#and more about the person feeling some obligation to stay like I feel like crafting him into

[dykedvonte]

Something something perhaps the reason Curly lacks a truly undamaged ID where his face is visible is to represent how much damage Jimmy had already affected on him throughout their relationship and the way Curly obscured part of who he is and what he stood to unintentionally cater to this toxic influence in his life.

[fandomnerd9602]

TLC (🌶️)

Bambi!Wanda x Reader

Life was well adjusting for you, your doe hybrid wife Wanda and of course the twin hybrid boys Billy and Tommy. The four of you all felt like one big happy family.

The Sanctuary was up and running well. The public loves you and a Wanda as the spokespeople for the organization.

Overall, life was perfect. But there was a little nagging feeling at the back of Wanda’s head. It appeared every time she looked into the mirror after a shower.

Wanda didn’t think she looked as beautiful as when she met you. True she had put on a little bit of weight, not much. In fact you didn’t even notice it. But she did. Of course a person is their own worst enemy.

Natasha approached you one day in the Sanctuary’s office.

“Hey boss,” she smirked, “I need these papers signed by the end of today and Wanda needs your love”

“I love my doe. I tell her every day” you replied.

“True but I think she needs a special reminder, bud.” Natasha explains, “she needs to know that she’s still a goddess in your eyes”

You quickly sign Natasha’s papers and hurry out the door, “I’m taking the rest of the day off. Thanks Wolf Buddy!”

You took Wanda home and drew her a bath. You set out a home spa kit for her and turned down the lights in the bathroom.

“Detka,” your doe mate giggles and blushes at your display of affection.

“Just take a little you break, okay?” You topped it off with a kiss, “the boys are staying with Natasha tonight”

And with that, you gently closed the door and let Wanda have a little afternoon alone in the bathroom with some scented candles and some relaxing lavender scented bath bombs.

Meanwhile you went to work, crafting a homemade vegan meal for you and your beloved mate. You loved cooking for Wanda and the boys. It was like a hidden love of yours.

You got the vegetarian dish on the stove simmering as you heard the gentle footsteps of your doe walking down the stairs. She was wrapped in your white robe and her hair was damp. As if there was any way that your mate couldn’t look more goddess like.

She gently walked over to you and wrapped you in a hug, kissing you softly. “Thank you, detka” she whispered against your lips.

“Oh that was just part one” you smiled.

“How many parts have you planned?” Your mate giggled.

“Three, five. I lost count, my doe” you shrugged your shoulders.

The vegetarian dish you prepared went perfectly with the wine that Wanda selected. The two of you are able to talk and communicate with one another like you were on your first date again. It felt marvelous.

You both changed into your pajamas and danced together in the living room to your favorite songs.

“Detka,” she giggles as she holds to you, “this night has just been perfect”

“We’re not done yet” you gave a wink.

You led Wanda back to the couch, a little uncertain. You and your doe were always very open with each other when it came to mating.

You sat her down and knelt before her like a knight before his queen.

“Wanda, do you trust me?” You gently asked her.

“Of course I do,” she giggled.

“Okay then just lean back, relax, and let me worship you, my doe”

Wanda simply leaned back, letting herself rest against the couch. You gave a kiss to her lips, then one to her neck and then another to her collarbone.

“Detka,” your mate gently moaned. You pulled back and got back on your knees.

You kissed her lower legs and then her knees and then as far up on her thighs as you could before hitting the fabric of her pj shorts.

Wanda was practically a panting mess at this point and you had barely begun.

“Shall I continue?” You asked her, your voice a little deeper with intent.

She grabbed the strings of her shorts and undid the knot, loosening them right up for you.

“P-Please,” she begged you. You happily obliged.

First you pulled down her shorts and continued kissing your way up her legs.

Wanda’s panting breathes were all the encouragement you needed.

“I-I dreamt about this for a long time” she sheepishly moans out.

“Really?” You looked up to your goddess of a mate, “like what kind of dreams?”

“I use to touch myself to thoughts of you,” she admits, a blush making its way across her face. “And there was one spot that always made me feel good”

“Guide me,” you respond. “Please. I want you to feel as good as you make me feel”

Wanda lets out a nervous giggle. She gently takes a hold of one of your hands and guides it down between her legs. Your fingertips brush a certain little spot

Immediately Wanda tenses up, “t-there it is! M-my pearl.”

You begin touching it softly, rubbing small circles.

“H-Harder. Please” she begs. You oblige. Within seconds, your doe is a whimpering mess.

“Detka!” She moans, “(Y/N)! Oh!! Don’t stop!! Please don’t stop!!!”

You gently pull down her cotton garment and begin worshipping her even more.

Within a few mere minutes, she was gripping your shoulders, tense and shouting your name. Her eyes were shut tight as the feelings of euphoria and absolute fulfillment rushed over her entire being.

Your doe collapsed against the cushions of your couch, trying to catch her breath and smiling like a contented house cat.

“Thank you, thank you!” She was repeating thru panting breaths.

“Thank you,” you kissed her tenderly, “for letting me worship you”

She took a firm hold of your shoulder and guided you to sit on the couch.

Your amazing mate then got on her knees in front of you, her eyes were darkened with lust, love and adoration for you.

“Now let me worship you,” she said with a lustful purr. Her deer tail shaking with anticipation. “And…don’t be afraid to hold on to my antlers.” She gave you a little wink as she began unbuckling your pants.

Wanda, your wife, your mate, a graceful doe, a loving deer. The two of you can and will love and worship each other for as long as you both shall live and then long after into eternity.

Tags: @lifespectator @aloneodi @abimess @olsenmyolsen @supercorpdanbeau @scarletquake-n7 @multi-fandom-enjoyer

[apollos-olives]

Hi!! Recently I was asked to compile different pieces of non literary media for students to analyze (I’m not a teacher I’m a ex student working part time at my old school while I wait for uni), and one category is song lyrics. I was thinking of choosing some Mitski songs bcs from what I’ve listened to, there’s quite a bit to unpack.

However, I’m just a casual fan and I don’t know her as a artist very well. I’ve read some of her interviews and from what I can garner she seems to pride herself as not as someone who pours all of herself into a song, but rather someone who crafts it all carefully.

At the end of the day though you seem to know more than me. I don’t want to misinterpret her. Could I ask if there are any songs you would recommend to choose? Especially if there are themes like women in patriarchy or other global issues (though this isn’t a requirement!). Thanks, and please don’t feel obligated to answer this for whatever reason 🙏🏻 <3

ohhhhhohohohhhhhhh you've come to the right person

-

one of her more popular songs is called "liquid smooth", where it talks about how women of color are sexualized in the eyes of society and feel as though that once they are past their "prime", then society deems them as unlovable and useless.

those first few lines discuss how women of color are sexualized whether they want to be or not, and how they are considered "full of life" when they're at their "prime". mitski explains that she's at her "peak" and that she's "ripe", but she's "about to fall", and that shows how after she hits her "peak", society deems her as unlovable or unappealing just because they're unable to sexualize her in a way that they used to. and this is very much apply to mitski's life, as a japanese woman. we all know how japan became "trendy" in recent years and how the sexualization and infantilization of japanese women has been a very prominent thing amongst weaboos and the like. so this song primarily dicusses how society is very harsh towards women of color and disregard them after it is deemed that they are unattractive past their "peak".

-

another song of hers is "stay soft", and while it is a bit harder for me to understand, my personal interpretation of the song is how society forces women, particularly women of color, to "stay soft" and stay appealing for others and not complain when they are degraded and abused by that same society.

when it says "only natural to harden up" i believe it refers to how society tells women to toughen up and deal with how they're being treated, but while still being told to "stay soft" to stay appealing. i think this song is more about the hypocrisy that society places on women of color, because they are told to "stay soft" and "harden up" at the same time. many woc understand the whole "scary and mean woman of color" stereotype and are constantly trying to fight against that form of racism. i think this song discusses the hypocrisy of society for demonizing women of color when they stand up for themselves, and it discusses how woc are abused but still told to be appealing and toughen up, or else they will be outcast and deemed, again, unlovable.

-

my current favorite song is "happy", and this song does take a bit more time to analyze, since a lot of the message goes well with the music video. that being said, the music video IS. well. disturbing. so i'm going to summarize it and describe it, and link it if you want to follow along. so general trigger warning for gore, blood, abuse, etc.

so we start off with a woman of color. she is an asian woman, and she's the one explaining this. she's talking about a man, who she calls "happy". she discusses how he visits her and how she feels as though she is loved by him. she explains that he "lays her down" and makes her feel happy.

"happy" in the music video is a white man. happy gives her a pearled bracelet. she is very much in love with him. in the video she is serving him tea, and she trips and falls and apologizes. he rolls his eyes, scoffs, and disregards her. in the next few shots, you can see that he is with another woman. a white woman. multiple. with blonde hair and blue eyes. you can also see that the woman of color is alone in bed at night, with happy's bedside empty.

in the video, it is another morning, and she bids him farewell. she is cleaning the house and looks in his bag, where she finds a chunk of blonde hair. she realizes he is cheating with a white woman. she later confronts him while crying, and he comforts her.

i think this the the point to discuss how women of color are often disregarded or put to the side. it's very obvious that happy is only using her for sexual reasons, since he doesn't care about her past that, as shown with the tea scene and with the bed scene. woc are often abused by white men while they favor a white woman instead.

in the video, probably a day later, she finds a red purse with a note from happy that says "i love you". she's very excited and opens it up. she not only finds a blonde hair chunk, but on the inside it says "for my blue-eyed cookie". she is not blue eyed. it's obvious that he took the bag that he gifted to the white women he was cheating with and gave it to her. she looks at herself in the mirror. her eyes are dark. they are not blue. she realizes this.

later that night she goes down into the basement, and finds happy with a bloody corpse of a white woman. she's horrified, as the body is mutilated, and the scene is incredibly gorey. she sees happy removing pearls off of the body, and she looks down at her own hand and notices the pearl bracelet. she realizes that she was his next victim, and screams and runs but trips. he attacks her, she falls again, next to the body. he's choking her, and she grabs the axe (?) on the body and kills him. the next scene we see is her in the car driving away, crying.

so. there is a lot to unpack here. i don't think it's so much about the gorey parts but more so about how women are often victims to men, and how women of color are typically pushed aside and into the shadow of white women, who are favored more by white men in this western society. this song talks about how women of color are abused in this society by being manipulated into thinking they are loved, when they are really just being used for white men's own personal gain, and how ALL women, even the white ones, are victims to this horrible system.

man there is so much to go into here, but i think you get the gist. i'm sure you can do a deeper analysis if you'd like, i'm just pointing out the main theme of the song

-

another one of mitski's songs is "your best american girl", where it talks about how often times, people of color become white washed or forget their own culture in order to "fit in" with the american, or western, "culture".

this "don't wait for me, i can't come" part is what i assume is her realizing she is different and does not fit in with western society.

"your mother wouldn't approve of how my mother raised me" is referring to the difference between the cultures of her and her lover, and how they were raised differently. i want you to notice how she says "i think i do", because i'll be coming back to that in a moment. when she says "i guess i couldn't help trying to be your best american girl" it refers to how she tried fitting into american society and disregarding her own culture and heritage in order to feel as though she belonged in that society. she uses past tense though, so clearly she is past all that, or at least starting to moving on from it.

this refers to how she still loves this "american boy" and still wants him, though i think it's less about a lover in this moment and rather referring to how she wants to be part of the american society to not feel like an outcast. i'm unsure about what she is "regretting", but it's either she is regretting ever discarding her heritage for the american society, or regretting leaving american society to return back to her heritage (and therefore being treated like an outcast in that very same society).

notice how she says "i finally do" instead of "i think i do" ? this is where she finally accepts her identity and feels comfortable enough to be proud of her heritage for a moment, long enough to show how she decided to stop pretending to fit in with american society. it does return to "i think i do" in the last line, where i believe it means that she's still unsteady about her identity. but i still think she took that big step in returning and appreciating her heritage and her culture.

-

two other songs that i think is very easy for you to analyze is "eric" and "real men". you can understand pretty easily what those songs are talking about, so if these songs above aren't enough ^^ then i suggest you look into those two songs if you want more. thank you SO much for asking, i was literally vibrating with excitement because i LOVE being asked to analyze mitski's lyrics. i just love her messages so much and i think they're very powerful.

[armoreddragon]

how did you first get into making this stuff? do you enjoy it?

There's a lot of possible answers here.

For a couple years after college, I worked at a laser engraving and cutting shop. Leather was a material we knew we could cut, but nobody ever asked for it, so I looked up some basic info and put together some masks as demo pieces. Then I got fired for unrelated reasons, but decided to keep going with the masks on my own. A decade later, I’m still going.

I've always enjoyed making things. The focused calm of working a craft, the challenge of finding the problems that need solving, followed by the satisfaction of holding in your hands something that hadn't exited before. It’s hard to beat that feeling. If you haven’t done it for a while, I highly recommend making a habit of it.

Sometime in college I realized that if I kept making things just for myself, I would eventually run out of both space in my closet and money in my bank account. So I took the best photos I could of what I had, and started posting it up on Etsy.

In high school ceramics class, I had an idea to try and make a flexible dragon skin out of little bits of clay, all glazed differently. I had no idea how to do this. A friend of mine was like "Yo it sounds like you want to look up how to make chainmail for that." She was right.

I work in architecture by day, and the decision to do that was unrelated but definitely related to my crafting obsession. Designing a kitchen, a café, a house, takes months or years of work, most of which is tedious details like picking tile patterns or looking up exactly what order to layer different sealant tapes to make sure the walls are watertight. Designing a crafting project gives me a creative outlet that is immediate. I can sit down for an afternoon and take an idea from a sketch on trace paper, to a final mask formed up out of leather. There's an excitement to that. A reminder that, yes, I can make cool stuff quickly, without needing to sink two years into a project.

For a while I worked to teach myself to draw. I managed to get pretty decent at sketching from life, with a moderate understanding of anatomy and perspective. I liked art, so I thought I wanted to make art. But I struggled with it. If I was drawing something from my imagination, no matter how well I managed to put the lines down on the paper, I would ultimately look at it and just be sad that it didn't exist in the real world. So eventually I gave up on the drawing part, and focused on the part I seemed to actually care about.

I can't envision a version of myself that doesn't make things. I think on some fundamental level, I measure my worth as a person based on what I put forth into the world. I don't know what else to do.

When you decide to turn a hobby into a business, it of course takes some of the delight away. It's no longer something you do when you want to relax and have some fun. It becomes an obligation, to make and ship orders on time, to pack up your stuff and bring it to craft fairs, to track your expenses and file your taxes, to stay on top of the constantly changing social media landscape. But it also lights a fire under your ass. You can't just keep making the same thing you made three years ago–you have to keep making new stuff, keep improving your techniques, keep reaching for new ideas that have never been made before. You lose some of the joy, but you gain a lot of satisfaction.

All through my childhood I filled my closet with little handicrafts kits, that I got as gifts or that caught my eye when following my dad to the art store. Calligraphy, wood carving, weaving looms, boondoggles, spirographs, knitting, crochet, fancy nautical knots, sculpey, and more that I can't remember. After all those different things, I’m so glad that I found a couple specific crafts that really grabbed me, that take enough work to develop expertise, that have expansive enough applications and possibilities, that I could devote a decade or more of my time to focusing on them.

I’d been interested in the furry fandom ever since little fantasy reading teenager me tried looking for stories where the dragons were the main characters, and I found people online who were doing just that. There’s a powerful do-it-yourself attitude that’s baked into the core of the fandom: The world isn’t giving us the art that we want, so we’re going to make it ourselves. I keep having ideas for things that I want, that don’t exist yet. If I want them to exist, I have to be the one to make them.

My dad was a photographer, and I spent many childhood afternoons with him in his darkroom in the basement, delightedly washing negatives, turning them gently over in their canisters of chemicals, sitting still in the dark as Dad unspooled the sensitive film, squinting in the red light as the projected images magically re-emerged on the clean white paper. What could be more amazing, more normal, more right, than having your own little space to work such magic for yourself.

In about 2008 or 9 I ordered my first batch of metal scales, with the idea of trying to make a dragon tail in time for Halloween. It took probably a couple weeks to figure out how to make it, and within a week I had thought of how to do it better and disassembled the entire thing. By the 3rd or 4th time I'd rebuilt it, I thought that it was probably good enough that I wouldn't feel embarrassed to post it online and see if someone might want to buy it.

Of course I love working on these things I make. But I don't think that's exactly why I make them.

[epithet-beloved]

How about Platonic EE Phoenica?

PHOENICA FLEECITY PLATONIC HEADCANONS

synopsis… Headcanons for being Phoenica’s friend

ft. Phoenica Fleecity XV, Trixie Roughhouse (mentioned), Molly Blyndeff (mentioned)

tags… epithet erased, platonic headcanons, tooth rotting fluff, friendship study, mentions of loss/grief, found family

word count… 767

a/n… FEENIE MY ME!!! I am a massive Feenie kinnie so i am obligated to write her ✧ 🦄

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 Get ready for the most Disney channel friendship ever.

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 Phoenica grew up pretty sheltered, so most of her ideas of what friendship is meant to look like come from movies and TV. And magical girl anime, can’t forget the magical girl anime.

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 No matter your gender, you will be recruited to her magical girl troupe. It’s inevitable, just let it happen.

“Oh, and magical girls usually have a special name for their transformations! Like Sailor Moon has her base form, but she also has Super Sailor Moon, Eternal Sailor Moon……what do you want yours to be? I have a list of approved words you can reference!”

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 She insists upon you calling her Feenie or some other kind of nickname. After all, you’re friends! And Feenie is what her friends call her!

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 Lots and lots of list making and itineraries. Even for a simple sleepover, she has a full schedule of activities decorated with cute stickers.

“At five PM we’ll have dinner, then after that we’ll have dessert…..oh, and a full movie marathon! Then that should make some room for the pillow fight and fort building at eight, then we should be all cozy and ready to sleep by nine! Perfect, right?”

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 She also keeps a ‘friendship scrapbook’ of all the things you do together. Photos from every hangout, little stickers and your names sewed into the front cover…..she has you help work on it whenever she adds a new page!

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 If you’re friends with Feenie, then Molly and Trixie naturally are your friends, too. If you met Feenie after she already met the other Neo Trio members, Trixie insists on staging a formal ‘vibe check’ to see if you pass. This consists of them poking you with a glow stick to check your ‘aura’ and having you consume a special potion that is definitely not just three sodas in a jar.

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 You get included as a supporting character in her self insert fanfiction! Yippee! This is the highest recognition of friendship you can receive from Feenie.

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 (Also it is my personal belief that the Neo Trio’s My Little Pony OCs are as follows: Feenie is an alicorn crystal pony, Molly is an earth pony, and Trixie is a Changeling, because every transgender person wanted to be a Changeling. Source: me.)

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 The Neo Trio makes you a special accessory as per custom. Feenie always brags about her addition to the accessory, clearly ecstatic to be able to give you a gift that you love.

“Molly did the braiding, and I picked the little beads.” Despite their stoic expression, Trixie was clearly all too eager to hand you the custom friendship bracelet the group had crafted for you.

From behind them, Feenie was even more eager to giggle and squeal, “I added all the GLITTER! Isn’t it so fabulous?”

“Yeah,” Molly nodded. “It’s like one of those yellow reflective vests. Now there’s no way you won’t be visible at night.”

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 Without her mom around, and her dad busy, she often feels lonely at home. So please stay over at least once a week, it makes her really happy.

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 She is the sweetest most considerate friend ever. Food allergies? None of that food at any of her friend events! You’re trans or use unorthodox pronouns? She keeps a list of all your preferred ones! Neurodivergent? She communicates according to your boundaries and is never upset over mistakes. What a sweetheart.

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 Also? Perfect study buddy. If you’re someone who struggles to study or get homework done, she invites you over to do flash cards and have snacks. Whatever your learning style is, she’ll research a bunch of fun study games to play to help you.

“Oh my gosh! You’ve nearly memorized the entire times table for seven!” The little ball of fluff was practically bouncing off the walls with excitement. No matter what it was, Feenie was always eager to be proud of you. “We can finish the rest after a snack! Annabelle made us snickerdoodles!”

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 You come to know most of her house staff by name. They know you well, and practically consider you part of the family.

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 Feenie confides in you about a lot of things she doesn’t normally tell anyone else. How much pressure she feels over having to save the world, how unfair it is, that she has to do all this and she’s just a kid…..usually, Feenie does her best to be a typical ray of sunshine so that nobody has to feel sad around her, but she can’t help but just feel so safe around you.

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 You really are family to her.

[doomed-era]

hm. thoughts on mipha? maybe how she thought about the calamity + how she’d think of the other champions (if. you havent answered this already!)

ohoho well :) if you insist

haha as far as the calamity goes she has got. the Dread and she has got it bad. even though some of the other champions' outlook on defeating calamity ganon is optimistic (even gaffen thinks everything is going to be fine), mipha is really...not super confident in the whole thing. she keeps this to herself most of the time, and really thinks she's overthinking it most of the time, but she still has a looming sense of dread about the whole thing. she talks with vah ruta about it occasionally. daruk has told her that the best thing to do about it is to make plans for the future, so she has done a bit of that! they've talked about meeting up on death mountain once everything is over. she tries to keep herself busy with projects. she really likes weaving and crafting in general god I just imagined her weaving a little turtle somewhere on the zora armor throws up. her favorite animal is turtles.

she's afraid of dying and afraid of living and afraid of giving up but can't see herself winning. you know. the general looming horror of existence. embracing your death because you're lonely and the walls you've built around yourself are too terrible to bring down. idk.

she is terrified by the prospect of having to potentially lose her life fighting the calamity, well. she's always lived for other people and doesn't really take her own health or safety in mind much. really funny because she'll absolutely get on other people's cases for doing the same thing she does. if gaffen and her were closer they'd constantly piss each other off bc of this and i think its hilarious

ultimately the only thing that really stays in her mind as a reason to look forward to things is living for people she thinks can be genuine. she loves her little brother because she thinks he can show his feelings where she just. can't. because that would mean not being a fuckin doormat and she thinks she's morally obligated to be one for her people's sake lmao. this is part of the reason shes so obsessed with gaffen because she thought he was a genuine person when he was little and now he's not so she's like. maybe we could learn how to be real people together. or maybe just with ourselves. its more of a subconscious thing she doesnt actively think this but shes such an i can fix him girl. stop

sorry for going on a tangent about mipha I dont even generally like quiet passive characters whose canon personality boils down to love interest I just decided she was a people pleaser and everyone around turned her into a saint when she wasnt and she was never truly known um throws myself into a pit of flames. heaven forbid i read too much into implications. i love women!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

now where was I. oh yeah the champions.

i've already partially explained her relationship with revali long story short she doesn't like him. example of a guy who needs to shut up Immediately. which isnt to say she wouldnt like to get along with him he seems like a person who has good qualities she just wishes he would shut up, so she gets passive aggressive around him

daruk!! ok they actually do really like each other because how could you not like daruk cmon. he's seen through her polite facade a few times and seen how scared she is so he's tried to help her out a bit and she appreciates it a lot :] (yea I know gaffen and mipha both like him its that magnetic extrovert guy charm and I really like introvert-extrovert dynamics)

daruk and urbosa are actually good friends lmao so daruk has passed some of what he knows onto her. so yea mipha also likes her. appreciates her advice quite a bit they train together sometimes!! shes really interested in gerudo jewelry as well she has a few pieces urbosa has given her as a gift and she's given urbosa some zora pieces

so yeah

[surveillance-0011]

Before ω-3 was formed (or was never formed) , what do you think the members were doing, how their life was, etc?

DJ:

Dropped out of college or high school to pursue music (and bc school had grown to be way too detrimental for his mental health between failing grades and feeling very insecure) . This resulted in a big fight with his mom that ended in him being kicked out. Even if she took it back or never told him she wanted him gone, he took it as a sign to leave.

Cue the couchsurfing. He stayed with friends and strangers, and in hotels as he perfected his craft and performed gigs at clubs. Some of these living situations he ended up in were not the best and a few were probably dangerous or traumatizing.

Fortunately his sister, too, did allow them to stay with her for some time. Maybe it makes for sense for him to just stay with her but idk I haven’t decided and they don’t get along the best so I think he only decided to swallow his pride and ask her for help when everything went to shit.

He also took up a couple of odd jobs, taking whatever he could to get a little more cash.

The whole… everything started like 2-3 years before the band formed.

Eventually he saved up for somewhere to live…maybe. But he found an ad for a position in a band or was approached after a show from a certain cello-playing fish…

He accepted to meet up. It almost didn’t happen, though, because he overslept misremembering the time as pm when it was am… fortunately he woke up in the afternoon and called Blade to meet up then. Their introduction was rushed and messy but they were able to join!

Had he missed it, though… I think his life could have turned out alright still? It’d be a lot rougher and he’d never reach the level of fame he has now but I think he’d manage and get out of the shitty situation he was in.

Timpanist

Honestly, life has been good to him- esp compared to the other two- the past few years. He had grown past some rougher teen years to be a decent person with decent mental health and a decent ability to play drums.

He was just kind of… lost? He felt like something was missing. Some attention, or just the ability to really do what he wanted.

Another issue is that we was kind of homesick. He had left the Trout Jigokudani to pursue his dreams… or just like, a better career in a more modern, urbanized setting.

Was part of an orchestra but left bc it wasn’t really his thing. Then he joined a more traditional salmon music group, performing for festivals and ceremonies. He was relatively successful and satisfied but he just felt like nothing was really what he truly wanted. Like he hadn’t struck gold yet.

The other two (or one of em, probably) came across this music group somehow- probably at an event or nearby where they played. After the show on his way home the two stopped him to ask about the band.

It took some thinking over, but he obliged. Rest is history.

Also, he invited Faith to live with him once he settled into the role.

If the band never happened he’d have stuck with his old gig, or moved back to his hometown. I’d like to think he’d find something to fulfill him but maybe he would not, and become disillusioned with his life.

Cellist

Like I’ve said before he had struggled with his mental health a lot. In the years or maybe just months preceding the band’s debut he was at a low point. Not the lowest, maybe, but… Just kind of existing.

He, too, was part of some other band. He cycled through a lot of different gigs but never stayed because he often fought and just didn’t mix with a lot of people. Only one lasted for some time and even then they eventually had their falling out.

There was also solo work, composing for others or herself.

She was struggling again with her anxiety and other issues, and at that point it was starting to become too much to bear.

And so came the shot in the dark. When Faith missed the og time she almost fucking lost it, she was torn and pretty much hopeless, so it’s a relief that they ended up meeting up in the end.

Had Faith not done so? Things would not have ended well here.

Maybe the two of them would’ve been able to continue as a duo but I doubt ω-3 would be as iconic or survive as long as it has. I don’t know what Blade would do if it hadn’t worked out.

Actually, I do. And I’ll leave it at that.

[ilovetodrinkwater]

Your turn! Tell us about an OC extremely close to your heart. Are you kind to them, or are they your chew toy? Do they represent something to you? What inspired you to create them?

i thought it was interesting that u said ur characters are less expressions of urself vs the worlds being that expression! i really have 1 world that i add to and some of it is an expression of my values, thoughts etc but i think it’s more of a sandbox and all my characters have some kernel of me in them. so they are all close to my heart 😭 i started developing this world around the end of high school and really started nailing it down closer to what it is now about 2 years later. the characters i used as an anchor for that early iteration of the story were initially around 15 but as i kept building(and getting older) i aged them up to around 20, which on the island where my story takes place is the time people choose their own last name, and i liked that as a point of self-evaluation and change for them all.. many of their conflicts are not quite my own but it’s been cathartic to play out their arguments in my head with feelings on all sides that i can relate to or at least sympathize with. now i don’t feel like they are the main characters but they definitely drive a part of the story’s ecosystem and are still the ones i think of first:

flori (short for florabama- her grandmothers name as well) i don’t have a settled last name for her but likely something to do with shrimp and other small things cus her mom is a tiny organism scientist and her moms parents are shrimp cultivators. she’s often irritated because in her mind everything is clear and people just don’t act the way she clearly knows is the right way for them to act. she likes butt rock. transitioning may save him but that is outside the scope of the story. she is compulsively generous(always crafting little things and making meals) but still grouchy about it. she needs to stop saying mean shit to her friends and rejoin the marching band and/or learn how to build ships in a bottle with her grandpa. she has no idea what she wants and doesn’t see much of a future for herself but feels obligated to stay

mollie graveyard-stallions(haven’t fully settled on this last name and she hasn’t either but keeping both is a fuck you to her grandma) people-pleaser delighted with the macabre but wishes she could explore it on her own terms rather than being expected to follow her mom and grandmas role stewarding elaborate, seasonlong funerary rituals for a religion she doesn’t really care about. she prefers hands-on work with the dead, especially their cemetery’s role as the place for people who die unknown or with nobody to grieve them. the other part of her name comes from her other grandma who used to be THE person to go to for horse breeding needs but since her son (mollies dad) was implicated and banished in a murder case(which floris dad/mollies moms brother was also banished for. grave-grandma is suuuch a bitch about this and doesn’t even acknowledge flori) she can’t keep up her horse empire in her old age and only keeps a few now. mollie constantly feels like the mediator at the center of everyone she loves who are all so prone to conflict with each other.

val fortunefound- the only one who has chosen her name so far. she and her cousin chose it because they are obsessed with the goal of finding treasure in the sunken neighborhoods and shipwrecks and gtfo the island, but also because they already found fortune by gtfo their shitty family’s house and raising cousins kid together. she likes being a guard dog for pretty girls and currently that is mollie, which flori is super pissed about because val was her friend first and mollie was ofc her cousinbestie and now feels like they are leaving her behind. val is very conscious of crafting an image and personality for herself and refuses to let anyone feel like they got the best of her. did she start based off of vriska from a summer camp au? Well,

this is the most i have ever shared about them hehe and i think they are pretty equally chewtoyed and cherished. i love making everyone fight though sometimes thinking about what they would yell at each other i do genuinely feel my blood pressure rise. there are also several characters who are directly based off me at different points in my life including future speculation, and ones who are directly based on people i love in their past/future. and some of them are friends with these guys :-)

[29pageshomestuckeveryday]

Homestuck, page 3,629

==>

Author commentary: When Doc gets on his high horse about lies of omission not being a thing, I think this is where some of his views as a nefarious alt-author figure start leaking out. If you imagine that his spiel here is being applied to a philosophy on storytelling, it tracks pretty well. Dark alt-author figures in the story always partly make their villainous qualities evident by showing hostility toward the reader or the story itself. There are flashes of this kind of contempt here. Rose is the listener, or the "fan," and has projected certain ideas and assumptions of his judiciously measured dispensation of the truth, or the "story," and making demands of it, coming across as "entitled." Her attitude seems to rankle Doc. Her attitude being, "There are certain things you know, and I think you have an obligation to tell me." But in his view, he doesn't, because everything he reveals and exactly when he reveals it serves a certain purpose. His devious machinations throughout the cosmos are somewhat analogous to the way a writer crafts a narrative. Since he's an author-tier figure with the more negative qualities of a creator brought to the fore, this helps makes sense out of the fact that I included two characters in his personality profile who are exaggerated avatars for negative qualities of the author. And as unpleasant and sinister as Doc can come across both personally and authorially, he isn't the worst-case scenario. He isn't even that much worse than me in terms of things like authorial sadism, jerking the reader around in certain ways, self-indulgence. (Later there's a gag where I'm ambushing him with a broom, and I essentially admit he's only slightly worse than me, which I still think is a pretty funny line.) Dirk and Equius similarly aren't even that unflattering as avatars either. You could do worse. And we do do worse. As far as demonic author-tiers go, English is the true monster. His dominating personality splinters are much worse too. Caliborn and Gamzee are complete hell-people compared to Dirk and Equius. They are also sort of author avatars in certain ways, but with a degree of cartoonishly evil exaggeration. They absolutely comprise the "authorial wrath" portion of the total Doc/English personality quagmire. Their negativity isn't like Doc's, which feels mildly contemptuous—it's about pure hatred. They are what make LE's all-encompassing presence feel truly satanic compared to Doc's relatively polite and restrained approach.

As sick as all this Doc-meta has been, he's finally getting to the good shit, and helping Rose/us understand what's actually going on, and what they're supposed to be doing. Finally we learn the Scratch is a hard reset, not just of the game, but of the universe. Sounds pretty extreme. But this is important stuff, because we now have a real grasp of some stakes and objectives. To have a chance to win, the players need to reset the game. But if they stay here while the reset takes place, they stop existing. So additionally, they have a tricky problem to solve: how to do all this stuff and try to keep existing at the same time. If you've been a complete zealot about keeping track of all story details, you might begin to get some foggy impressions of what a solution could look like. Some pieces are there. Mainly, those 4th walls might start feeling conspicuous as quick access-points to a plane of reality that has nothing to do with the session. But then this starts inviting awkward questions about how much the AH character is going to be directly engaging with the story and characters beyond the little episodes of buffoonery we've been seeing. (Don't worry, I "reassure" the readers on this matter very soon, with truly an epic load of JPEG horseshit.) Doc also mentions (on the next page) that they'll need to transport the Battlefield. Planet transportation is another tough problem to solve. But again, if you're an A+ fan, maybe you start thinking about Jade and her untapped space powers. Homestuck provides so many potential solutions to the weird problems it presents. Because there's just so much esoteric junk and overpowered crap in general, it's hard to even decide what to pick. Just getting to the point of finding out "what is the actual thing that needs to be accomplished" always seems to be 9/ 10th of the progress we're seeking. So thanks, Doc. Wait, what if... What if this means he was GOOD author figure all along?

[greatandholypangolin]

can I politely and respectfully disagree? I’m not really excited to have a long winding argument, but I want to add my own points here (important note- I’m not American but I am very aggrieved about the election and scared for the future. We’re on the same side here)

His original post. Personally, I don’t really read it as insensitive. The whole message screams shock and nervous laughter as a coping mechanism. He sounds actually upset about the election, but he’s trying to keep it lighthearted and surface level because - and this is something that took me a second to come to terms with - he has no obligation to make a political post. He’s a pg minecraft content creator. Hell, even the post he made is something that other hermits haven’t done. Because they aren’t political creators. And honestly, the “lol” kinda feels like it wanted to be a “wtf”, but that may just be my interpretation.

His next series is tweets was him taking a second to be political, and in them he aired his grievances with the election, which was genuinely him being upset with how easily the world can be swayed by an evil person, and reminding people to stay educated. I see no issue with that. Some important context is that he’s German, so his way of speaking is likely more blunt and rude-sounding when he’s neutral. That’s a language barrier and cultural differences thing, and it’s quite important to remember as you read through the conversation. Then in his top comment, he shuts down the political conversation, making it clear that he doesn’t want a political discussion and he just wants to do minecraft things, because he’s a minecraft YouTubers (WHICH HE IS WELL WITHIN HIS RIGHT TO DO). He says this in a lighthearted slapping-the-knees-and-standing-up way, because he wants to return the tone of the conversation back to his normal content about being fluffy or whatever he does on Twitter. It’s a cleansing, resetting statement, in a way. I also don’t find this insensitive. Yes, the election is very upsetting and dangerous, but he doesn’t want those emotions and heavy conversations on his Minecraft content channel, which is valid. It’s his content. He doesn’t need to talk about the scary things. In fact, for many people, this kind of content is good to get away from the scary stuff.

For his last tweet, to be totally honest, I’d also be shocked and confused if I sent what I believed to be a totally harmless tweet and a lot of people (who are already emotionally charged because of the election) said I was an awful, insensitive human and wished bad things on my child (real tweet). Again, remember the language and cultural barrier. Maybe he could have spent ages crafting the perfect apology, but he doesn’t think he needs to apologise for a harmless word, and frankly I don’t either (also lol can mean slightly different things in different countries, I use it to convey shock all the time, or in place of things like “what”).

I’m going to be honest, I might sound like a bitch for saying this, but I think a lot of people entered the conversation with doc already angry and upset about the election, and they almost wanted an argument with something tangible. Hate breeds hate or whatever the Star Wars guy said. And you’re valid for being upset, but if you look at his messages pragmatically, they’re not all that bad. Love you all, and I’m sending the atheist equivalent of prayers to everyone in America right now

Why the Doc hate? I don't watch him I'm just curious

I’ve been on twt ranting about this for like three hours and I’m tired but here’s the rundown

Doc made this tasteless post earlier today in regards to the U.S. election results

And then be followed it up with this series of tweets. Which I generally find distasteful. (Read bottom to top)

He said that he “Can’t be bothered by politics” when this is about more than that. This is about the literal rights and health of women, children, and all minorities being removed because of conservative America.

Than he basically did what he always does and cried to his community saying people are screaming at him because he wrote “lol” in the first image. When clearly that’s not the big issue people are having.

I haven’t seen anything past this tweet tbh so I don’t know if he’s said anything else and I’ve had lots of thoughts about this so sorry if it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

And, honestly, I may be taking this out of hand but I’m so tired of him trying to put his foot into conversations that don’t need his input. He did it with Palestine and blocked so many people over it and I won’t be surprised if he does it over this too. His privilege is showing and it’s disgusting :/

[waitingformyfavoritesongs]

1:52 1:53 am pdt 7 April 2023 Friday

I guess everyone who is trying to kill me thinks they are righteous. I guess no one wants to help me. All those commercials that say they care a lot, makes me think it’s a lie. Even this hotel 🏨 says it. It’s hypocritical. But a few hours ago I came to the realization that I understand why they think 💭 they are righteous. Righteous to kill in a backhanded way. 1:56 am pdt I don’t have any arguments left. Until I forget and then get torn down again as I write ✍️ that argument. Why should I expect to be treated differently than other people b4 me who lost their body parts? He keeps on attacking me with acid. Not much left of me. Going to lose something for sure/certain. 1:58 am pdt I’ve been lied 🤥 to. And I cannot argue why it’s wrong. And I cannot defend people like dugard and Shannon Ruth. 1:59 am pdt

3:43 am pdt if all rapists are righteous then does that mean all people who work at the hospital 🏥 who neglected me are righteous and rapists? 🤔😖😭😤🥵😤🥵😤🥵😤🥵 3:44 am pdt bcz why do people use the word f*ck in other cases when they aren’t referring to intercourse? 3:45 am pdt the only way to mildly amuse myself in the face of people who don’t care 🤷🏻‍♀️ I’m losing my bottom half. 3:46 am pdt

It’s all ransom and witch 🧙 craft I guess? 3:47 am pdt even though it did seem like something did work.... 3:48 am pdt I get confused 🤷🏻‍♀️

12:11 pmpdt incubus captioned there are no Wednesdays. Only Fridays and Saturdays. In previous posts I put for Wednesday: 👰‍♀️ Friday sounds like fry. Saturday is close to satan. If you can’t walk, you’re close to dying. All those who are close to dying are sitting 🪑 . Sat Anne. Isu. I ,Susanna. Daniel and Susanna. Round and round. Grew up thinking 💭 one idea 💡 is better than the other only to find out god is opposed to it. I guess rapists are better than non rapists. I guess rapists care about women’s feelings? I didn’t know. I guess it’s righteous to only care for your feelings when you’re a man 👨. I didn’t know this. Thanks 🙏 for setting me straight. 12:26 pmpdt can’t really be happy being a people pleaser only. 12:27 pmpdt I wonder 💭 if there are more bombs 💣 hidden in ice 🧊 and will push the earth 🌍 closer to the sun 🌞 . 12:28 pmpdt was it the Arctic 🐻‍❄️ or Alaska? I forgot. 12:28 pmpdt I feel like I am going to regret writing this. But I’m tired of living in agony. I’m looking forward to the day the I am dead ☠️. 12:30 🕧 pmpdt I am not god. I am not alll knowing. I know very little. I don’t know 🤷🏻‍♀️ the future. I don’t know 🤷🏻‍♀️ how things should or can or would be done ✅. I don’t know 🤷🏻‍♀️. 12:31 pmpdt I don’t have much figured out. And I lived most of my life probably being restricted 🚫 . 12:32 pmpdt I don’t do drugs, don’t drink 🚱 alcohol 🍷- although I have tried it a few times, I don’t smoke 🚭, I haven’t tried weed but I think 💭 I smelled it b4. I know that some guys don’t want me telling family that I had s*x with them. They will say “it is none of their business.” 12:35 pmpdt

12:41 pmpdt my tongue 👅 is partially black now. Nausea. 12:42 pmpdt. So, if Disney romantic fantasy love 💕 is not possible, what does that say about humans? We are all fantastic liars 🤥? Obligation? To stay with one human married for the rest of your life? It’s not possible for everyone to have a best friend? Mariah Carey song 🎶 . I guess it’s a sign Bcz Jordan/jordi died. Left hip 12:44 pmpdt 12:45 pmpdt. I am missing some parts of me. Not going to be optimistic or feeling like there is real brotherhood on earth 🌍. I don’t now. I have been left to rot (1207 12 almost looks like R) die. 12:46 pmpdt am I really that unacceptable of a person? Truely naturally and I’ve been crazily in denial? I guess so. That’s part of people pleasing I guess. Even though I have failed 😞 at everything involving relationships that no one wants to talk to me, even after only talking for a minute. I do the slightest littlest things wrong and people get turned off and reject me on first impressions. 12:50 pmpdt didn’t realize Q was worse than me if all my predictions are true, at least in my opinion. The rest of the world 🌎 probably won’t share my opinion. I probably have distorted thinking 💭. I’m sometimes not even honest with myself: like I used to eat random stuff and pretend I like it and eat it Bcz it’s convenient. 12:52 pmpdt 12:53 pmpdt I should have been more honest earlier. But I was probably setup to fail Bcz if my Saint Lucia curse. So if everyone is cursed the same way? But they’re not??? Not the same way... then there is no choice. ? It is what it is. I look in the mirror 🪞 and feel the pain. It don’t look 👀 pretty. I will take the (autocorrect: devil pictures kids) I don’t know 🤷🏻‍♀️ incubus is probably referring to my pictures at home 🏠. ) threats to my life more seriously now Bcz that looks like it’s truth. Friday, Saturday. No Wednesdays. Autocorrect:weans. 12:58 pmpdt no comment. Heart ♥️ of glass. 12:59 pmpdt karma for kissing and having s*x with people I couldn’t commit to. Self full filled prophecy? Or meant to be? I thought 💭 a lot of stuff felt out of my control. 1:01 pmpdt

2:36 pmpdt even if so, I’m still dying. Can’t breathe + heart ♥️ pain = dying! 2:38 pmpdt

5:02 pmpdt (left hip bone 🦴 pain) idk 🤷🏻‍♀️ if the bombs 💣 net the North Pole pushed the earth 🌍 closer to the sun ☀️ or away. If the earth 🌍 was slowly wobbling towards migrating closer to the sun ☀️ in its revolution around the sun 🌞 I would probably put bombs 💣 to push it away from the sun 🌞. Idk 🤷🏻‍♀️ idk 🤷🏻‍♀️ what’s going on what god’s purpose was to put those bombs 💣 there. 5:05 pmpdt wild imagination 💭 hope for the best prepare for the worst. 5:06 pmpdt

5:07 pmpdt or maybe 🤔 it’s to accelerate changing of the poles? To change poles probably means to change positions in orbit around the sun 🌞 changing the path? I didn’t get that far in school 🏫. 5:08 pmpdt

8:46 pmpdt 8:48 pmpdt incubus stabbed a part of my upper right brain a bunch of times and it hurt. And then he applied more acid with a rough sandpaper-like feel. 8:50 pmpdt it scares me whenever I feel anything painful in my brain. For some reason at this moment my emotions are weird. Right lower leg bone 🦴pain 8:53 pmpdt oddly. pain back right skull? Pain 8:54 pmpdt I m moving a little slower.

9:01 pmpdt I suddenly remembered Buddha. He knew it was his time to die. 9:02 pmpdt

9:40 pmpdt a light and then a boom that echoes in the sky. A long white car with tinted windows drive off a minute after. 9:41 pmpdt I think they’re trying to cause a fire at the hotel. Drove off to the left hand side when they exited. 9:42 pmpdt

10:17 pmpdt I’m on edge. I thought I saw a light reflection from the corner of my eye travel upward from below. My mom is telling me it’s not what I think it is. 10:18 pmpdt

[tryst-art-archive]

Context: 2013

Ngl, I had to go through the photos in my archives to figure out what even happened in 2013. SO, we'll cover the bits that stand out.

Thesis

Leading up to my graduation, I did a senior BFA thesis for my major. For this I decided to write the first chunk of Kriamiss's story in the Khra-nicles, which was an interesting experience both from seeing how someone besides me and Deer received that narrative and from approaching my genuine interests less as "dumb thing I do" and more as "thing I am doing seriously."

I completed the thesis successfully, but the experience sadly didn't lead to me writing the whole novel.

Graduation, Working Full-time, & Recovering from Art School

Prior to graduation, I needed to figure out what I was going to do about work. Because of the Boston lease cycle, I needed to know if I was staying in my then-current apartment with Deer, Coyote, and Tiger or not. Essentially, this choice boiled down to:

Move back in with my parents while I try to get a job in "my field"--whether that field is publishing or game dev.

Continue living with my current roommates in Boston and accept Any Job That Will Pay The Rent in order to be able to do that.

I chose the second because the real difference between 1 and 2 was whether or not I would have the space to be independent, have concrete privacy, and generally not feel observed in a judgmental fashion. (This is not to say my parents are overly harsh or anything, but it's the inherent nature of being with one's parents to regress to who you were as a kid.) This was completely the correct choice for me, and you can see it in photos following my graduation: my happiness and amount of life lived increases significantly.

To put it another way: Life Got Better as soon as I was free from a system that I hated and was able to self-determine.

That isn't to say I was magically no longer depressed--I was still massively depressed--but it is to say that the depression was existing within a bevy of relationships, experiences, and joy whereas before it had been the casing around a pile of obligations and resentments.

I graduated from my college, magna cum laude I think, in May of 2013, following the removal of my wisdom teeth, and accepted a full-time position with the company that ran my school's print & copy center and mailroom. They ran those services for many of the colleges in Boston, so my new gig with them was to look after the mailroom at another college.

This mailroom was in a basement, and I ran it almost entirely by myself. During some parts of the year, there would be a student worker with me, but usually it was just me and the spiders that liked to drop out of the ceiling. While that made working in the mailroom extraordinarily boring, it all-in-all worked for me; there weren't that many people stopping by, especially in the summer, and after spending four years dragging stories out of my soul, not being asked to do anything but exist and sort mail was a relief.

I spent a lot of my time in the mailroom decompressing from art school and slowly--a little tiny bit at a time, almost cautiously--returning to the things I'd liked about making stuff to begin with.

This seems to be an almost universal experience with art school, at least among the sample space of my friends. Pretty much every single one of us who went to some kind of arts university walked away with an intense amount of baggage about Making Things--typically centered around ideas of what is the right or wrong way to make things--that we had to dismantle before we could get back to making anything, much less stuff that aligned with what we wanted to make. For some of us that meant diving into other crafts/mediums than those we'd been educated in, and for others of us it meant simply not making at all and consuming voraciously instead.

For me personally, it tended to be small bursts of creativity that would then pitter out sadly, with a lot of photos--but decreasingly art-oriented photos--filling the time between.

One added peculiarity of the mailroom job was that I weirdly kept meeting people through the mailroom. One was someone I'd gone to high school with, who delivered some of the mail and greeted me with, "...I know you" to which I said, "You do?" and looked up to realize that he was one of the three Art Kids in my class--me, him, and another girl from my friend group. This encounter didn't kick off a friendship or anything, but it was a neat moment.

The other notable one--and I don't remember exactly when this happened--was a student at the school who made small talk when stopping by to pick things up. After a bit, he asked me on a date, and I agreed from a "Well, let's see what happens" place. We went on a few dates but lacked chemistry and decided to pursue that angle no further. However, Deer and I did succeed in adding him to our wider friend group. I also got a meaningful lesson and confidence boost out of being able to try seeing something without having to commit to them either exclusively or long-term. It made saying "No"--something I still struggled with--a little bit more feasible.

Gender?

I don't remember thinking about this in an intentional way, but it's clear to me from photos that I started stripping away elements of femininity in my personal presentation one little bit at a time. In particular, I was slowly shedding things that Required Effort to sustain.

A lot of the haircuts I see from this point forward are chin-length at longest or involve some kind of half-shave or undercut. I, in fact, specifically remember getting my first half-shave/undercut was a Big Moment in that I knew my family would hate it and felt I was doing something transgressive by prioritizing what I liked and wanted over what would make sure I was left alone.

I was, for a chunk of time, still doing makeup, but I slowly decreased the amount until I was only doing eyeliner and mascara, without anything else. While I was still wearing skirts and suchlike, a lot of the photos I have aren't of me dressed and looking nice but in the lounge clothes I wore around the house but feeling like I looked good in them.

I was also putting on weight, which for me is a sign of increasing happiness and reducing depression. Depression tends to make me not eat, so when I'm consistently losing weight, it's a sign that my mental health has tanked. (This isn't an intentional thing; I just stop having an appetite and lose the will to make food.)

Fun & Games

The social environment of my apartment was, frankly, rad, and while our unit was rundown in many ways, our location within the city was fantastic. We had a lot of excellent times, and we started some key traditions like the annual Krampus Party in December.

I had a habit of falling asleep in my squeaky pink armchair while playing Skyrim, and I'd wake up horizontal across the seat of the chair and its footstool with my horse on some building's roof.

Deer and Coyote and I would often get takeout while Tiger was out, and Tiger would come home to find the three of us passed out on top of each other on the couch with a spread of takeout containers spread over the coffee table. When we woke up, we'd get right back to eating.

There was a lot of eating in general, honestly. We made and shared good food and poured a lot of of our "disposable" income into the same, whether that was high-quality ingredients, special takeout, cakes from the nice bakery on the corner, or hitting up local restaurants. One of the parties in 2013 was, I think, a "Game of Thrones" themed party where we made lavish dishes.

In this way, we became something of a social hub for the wider friend group, and we were increasingly known for our warmth and welcome.

[danses-with-dogmeat]

Romanced companions react to an autistic!Sole having a meltdown because of sensory overload?

Romanced!Companions React to Autistic!Sole with Sensory Overload Anxiety

This was a great prompt! I hope I was able to do it justice, I wanted to get it posted, but I also desperately need sleep 😅 But thank you so much for the ask, Anon! I might expand on this more at a later date as well, when my brain decides to function again. 

This prompt with FO3 and FONV

Cait:

She understood Sole's reaction more than the specific cause of the overload. It seems like all Cait has ever been around are stressful and overstimulating situations, so it’s difficult for her to differentiate occurrences that will cause Sole distress and those that wont. Once Sole was able to specify what it was that was bothering them, Cait would put an end to it. Preventing whatever it may be from doing her partner any more harm. She’s not a particularly soft person, everyone knows that, but she can’t stand seeing Sole like this. She may not know a whole lot of fancy breathing exercises that are medical journal standard, but she knows enough from her own experience to be able to improvise something in the way of support for her partner. 

Curie:

She would be an absolute pro. Like, the perfect combo between health professional, and understanding romantic partner. If their surroundings were secure, she would focus all her energy on helping Sole, doing breathing and grounding exercises to help them through their breakdown in a clinical way. In the aftermath of Sole's overload, Curie would turn back to doting girlfriend as she looks after her love, helping them to come down from their nerves and maybe being just a tad too touchy feely for them in this instance. But she means well!

Danse:

If this were to happen in the midst of combat, Danse would instantly take a more defensive position, and would root himself firmly between Sole and any enemies they may be facing. In other instances, he would use what he had learned in the Brotherhood when it came to PTSD episodes that he would experience for himself. He would remove them from the pressured conditions they found themselves in, taking them for a walk to calm their nerves, engaging in breathing exercises with them, and encouraging speech when it seemed possible. He would try to be supportive in every way he could, but Sole would have to be patient with their partner when it came to more intimate forms of comfort, as Danse tends to turn back to soldier-type tendencies in these situations. As a more preventative measure, Danse would attempt to craft a power armor helmet modification that could aid in depleting noise during combat, and otherwise try and dull the senses to make the outside environment more bearable for Sole.

Deacon:

He would actually be really good at dealing with this situation? Given his own experiences in life, and the many interactions he's had with a variety of types of people (and synths) in stressful situations, he would be able to sympathize with Sole, trying to draw any attention away from them, knowing that'll only make it worse, and helping them recover afterwards. He wouldn't be phased at all by their outburst and would try to help calm them down by making a few jokes here and there, if only to let them know that it wasn't a big deal to him.

Hancock:

His mostly chill demeanor would work wonders on Sole's nerves when they were around him. He was just so easy going, and non-judgmental and he seemed to never strip their energy from them when they spent time with him. Should they get themselves into a situation where sensory overload does occur, he'd do his best to guide Sole to a safe place where they can unwind and focus on returning their breathing to normal. If they think chems will help, he'll be more than happy to oblige, even going so far as to specifically scavenge whatever type of treatment chem that Sole had in mind for these overwhelming instances and would always keep it on his person.

MacCready: 

He’s a little panicked himself in these types of situations, but he makes an effort to be the calm one of the two. He finds his way to Sole in whatever way he can, looking into their eyes and trying to ground them with his voice as he desperately tries to keep it from shaking. He’s never had any formal training or anything like that, but when his PTSD episodes flare up, he has a few tricks that he uses to get back to reality; identifying objects around him, breathing in through his nose, sitting down with his head between his knees. He’ll try and suggest a few ways Sole can deal with their overload, going through the motions himself as well, since his partner’s anxiety tends to somehow inject itself into him whenever these meltdowns occur.   

Nick:

He’s calm, collected, and used to dealing with people in distress. It’s like he was built for this. Though he isn’t as familiar first-hand with the reactions that the human body has in these types of situations, he knows how to help. He’ll quickly try and get them out of the environment that is causing their meltdown, or eliminate the person or thing responsible for causing their anxiety. Afterwards he will try to help them come out of it easily and on their own terms, trying not to pressure them, but acting as a source of unwavering support for however long it takes for them to settle down. 

Piper: 

The woman truly tries her best, but it always frightens her when Sole is panicked in this way. She’s just too damn empathetic when it comes to Sole, that she can’t help but dissolve into the same state of discomfort and panic that her partner finds themself in. She would try anything to calm herself down and would frantically gesture for Sole to join her as she works on her breathing, counting, and amateur grounding exercises. As the pair come out of their shared panic, she’ll try to return to her normal self as soon as possible. Once her breathing returned to normal and Sole calmed down as well, she would offer her companion some much needed verbal and physical support, as well as some snack material to replenish their strength in the aftermath of their overload. 

Preston: 

The man is the definition of “works well under pressure;” he knows what it feels like to let people down, to lose people because of his mistakes, and he doesn’t intend for that to happen again. Ever. Especially when it comes to Sole. When his partner is in a compromised position, feels uncomfortable, or looks like they're about to have a meltdown, Preston is immediately at their side, putting himself in harm's way in order to ensure their safety and comfortability. He tries to use his voice, which for some reason he can keep totally calm even when he's under great stress, to keep them grounded. Counting along with them as they try to stay focused and keep from becoming completely overwhelmed. He is usually able to calm them down before their discomfort can escalate to the point of a meltdown, but if for whatever reason he can’t, he’ll be there to support them through the entire ordeal. Afterwards, he’ll speak softly to them, taking them far away from whatever situation was the cause of their stress, and ask if there was anything more he could have done to help. 

X6-88: 

X6 tends to notice when Sole is becoming uncomfortable even before they themself know. He’s memorized the types of environments that tend to set them off, and if it’s possible, he tries to usher them away from the cause of their anxiety before it can become an issue. If he is unable to do so, X6 will then take control of the situation as best as he can, eliminating points of stress almost to the point of overdoing it. There may be instances where Sole has to pull him out of his protective frenzy as he relentlessly removes anything that could be causing Sole's distress. In that case, X6 tends to provide enough of a distraction himself to be able to help Sole focus and stay grounded as they try to aid him. Does he do it intentionally? If they ask, he'll insist he doesn't know what they're talking about. He’ll just thank them calmly for assisting him, and begin to tend to their needs in the aftermath of their distress, assessing their physicality and mental state before allowing them to continue their travels. 

[himitsu-luna]

Headcanon

𔓘⭑ ࣪˖ Nct 127 as boyfriends ˖ ࣪⭑𔓘

։ຼ⚘ Taeil

~ Key words: healing hugs, comfort, easy love

Taeil is the type of boyfriend that you feel like you know for a much longer time than you actually do, just because everything feels so natural and comfortable with him. To him, relationships are meant to be easy, fun, light, safe, unproblematic, so he works with you to achieve this scenario. He feels like home and he makes loving and being loved look simple. He loves the intimacy of domestic dates, they give him the sense of bonding and growing closer. Cooking, watching movies, just lazing around, sharing secrets and also laughs while wrapped around a cozy blanket are some of his favorite things to do with you. But he also loves being adventurous, going wild once in a while, looking for interesting things to do with you deep at night. He is the type of boyfriend that shyly approaches you to give you a tight hug he was craving the whole day; that sings for you whenever you ask him to do so; that does silly things just to see you laughing; that passionately researches how to cook something just because you mentioned you wanted to eat it; that gives you his hoodies because he thinks you're the cutest with them; that hypes you up like no one else does.

։ຼ⚘ Johnny

~ Key words: joyful smiles, romance, mature love

Do you know that perfect image of a boyfriend we build in our heads and fantasize about? That's Johnny. He might look all cool and detached, but he is the warmest and most caring person you could ever meet. When he gets into a relationship, he takes it very seriously. He does his best to be the best version of himself. He is patient, easy going, mature, and loves to have long conversations with you when you go to your weekly coffee date. He is the type of boyfriend that surprises you with romantic acts out of blue and acts like he did nothing; that carries you to bed when you're too tired; that remembers little and big things about you; that picks you up wherever you are and gets out of the car just to open the door for you; that rushes to buy you medicine when you're sick and that falls asleep beside your bed. He also has his mischivious side, which makes your dynamics even more interesting. He is the boyfriend that carries you on his shoulders at a concert; that hides behind a door to jump and scare you; that tickles you until you can't laugh anymore. He is the type of boyfriend that treats you like royalty and also like his best friend.

։ຼ⚘ Taeyong

~ Key words: day dreaming gazes, companionship, reassuring love

Taeyong as a boyfriend feels like a partner for life. You can't help but catching yourself imagining a whole married life with him, but little you know he is doing the exact same thing. He is the type of boyfriend that genuinely does his best to get involved in your life and to be part of it. He asks you about your day, about your dreams, about your plans, and listens to you attentively. Communicating with him is not a problem. Actually, he is usually the first one to send you a message, or to give you a call. Also, the amount of support you receive from him is enourmous, since he admires and believes in you unconditionaly. It's natural for him to say "we" instead of "I", because he considers you in every step he takes. He is the type of boyfriend that crafts little things for you; that makes you that cute lunch boxes with even cuter post-its on them; that has a notebook filled with lyrics he wrote about you; that smiles fondly everytime he hears your name; that don't fail one day on sending you a gooodnight message; that pulls you to dance in the middle of the kitchen.

։ຼ⚘ Yuta

~ Key words: undivided attention, loyalty, intense love

Yuta is someone who won't ever leave room for doubts or insecurities regarding the love he feels for you, regarding your relationship. He can't get tired of telling and showing you how important you are to him. He gives you a lot of attention and takes good care of you. It's impossible for him to be indifferent when you're around, he is too into you, he has eyes just for you. He expresses his emotions clearly and makes his moods obvious, so the relationship is super transparent. The excitement of the relationship seems to never cease. He is naturally original and interesting, and he doesn't even need to try hard to get you hooked. Yuta's love is intoxicating, inebriating. He is the type of boyfriend that does your nails, your hair and your make up, but says that you look amazing without all of it; that gives you his jacket and also embraces you to make sure you're not cold, even though he is freezing; that turns off his phone when you're spending time together; that jokingly (or not) acts protective towards you; that doodles hearts on your arm; that winks at you from afar.

։ຼ⚘ Doyoung

~ Key words: meaningful acts, care, one and only love

Doyoung's hobby is taking care of you. And yes, it's his hobby, because he doesn't see it as an obligation or a duty. He truly likes pampering you and making your life easier. He openly admits that you are his weakness, his soft spot, the only one who can make him lose his senses and not think straight. He either is all lovey-dovey or the nagging type of lover around you. He is invested, respectful, nurturing, solid, stable, constant, and won't let anyone talk bad about you. He is the type of boyfriend that keeps little things related to you, like notes you left him or a cute sticker you glued on his arm while joking around; that gives you the last piece of french fries he got; that drops everything and travels miles and miles to meet you because you said you were lonely; that unconciously does little things for you, like putting tooth paste onto your tooth brush and handing it to you; that always carries two umbrelas because he knows you often forget yours at home; that keep staring at you in awe, but denies it strongly when you catch him doing so.

։ຼ⚘ Jaehyun

~ Key words: intertwined fingers, sincerity, movie like love

Jaehyun is the type of boyfriend full of surprises. He makes you wonder what is going through his head, because it's quite difficult to read him. But he knows what he feels. As you get to know him better, you learn that he is the sweetest bean. For example, you get to know that when he looks distant or distracted around you, he is actually trying his best to hide from you some random cute romantic surprise he prepared. Even though he is not that good at expressing his emotions, he tries to put his love into words from time to time, and you just can feel it through the tender looks he gives you. He is chill and down to earth with most of things, but he daydreams a lot about you. He is also an interesting person with interesting thoughts, and sometimes you feel like your in a romantic comedy movie. He is the type of boyfriend that says "you're amazing" out of nowhere; that back hugs you whenever he sees the opportunity to do so; that gives you the best massages ever; that wants to hear stories from your childhood; that looks forward to your reaction when he tells you a joke or a story; that brags about you to his friends; that secretly takes personality tests and looks into astrology to see how compatible you two are: if he gets a positive answer, he goes "I knew it!", and if he gets a negative answer, he goes "I don't believe this anyways".

։ຼ⚘ Winwin

~ Key words: soft caresses, growing together, special love

Once Winwin falls in love, he wishes it's forever. He is always amazed by you and by how you changed his whole world and his whole vision of people, of the world, and of himself. He has a huge sense of honor and commitment towards you, so he does his best to be a good boyfriend. He does that quietly though, with little meaningful acts and shy words. He is usually pretty calm and composed, but sometimes he becomes a cute soft mess around you. When this happens, his reactions ranges from "malfunctioning and not knowing what to do at all" to "showing off his skills so you'll be impressed". He is the type of boyfriend that goes shopping to buy something for himself and ends up with twenty items for you ; that steals a kiss on your cheek while you're asleep; that says he is going to read your palm just to have an excuse to hold your hands; that, after twenty minutes watching a movie with you, side by side, murmurs "come here" and extends his arm so you can hug and cuddle him, all of that while avoiding eye contact (but at the end he is all smiley)

։ຼ⚘ Jungwoo

~ Key words: endless cuddles, connection, colorful love

Jungwoo is the type of boyfriend who just feels right. You look at him and wonder how you could end up with someone that matches your vibes so well. He accepts you and loves you exactly the way you are, for the way you are. He is not only sweeter than candy, he is also the funniest, the cutest, the most supportive, the most lovely, the most unique and interesting boyfriend ever. He feels intensily what you're feeling, so he can understand you well. He cries when you cry, he laughs when you laugh, he is by your side because he wants to be. He is the type of boyfriend that stays awake with you all night long when you need to finish an assignment so he can help you and so you won't feel lonely; that creates a whole new special sign language to communicate with you ; that fights for food with you just to give you everything at the end; that goes live on instagram just to scream "y/n, I love you" and then disconnects; that can't stop talking about you to everyone; that uses your picture as his cellphone background.

։ຼ⚘ Mark

~ Key words: sweet kisses, happiness, pure love

Mark is someone who wants to give you the whole world, and he works hard to do so. He is very intuitive and can tell what you're thinking with just one look. Being with him feels easy, recharging, and you see sincerity in all of his acts and words. There's no drama, no second intentions, he just genuinely wants to see you happy. He is the type of boyfriend that prays for you every night before sleeping; that may be clueless about a lot of things, but notices when you have the slightest change in your appearance; that takes melted candies out of his pockets and says they are a gift to you with the brightest and most innocent smile on his face; that creates raps about your awesomeness at random times; that gets too tired of giggling while cuddling you and then sleeps in your arms; that get inspired by some cheesy movie to do cheesy things with you but gets all shy about it afterwards, which makes everything even more adorable; that helps you drying your hair and gives you little pecks while the towel covers your eyes.

։ຼ⚘ Haechan

~ Key words: heart fluttering words, sharing, playful love

Haechan is someone who makes you feel special. He knows every single detail about you, and it seems that he understands you more than you do yourself, because he always knows what to say to make you feel better. He is affectionate, flirty, enjoys to make you blush, but often he is the one who blushes like crazy. He values the deep bond you share, and is proud of himself to have you by his side. He is the type of boyfriend that diligently prepares a midnight snack for you and draws a big heart with ketchup on your plate; that asks you what you are going to wear on your date with him, so he can wear something similar; that has a bracelet with your initial on it; that does skincare with you; that calls you at raining nights and stays with you on the phone for hours to distract you from the thunders you hate so much; that runs to you when he sees you; that plays rock paper scissors with you to decide who will get you two food, but actually it doesn't matter who wins, he will do everything for you at the end.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

•° thanks @arieseris333 for the request! 💕

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•° Masterlist

...

[kuromantic]

hey! i was wondering what your interpretation of sakusa is. his characterisation intrigues me because there's so little material on him? also would love to hear about your readings on akaashi and bokuto as separate people. thank you for your time!

Hello! I think Sakusa is a very interesting character. In the guidebook Furudate says that his cleanliness and germ phobia isn’t actually that severe/abnormal, but may seem that way because he’s so blunt about it. I think Sakusa is a guy who gets easily misunderstood, although Komori post-timeskip is like “well if you can call it a misunderstanding” so I do think his personality isn’t liked by everyone he comes across. But I think spending time with him will make most people realize he’s not as mean as he comes across initially. He won’t make much effort to connect with many people, and probably was left alone for much of his childhood due to his family being busy. I think he does have some friends that respect his personal space, though.

In regards to Bokuto and Akaashi, I think they are both multidimensional and I have a lot to talk about them. I think Akaashi is the type to shoulder a bunch of expectations, and not rock the boat. He seems like the type to stay in a toxic work environment until someone helps him take a step out. He’d feel many obligations towards things, and hate to feel like a burden. He seems like the type to take himself down a peg, and regard himself as nothing special and a guy that enhances talented people’s skills or crafts. But he definitely has an eye for talented people, and even act a little bit eccentric in trying to take a look at them up close.

Bokuto is definitely a younger sibling type, quite used to being pampered and taken care of. But he’s definitely had a good upbringing, and has a strong core that doesn’t get influenced easily. He chooses to do all his laps in middle school, even though everyone else slacks off. He’s often regarded as too intense, but doesn’t make himself smaller for other people. He’s the type to inspire others more than take inspiration from them.

[after-witch]

Yandere Ransom Imagine

“That's some heavy-duty conjecture.”

Word Count: 2700ish

notes: unhealthy relationships, emotional and physical abuse, financial abuse, yandere

Imagine being a struggling adult working a full time job plus freelancing gigs just to get by in your one-bedroom apartment where the ceiling always leaks when it rains and you have to perform a complicated maneuver to make sure the door doesn’t jam up on you and you’re constantly worried about your landlord raising the rent.

Maybe a well-meaning friend gets you a gift card to an upscale bookstore because they know you haven’t had a new book on your shelves in years, or maybe you find $20 on the street like a veritable Charlie Bucket but instead of buying a Wonka Bar you head into a this fantastic artisan coffee shop on the rich side of town, a place that everyone always raves about on Instagram, just so you can try an expensive latte with hand-ground beans and flavors you’ve never heard of before--because don’t you deserve a treat, for once?

Whatever it is, wherever it is, Hugh Ransom Drysdale is waiting inside and sees you there.

And oh my God is it obvious that you’re out of place right off the bat. I mean, what the hell is someone like you doing in this part of town?

With your worn out clothes that are worn from necessity and not from being fashionably thrifted and your ratty purse stuffed with papers and candy wrappers that spill out when you dig in for your card or cash and your winter boots that you’ve probably worn 5 years in a row, ripped in the hell and patched with black tape that you hope people don’t notice.

It becomes even more obvious that you’re out of your element when something goes wrong. The gift card isn’t activated. The $20? A fake, probably a movie prop that blew in the wind. Whatever goes wrong, it means that you’re suddenly at the register, impatient people with real money tapping their expensive shoes behind you, unable to pay. You’re left standing there like a deer in headlights, unsure of what to do or say.

Normally he might just roll his eyes and remind himself that people like you ought to stick to your own shops, your own place. But something about the way your eyes go all downcast and you seem to shrink down in embarrassment makes him take pity on you. Like a stray cat in the alley hoping someone will toss it some scraps.

So he strides up and flicks out a card and hands it to the cashier, dropping a friendly greeting to them because he spends like crazy and they probably know him by name at this place, and he’s the one who hands you your coffee or your bag and your hands touch ever so briefly during the exchange.

He leads you away from the register--don’t want to piss off the spoiled debutantes and assistants on lunchtime coffee runs--and you stammer out a thank-you-thank-you and you promise you’ll pay him back as soon as you can and Jesus Christ, isn’t that just adorable? Someone like you, some lost kicked puppy who can’t even afford new boots, promising to pay him back?

He doesn’t care if you pay him back, but he finds that he would like something out of this exchange, so he says that instead of paying him back you can do him the honor of going to lunch with him. His treat. 

He insists. And you can’t really say no, can you? You are hungry and he did just pay for your things and it’s the least you can do to oblige his request.

He’s not stupid. He doesn’t take you to some razzle dazzle fancy restaurant where you’ll feel embarrassed and out of place. Instead he takes you to a quiet diner, classy not greasy, where you can have an easy conversation and tell him all about yourself.

It’s funny. Normally he brings up his family name, his grandfather’s books, to women he picks up, to get them impressed and hooked and pliable. Something about you, though. Something about you is making him want to turn this into more than a lunch date and pressure for a quickie in the car to repay him. 

So he holds back to see what he can do with you on his own. No quickie in the car, but instead before he drops you off--at a bus station, you insisted--he brushes his hand over yours. Can he get your number? He swears he can feel the heat coming off your cheeks as you fumble for your phone and let him put his number in your contacts.

He waits a day, then asks you out again. Dinner, this time. He asks you if you know any good places and you recommend a dive bar that you can go to after work (because 1) schedule and 2) cheap) and shit, he’s all for it. There will be time in the future to impress you with restaurants that have dress codes instead of sticky floors. You sit close on the stools and you buy him a drink (real cute, real real cute) and just for you he keeps the baggie in his pocket there all night instead of heading to the bathroom to liven things up.

Your relationship develops with an almost shocking speed. He knows just how to reel you in. I mean--look at you. Working your ass off at some dead end job, living in an apartment so shitty it takes you almost a month before you reluctantly agree to let him see it.

He can understand, though. Because you’re not that stupid and you know he’s wealthy, even before he casually brings up his family in a “it’s no big deal but I don’t want to keep things from you because we’re getting serious” sort of way. 

You pretend to be casual about it all, but he can tell you’re suddenly wondering: why the hell would someone from this wealthy family want anything to do with me?

It’s a question Ransom asks himself a lot. He asks himself this when he’s snorting coke off another woman’s stomach (hey, you’re dating, but he’s got needs and they aren’t met with hand-holding) or when he’s eating another greasy burger at a shitty bar because you refuse to let him buy you a nice dress to wear so he can take you out somewhere fancy.

You’re not the type of person he normally goes for, not at all. He has strings of girlfriends and flings, but they all tend to fit that same cookie cutter mold: wealthy do-nothings with their parent’s credit card who want someone else to spoil them for a while, without caring who it is or what they’re like. They’re easy pickings that Ransom can burn through and then toss aside when he’s bored of them. Some of them cry but a few days later he’ll see them on someone else’s arm, it’s the circle of life.

With you, though, there’s more. You don’t expect him to pay for dates or anything at all (even when he wants to spoil you a bit) and you have actual conversations and you seem to actually give a shit about what he says and does. You argue with him, too, when he wants you to do something (just let him take you shopping, for Christ’s sake!) or he asks you to move in (again) and you say no (again). I mean, you really fight with him, spitting words and all.

And unlike his previous girlfriends, you don’t come crawling back a few hours later because you want to buy a new purse with his shiny credit card. Instead, you make him apologize first. Fuck, that’s hot. It’s also something he tucks away in the back of his mind to work on later--but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t admit that he sometimes has the overwhelming urge to push you against the wall and fuck you for the first time right after a good argument. 

But he knows that would destroy your image of him entirely, so he holds back. He’s good at crafting a version of himself that appeals to others when he has to, and you’re maybe the first person that’s been worth all the effort he’s put into you so far.

But you need a push, a push that makes it so you can’t go running back to your shithole apartment when you fight or when you question whether or no you two have a future. You do, you’re just too naive--too inexperienced with money, to say it charitably--to realize it.

So he tips off the fire marshal about your apartment building’s shoddy fire escapes and well, damn, in the process of the investigation all the little corners that your landlord has cut come crashing down. At least they were discovered before it was the building that came crashing down.

But the evacuation of the building leaves you--and countless others--high and dry. You don’t have any family in the area, and your only half ass-decent friend in the city lives in the same building but her parent’s aren’t going to let a stranger move in.

When you finally realize you have no options and call him, voice tentative and embarrassed, he knows just what to say to get you to pack your meager belongings and wait for him to pick you up. He’s no-nonsense about it. 

He knows how to avoid deflating your pride, how to keep you from deciding you’d rather stay in a shelter than take his charity. You’ll pay him back, he says, you’ll figure out a rental plan or whatever. He even teases--he’s not the best landlord, but he won’t take 2 weeks to change the toilet if you submit a maintenance request. It makes you crack a smile and bam, just like that, he knows he’s gotten in.

That night, after takeout and wine and a Netflix movie neither of you paid attention to, you fuck for the first time on his expensive sheets on his expensive bed and afterwards, when you’re both sweating and cuddling and reveling in the afterglow, he makes a note to buy you some new lingerie. 

It’s all very homey, for a while. He could do without you leaving for work and working your ass off, with your freelance shit, sometimes staying on the computer until two, three in the morning. But it’s nice to have you close all the time, available to him whenever (almost whenever) he wants. He brings home takeout and you snuggle on the couch and he finally even convinces you to go out with him to a nice restaurant wearing something he’s bought and hot damn, do you look good, head-to-toe in the clothing he’s chosen for you. Especially, later that night, in private, in the lingerie. 

Does he love you? The word hasn’t left his lips yet, hasn’t crossed yours either, but he can feel it underneath the surface. No. It’s more than love. He wants you. He wants to have you. And not just for the afternoon or the summer, but forever. 

He spins daydreams about how he’ll clean you up nice and introduce you to the family. Probably to Harlan, first, because everyone knows that’s whose opinion really matters. Harlan will like you--he would probably like you without any primping or fixing, actually, which is more than he could say for his parents or anyone else in the family. Then once you’re in, you’re in--you’ll come to family dinners and vacation retreats where people always end up in ridiculous arguments, and you two can exchange snarky comments about the family on the ride home.

And yeah, sure. You fight sometimes.

He throws out your old clothes and buys you a wardrobe befitting someone he wants to integrate into his family. You fight about that.

He makes comments about you how you should quit your job or at least try to get a degree--he’ll pay, as long as you agree to go to a university within driving distance--to work somewhere more respectable than a chain restaurant. You fight about that.

He gets pissed when you want to meet some “friends” at a bar without him, because why would you need to go anywhere without your loving boyfriend in tow, unless you were trying to flirt with someone else? You definitely fight about that.

And, okay. Maybe he’s hypocritical.

Maybe he goes out late at night when you’re stuck doing your “freelancing work” and he’s in a rotten mood about it, and he ends up on the floor of a swanky club with drugs in his system and lipstick on his neck. He doesn’t come home until the next morning and you’re pissed and red-eyed and arguing with him, accusing him even, but you have no shitty apartment to stomp back to anymore so you’re stuck. 

Until you’re not stuck. Until he casually snoops through your phone and sees that you’re looking up cheap-ass apartments and hey, you’ve already booked a few interviews already. The thought of you slipping through his fingers makes him more sober than he’s been in a while. He’s got to do something. Not to himself, of course. But to you. To keep you with him.

It’s easy enough to get you fired. He’s a ‘Thrombey’ after all, and some nice crisp bills anonymously sent to the right hands is all it takes for you to come home one night, cheap mascara (he notes: buy you some better quality makeup soon) running down your cheeks. Your freelancing isn’t nearly enough to get you into an apartment.

He assumes that you’ll give up on the idea after losing your job, but you’re nothing if not stubborn (one of the reasons why he likes you) so you start the job hunt the next morning, fresh mascara in place. 

Damn, do you keep him busy. Anonymous calls. Cash in nice white envelopes. Rejection after rejection. You get so sad, so depressed. You don’t even want to go out to restaurants, so he orders in and you snuggle in his lap while he feeds you bites of orange chicken and rubs your back. It almost brings you two closer again, starts to mend the rifts that began when you refused to get over his occasional late night out.

But then you break the uneasy mending by snooping and woah, you don’t like what you find on his phone. 

You fight. 

Damn, do you fight. This time there’s no pretense of potential forgiveness as you begin wildly throwing your clothes into your ratty duffel bag from the back of the closet, telling him to fuck off fuck off fuck off, telling him he’s crazy, telling him that what he’s doing is fucking illegal and--

It’s the shock that hurts you the most.

The shock you feel when he grips your wrist hard and pushes back on your shoulder when you try to yank away, pushing you against the wall with a hard thud. It’s like having a rug pulled out from underneath your feet when you feel a slight ache in your back, on your shoulders, when you tell him to Let go, goddamn it and he only pushes back harder to keep you in place. It’s Ransom. It’s Ransom who’s doing this.

His voice feels unrecognizably cold when he leans in and hisses in your ear.

“You think you can just leave me? After all I’ve done for you? Let me tell you something--you won’t get another job within one hundred miles of here, within one thousand miles of here, unless I say you can. So just put your clothes back in the closet, chill the fuck out, and stop being such an ungrateful bitch.”

It’s the shock that makes you numbly hang your clothes back up in the closet, fold them again with shaking hands, and sit on the bed until the dam breaks and you cry.

And oh fuck, he’s sorry. Really. He wraps his arm around your shoulders and then he’s the one who’s crying and confessing that he didn’t want you leave him because yeah, he knows he’s a fuck up, he knows he’s got a drug problem, but he loves you. 

It’s the first time he’s ever said it out loud. He loves you. “I love you,” he says, again and again, half-laughing.  And he tells you you’re the only person he’s ever dated that made him want to be a better person but he doesn’t know how.

You don’t know what to say because maybe you do love him--but he hurt you and got you fired, but the tears on his face seem so genuine and he tells you he’ll never, ever hurt you like that again and fuck, he says, if you want to go get a job he’ll drive you to the interview right now just-let-him-blow-his-nose-first-please.

You make him sit down and then you’re the one apologizing and the rest of the afternoon is a shaky truce between you two as you drink hot chocolate and order in takeout and watch a movie together.

It’s not until you’re both under the sheets, satisfied and then showered, that you think about what he did to you in a clearer light. The thoughts weigh heavy on your mind, pulling and tugging. You think you might love him. He hurt you. He took care of you when no one else would. He cheated on you. 

I love you, he tells you, when your mind is starting to tug itself into sleep.

He hit you. He said he was sorry.

He hit you.