are lines that you shouldn't cross. Violence, particularly violence against women and children. Sexual misconduct. Those things I don't play about (and nobody should) and I WILL call them out. So Zayn and Liam are fair game for me to bring up their moral issues. I don't dislike them because of them. Trust me I disliked them way before, and I don't need a reason for it, but I sure as hell will call them out on that as well.

I dislike Louis as well, but I'm not gonna make his dubious morality a focal point of this blog because he's a flawed human being like the rest of us. He has not had any accusations of violence or assault or sexual misconduct, so I don't feel the need to question his morality.

I'll talk about his homophobia not because I want to "cancel him" but because he has built his fanbase around a conspiracy theory that hinges on him being gay and oppressed because of it. Don't get it twisted. I'm here to expose his fanbase first and foremost, and that sadly for him, will decant on exposing him. Because that's the only way there is.

What he does with his life is none of my business otherwise, as long as it doesn't cross that very obvious line (and so far it hasn't)|

[fonulyn]

(okay i'm sorry but i gotta get this out. not directed at anyone in specific, I've seen this take multiple times this morning alone.)

I really, really don't understand why people find it so impossible to believe that Leon and president Benford could actually be friends like re6 suggests. even though Benford was a part of blackmailing Leon into taking the job, which is objectively a bad thing to do, there's literally fourteen years between that and Tall Oaks. so much can happen in over a decade. for all we know there could've been multiple apologies and deep talks about it behind the scenes?? and people are not static. people change and grow. I am certainly not the exact same person I was fourteen years ago. so why should we assume these characters stay exactly the same too?

ALSO Leon is cripplingly lonely. he works mostly solo, he doesn't exactly seem to have plenty of friends to turn to. from the beginning he latches onto any and all friendly faces and gets attached to people so fast we can barely blink. if Benford was friendly to him? I can 100% see Leon growing to like him, and latching onto the one friendship that's available to him. people are complex beings. friendships aren't pure and flawless. sometimes a flawed friend is all you're gonna get. and it's still better than being alone.

also also, "friendship" means different things to different people, it doesn't mean they're necessarily besties who giggle together in sleepovers while braiding each other's hair. it can just mean basically "allies" if you're so icked by the implication they could actually like each other.

idk. personally? i find the whole re6 beginning scene hits way harder when Leon has to shoot someone who is also a friend to him. you can see his shoulders shake in the scene and it always hits me right in the feels. thinking that he has almost no friends and then has to shoot one of the rare ones he has, even if a flawed one? is much more compelling and interesting to me than "oh well he shot some dick who blackmailed him anyway".

scratch that, not only the beginning hits harder then, the entire game does. he has to go through all the crap re6 throws at him while also mourning a friend?? why take that layer out of it. makes no sense to me.

[whitehotharlots]

Tara Reade, Christine Blassey Ford, and the bleak limitations of pettiness feminism

For what it’s worth, I found the accusations made by Tara Reade and Christine Blassey Ford both imminently plausible. I’ve never met Joe Biden or Brett Kavanaugh, but I’ve spent more than enough time around entitled white collar pricks to realize that things like non-consensual workplace groping and wacky frat house sex pranks are a part of their worlds. There was nothing about either story that struck me as obviously false or otherwise disqualifying. Both very well may have happened.

But I also believe that there’s a wide chasm between plausibility and proof–especially in criminal matters, and extra especially in regards to the sort of accusations that could result in yearslong jail sentences. Sexual assault cases are notoriously hard to prosecute in their immediacy. If we’re talking about something that happened years or decades earlier, there’s no reasonable way to prove the accusations in a manner that would warrant a formal, judicial response.

By 2020, this belief of mine was considered hopelessly out of date, borderline sacrilegious. The Trump era ushered in a new diligence in regards to how the public was supposed to understand and react to accusations of sexual misconduct: women should be believed, full stop. Accused men should be punished, full stop. The crisis of the moment meant that all the old notions regarding due process and the fixed standards of what is or is not a crime had to be thrown out.

Remember that “Shitty Media Men” list from 2017? God, seems like forever ago. The list was a wholly anonymous Google Docs spreadsheet containing the names of several dozen men in media and a brief description of their alleged crimes. It was written about in glowing terms by publications big and small, heralded as a bold and exciting new chapter of social justice, and the list’s creator–Moria Donegan–was eventually granted status as a star commentator.

Did you read the list? I did. About one in every 15 or so entries contained a very severe accusation–something along the lines of “he raped me in the dumpster behind Arby’s” or “he keeps tricking me into getting stuck in a dryer.” But the vast, vast majority of entries alleged nothing more than minor interpersonal conflict: “he doesn’t respect my work,” “he raised his voice at me one time in 2012,” and other stuff along those lines. One entry really stuck out: the accuser admitted that she had never met the man. “But,” she said, “he must be a creep… just look at the stuff he writes!”

No doubt, at least some of these men were/are grade-A jerks. But the bulk of them appear to have just been disliked by a colleague or acquaintance who felt the need to take advantage of a social justice movement to exact revenge. This is how human interaction works. No one is beloved by everybody; everyone will experience some instances in which they treat others with less courtesy than they probably should; and, well, sometimes two people who are otherwise completely decent despise one another for reasons that are inscrutable to everyone but God.

The malignancy of the Shitty Media Men list is that it caused readers to conceptually associate minor interpersonal conflicts–some of which admittedly did not happen, most others of the sort that would cause no reasonable person to find one party entirely at fault, let alone worthy of expulsion from polite society–with major violations such as rape and assault. This was the new era: every accusation is proof of guilt, and all guilt is of the same severity. It’s too hard to definitively prove that a rape happened, ergo we needed to dismiss the usual evidentiary standards of criminal proceedings in regards to rape. And, also, mildly upsetting a female colleague is now the same thing as rape.

Wonderful stuff. Fantastic stuff.

A year passed. The Notorious RBG ascended to the great rap battle in the sky, and it was up to the dastard President Drumpf to appoint her successor. He settled upon a youth-pastor-cum-jurist who resembled a crude caricature from a late 1800’s anti-Irish political comic. The man had a rap sheet a mile long: lackey to Ken Starr (himself quite the defender of rape), Yalie, anti-abortion, corporate puppet, helped rig the Florida vote in 2000, Federalist Society member, blah blah blah all the horrible shit you expect from a GOP nominee to the Supreme Court.

None of these facts mattered much within the liberal imaginary, however, as they weren’t that far afield from the activities of the sort of justices liberals find inoffensive. No, the #Resistance had an ace up their sleeve: a lady said he had sexually assaulted her 30 years prior, and she was willing to say so in front of congress.

He must have been toast after that, right? Because everyone had spent the last few years hashtagging #BelieveWomen, right? They’re not gonna say they believe women and not believe them, right? It can’t be that this precedent we just set up would only be used to ruin the lives of low-level middle manager type guys who did inconsequential stuff, right? Right?

No. Of course not. Republicans never even pretended to care about that shit.

In the non-conservative press, Blassey Ford was treated as a hero. Her effort was brave, and her failure served to validate the premise upon which it was founded: women are not believed enough, and men can get away with anything.

Another few years passed. Due to a confluence of events of that ranged between skullduggery and outright rigging, the Democratic presidential primary narrowed down to a less-corrupt-than-average politician who was called a “socialist” because he was to the left of Grover Norquist, and a credit card lobbyist who was once accidentally appointed vice president.

The credit card lobbyist should have been considered especially ignominious, considering the degree to which the #BelieveWomen mantra was prevalent on the left. Decades earlier, in a situation quite similar to that faced by Blassey Ford, he led the charge in aggressively dismissing the accusations of a woman who had accused a SCOTUS nominee of sexual misconduct. Surely that was the sort of thing MeToo would not abide, right? Right?

Again, no. The semi-socialist was repeatedly smeared as a racist and sexist for reasons that no one could ever quite articulate. Social media figures openly solicited false allegations of sexual misconduct against him. In spite of being a leftist Jewish man, in spite studies showing that his supporters were actually far less aggressive and hateful than those of Hillary Clinton, he was still the most toxic and evil presence to ever enter into Democrat politics. #BelieveWomen and #MeToo precedents were very effectively invoked: there doesn’t need to be proof, and there doesn’t need even be an accusation. He’s evil because we say he’s evil. His name is on the spreadsheet.

But the guy who got Clarence Thomas onto the Supreme Court? That was regrettable, sure. But it was a youthful transgression! He’s apologized! It doesn’t matter.

Then we got a late-primary curveball: a woman who verifiably worked with Biden claimed he had jammed his hand down her pants. The allegation was decades old and therefore unprovable in a legal sense, and suddenly that was an issue where it hadn’t been just a few months before. The MeToo movement’s purveyors worked to clarify that she was a lying, mentally unstable, and possibly Russian slut.

A year earlier, we were told that due process was a misogynist construct, and that expressing skepticism toward politically opportune allegations was an expression of patriarchy and privilege. Now, faced with allegations that would force them to choose between a semi-leftist or Donald Trump, the progressive vanguard suddenly decided that these old principles of Enlightened Liberalism weren’t so evil after all.

Blassey Ford is about to embark on a book tour, receiving near-unanimous praise (and ample financial compensation) for her bravery. She might not be a household name, but among those who do remember her, she is revered as a hero.

Reade, meanwhile, is a permanent disgrace who had to defect to Russia.

In a sad way, the disparity between how these two women were treated demonstrates the conditions that spawned MeToo: a woman who makes an accusation against an unpopular or hated man will be, at least, believed. She will not suffer negative consequences. She may even be rewarded, even if the man himself isn’t punished. But a woman who goes against a man who is too important, too well-connected? She won’t even get a chance to testify. She’s actually even worse than the abusers. Every aspect of her account and character will be placed under a microscope, and anything she cannot prove with 100% fidelity will be held up as proof of how horrible she is. She’s also on the spreadsheet.

And in an even sadder way, this disparity demonstrates why the MeToo and BelieveWomen stuff was horribly misguided from the start. Removing the structures that allow society to function will not magically result in a more just society manifesting from the wreckage of the old. You might–might–remove some of the most malignant shitheads. But in the process you will ruin the lives of many who are either innocent or marginally guilty, and you will entrench the utter empowerment of those who are, only in some small ways, the lesser evils. There’s no path forward, here. There is no hope here.

[niuniente]

I’m going to tell you a past life related little thingy because why not :3

Since I was very little, I had this obsessive thought of “What would I do if I was locked in a room with no escape, and men storm in with guns and start to shoot randomly?” (mind you this is Finland, gun laws are extremely tight and controlled, and I literally grew up in a rural forest as far away from civilization as one possibly can with a family). I always came into the same conclusion; I would throw myself on the floor and pretend I’m dead and just hope for the best.

When I was 9, we started geography studies. As teacher was showing us a map of East Asia and mentioned Laos, my mind was blown. I literally yelled during the class “Laos! Oh wow, I must go there! Look, it’s Laos!”

Even as a 9yo I understood that I knew nothing of Laos - I didn’t even know such a country existed a second ago - but I had a burning desire to go there. Like, RIGHT NOW. On this second! I found it odd myself but on the other hand, I was just really excited about this discovery of Laos.

Around my teens, I was obsessed with English military words, American military, and Vietnam war movies. I wrote down from an English-Finnish dictionary all military related words I could find - while at the same time thinking that this is absurd, I don’t know why I’m doing this but I MUST do it. I watched all Vietnam war related movies I could find. I also loved guns, I still kind of do but not as much as when I was a younger.

From my childhood to my late teens, I had a white round dot on my stomach. It always confused me because it looked exactly like the scar my father has got when he fell on a motorcycle at age 19. Mine was just smaller. I wondered where I had got it as it clearly wasn’t a birth mark and if I had hurt myself, my gossip loving mother would have told me that story billions of times.

I’ve always disliked Finnish summer, especially in the country side. There’s too much foliage for my taste. I love monoculture forests the best and places where you can see really far.

In my early twenties, when I started to get more into doing readings and meditating, I once decided to see if I could pick up any past lives for myself. What I got was that I was a man during Vietnam war and I died in 1964. That’s all. Over the many years as I mulled this and tried to remember more, I started to have a feeling that I wasn’t hiding from Americans only but from my own people, too. And that there were a group of men, like me, and we needed to hide. Anyone could kill us at any time.

In my early 30′s, I had a vivid dream. I was in a room with other people. American soldiers kicked the door in (3 men) and started to aimlessly shoot at us. I threw myself on the floor on my stomach, pretending to be dead. 3 pullets hit me. I felt them. It stung. I managed to think, horrified “Oh God, I’m hit!” and the next second I was dead. I separated from my body and started to slowly float upwards, feeling really happy, peaceful and serene. Dying was really easy and simple. The dying process - getting shot - that was scary.

I counted 1+1 and concluded that my childhood obsessions were related to this past life in the 1960′s but Laos didn’t make any sense. I knew I wasn’t in Vietnam and the Vietnam war wasn’t the exact thing but I didn’t know what else it could be - nor I bothered to find out.

Recently, I was listening to a podcast of an American man. He said “Everyone knows Vietnam war but how many of you have heard of The Secret War of CIA, which happened at the same time  - except it was in Laos?”

Turns out that while Vietnam War was on, there was the Laotian Civil War in Laos! It lasted almost 20 years, from 1950′s to 1970′s - matching my death decade. Americans weren’t supposed to be there and publicly they weren’t, but in secrecy CIA and American military were involved. I didn’t know!

Suddenly, it made all sense that in the past life, I had to hide from American and my own people, and that the war wasn’t Vietnam War. It was a civil war. Why I don’t still like forests where I can’t see far as the enemy can hide anywhere in there. Sometimes I wonder if my stomach issues are due two of the bullets hitting my stomach. It’s a  very common phenomena that old injuries, especially if the cause of death, carry over as health issues, scars, birthmarks etc. to next lives.

I rarely get official solid proves from past lives as majority of our lives in the past are just ordinary and common ones. Just like you and me today. So, I’m happy about this!

I don’t think I need to visit Laos. Whatever was there has been handled in that life-time. But if I get a chance to go there as “Well, why not!” then definitely well, why not! 

[redfish-blu]

An Open Letter to the Danger Days Tumblr Community:

Now that you’ve read that overdramatic title and are wondering who fucked up, I have something to say about the Danger Days Tumblr community: I Love You.

Danger Days was the first fandom I ever posted for on any site. All the way back in middle school (ho-ly shit). And let me tell you what I found out even way back when: this is not an easy fandom to be in.

For one, most people don’t even know it exists. For two, even less know it in the way it’s been cultivated on Tumblr. Almost every single person has such a niche interpretation of every little detail, that it’s impossible to draw a line through any two versions of the story. Which is a fact I personally love, but I also think it scares a lot of people away. You have to work to be in this fandom. Both as a passive and active fan. It requires patience and tolerance for disappointment.

But that’s exactly why I want to encourage everyone who creates and everyone who listens to Keep Doing That. Like I cannot stress this enough, that is what keeps this fandom and IP alive. Danger Days as a universe would be absolutely nothing without fan work (re: the California Comics), especially a decade later. Without fans who care about this story way more than it has warranted us to care, it would be six feet under. And sometimes I really think that’s what it deserves (and maybe the writers think that as well), but for the life of me I just can’t let that happen. I’ve tried to let this fucking thing go, believe me.

And funny enough, that exact feeling is evidenced by the community on this site too. Which has changed faces almost completely from what it was three years ago for better and less better in some cases. And it’s something I still struggle with adjusting to, but I look at the tag daily. I look everyone’s posts and blogs and art and effort. If you have posted even once in the dd tag my eyes have 100% seen it. So even if I still feel a little out of place, like a ghost of fandom’s past, at least I know everybody. And I know people feel the same way: No rest for the wicked.

When I reanimated from my fandom coma I was fully expecting to find that the community had gone extinct. Partially because all the blogs I used to frequent had straight up died in the three years I was gone. But I pulled up to the gates of the Danger Days tag like Rick Grimes outside of Alexandria, fully expecting to be devastated, only to find New People tilling the fucking field. And it didn’t matter that I now had no idea who any of you people were, it was The Most welcoming thing ever.

I’ll be the first to tell you this fandom bares almost no resemblance to the one I left, and I’m not going to lie and say it’s better now, but the foundation didn’t get blown away in the storm. That’s what I find uniquely profound. That everyone here still wants to try. And that makes me really want to try. And I’m sure everyone would agree that there is often little reward for the effort; but that’s precisely my point in saying all this shit. That even despite the not fun aspects, we all still clock in; and there’s a new post, headcanon, drawing, or fic every freaking day. It’s commendable, really.

If you’re lurking, or post sometimes but feel afraid to actually take a leap here because (the fandom is comparatively tiny to the greater MCR fandom) you’ll be way more out there, and the already established figureheads of the fandom will definitely see your stuff: post post post. This is my formal endorsement to Just Post That Shit. And Interact With That Shit. I spent a year gathering the courage to publish the tiniest thing while behind the scenes I literally wrote about 60+ works. You have to respect your own creativity and trust that other people will give it the time of day.

So do not feel crazy or discouraged about your ideas here! Like we literally need them to function, I would not be here if it wasn’t for all the people three years ago who just posted all their thoughts about Danger Days. About everything. Obscure or not. It’s truly a gift that this fandom has attracted people who are willing to work their brains because the original creators let it fall flat. I cannot tell you how much being in this fandom has actually helped me out in my writing and analysis skills.

So yeah. I fucking love this fandom, I love being in it and I love seeing that people are still stoking the flames. I wanted to say all this crap because I knew I’d be able to articulate it for the people who can relate but don’t want to be the first to say it. Which is okay, understandable. As I said earlier this fandom is like yelling your thoughts out into a very echoey room that only has a few people in it. So I’ll shout first and maybe it’ll make other people more comfortable to shout back.

[mariaspir]

I just finished watching Tsiskaridze's 7th year exam... I have lots of opinions...

I did not like it.

1. The pointe shoes come on too early. They did the first small adage and the rest was en pointe. I am perhaps one of the few people on this earth who finds pointe shoes more easy to dance in than flats, pointe shoes have a rise and fall, there's an up and down, and these days the shoes help us both go up and stay up (I too wear Gaynor knock offs, I don't think it's "cheating", but it objectively is easier). They need the exercises to be done on half toes, it aids to the development on turnout through the way of using the floor, these are students, this is training, it should not be a performance. The legs aren't warm enough, pointe shoes come on AFTER allegro in the method for a reason. And movement quality gets lost, like what happened in fondu, also whole movements are lost, like flic-flac and reverse en ecarte.

2. Loss of technique: the girls jump lovely with height and ballon, but they land sloppily. Dirty fifths, turned in knees, weak batterie. All those things were crucial in the Vaganova style even a decade ago. If you go further back, in Somova or Novikova/Obraztsova graduation years, the allegro was textbook perfection, it was unreal how clean every movement was. This class was just okay; they jump strongly but that's about it. To me it seems like the teacher didn't insist on cleanliness, either excused it because of the added difficulty of the pointe shoes* or ignored it in favour of proving his choreographic talents (which are obviously wonderful, just not suited for a school exam).

*nobody cares if pointe shoes make it harder. If it can't be done well with them on, you should have the students take them off.

3. Loss of coordination in hands and arms: fairly obvious if you've watched enough Vaganova classes. There are moments where the arms are awkward because they don't have a clear place to be, they haven't been trained or paid attention to enough. Again, I blame the pointe shoes, these are students who are supposed to understand the use of user body in these final 3 years, yet they're told to forget what they were building towards, focus even more on footwork and nevermind the port de bras. Nikolay had naturally beautiful coordinated arms and I wonder if he can't pass that to his students because he never struggled with it.

4. Too much allegro too early: this was a men's class. I don't have a lot to say on this, it's quite straightforward. Some combinations were even the same as his past classes, lacking that feminine Vaganova grace because they were made for boys.

5. All this culminates into a Bolshoi style exam, Bolshoi style class, Bolshoi style dancers. Do that extra turn even though you are behind everyone else. Do all double fouettes even though you can't land it. Vaganova had that noble grace, polished simplicity. They were a corps de ballet, now everyone is dancing for themselves. Russians more than anyone know most students end up in the corps, and that's what they're trained for. Nikolay himself has said "careers are made in the theatre, school is for learning". You learn in a class, not in a choreography. Ballet discipline is learning to all be the same, do the exact same thing, even if you're Ulanova dancing next to cotton eye Joe.

I used to be a fan of Tsiskaridze's classes, now I truly feel like he'd be better off in Moscow, and Vaganova get a Vaganova trained dean. I wonder if Lopatkina is interested in teaching.

[restlessmaknae]

of taekwondo & confessions [k.y.h]

Annoying or not, your mom asks you to take your little sister to her taekwondo classes, but you don't expect to see your once middle school crush being the practice teacher there.

➳ Characters: taekwondo practice teacher!Yohan x female!reader/you

➳ Genre: childhood sweethearts to lovers, fluff, comedy

➳ Words: 3.7k

➳ Warning: -

➳ WEi taglist: @dat-town, @effulgentfireflies, @hyu-won, @littlestartonightsposts​, @ishuayou​

It wasn't even a bad day. In fact, it was a pretty good day, your boss even praised you for your work that day, so you couldn't say that you had a strike of unlucky things happening to you. However, when you bumped into Kim Yohan out of all people at your little sister's taekwondo academy, you were definitely in for a surprise.

Not that his presence at a taekwondo academy should have surprised you. After all, his father was a taekwondo master and he had been doing taekwondo professionally when you had last seen him. It was the fact that he was the one teaching your little sister as a practice teacher under a senior instructor’s supervision that surprised you. Oh, and of course the fact that you never expected to see your middle school crush again after he had gone to a different school, and your silly little broken heart had convinced you that you would never find true love after the boy you had confessed to had not only said nothing in return, but he had also left your school altogether. Back then, you had no phone, no social media account, so he had gone without a trace.

There was no doubt that it was him though. He had the same boba eyes, the same bunny smile and the same pitch-black hair that you had always imagined ruffling like those main leads in your favourite young adult books that you had loved back then. You had imagined Yohan in the love interest's place so many times, and you remembered that aching feeling of wanting your love life to turn out like the ones in those books all too well.

Alas, you had been young and naive and foolish and...

"Hi!" Yohan greeted you with a wide albeit surprised smile. Well, at least he didn't expect to see you here either.

"Hi!" You responded slowly, still taking in the sight of the boy who had grown into such a handsome young man. Not that you hadn't considered him handsome back then because you had. It's just that his features were even more defined now, his shoulders even broader and he was even taller than he used to be. Though you had last seen him around a decade ago, it shouldn’t have been surprising.

"I didn't expect to see you here."

"Me neither," you reciprocated his semi-nervous laughter with a smile as you tried to keep it cool. After all, he must have forgotten all about your confession, right? It had been so many years ago, he must not have even taken you seriously if he hadn't replied back then (not that he had a chance because you had practically run away from him after your confession, too embarrassed to bear his gaze).

Just like that, silence enveloped you, and you knew that Yohan had never been good at awkward situations, so you tried to keep it casual.

"I came to pick up my little sister, Yeji. She attends a class here. Your class, it seems," you explained, referring to the fact that you had seen your sister come out of the exact same practice room he had come out of.

Yohan's mouth formed a surprised O in return, but then, he was back to his usual coy self as he mentioned:

"It's not my class as per se. I'm still just a practice teacher."

"Everyone has to start somewhere, right?" You joked, trying to ease the slight awkwardness in the air, but you weren't sure that you saying such a thing was helping at all. God, you two were full-grown adults now, him already practising to be a teacher and you doing an internship, you should have known how to communicate better. Maybe it was just that the surprise hadn't worn off. Yeah, that should be it.

"How about you? Are you at uni or already working?" Yohan inquired after clearing his throat, and it was such a Yohan thing to do. He had always cleared his throat like that before giving presentations or being asked to solve a task by the board. It was such a silly thing to suddenly remember, but what could you do? You had been once head over heels for this boy.

"Oh, I finished uni during spring. I'm now doing an internship. I'm a sales intern for a fashion company."

"Sounds exciting."

"Yeah, it is," you responded with a smile, then to fill the silence, you told him about what tasks you had and what products were sold at the company and how you were working part-time, so you could pick up your little sister from now on because your mother now had a schedule change due to a colleague going on maternity leave. Not that he asked about half of it, but you knew that your little sister needed an awful lot of time to get ready, so even though kids were leaving the changing rooms one by one, you weren't surprised that you didn't see your sister coming out anytime soon.

In return, you asked about Yohan, and how he had ended up here and how long he would stay here and such, and he responded casually. These weren't such difficult questions though, but you were glad that the initial awkwardness wasn't lingering anymore.

Finally, your little sister showed up, her face still quite red, but her smile was as wide as it could be. Especially when she saw that you were talking to her teacher.

"Did you ask him how I was doing?" Yeji chirped, reaching out to hold your hand - something she always did when you were around others. She was extra clingy around strangers.

"No. We were catching up."

"Catching up?" She looked at you with wide eyes, then at Yohan. To that, you explained that you had been middle school classmates, and since she went to the same middle school as you did, she found it extremely fascinating that her taekwondo teacher went to the same school as she did.

"Anyways, let's not keep up your teacher any longer," you announced firmly when silence settled over the three of you. As expected, Yeji complained a bit, but eventually, she let her teacher go his way and you two also went your way which meant home in your case.

It didn't take long for your little sister to gossip about the fascinating revelation that her new practice teacher was your middle school classmate. To make matters worse, your mother knew exactly who Kim Yohan was, and she couldn't keep it quiet either.

"Wasn't he the boy you liked so much back then?" She exclaimed beamingly as if she had received great news, and you felt like falling head first into your bowl of pasta.

"You liked my teacher?" Yeji immediately shrieked excitedly, and it took some serious minutes to explain to her that it was a long time ago, you didn't like him anymore, and that he wasn't her teacher back then, so it didn't sound that weird.

Ever since then, you tried your very best not to run into Yohan when you went to pick her up or when you did, Yeji couldn't be around or ask anything regarding your middle school crush. Miraculously, it worked for some time, but once you had an urgent matter at work, so you couldn't leave on time, and you were almost half an hour late than you usually arrived. You basically ran from the underground station to the academy because Yeji didn't have a phone, so you couldn't tell her that you were on your way, and you were afraid that she would be panicking when she didn't see you after coming out of the changing rooms.

The sight that welcomed you was totally different though. Yeji and Yohan were sitting on the chairs opposite the reception desk, and they were playing cham cham cham. You let out a long, relieved sigh upon hearing your little sister's laughter, and your heart did a silly little somersault when Yohan's bunny smile was on full display while playing with her.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry that I was late. Something came up at the company, and I had to stay a bit longer," you explained in one-go when you walked up to them, but instead of being angry, your little sister seemed more understanding.

"It's okay. Mom didn't always arrive on time either," she just shrugged, and god, you thanked the gods for having a sister like her in that moment. This gratefulness didn't stay with you for long though. "We were playing some games with your crush while waiting."

Oh. My. God. How did she... Why... How could... No. This wasn't happening. Nope.

"I've told you not to call him that," you muttered through gritted teeth, trying to act natural with a smile in Yohan's direction, but he definitely did hear you two talking, and if it was possible, he was even more flabbergasted than you were.

"Why not? You've said you told him-"

"Come on, that was a long time ago. Right, Yohan?" You glanced in the boy's direction quite frantically. You felt like it would have been better if the ground had opened up beneath you. You really just wanted to evaporate.

"Right, it was. You didn't even let me respond," he brought it up, almost sulkily, but you swore that you were on the verge of making an even bigger fool out of yourself and tell him that he was still handsome, and you found it cute that he was teaching kids, and he was seemingly good with your little sister too and that was adorable...

And so on and so forth, so you needed to leave.

"Anyways, we have to go now. I promised mom I would get groceries before going home, so we need to do that too," you clapped your hands to announce it and grabbed your sister's gym bag from the floor, throwing it over your shoulder.

Thankfully, your sister perked up at the mention of grocery shopping - which meant free food sometimes due to the promotional samples -, so she gave in easily. This way, you could bid your goodbye to Yohan as soon as possible, and you could leave before wanting to admit something that you just couldn't.

Yohan was kind enough not to bring up your awkward middle school confession, so your conversations could actually be about things that didn't cause awkwardness. He was still very much the introverted boy you had known him to be, but he could get really chatty when it was about a topic he was interested in or stories with his friends that he was trying to tell with big hand gestures and voice intonations. It didn't help your silly little heart though, in fact, you felt like you just fell deeper and deeper with no way out. Once your sister took an extra long time changing after practice, you could also see Yohan in a non-uniform outfit because he had already changed into his usual clothes before your sister came out, and oh boy, he did grow broader and stronger. He also knew how to dress himself, so the tight black jeans, simple white tee, leather jacket combo didn't help your heart at all.

Though you didn't meet outside of the taekwondo academy because why would you? You also had around 15-30 minutes twice a week to talk, so it's not like you talked a lot, though with him, you felt like you could listen to him all the time, so it wouldn't be enough anyway. He might have given you his number (in case you were late to pick up your sister, so at least he would know about it even if your sister didn't have a phone), but you didn't start messaging each other too intensively.

The first time you met each other outside of the taekwondo academy was at a taekwondo competition. It was your sister's first competition, so she was super nervous, but she got encouragement from both of her teachers and you as well. Her fellow taekwondo team members supported her as well, but she eventually lost before the semi-finals, and instead of staying out on the field, she didn't come up to you to the stand during break, so you got worried.

You walked down the corridors, and walked into the changing room where you had previously put down her stuff. However, she wasn't there. You were almost about to call Yohan, hoping that he looked at his phone during the breaks, when you caught sight of the said boy crouched down to be at eye-level with your sister and hugging her while she was crying.

"It's okay. I've lost in competitions too, it's inevitable. Next time you'll be even better. Almost making it into the semi-finals is already a great achievement," you heard Yohan say to her, patting her back reassuringly while Yeji was still constantly sobbing. Hearing her cry broke your heart a little, but the boy's reassurance warmed it a bit, too.

"Yohan is right," you said as you halted beside their duo, and gently patted your sister's shoulder to gain her attention. You reached a pack of tissues out to her, and she took it, immediately using up two to blow her nose and wipe away her tears. "It was your first competition. You did so well. Now you know what you can expect, and you'll smash it next time."

"And maybe even become a teacher like me one day," Yohan added with a light-hearted smile as he stood up straight.

"Really? Can I do that after losing here?" Yeji stopped crying to ask that question and blinked up at her giant of a teacher with bright, shining eyes. He nodded and told her just how many times he had lost in the past until she felt better and eventually went to the bathroom to wash her face.

"Thanks for being beside here. I thought she disappeared, but I'm glad that wasn't the case," you turned to Yohan after your sister got out of hearing range, and displayed a grateful smile.

"Don't mention it,” the boy shrugged casually, but you were truly grateful for his assistance, so you kept thanking him until he was called by the taekwondo master to get ready for the end of the break. He directed an apologetic smile at you, but you told him that he should go, you would fetch up your little sister afterwards.

Once Yeji was done in the bathroom and felt better, you two went back to the stand to watch the rest of the competition. Even though your little sister was a bit under the weather when her opponent made it to the final, she seemed supportive of her team members nevertheless, and she almost went back to her usual, bubbly self by the end of the event. You waited for her to change and get her stuff, and as usual, she was almost the last one to leave. That just meant that you managed to bump into Yohan on the way out.

You and Yeji were about to have some lunch, and your little sister was so pumped up about telling her teacher that she would have her favourite kimchi stew that she somehow ended up inviting Yohan as well. As expected, the boy tried to turn down the offer, but the grumbling of his stomach and Yeji’s puppy eyes convinced him to join you. Your sister couldn’t have been happier.

You couldn’t deny that you were happy as well. It was fun talking to the boy like this, and you had a fun time watching the boy’s facial expressions change when your little sister asked him very random questions such as his favourite childhood snacks, if he had ever seen Santa or if he had ever farted during a competition. That last one, though, was embarrassing even for you, so you tried to avert the topic to something more pleasant.

You three had different meals, and Yeji always tried others’ food if it didn’t involve something she absolutely despised, so she had some from your lunch and from Yohan’s lunch as well. Then, insisting that his meat was really good, Yohan even wrapped a piece of meat, rice and garlic in a perilla leaf and reached it out to you. You looked at him for a few seconds, confused, but ended up reaching for it while thanking him for the gesture. He gave you a gentle, almost proud smile in return, and there it was again: that warmth that ran through your body seeing his smile, feeling like you had just ran a marathon, but it wasn’t enough to tire you out, you were just so pumped up.

“Why didn’t you put it into her mouth? They always do that in dramas,” Yeji chirped in obliviously, and you almost choked imagining the scene of Yohan putting the perilla wrap into your mouth like couples would do. Yohan had the same reaction, but he tried to mask it with a few well-timed coughs.

“It’s because we are not a couple. It’s a thing that couples do, so it would be weird if we did so,” you explained to your little sister who seemed to be pondering for a few seconds before asking the very simple yet very complicated ‘why’. You blanched at the boldness of hers, your eyes growing twice their size, and your throat going dry. You reached for your glass of water and took a few sips of it, trying to come up with an answer that wouldn’t hurt Yohan's feelings either, but it wouldn’t give away your feelings either.

However, taking your silence as if you couldn’t understand her question, Yeji continued with her honest, child-like curiosity.

“Do you really not like each other anymore?”

“It’s not that. It’s compli-”

“Then, do you still like him, no?”

“I mean…” You protested fervently, your embarrassment growing by the second. Sure, kids were honest, and they didn’t hold themselves back, but they also didn’t know the complexity of human emotions and how people didn’t always like each other back. You were sure that the movies and dramas she watched weren’t about unrequited love either.

You were about to go into a long-ass monologue about how reality could be different from what she saw in the media, but Yohan spoke up after clearing his throat.

“I like her. I always did,” he admitted coolly, but the way he was picking on his food with his chopsticks without looking into your eyes gave away his nervousness.

You practically froze in place, unable to move or speak because you just couldn’t believe that he had confessed that he liked you, and he had always done so. It was what you had been imagining all those years ago while rolling on your bed and listening to heartwarming pop songs about first loves, it was what you had been imagining when you had picked up the courage to confess to him on the last day of grade 7, and it was what you had been imagining ever since, and now that it was out, you were unable to form coherent words.

“But… like… why didn’t you tell me before?” You mumbled, still puzzled, when you managed to pull yourself together enough to speak up. Yohan’s eyes darted between different parts of the restaurant before landing on yours, and his gaze made it impossible to look away. There was just so much in his eyes, a whole galaxy if you wanted to be corny, that you felt like you would never be able to have enough of looking into his orbs.

“It’s not like you let me tell you back then. You practically ran away!”

“Because you were frozen, and didn’t say a thing. So I figured you don’t like me and ran away to save both of us from further embarrassment.”

“I was frozen like you now. I couldn’t believe that someone like you would like me back,” Yohan insisted, and this almost sulky side of him was so adorable, so similar to his younger days that you almost felt like hugging him to your chest when he was already way taller than you. Gosh, you really did think that he said nothing because he didn’t like you whereas he was just surprised. You had to process that information and his pouty lips and his twinkling eyes and…

“Are you going to kiss now?” Yeji blurted out, too excited for her own good, but both you and Yohan answered with a vehement no before locking gazes again and bursting into laughter. You almost forgot about your little sister being there beside you because you were so into your own little world, but how could you forget about her presence and enthusiasm towards you and your crush on Yohan?

“We can try later though,” the boy mentioned with a teasing tone, and you held up your chopsticks warningly, but the boy’s giggles made you let go of any (theatrical) annoyance you held towards him.

Now that was out of the way, the rest of the lunch was fun and almost peaceful, but you would have never thought that his confession would happen at a restaurant on the way home from your sister’s first taekwondo competition, over perilla leaf wraps and bowls of steaming noodles. You wouldn’t have had it any other way though. It was so like you and Yohan, and it was just perfect.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading the story! It means a lot to me.❤️

If you want to read more stories of mine, let it be for WEi or for other bands, consider signing up for my taglist here.

Have a lovely day/night!

[felixcloud6288]

Higurashi: Festival Accompanying Chapter 1

We know all the secrets surrounding June 1983, but we don't know everything leading up to that month.

Everything begins at some point likely around the mid 1950s. Before she was Miyo Takano, she was Miyoko Tanashi. She was scared of horror stories, loved collecting the flags that came with her kids meals, and loved her parents very much.

S-Save me r/vexillology!! I'm trying to identify all 19 of the flags Miyoko has collected.

The flags I can identify for sure:

Brazil: near the bottom center

Canada: near the center to the right of Brazil

China: in the top right corner

Denmark: In the top left, above South Korea and partially buried under two other flags

Finland: Above Denmark and slightly covering it up

France: The flag covering up Denmark

Germany: bottom left corner

Greece: Center far right

Japan: Near the center

South Korea: Center far left. Partially covered by the drawer wall

Switzerland: Bottom center, next to Brazil

Turkey: Bottom right corner

United Kingdom: Top Center

United States: Top center. Right above Canada

Meanwhile I think these are also in the pile:

Argentina or Austria: The flag under the Swiss and Brazilian flags. I'm leaning toward Argentina because red is drawn in darker shades

India: The flag at the top right above the US flag and partially covered by the drawer

Italy or Ireland: Flag to the right of Switzerland and above Turkey. I'm leaning more toward it being Italy.

I cannot figure out what the flag between Canada and Greece is. At first, I thought it was the Czech Republic, but the shading on this image doesn't match the Czech colors at all. And it's backward too. There's also a flag in the top right corner that is very hidden. All I can tell is it has white on the bottom. My guess is it might be Indonesia. I was also considering Estonia, but Estonia was under Soviet rule at this time and it was illegal to fly the Estonian flag.

I was really hoping the Mexican and South African flags might be in here.

You're placing a curse on your kid if you tell them god will give them happiness if they're good. You're telling them it is their fault when life happens and things fall apart. And almost as if on cue, Miyoko's life falls apart on the same day her father told her that. The only thing you could say she did wrong was she didn't hear her father when he called out to her.

Mr Tanashi losing his right hand in the train derailment is just twisting the knife. It's not enough that Miyoko's mother died in the accident and that she saw her father die. She's also denied one final headpat before he dies.

I want to try being fair to the social workers working on Miyoko's case. This is the mid 1950s. World War II ended at most a decade ago. Around 4% of Japan's population was killed in the war. Two cities were utterly destroyed, and there's the general economic collapse that comes from long-term military action.

No matter how much they may want to help, resources in this environment are stretched thin. Trying to find and contact a single person with no leads would likely be difficult today. It would be a herculean task in the 1950s.

And it's also this kind of scenario that lets an institution like the one Miyoko was sent to to exist. Those social workers were genuinely clueless about how that orphanage mistreats the children brought to it. They genuinely think they're providing the best possible solution given the situation, and the head of the orphanage knows how to put on a kindly face in front of them.

I genuinely don't know if the panel of the man patting Miyoko's head is real or her imagination. Him giving her even the slightest kindness is so out of character. And Miyoko grew up in the exact opposite of an abusive home. Her instinct when seeing someone raise their hand to her is expecting kindness and being utterly confused when she's hit instead.

I love and hate how that first slap to Miyoko is so perfectly executed. A full page image on the right half of the page spread. You just turn the page and see Miyoko violently slapped across the face. It's as sudden to us as it is to her. And right before it happens, the chapter implied that there is hope for her despite everything that's happened. But that one slap knocks the hope out of her and us.

back

[veliseraptor]

Read your tags, do you mind explaining a little how you came to realise you might be bipolar?

If this is too personal then just ignore it - I'm just curious bc I feel like I might be in a same boat

Ps. Now that you have a name for things, I really hope you find something that'll help!

at this point it's not something I'm even willing to commit to, even reading this ask I went OH BUT I DON'T KNOW THAT, OBVIOUSLY I DON'T ACTUALLY KNOW, I'M JUST SAYING WORDS. but the tipping point for me making that post was basically a combination of factors:

the fact that, while attempting to address the depression that's been getting me down, a tweak in the dose of one of my antidepressants sent me rocketing into about five days of having the most violently energetic rebound I've probably ever had, and being like "well this is alarming!" this is apparently not the expected response

also while feeling that I was like "this has happened to me before, it just usually doesn't last this long and it's been a while," and I have had the question float around in my brain before but usually ended up with my brain screeching something incoherent about appropriation at me

the fact that, years ago, somebody put me on a mood stabilizer because I was complaining about mood volatility and instability and it made a huge difference. I happen to know it is, in my cocktail of psych meds, a very load-bearing one based on the accidental scientific experiments I've done running out of different ones at different times

my psychiatrist, the first one I actually like in about a decade and who actually explains things to me, looking at these two things and basically going "well ultimately we're treating the symptoms and it's not super important what diagnosable issue you technically "have" but"

anyway ultimately it's not like it necessarily matters, I'm still mentally unwell in the exact same way I always have been, but it does make me kind of go. maybe the person who prescribed me the mood stabilizer to begin with might have said something, or somebody else might have said something, such that when I was trying to fix my medication to work better someone could go (like this lady did) "perhaps this suggests we should be trying a different angle of treatment and not just switching SSRIs again"

[electricbluebutterflies]

Bertha x George ~ A softly spoken, “Want you to fuck me like you mean it.” 

A little s3-ish speculation here. Vaguely NSFW and also on ao3.

They’re coming back slowly.

Bertha has never doubted the life she has chosen, and the storms of the past year have been… unpleasant, but-

They always find a way back. Let this be no different.

Still, the weight of time is unfortunate. They don’t fight, and to go six months without a private conversation and nearly a year in separate beds is just-

She breaks. She has to break. This slow thaw they’ve been doing may be better in the long run, but her patience has just run out.

It has been very close to a year since she’s… heavens, usually she wasn’t the one walking down the hallway, but the point still stands, and-

Her husband’s door is unlocked, and she takes that as permission enough to slip inside. She’s wearing enough layers for plausible deniability, but she’s ignored her own desires in favor of her pride for far too long and that just won’t do and-

A light is still on and he is still awake and… surprised to see her, she notes, not unpleasantly but still surprised and-

“I would prefer not to sleep alone tonight,” she says before there can be any questions of whether this might be something more…

It has been close to a year. She could count the exact number of days, maybe even hours if she wanted to, and she has convinced herself that all is well when-

She never wanted this. She’s heard how other women talk about their marriages, how distance is presented as the least of evils, and that has never been her life and she doesn’t-

Only a few people have ever seen her cry. It is, perhaps, convenient that her husband is one of them. They are still delicate but she’d like to think she still knows the nature of him, and-

No words, just the comfort of his body enveloping hers. They were good until…

They will be again, she reminds herself. They are trying to be again. This will be several steps forward if her mind doesn’t get the better of her.

She turns her head and presses her lips to his and she hasn’t even done that in-

A pleasant shock runs through her, and the absence of desire these past months has been strange and it is as if nothing happened at all, the same want, the same-

“You still-“

“I want you to fuck me like you mean it.”

She has never been a good flirt, let her have that excuse for how direct she can be. She has only ever tried to get one person on her, and that person is currently looking at her with the deepest eyes, like he’s not completely sure this is real, like-

“This does make more sense.”

“I won’t… if you don’t-“

He takes another kiss, deeper, hands up in her hair and she feels what will not be said, the months of longing for her and still loving her above all else even despite-

“I wasn’t sure you ever would.”

“You know me better than that, darling. I can only burn for so long.”

And she is amazed she’d done so as long as she had, she thinks – the previous record for one of their fights was barely a month, and that was a decade ago and over something with more shared blame and-

Familiarity is in their favor, and time has been kind to them. There are few things in the world she likes more than the weight of her husband’s body over hers – perhaps the reverse scenario, but she does like giving up control for a few minutes and-

More desperate kisses as necessary bits of clothing are moved out of the way. She has missed so much of this; his hands exploring between her thighs, always kind about it, always making sure she is adequately slick before-

A catch of breath, and there is nothing in the world but this.

He moves against her and she rolls her hips up to meet him, something beautifully desperate about it, routines unchanged. As if it has only been a few days since the last time, not-

“I missed you,” she murmurs. “So terribly.”

It does not matter, in this moment, that she was the one who had escalated-

It does not matter. The love of her life is feathering kisses across her face and taking pleasure in her in the same near-reverent way as always, and she has half a mind to just remove her nightgown so his hands can wander more but that would mean moving her body and she is not doing that, not when he’s hitting the right place inside her, not-

Her breath catches again, a kiss turns into a bite, this will not fix them but it could still move mountains.

Another few movements and he collapses against of her, the warmth of him always different as he finishes. She has known from almost the moment they met that she is completely loved; she knows it differently now, twenty-odd years later, as he lingers for a few moments before separating their bodies enough to change position, to still pull her close and-

“If I didn’t know you so well, I’d wonder what you actually wanted.”

“You,” she murmurs, turning her head for a softer kiss. “Only ever you.”

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

Lena/Andrea/Sam. Sam moves back and her and Andrea start to “compete” for Lena and her love. But it turns into them all being together. Just something that starts out rocky but turns sweet in the end

When Sam returns to National City with her daughter, she expects things to be exactly the way she left them– without the Worldkiller flavor-shot. She expects a welcoming party, which she receives in the form of Lena and their friends waiting at baggage claim with a large Welcome Home sign between them. She expects L-Corp to be steadfast and steady– which of course it is.

Most importantly of all, however, she expects to have Lena largely to herself. 

This, she rudely finds, does not go entirely to plan.

Oh, she has time with Lena, deepened by their shared experience of fighting Reign and loving Ruby. But unlike before, where Sam could walk into Lena’s office and expect an immediate acceptance of an impromptu lunch or movie night with Ruby, Sam now faces a fifty-fifty chance that Lena will respond with an apology.

“Sorry, but I already have plans with Andrea.”

Andrea.

The woman plagues what time Lena does allow her. Andrea said this, Andrea did that. It rankles Sam in a way nothing ever has before.

Oh, she knows about Andrea. Lena told her all about what happened between her and her childhood friend. She’d even heard the bitterness of a hidden crush brutally devastated by betrayal.

So why, Sam wonders, does Lena devote so much of her time to the woman now?

“I know,” Lena says when Sam gently reminds her to protect her heart. “But I’m learning forgiveness. And I can’t do that until I try.”

Sam’s heart swells at that, to hear that her friend is finally examining the trauma that had resulted in Lena’s one-strike policy in all things.

So Sam endures the thwarted plans and frequent mentions of Andrea Rojas. She even manages to keep her smile in place when they finally meet at one of Kara’s infamous game nights (and if she claims Lena as a partner a little too aggressively, well… she isn’t ashamed of it). But even so a dark seed of jealousy swells and grows with every mention of CatCo’s owner.

What’s even worse is that despite her careful smiles, her displeasure doesn’t go unnoticed. Once, when she pauses her listening to Lena’s story about Kara and some sort of puppy on the street, her carefully concealed scowl is caught by Rojas herself, whose gaze happens to land on hers at the exact moment Sam looks over. And then, to twist the knife, the woman has the nerve to grin. No, not grin.

Smirk.

That does it. That night, Sam goes uninvited to Lena’s building to talk. To give her best friend a piece of her mind, to confess her distaste for Andrea, to address her misgivings that Lena has allowed such a toxic person back into her life. (A fact Sam knows to be based on actions committed almost a decade ago, but a fact that she has no intention of mentioning to Lena tonight.)

But even now, the universe conspires against her, for who does she run into in the small foyer between the elevator and Lena’s door but the she-devil herself. 

“Miss Arias,” Andrea greets, still with that same damn smirk.

“Rojas,” Sam returns, taking special care to roll the ‘r’ like it’s a curse.

“What brings you here at this hour?” Andrea asks, slipping seamlessly into her native Spanish. 

Sam’s eyebrow lifts, not unlike Lena’s when she wants to make someone feel small. 

“I might ask you the same thing,” she responds, just as silkily, the Spanish sliding off her tongue like butter. 

Andrea smirks again. “Same as you, I imagine. Visiting a friend.”

The damned woman’s smile shifts, emulating a cheshire who’s stumbled across a secret. Or spawned one of her own.

Jealousy once again flares low in Sam’s belly.

“Yeah,” she snips. “About that–”

The door before them opens then, revealing a visibly unimpressed Lena Luthor.

“I can hear you,” she declares, joining in on their spanish with nary a wayward accent. She glares at them sternly, long enough for Sam to shift guiltily in place. Andrea, on the other hand, remains unrepentant.

In the end, Lena sighs. “If you’re going to argue, at least do it inside and not on my doorstep.”

She steps aside to admit them. Sam makes sure she’s the first one to shoulder her way through, but as she sheds her blazer Andrea comes in behind her to to gracefully step towards Lena and greet her with a kiss to the cheek.

“Mi amor,” rumbles from the woman’s throat, a purr if Sam ever heard one.

Lena scowls. “Stop teasing,” she orders her friend. She gives them both a stern glare. “Living room. Now.”

They obey without a word. When Sam moves to take the armchair furthest from Andrea’s seat on the loveseat, Lena tsks.

“Couch, both of you.”

Again they obey. Sam does her best to avoid Andrea’s gaze, lest she say something they’d all regret. Lena stands in front of them, arms folded across her chest. 

“Sam– do you think I haven’t seen the way your cheeks flush when I mention Andrea?”

Sam has no words, but feels more than sees Andrea regard her with a self-satisfied smirk. But Lena isn’t one to let anyone off the hook.

“And you,” she chides Andrea. “Don’t think I haven’t seen you trying to get a rise out of her.”

Only then does Andrea have the decency to look mildly chagrined. Lena pointedly holds their gazes. 

“You are two of my best friends,” she declares. “And I will not have you at each other’s throats.”

Silence stretches between the three of them for a long moment, before Lena softens. To Sam’s surprise, Lena smoothly kneels before them, taking one of their hands in each of hers.

“That said,” she continues, her voice now soft, nearly a purr of its own, “I think I know the source of the tension between us– and I’m sure we can find a solution that meets each of our satisfaction.”

And just like that, the knot of jealousy in Sam’s belly releases into a flood of warmth that spills downwards to pool between Sam’s legs. She knows her cheeks burn, but she can find no words to save face.

Andrea, for her part, hardly seems ruffled. She extends one finger to tap under Lena’s chin, tilting her face up to kiss her sweetly. “I thought you’d never ask.”

They turn to Sam, who stares back at them, drinking in the sight of Lena on her knees, gazing softly up at her with Andrea’s hand gently stroking her hair. She takes a deep breath, and when she exhales, she releases her embarrassment for have been seen through to clearly, her irritation that Andrea had seemed to be on Lena’s page all along, her frustration that once again Andrea fucking Rojas has beaten her to the punch.

Empty of all that, curiosity and arousal rushes in to fill the vacuum.

Donning a smirk of her own, Sam relaxes. She even lets her legs spread ever so slightly, allowing her thigh to bump against Andrea’s, so close are they sitting. With a cool and confident tilt of her chin, Sam retakes control.

“You have my attention.”

//prompts are closed