#and none of them make remotely similar content

[calivide]

Brain death worms are funny because it'll say things like "who would want to watch a speed paint followed by a video essay followed by a cosplay video? Nobody would do that, people want one consistent thing, you need to pick one if you want to start making long form videos as a hobby."

And then proceed to have you watch a speed paint followed by a video essay followed by a cosplay tutorial because those are all things that you personally enjoy.

[rememberwren]

A Complete Set (Whatever That Means) || 2

A continuation of Skin Deep. Part one of this sequel is here.

About this: previous warnings apply, oral sex (f receiving), alcohol, gross imperfections, not a single nipple unfortunately, an eyebrow though. For @/moody-alcoholic, I hope this manages to quench even the tiniest portion of your thirst. 1 more part left. 7k

-

“Simon?” 

“Hm.” 

“Are you seeing anybody else?” 

Simon looks up at you. His hair is getting long, falling over his forehead and looking nearly brunet in the dim lighting. You don’t think he’s cut it since the two of you have started dating. 

He’s been drawing for half the night, hunched over with the sketchpad in his lap, doing terrible things to his own posture and blocking his own lighting all at once. When he answers you, it’s in that dry tone that lets you know he thinks you’ve said something funny or clever: “No.” 

A knot in your chest loosens. It’s hard to believe you worried over such a question for so long just to receive such a simple, earnest answer. He goes back to sketching. 

You content yourself with this and stretch your legs out until your toes touch his thigh at the other end of the sofa. His mouth twitches, but he keeps working. 

-

Six months pass, and how do you celebrate? You climb topless onto Simon’s lap, eager and anxious in equal measure. Your nipple piercing had stopped hurting months ago (save for the time you had snagged it on a cable knit sweater and nearly seen Jesus), but you had read online that piercings heal from the outside inward, and as such you had made every attempt possible to leave the thing alone even when all you wanted to do was play with it. 

In his own way of celebrating, Simon had bought you your first new barbell: a black one with black gemmed studs at each end. You couldn’t help but notice that it looked similar to his, only with a more delicate, feminine touch.

“Will you change it for me?” you ask him. Your hands are shaking.

“Alright. Let me wash my hands.” He shifts you off of his lap and disappears into the bathroom where you hear the faucet turn on. You cross your arms over your breasts, feeling silly being half naked without Simon in the room. Your foot bounces impatiently, but you know that if cleanliness were a love language, it would likely be Simon’s. 

Not that he had told you he loved you—nor had you told him. You had promised yourself that you would wait until he said it first (the only sure-fire way to avoid coming across as overeager and scaring him off). Still, there were a thousand ways in a day that Simon made you feel as if he loved you: the way he would go out to start your car in the wintery mornings when your remote start stopped working; the way he always offered you the first bite of his food if you weren’t sharing a meal; the way he’d crack open your drinks before handing them to you. Was it wrong of you to try to read between the lines? 

Simon comes back and tugs you onto his lap again. His hands look huge compared to the jewelry through your breast as he dexterously works the ball free from the barbell. He has the hands of a surgeon: steady and calm. You close your eyes in anticipation of pain, but there is none; it just feels alien, sensitive whenever his calloused fingers brush over your pebbled nipple, even as he removes the barbell itself. 

Taking the sanitized jewelry, he carefully puts it in and screws the stud in place. 

“That didn’t hurt at all,” you say, reaching down to tug softly on the barbell. Still, no pain. 

“Great,” he says, eyes on your breasts. He grips your hips. “Up, now. C’mon, up.” 

He tugs you up onto your knees so that you’re the perfect height for him to take your nipple into his burning mouth. You shiver, one hand gripping his shoulder and the other burying itself in his hair, gripping softly to keep his mouth in place. If you had worried that getting the piercing would make you less sensitive, you were wrong. He tugs on the jewelry gently with his fucking teeth and God, holy shit, fucking hell, definitely not less sensitive.

“Been waiting to do this,” he says, nuzzling the skin between your breasts as he gives you a moment to catch your breath. “Six months of hell.” 

“Yeah?” You pant lamely, chest heaving. 

He hums. His thumbs stroke beneath your breasts along the sternum tattoo he gave you—a favorite part of you for him to touch—as his lips find your nipple again, lashing softly with his tongue. His hands have begun to tremble where they slide down the curves of your sides and to your hips, touch soft and worshipful as he brings you down to rest your weight against the hard line of his cock still confined in his jeans. The shaking says more than a thousand of his words ever could. 

“I want you,” he mutters. “Say yes.” 

“Yes, God, yes.”

Simon guides you off of his lap, kneeling down into the space between the couch and the coffee table. He pushes the table backwards with a little more force than is necessary when there isn’t enough room for his long legs and accidentally sends a cup full of charcoal pencils tipping over onto the carpet. You snort with laughter. He peels your leggings and panties off and drags you to the edge of the couch, pressing your thighs open wide. 

Getting head from partners in the past had been a fraught, mostly unenjoyable experience. Even your first few times with Simon had been tense, with him quickly moving on to something else after noticing your inability to relax. A less eager man might have counted his blessings and moved on, but Simon’s gentle persistence had gone a long way toward reassuring you that he truly wanted to please you this way. It had gone a long way toward reassuring you that you could let him. 

He spreads you apart, thumbs slipping against your slick folds, heated gaze pinpointed on your most intimate parts before he leans in and licks a broad stripe over your entrance and up to your clit. You shut your eyes (and cover your face for good measure). His warm breath fans against your pussy as he laughs. He could be mean and pull your hands away, but he lets you hide this way and you are grateful for it. 

Simon takes his time mapping each part of you with his mouth, nose brushing your clit whenever he doesn’t have his lips sealed over it. Your thighs shake, toes curled, as he pulls whines and choked gasps from your throat. 

You peek through your fingers when you feel him shifting beneath you to find that he’s worked his cock from his jeans and is jerking off, only noticeable by the tell-tale rhythmic motion of his arm against your calf. 

“Jesus, Simon,” you whine. 

He makes a little sound of acknowledgement in the back of his throat, shifting on his knees to change the angle of his mouth against you. Something about him so unashamedly enjoying himself makes it easier for you to enjoy yourself too, to let your hands come away from your face and thread them through his hair. 

“Can we fuck?” you breathe, aching inside deep where his tongue can’t reach. 

He nods against you and kneels up to kiss you. You still aren’t used to the taste of yourself in his mouth, but it’s growing less foreign—and nothing could ever make you turn away from one of Simon’s kisses. 

He pulls you off the couch onto your knees, his legs spread to either side of your own. You arch your back, feeling his cock brush against the back of your thighs. Two of his thick fingers slip inside you, testing your give and your wetness. He twists them; turns to hook them against that soft, vulnerable spot inside you that makes your legs shake. Simon works a third finger into you, a stretch that your body struggled to take before but which it accepts eagerly now, the sting welcome and familiar.

“Fuck. I need a condom,” he rasps. 

“Just pull out,” you say. 

You can sense him rolling his eyes. Your fondness for the (dangerous) pull-out method had been formally noted by him and thus far rejected at every turn. 

“Don’t insult me,” he mutters. He grabs your hand and guides it between your own legs. “Be good and keep yourself warm. I’ll be right back.”

He’s barely gone long enough for you to stroke your fingers through your folds, but when he returns (flashing the intact condom package at you like he always does), he watches you for an endless, lingering moment.

“I like that,” he says at last, taking his spot behind you again, condom in place. 

“Like what?”

“Watching you touch yourself.” The head of his cock nudges your entrance. He finds the right angle and slips inside you, stretching your walls to make room for himself. You groan, your fingers digging into the couch cushion. It stings a little, right towards the end, but he just softly saws himself in and out of your pussy, soothing the ache with pleasure. His words go completely over your head. 

He reaches so deep inside you, like with his every thrust his cock bullies the air out of your lungs. The slick sounds are lewd, keeping time with your moans and sighs as his fingertips dig into the flesh of your hips, manhandling you further onto the couch to the perfect height for him to fuck into you, your knees barely skimming the carpet.  

Your hand ends up crushed between your pelvis and the couch. You let your fingers find your clit and the touch reminds your body of how close it is, that coil deep in your belly stretched tight and ready to release. Your fingers trail down to where his cock pistons in and out of you, and at your touch he groans, slows to a smooth drag, his length slippery with your own arousal. 

“Touch yourself, not me,” he chides, his voice rough. “I’m close enough.” 

“I’m close enough,” you say.

He flops against your back, nearly crushing you with his weight to hook his chin over your shoulder and ask: “Then what the fuck are we waiting for?”

You can barely draw in the breath to laugh, and it’s only worse when you cum. You bury your face into the couch cushions, giggling, fingers rubbing a gentle, hectic rhythm against your clit as your pussy spasms around him. He snorts at your laughter, a soft quiet exhale against the back of your neck. Then he cums, his thrusts sloppy and hard, turning his head at the last moment to bite your shoulder lazily. 

“Sex makes you so weird,” you pant. Your face hurts from smiling. 

“You like it?”

“Yeah. I do.”

He ties off the condom and throws it away. The two of you sit naked on the couch together, curled up. It’s a little alien to be this open about your body with someone and to have them be so open about their body in return, but it’s a good strangeness. So much about loving Simon is. 

“I need to get the other one pierced now,” you mention, toying with his unpierced nipple. “Have to complete the set.”

“I never did.”

“You’re incomplete. Don’t you know?” 

He snorts. “I feel quite fulfilled, thanks.” 

“Please Simon?” you ask. “I want to.”

“Don’t ever say please. I’ll text Soap in the morning,” Simon says, trailing his fingers up and down the length of your arm, making goosebumps appear. 

You hesitate. Should you tell him what you’d been thinking about for the last several months? Would it offend him to know that you didn’t want to go to Johnny for any more piercings? 

Whether it offended him or not, your pride couldn’t rest easily going back to the tiny room behind the curtain in Skin Deep. While there had been only a few other tense interactions between you and Johnny since Simon’s birthday (and usually he seemed to favor outright ignoring your existence), the situation had not improved. 

“Simon—I think I’d rather go somewhere else for my other nipple. To someone other than Johnny, I mean.” 

Simon frowns. “What’d Johnny do.” 

He phrases it like that—more of a statement and less of a question, immediately assuming that Johnny is at fault. 

“It’s just—it’s like I said on your birthday. He doesn’t like me much.” 

Simon turns to look you in the eye. When your gaze tries to skirt away, he lets out an irritated breath through his nose—but doesn’t fight you. Simon always lets you run. Maybe because he knows his legs are long enough to catch you. “You really feel like that?” 

“You’ve never noticed?” 

“Thought it was in my head,” he mutters. Then he says the most dreaded words he possibly could: “I’ll talk to him.” 

“No!” you nearly shout. You struggle to lower your voice to something more appropriate for indoors, your heart tap-dancing to an anxious beat inside your chest. Just trying to picture Johnny’s irritated expression at any of Simon’s potential efforts to talk to him made your stomach turn over. “I mean—don’t. Really. It’s fine.” 

“It’s not. I need you two to get along. You and Johnny—you’re the most important people in my life,” he says baldly. His honesty does something to your lungs—empties them, crushes them. You only just realize the position that you’re putting Simon in, and it makes you feel about two inches tall. How could you let your petty problems with Johnny potentially get in the way of their longtime friendship? Their brotherhood?

“I’m begging you, Simon,” you plead. “Promise me you won’t talk to him. Just, give me more time to get to know him or something.” 

“Can't promise that.” He stands up and stretches, joints popping as you stare at him, your stomach tearing itself to pieces at this knowledge. This is not how this conversation was meant to end. But he disappears into the bedroom before you can gather your wits enough to say another word.

-

There is nothing like sleeping beside Simon, his arm beneath your head, your body turned and cradled against his side, a leg thrown over his thighs. His heart is as slow and steady as his breaths, his calloused thumb tracing a line back and forth on your naked side, a line which grows slower and slower as he drifts closer to sleep. 

You ruin it like this: “Simon?” 

“Hm.” 

“Can I ask you something?” 

“If you got’a.” 

“On your birthday, you said that women meant for you sometimes ended up being Johnny’s. What did you mean?” 

He’s quiet for so long that you mistake him for falling asleep. You’ve resigned yourself to asking him another night when he speaks, his speech is slow and thoughtful, like it is hard to put it into words. 

“When Soap and I are in a room together with women, I’m like a ghost. He’s a fucking human being. Flesh and blood. Alive. People want to talk to him, to know him, to laugh with him, to have a drink with him. I’m not like that. I haven’t ever been like that. More than once Johnny would try to get me together with a woman who would end up falling for him instead. Eventually I convinced him to stop trying.” 

“Were you jealous?” 

He makes an ambiguous sound. “It’s hard to be jealous of Soap.” 

“Not impossible, though.” 

He rolls you over onto your back, coming to rest over you, your legs a tangled mess beneath the sheets. The darkness lengthens the shadows of his eyes, but you can still feel his gaze, tangible as any touch. He braces himself on his elbows over you and lets his forehead rest against your own. “I just wanted someone who was mine,” he says. 

It’s on the tip of your tongue, those words that are building inside of you and growing harder to withhold by the day. But you say it like this and hope he can translate: “I’m yours.” 

He ducks his head and kisses you. 

-

In the morning, Simon has slipped a piece of paper just beneath the edge of your mug of tea. When you look at it, written in charcoal pencil is DARCELINA: Dream City Tattoos and Piercings XXX-XXXX. 

-

It’s one for the record books: the rain. Thick pregnant clouds carry more than eight inches of rain to your city in the course of a day. The last time it rained so much was apparently during the Civil War era. The city floods, including the basement of your apartment building, which leads to a building-wide power outage. 

Simon has you pack a suitcase, junk the majority of your refrigerator and freezer, and come stay with him. You’re giddy, feeling like it’s a semi-permanent sleepover when he gets the call that Skin Deep has flooded as well. 

Then things take a turn for the worse. Simon is gone for nearly 36 hours straight making endless calls to attempt to clear the water and begin repairs, and sometime in the midst of that, the fight with Johnny happens. 

It’s an ugly one. 

Simon comes home in the foulest mood you’ve ever seen him in. It turns him positively stony as he moves around the apartment making himself a hasty meal, avoiding your eyes every chance he gets. After he eats, he sits heavily on the sofa, pulls out his sketchpad, and trashes no fewer than six entire pages before you get the nerve to ask him what’s wrong. 

“Soap,” he mutters, crumpling a paper in one strong, dextrous hand. He throws it toward the small garbage can beside the telly and misses. “He’s looking for other locations to pierce at.”

“Is the building that bad?” you ask. “You guys will have to find a new place?”

“Soap is looking for a new place. One without me.”

You gape, the shock of this news reaching all the way to the core of your being. 

“You don’t think it’s because of—?” Me. You can’t even finish the sentence, the thought upsets you so much. You tuck your legs beneath you on the couch, curling up, seeking to become small and harmless as grief and horror wash over you in wave after wave. 

“This is my fault. I tried to talk to him but he’s so fucking—he gets under my goddamn skin like he was born to do it.” Simon pauses heavily, before adding: “I need to tell you something about the night Soap pierced me.” 

Story time. Alright. You uncurl your legs, choosing to sit with them criss-crossed, your body turned toward him, giving Simon your entire attention. It’s been months since you found out that Johnny had been the one to pierce Simon, but you had been no closer to getting the story from either of them. Your curiosity was a dangerous, corrosive thing, eating away at your insides. 

“I’m listening,” you say, hoping you don’t look as eager as you feel. 

Simon looks to be at a loss for words, running his tongue along the sharp edge of his teeth. When he speaks, it’s hardly the lengthy story you had been anticipating: “We fucked.”

You blink. “You and—Johnny?”

Simon sighs and shrugs a shoulder. 

“I didn’t know you were…” Simon stares, waiting for you to finish your sentence. “…interested in men.”

“You are. Why can’t I be?”

You feel a chilly pang of horror, like someone has slipped a dagger between your ribs. You rush to assure him: “You can! You—“

Simon’s mouth twitches as he rubs at the crease of one eye, and your panic fades. He mumbles: “I’m just fucking with you.”

“So you’re bisexual.”

“I’m… I don’t fucking know. I’m attracted to who I’m attracted to. I never named it.”

“Okay,” you say gently. “We don’t have to. But what does that have to do with now?”

“The day after we—y’know. Fucked. I told him it was a one time thing. Maybe it’s in my head,” says Simon, frowning. “Maybe I’m crazy. But sometimes he looks at me or says something to me and it makes me think it’s not over. Not for him.”

“Is it really over,” you ask, “for you?”

Simon looks at you, quiet. He says: “I want you.”

And you are so relieved by the obvious honesty in his answer that it never crosses your mind to think that’s not what you asked. 

-

Simon is uptown at a café holding consultations while Johnny directs cleanup efforts at the shop, and you think that now’s the perfect chance. 

Your hands shake against the steering wheel the whole drive there, nerves less like butterflies and more like great winged moths in your belly. A part of you says that this is a mistake, you should turn back and let Simon and Johnny work it out on their own. But another part of you feels personally responsible—even if Simon says you aren’t. All your life you have taken things too personally, shouldered burdens which were not your own, bent over backwards to solve problems that weren’t yours to solve. If there was any chance that you could resolve this, you would put your pride on the line to do it. 

You park alongside the street and are thrilled to find the front door unlocked. The entire place smells musty, like a basement. The wooden floors have warped a little under your tentative steps, announcing your presence sooner than you’d like. 

Johnny sits in the chair where Simon tattoos clients. Sunlight streams in through the blinds and lights him up like some kind of punk-rock angel, his mohawk freshly clipped, dark finger nail polish chipping. Sometime between now and the last time you’ve seen him, he’s pierced his eyebrow: a black barbell with studs that reminds you a little too much of the one through your nipple (and Simon’s. Was that intentional? Did Johnny pick jewelry to match Simon’s? To match yours? For some reason just the thought makes your nipples tighten). In his hands is one of Simon’s sketchpads, and he’s flipping through it leisurely. 

He glances up toward the sound of your footsteps. 

“If you’re here about the water—“ his words die out on his pierced tongue as he stares at you, gobsmacked by your appearance. 

“Hey,” you say lamely. 

“Where’s Simon?” he asks, eyes flickering toward the protective spot where Simon usually hovers just over your shoulder. “He said he wouldn’t be in today.”  

“He’s not. It’s just me. I thought maybe we could talk.”

Johnny openly grimaces. He shuts Simon’s sketchpad and sets it down (hopefully where he found it). Standing from the chair, he takes a few casual steps away from you, clearly heading towards the curtain that leads to the back of the shop. “Really cannot think of anything we have to talk about.”

You square your shoulders, fighting down that instinctive urge to make yourself smaller, to give in and be manageable. “I think we do.” 

“You should go.” 

“Not until we work this out.” 

“There isn’t any this, alright, just—does Simon even know you’re here?” Something guilty must splash across your face because Johnny gives a mirthless laugh, reaching up to palm at his eyes. “Tha’s great. Just great. Could you be more incriminating?” 

“Incriminating—? Look, Simon told me about the night you pierced him.”

“Oh he did, did he?” Johnny says flippantly. 

“About how you two slept together.” 

Now that stops Johnny in his tracks. It’s clear that he didn’t expect Simon to really tell you about that night all those years ago. He looks at you with a fresh caution, waiting to see how exactly you’ve taken this news—what you plan to do with it. “Aye, then. I guess he did.” 

“I’m not trying to take him away from you.” 

Johnny makes a derisive sound. His words are well-rehearsed, like he has said them to himself a hundred-hundred times: “Cannot take what isn’t mine.” 

“He was your friend first,” you say, aiming for conciliatory and gentle the same way you might approach a feral animal. Johnny stares at you with flat, suspicious eyes. They’re so fucking blue—so different from Simon’s own dark ochre ones. “He told me that you’re one of the most important people in his life.” 

Johnny’s face softens. He says: “You shouldn’t tell me that. He wouldn’t.” 

“He’s not always good with words. Please don’t leave the shop, Johnny. I think it would break Simon’s heart.”

“I didn’t know he had a heart to break,” Johnny mutters. He leans against the wall beside the curtain and sighs, lips pressed into a thin line. “I’ll think about it. Now out. You shouldn’t be breathin’ in this air.” 

Johnny ushers you to the door, hand hovering just above your back, careful not to touch you. Once you’re out on the street, he shuts the door and locks it audibly. Then he leans in and huffs a heated breath beneath the “NO WALK INS” sign. In the fog, he adds: “No GFs!”

You flip him off. 

He flips you off. 

On the way back to your car, you find yourself smiling. You force yourself to scowl. It’s a more appropriate expression. Giving one last glance back toward Skin Deep, you find him still standing there, watching. 

Likely just to make sure you’re really leaving. 

-

Not long after you are moved back into your apartment, you find that Simon stops sleeping. 

You’re ashamed to say that it takes you a while to notice; nothing changes on your end of things. Anytime you are sleeping over, he lays down with you, tugs you up against his chest, and holds you for ages, his body still and breathing even. But one night you wake to a cool, empty bed. And later in the week, it happens again. Until more often than not you realize that any moment when you expect Simon to be sleeping, he isn’t. 

Usually you find him sketching, shadows like charcoal smudged beneath his eyes. He doesn’t meet your gaze and tells you to go back to bed, that he’ll be there soon. Sometimes he even does come to lay back down beside you—but only long enough for you to convince him that you have fallen asleep again. Then he is shifting away from you, disappearing into the other room, shutting the bedroom with the quietest click behind him. 

You know that he’s busy. His schedule has been booked—and with deposits nonrefundable, people more often than not kept their appointments. He’s been working with a client on mock ups for a sleeve, and the various pieces and the way they all come together around the contours of the person’s body are very delicate. Johnny’s threat to find a new job doesn’t help, either. Have they talked and resolved things yet? Simon never says so. 

You can’t imagine the stress that he is under, and you’d do anything to be able to shoulder a fraction of it for him. 

That’s how you end up with drunk Johnny in your car. 

It starts with Simon falling asleep before you—for once. You can tell he is well and truly asleep by the sheer weight of his arm over you, the soft snores that he gives out against the nape of your neck. After so many nights of sleeplessness, his body has finally given in. You’re about to slip off to sleep yourself when the buzzing of a phone startles you back into wakefulness. 

Not your phone—Simon’s phone. And it goes off again. And again. And again. Who the hell could be sending so many messages at midnight?

You know you should leave it alone—if it was urgent, they would likely call—but curiosity gets the better of you. Carefully you slip out from under Simon’s arm. It’s a testament to his sheer exhaustion that he doesn’t wake as you jostle him. In sleep, he looks painfully young and relaxed, and it makes you long to reach out and brush back his hair that has fallen onto his forehead. But not at the risk of waking him. 

Sure that all you are planning to do is shut Simon’s phone off so that he can get some restful sleep, you are surprised to see that Simon has his text notifications visible on the homescreen, so all it takes is a simple tap to open them up. 

Johnny. All Johnny. 

Ghost. 

Ghost

Are you uo? 

Up* fuck my fingers 

I need a ride home

Simon

I’m at that bar on… The text is cut off. To see more, you would have to open his phone. So Johnny is stuck at some bar, drunk more than likely. Well good riddance, you think to yourself, the hurtful way he treated you still very much fresh in your brain. But then you remember your talk at Skin Deep, and your traitorous heart softens. Could you really just put the phone back now and pretend you hadn’t seen the messages?

Simon doesn’t even have a password; that’s how much he trusts you. Would he still trust you after this, if he knew that you had gone through his phone, even if it was for a good cause? 

Making a spur of the moment decision, you could only hope so. Your conscience wouldn’t let you wake Simon, and as much as you disliked him, it couldn’t let you leave Johnny stranded at some bar either. 

You open his phone as quickly as you can, swiping so that it goes straight to Johnny’s texts and nowhere else. The name of the bar is right there, and you scramble for your own phone to type it down in Google Maps. He’s not far. Probably would be within walking distance, if he weren’t drunk. You could be there and back before Simon ever knew you were gone—you hoped. 

As Simon, you send back to Johnny a simple OMW. 

There is no hint of spring in the frigid March air as you slip outside into your car. The parking lot is dim and quiet, and traffic is minimal as you follow the GPS on your phone to Johnny’s location. The pub nightlife spills out onto the pavement and you struggle to find a place to park, grimacing at the knowledge that you will have to get out of the car and go inside to find Johnny, considering you see him nowhere on the street. Leaving the warmth of your car is the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do, especially in just a thin tank-top and a pair of leggings. Gathering your coat more tightly around yourself, you rush out of the car and through the people on the sidewalk and into the warmth of the pub. 

You keep your eyes peeled for Johnny, but can’t spot his silly haircut anywhere. What if he’s gotten a ride home from someone else? What if he’s decided to walk, or found someone to go home with? You shift up onto your toes, looking over everyone in the bar when you spot him in the corner at a table with a few other men. 

Johnny doesn’t even recognize you at first—either a testament to how unexpected your sudden appearance is or how drunk he is based on how difficult it is for his eyes to focus on you. When he realizes who you are, his mouth drops. He points. 

“What are you doing here?” he asks, accent so thick and slurred that you can barely understand him. 

“Picking you up. You said you needed a ride.”

“Aye but not from—oh, Jesus make me still. Yer not wearing a bra, are you?” 

All the men at the table turn to gape. You snatch the sides of your jacket closed where they had loosely fallen open, your face flushing with warmth. The table roars with laughter, but Johnny in his drunkenness doesn’t seem to notice your embarrassment. 

“That was mine!” Johnny shouts, elbowing the man next to him. “Did you see that? That was my work!”

“We get it, bruv,” the guy says with a roll of his eyes. “She’s no ten.” 

“What’d you fuckin’ say?”

The table laughs. 

Johnny grabs a fistful of the guy’s shirt and drags him nearly clean out of his seat. “I said, What’d you fucking say about her?”

The table stops laughing. Johnny cuts an impressive figure even when drunk; he’s easily the largest guy of the group. Your stomach drops and lands somewhere between your shoes. This is not going to plan at all. Reaching out, you try to insert yourself physically between the two of them but can only wrap your fingers around Johnny’s wrist, feeling the strength poised in the tendons. 

“Johnny,” you say, loudly to be heard over the sounds of the pub. “Come on. Let’s go, yeah? Simon…Simon’s out in the car.” 

“Simon?” Johnny let’s go of the guy’s shirt, his bad mood evaporating as quickly as it had manifested. He nudges his way out from behind the table, all politeness. Once free, he stumbles into a woman in a slinky dress who gives him a look that could melt glass. 

“I’m so sorry,” you apologize to her, wrapping an arm around Johnny’s waist and doing your best to keep him steady. “He’s an idiot, and he’s drunk. You look amazing by the way—“

“Control your boyfriend,” she snaps. 

“I will,” you promise, guiding Johnny away from her and into the crowd. 

His nose brushes the shell of your ear, breath fanning across your neck as he says with a laugh in his voice: “I’m not yer boyfriend.” 

You flush. “Thanks for letting me know, Johnny. I had no clue.” 

He says something back, some Scottish phrase, his accent so thick you couldn’t understand the words even if you knew them. 

“English, please,” you mutter. 

“Je-sus,” he groans, dragging the words out into multiple syllables. He takes your chin in his hand and squeezes your cheeks a little. “You’re just like him. ‘English, MacTavish’. Ha!”

You bat his hand away. 

“He’s been rubbing off on you,” Johnny mutters, laughing a little. Beneath his breath (though far more loudly than he likely intends), he adds: “In more ways than one, I imagine.”

Your face goes hot. “Johnny, stop talking.” 

The two of you exit the pub out into the cool night air. It seems to sober Johnny some, as he takes in deep, gulping breaths. He walks a little steadier as the two of you cross the street, and by the time you’ve made it to your car, he has shrugged you off altogether (even if he is still a little unstable on his feet). He stands outside the car for a moment before opening one of the rear doors. 

“What are you doing?”

“Rather sit back here.” 

“I’m not your cabbie.”

“Strange manner of dress if you were,” he says snidely, slipping into the backseat. 

In the driver’s seat, you let yourself have a small breakdown. You grip the wheel tightly, taking a few deep breaths of your own, searching for inner peace. You thought that you and Johnny had a tentative truce after that day at Skin Deep, but clearly he is still holding some grudge. Your search for peace turns up empty. 

“Sorry I lied about Simon being here. I just really needed you to leave the pub,” you explain politely. 

“Knew you were lying,” Johnny says from the darkness of the backseat. He sounds remarkably like Simon: brooding and irritable. “He’s got no idea you’re here, does he? He’d never let you come alone.” 

You frown. “No. He doesn’t. He’s sleeping and I didn’t want to wake him.” 

“Nightmares?” 

“Huh?” 

Johnny leans forward. You glance at him in the rear view mirror. “I said, Has he been having more nightmares?” 

You didn’t know anything about Simon having nightmares. That sour feeling in your belly was back, the one that made you feel like you would never truly know Simon, not the way his friends did. 

“No,” you say, a little defensive. “He’s been working on this sleeve for a client. Staying up way too late to finish it on time.” 

“Aye. Nightmares. Anything else is just an excuse he’s telling himself—and you.” 

Done with the conversation, you turn the key in the ignition and pull out into the street. “What’s your address?” 

“Doesn’t matter.” 

“Why’s that?” 

“Left my keys at the bar.” 

“Goddamnit.” 

You turn towards Simon’s apartment. “Then you’re staying with us—with Simon. You can sleep on his couch and get your keys in the morning; I’m sure he won’t care.” 

“Are you staying there?” 

“Yes.” 

Johnny mutters something under his breath. You consider yourself lucky not to have heard it. For a while, the two of you drive in silence. Then Johnny says: 

“You never came for your second nipple.” 

“It’s only just been six months.” 

“So you’re due for an appointment then, aren’t you?” 

You steel yourself, gripping the wheel tightly at ten-and-two. “Actually, I’m going to someone else.”

Johnny’s seatbelt unclicks. He hovers at your shoulder bringing with him burning warmth and the scent of whisky. When he talks, his breath brushes your neck, fury tangible in every syllable. “Who is it? Who the hell is he taking you to? Darcelina? Astrid? Dusty? Whoever it is, consider the appointment canceled. No one is piercing you but me.”

“You don’t get that privilege,” you grit out between your teeth. “Not anymore, not after the way you’ve treated me!”

“Oh, did I offend you?” he breathes, clutching one hand at his breast. “Not falling down at your feet? Not worshippin’ the ground you walk on?” 

“Fuck you, Soap! I wanted to be friends.” Your voice cracks embarrassingly. Suddenly the road goes blurry. You blink rapidly, forcing yourself to calm down—you’re driving for fuck’s sake. You swallow past the lump in your throat, the silence interrupted by rustling as Johnny leans forward again in the backseat, trying to get a look at your face in the passing streetlights. 

“Fuck,” Johnny groans. “Are you crying?”

“No!”

“You are. Fuckin’—pull over, before you get us killed.” 

Keen embarrassment only has your eyes watering more, until you have no choice but to do as he asks, pulling over to hastily parallel park and throw on your hazard lights. You let your elbows rest against the steering wheel, face in your hands. His words echo in your head, said in that stupid Scottish brogue: not falling down at your feet? Not worshippin’ the ground you walk on? Are those really the things he thought you wanted? Is that the sort of impression you gave to Johnny, to Ghost’s other friends? 

The backseat door opens and Johnny climbs out. A small part of you hopes that he will walk himself home—and good riddance. But he horrifies you by walking all the way around to the driver’s side of the car and tugging on the door handle until you begrudgingly unlock the doors. 

“C’mon,” he says, trying to pull you out of the car with your seatbelt still on. 

“What’re you—?”

“Just—wouldya—so stubborn—“ he drunkenly leans over you and mashes his fingers against the button of your seatbelt until it releases. For that brief moment, he is a warm weight across your lap, bringing with him the scent of cologne and whisky. Then he pulls you out of the car—and into his arms. It’s a tight, full hug, chest-to-chest, not bone crushing per se, but all-encompassing. 

You don’t realize how badly you need it from him until you’re getting it. 

“You’re such a dick,” you groan against his shoulder, sniffling.

“Aye,” he says, swaying a little on his feet, like the two of you are dancing. “But I’m right. We cannot be friends. So you’ve got to let this go, alright? Just breathe out 'n let it go.”

“I don’t understand,” you mutter. “He wants us to be friends.” 

“He doesn’t know what he wants,'' Johnny says, one hand rubbing gently at your shoulder blades. “No more crying. It’s out of your hands. Aye?”

You shake your head, hands gripping his shirt. 

But your tears slow and eventually stop. Cars pass occasionally. One of them honks at the sight of you both entwined on the side of the road, rolls down their window to let their passenger yell something suggestive, and it makes your face go hot. Johnny pulls away, nearly stumbling out into the road to give the car both middle fingers as it peels away. He slips on the damp asphalt and goes down hard on his side, taking the skin off his elbow and palm. 

“Fuck, I’m hammered,” he laughs. 

“Clearly,” you say, struggling to help him up and into the backseat. 

Once in the driver’s seat again, you feel exhausted, emptied, like a washcloth wrung out and left to dry. The drive back to the apartment is silent, and when you’re in the parking lot, neither of you make a move to get out of the car. 

You warn Johnny: “Simon’s asleep, so be quiet inside.” 

Johnny warns you sleepily: “Ghost is right there.”

There’s a tap on the glass of your window. It nearly makes you shriek—but it is only Simon, half-smoked cigarette in his fingers, bundled up outside the car door. You roll down the window sheepishly. 

“Need a little help?” he asks, taking a drag and turning his head so the smoke doesn’t touch you. His eyes are on Johnny in the backseat. 

You hold up your fingers with just a smidge of space between them. 

[bengiyo]

Why Do I Tag So Many Creators in My Posts? It’s About Respect

Earlier today I was talking with @sophsloveskpop in the notes of a post, and was asked about all of the interaction between blogs in the posts and essays about the shows. I’ve noticed an uptick in new names interacting with posts (and making great posts of their own!) and wanted to talk about why I do it and why I like fandom on Tumblr.

Fundamentally, I think it’s generally good courtesy to acknowledge when someone else has expressed a similar idea to your, or an idea that intrigues you. I think it’s best to tag that person and link to their post so that others can also experience it. It also opens you up to a dialogue with them and others.

People Like Getting Their Flowers

If someone posts an analysis or even a quirky idea that I felt the need to think about, I will mention them in my posts. None of the great content we get on here is necessarily quick to make. I absolutely love all of the gifmakers who fight against Photoshop, Tumblr, and God Himself to post snippets of shows on here for us. I wouldn’t be able to flesh out some of my posts, illustrates points, or otherwise breakup walls of text without @liyazaki, @wanderlust-in-my-soul, @pharawee, or @gabrielokun. Whenever I can’t find the gif I’m looking for through Tumblr’s terrible gif search, I reach out to one of them for permission to use their gifs directly.

Also, many of us just like being acknowledged that someone we wrote meant something to someone else. Every time I get tagged by someone in an essay I’m like:

It’s a Conversation

I don’t think fandom is about being the smartest person or the most correct person. My basic framework I’m writing from is Black Gay Nerd Who Watches a Lot of Stuff. It’s what I’m most familiar with personally, and I find that people have really responded to that.

I’ve been around for a very long time, and have been seeing folks like @so-much-yet-to-learn around the entire time, who often has more specific information about fandom life during the airing of shows. @absolutebl and @heretherebedork have watched more BL than I have, and I’ve seen at least 250 productions. ABL has some of the most comprehensive posts collecting some of the history.

I made so many friends after diving into @shortpplfedup DMs to talk about sustainable urbanism and bonding over our shared geography. Now we run @the-conversation-pod together. Through them I befriended so many others, like @elnotwoods and @kyr-kun-chan.

I’m not a color theory expert, and so I love reading posts from @respectthepetty and others (I think @sliceduplife writes about color too).

We wouldn't even have my favorite show without @isaksbestpillow.

I know what shows are coming because of @clairificusrex.

I don’t know much about music theory, but @iguessitsjustme write some great stuff about the music in these shows.

I don’t always read the body language of hands as closely as someone like @wen-kexing-apologist might.

I am not Asian, and so I like reading from @waitmyturtles, @telomeke-bbs, and @neuroticbookworm. I know that @recentadultburnout and @airenyah offer useful perspective on Thai language.

Sometimes folks are going to narrow down on specific shows and consistently write about them for years on side blogs like @miscellar.

Some people have studied so much and bring specific academic lenses to the genre that I find compelling, like @emotionallychargedtowel.

In many cases, I just vibe with them really hard, like @ginnymoonbeam.

I actually didn’t always post as much as I do, but I try to keep up my Stray Thoughts project so that people can keep track of what I’m watching. I used to write less meta, but then I befriended @waitmyturtles and @lurkingshan. Any time I say anything remotely thoughtful Shan is like:

Also, though, this is Tumblr! It’s easy to tag each other and link to each other’s posts! This is what makes us different from every

Isn’t It Just More Fun?

I don’t enjoy shows passively. I grew up in a family that watched things together. My mom, dad, sister, and I all have differing tastes from each other, but we watched a lot of different things together. My friends and I discussed the things we watched at school.

I’m a big fan of the water cooler approach to TV show distribution, which basically says you want your show to be the show people are talking about on their breaks at work. I always like Film Crit Hulk’s theory that movies (and our dramas) are the proverbial campfires around which we gather to share ourselves with each other.

This is all supposed to be fun, and I have more fun when we interact. I get tagged daily by @blmpff about updates from sets, or when we all need to rush to IG to make sure Fluke Pongsakorn doesn’t cut his hair. When @bl-bam-beyond makes a new set or post they let me know, and they recently rewatched Noah’s Arc! I made friends with @gillianthecat in the last year or so, and it’s been fun seeing her make her way through fandom. I always get excited with @troubled-mind pings me in a post because I know it’s going to give me something to chew on. I didn’t have a genuine appreciation for kink culture until I watched along with @lutawolf. If something funny is happening in fandom I know @benkaaoi is going to tag me. I still get excited when @heukheuk pops up in my mentions.

I know I’ve probably forgotten so many people alone the way here, and I’m sorry if I didn’t mention you.

Tag Because It’s the Right Thing to Do

So seriously, tag people and link to their posts. Try to use the giffmakers specific tags when you’re using the search feature. Fandom is better when we all interact respectfully and enthusiastically with each other. Tumblr is special because it lets us create goofy little essays like this and tag dozens of people just to get their attention.

If you have a cool thought about a show I’m watching, tag me. If you see something funny, tag me in the comments. If you wanna hash out an idea before posting it, DM me. This is Tumblr. Don’t be shy with your thoughts. It’s okay to be wrong on the internet. It’s actually fun to be wrong on the internet about show predictions!

Thank you as always for coming to my post.

[mehreenkhan]

Hey. Can you please elaborate the meaning of your bio "bawajud e dil .... "

In the workplace of existence, the asset of the tulip is its scar;

The lightning of the harvest of comfort is the hot blood of the farmer

From bud to full bloom, it appears as the petal of contentment

Despite its collected heart, the dream of the rose is scattered.

How would the sorrow of impatience be endured by us?

The wound shows weakness in earnest and the flame has a straw in its teeth.

Bawajud-e-dil-jami khawab-e-gul pareshan hai

Is taken from the second verse of Colossus of Urdu literature — Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib’s Persian poem “کارگاہ ہستی میں ” where he describes the fate of the bud. [The following explanation is taken from various sources and none of it is mine.]

There are different explanations for the second verse and it is critical to read all of these to develop your own understanding of the verse.

Sarfraz K. Niazi from Ghalib.org explicates the verse as

The bud seems composed. Despite this composure, the rose is destined to a disturbed dream as it eventually withers away.

Syed Noman-ul-Haq from Dawn describes it like this:

A bud has all its petals closed up, held tight together, fully collected. Naturally, its dream is to bloom, to become a flower. But then, there is a cosmic paradox waiting to manifest itself: as soon as the bud opens up to bloom, it loses its collectedness; now its petals have lost the firm embrace of one another, thrown thereby into disconcert. What was togetherness has, in the fulfilment of the dream, turned into a scatter. Winds will further scatter the split-open bud — now a flower — by blowing away its petals, and bees and worms will invade its integrity to destruction. Recall ‘The Sick Rose’ of William Blake here: “O Rose, thou art sick ...”

As Francis Pritchett brings to our knowledge:

That is, as long as the bud openly shows its attainment of the 'provision of contentment'-- that is, its remaining happy through contentment-- how can this be known to happen? When this is the case, then the rose has, instead of 'heart-composure', 'anxiety'. And thus the bud has been used as a simile, and from that the aspect of 'heart-collectedness' is manifest. In the same way, the scattering of the petals of the opened rose makes manifest the aspect of 'disturbed'. And the rose's silence and prostration in fatigue show the state of sleep/dream. In short, since all these three states befall the rose, then despite its 'heart-collectedness', the sleep/dream of the rose remains disordered/scattered. And the cause of this disorder is that it broods, 'let's see whether in this realm of disaster the 'provision of contentment' is possible or not'.

Josh:

In barg there is an īhām . The reason is that it means 'leaf', and also 'wealth, treasure' [toshah]. In connection with the rose, barg meaning 'leaf' is the most obvious meaning. But here he has taken the remote meaning.

“What I really love about this verse is the second line. It stuck in my mind the first time I ever heard it. It has that great sense of 'mood', and so much flowingness and resonance! You don't even need the first line, in order to enjoy the second one very fully. In fact it's almost better without the first line, for then you're left to imagine for yourself the nature of the rose's restlessness in its sleep/dream. Then it's a line full of mystery, with a powerful ominousness that evokes for us our own similar fate.”

It is impossible to explicate Ghalib's poetry in a single post as he enjoys setting up fine, lucid metaphorical equations, and then subvert them or tangle them up. You can read a more detailed analysis here.

[princeescaluswords]

I wanted to make a little thing about Teen Wolf teen as the Mystery Inc. Gang and my first thought was to make Scott Scooby because wolf - dog hehe (and I'd be using Stiles, Kira, Lydia and Allison so no other werewolves) and then I realised there are maybe some Implications(TM) to having the only Latino character depicted as a dog and I decided against it.

Anyway, I wish fanfic authors were capable of putting that much thought into their stories where Scott is written out or turned into a villain for no good reason

There are indeed implications, and that's something that fanfiction writers have to come to terms with: there are always implications.

One of the worst aspects of fandom is that content creators try to exert absolute control how their work is received after it is made public. They have this in common with every artist who ever lived, so it's understandable, but it's also unachievable. The only answer I have found is to work as hard as I can to understand these implications and accommodate them into your work.

I'm not speaking from a position of moral purity. Earlier this year, I wrote a story that I thought was an exploration of Mason Hewitt's role in the Teen Wolf movie, and someone whose opinion I trust argued that I botched the implications of what I wrote in terms of racism. Things like that are going to happen, regardless of intent, and the best thing content creators can do is not only be aware of how their work will exist within a greater cultural context but be open to criticism about it. I am always willing to grapple with implications I didn't foresee, including accepting the responsibility to defend my own writing. (Including this post!)

So let's talk about your idea. Why is it precarious to emphasize the animal-like aspects of a Latino character, even if he is a werewolf? This.

History cannot be erased, and it should not be ignored.

In the history of the United States, Latinos, among other disadvantaged groups, have been likened to animals in order to impose a social order that insists that they have to submit to white control. It's not arguable whether this has happened or not. When you write a story that emphasizes the animal-like traits of a Latino character (or any similar disadvantaged group), you must grapple with the historical and cultural context.

And the Teen Wolf fandom has not only failed to do that repeatedly, they've often doubled down on the implications. Think about how many times that Scott has been portrayed in fanfiction as having issues with self-control, more than any other beta, which serves as a condemnation for his refusal to submit to a white male character (either Derek or Stiles or even Peter). This requires a change to the original story, because the writers choose to ignore that other betas have problems with self-control as the adjust to the shift, and they choose to ignore multiple instances of Scott having significant self-control, such as Magic Bullet (1x04), Heart Monitor (1x06), Shapeshifted (2x02), and Party Guessed (2x09).

Think about how many times Scott has been given animalistic traits in fanfiction that he doesn't have in the show, especially traits which serve to emphasize his inferiority, and these traits are not shared by the other werewolves? He is a voracious eater! He can't cook, or clean, or take care of himself! He is oblivious to the sophisticated emotional and social states of his white peers. He's obsessed with sexual gratification and constantly indulges in sexual behavior in public. He's an indifferent student at best, frequently requiring assistance in even basic subjects. None of these are supported even remotely by the show. As an aside, many of these are also part of the same stereotypes given to Latinos: sexually voracious, passionately aggressive, lazy, uneducated, and ruled by appetite.

Now, a possible counterargument is that the show itself sometimes emphasized the animalistic traits that Scott gained through his transformation into a werewolf. The wolf run in Seasons 1 and 2. Sticking his head out the window to get Lydia's scent in Omega (2x01). Sleeping at the foot of his mother's bed to protect her in Currents (3x07). The dog bowl scene in Lunatic (1x08).

There is an important difference. In the show the white werewolves have scenes like that as well, such as the dog whistle Deaton uses on Derek in Fury (2x10) and the fact that Isaac, too, is sleeping at the foot of the bed. But the most important part is that these instances aren't used to position Scott or anyone else as inferior because they have the traits of an animal. They're not used to impose a racially-influenced social order. Even the scene in Lunatic (which, as a caveat, I personally do not like at all) is more about Stiles than about Scott being animal-like, demonstrating that Stiles's standard tactics of good-natured bullying and cruel sarcasm are no longer appropriate for his relationship with Scott, which Stiles must confront.

So my point is, if you want to create content for a Mystery Inc. AU, I don't think that there's any reason you absolutely cannot do it, but I feel you would have to pay very close attention to HOW you create that content. Are you ignoring the historical and cultural context of your work? Are you ignoring power dynamics inherent in your choices? What's the message you're sending by your changes? While I don't see the need or even the applicability of this AU, I'm relatively confident that it could be done, as long as you don't use your intent as a shield for the finished product. Intention does not guarantee freedom from offense, a concept that fandom has had trouble with again and again.

[ashpkat]

can we talk about this cover? besides the fact that it’s my favorite cover of the series and gorgeous but also the contents of the cover

first off, WHERE ARE THEY? there’s not a place in the magisterium that looks like this, i suppose you could argue that it’s the elemental prison, but i don’t think it was described like that? and i remember in someone else’s post, don’t remember who, that it looks like european architecture (which. don’t fact check me.) and going with that at the very least this isn’t the magisterium and is somewhere else in the world entirely, does this potentially mean The Bronze Key we got was not the original concept at all?

to add onto this! let’s talk about the knife calls holding. it isn’t miri. i suppose you could attribute the odd design to the fact that none of them are consistent in the covers, but the one thing that throughout books has stayed the same is the design of Semiramis. it gets used several times for chapter headers and ALWAYS looks similar and or exactly the same. and at the very least, if the knife he’s holding was meant to be Semiramis, don’t you think they wouldn’t have curved the blade? kept it straight? here’s my conclusion, the knife he’s holding is The Cosmos Blade. the original title for The Bronze Key.

but.. why? why does the cover not align with the book? this is the ONLY book it happens in.

(with the sort of exception of The Golden Tower, my friend has a theory that it’s aaron on the dragon and not alex and they resorted to just making alex blond in the book but. whatever not the point because there’s not as much evidence)

and the original translated synopsis— which might be fake and i’ve never confirmed as real so take this with a grain of salt— does NOT match up with the book at all. could it be that more than midway through the book they completely scrapped the idea? opting to go with The Bronze Key to fit with the metal theme? could this explain why the cover took so long to come out? there’s more i want to say on this but i cannot find the words for this.

i don’t doubt that through the production of a book ideas will change, but let’s talk about when these changes occur. unlike with small changes like The Copper Gauntlets change from The Copper Mask, this change actually is huge. because in TCG, a mask IS mentioned, constantine’s mask. but in The Bronze Key, not even a passing mention on anything that could remotely be The Cosmos Blade is mentioned. and let’s talk about the under use of european mages, yeah it gets sort of explained why they hate makaris in The Golden Tower with maugris but let’s not forget! maugris was implied to be improvised by the authors.

there are tumblr posts from the authors mentioning the european mages, saying that yes they would get mentioned in the third book or at the very least the fourth one, posts that just BARELY predate The Bronze Key.

this post isn’t me being sour that aaron died in TBK, because let’s be honest here, he was always going to die. nor is this me being sour that calron was never canon, because i could care the fuck less if it was (my main issue with callmara is how underdeveloped it is and how it totally watered down tamara’s character to a love interest like they did with celia. im a callmara fan, but everytime i read it in the books I GAG).

this is me being sour at the AUTHORS for choosing to devote more time to their already established and more popular book series. they had too much on their plate. they chose to opt for a potentially more simple plot for time purposes with each book having less and less pages. they needed better time management skills. they are NYC best sellers and yet, and yet, these final three books are lack luster in quality as their own series thrive and continue to climb in popularity.

so yeah. justice for The Cosmos Blade.

[papirouge]

I’ve had a hard time finding cute blogs or YouTube channels that are homemaking while also being chill? You know? I thought I found some but always ended up leaving because they’ll make comments against liberals - being political or go full on “I believe race mixing is unethical :) god bless!” - or something similar. I followed this one girl on youtube and at first she was cute about homemaking. I don’t care about “improving femininity” cause I think that’s a scam tbh. But while she did talk about, it was her homemaker stuff I loved. Then I found out that she was featured and like a lot of white supremacy/“save the white race” content online. A lot of it. I don’t k ow what makes domestic communities like homemaking/sewing/cooking/etc attract really awful hateful people and even fetishists

Yeah, that's something that I noticed. Many Western go to the trad lifestyle as some sort of political cope rather a genuine interest for a more simple authentic lifestyle.

Which is pretty weird because traditional lifestyle is the most.... politically neutral statement ever? Like, most people on this earth live traditionally regardless of their race. Trad lifestyle is pretty much the defaut. Sure people will have TV and electrical appliances, but they still go to the market everyday to do their grocery bc they hardly have a fridge, cultivate their own food/have their own cattle for subsistence, and have a very simple lifestyle circling around family and religion. My mom bought a fridge for my family in Congo and they hardly used it because they didn't see the point lol they preferred going to the market, and buy the food they needed for the day. It's a whole different mindset actually.

Back to White supremacists nationalists: they're really delusional to think that going trad is remotely going to have any impact politically. Since I'm from Europe, it's a well known thing that the European parliament (which is not elected by citizens lol) is now more powerful than our own president and they pretty much can do whatever they want. They're for example responsible for the encouraging mass immigration (regardless of what the citizens of countries want) so basically popping pure White™ babies and living recluse in a farm isn't going to help in any way to keep Europe White... That's why supremacists are bounded to fail.

And that's precisely why I've always said that stockpiling guns was stupid and pointless. Like, what's their end goal? Living their life in fear of having a darkie getting too close of them? There will be a war anyway, it's unavoidable. And as Christian we shouldn't be involved in that mess. Going trad is pointless if you're not spiritually yoked with God. Only God will grant you the serenity of feeling good in your life and peace of mind (despite trials and hardship).

Don't you find interesting that as removed from society (and darkies) they are, those people ALWAYS have a tip on their shoulder and seem always bothered and anxious about anything? (the survival of their race, of their culture, mass immigration, shoehorning their obsession with the Blacks/Muslim at any opportunity...) NONE OF THAT MATTERS IN THE EYES OF GOD. Actually God is very cheeky; He might actually Save a bunch of these "invaders" to make His point ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ (Nebuchadnezzar anyone?) That's what's so funny with Christian White supremacist, they somehow think they have the monopoly on Christianity....when Europe itself has been converted. Do they think Europeans woke up and suddenly accepted Christ? No, it happened through the migration of population (apostles traveled A LOT), and yes, race mixing (the apostle Timothy was mixed FYI, half Greek half Jew). Even in France churches are surviving thanks to the Christian subsaharian populations who are attending in masses. There are some Whites of course, but you'll notice most of the time they are friends or relatives of Black believers. In France, many White preachers are married with Black women.. it makes sense bc Christian subsaharian African communities are a HUGE driving force into Chrsitian conversion and fellowship in France. And I think God knows what He's doing by making it happen through this migration movement.

Meanwhile, where are the White Christians who have to protect the uwu Christian White Europe? NOWHERE. They talking about "preserving White culture" day and night when on the practical field they do nothing. They're only whining on the internet and thinking growing apples in their garden and selling merch makes them political activists. Give me a break.

[addictedtostorytelling]

Hey AJ! I hope you’re having a good Monday :)

I have a question for you, or an ask I suppose. So I know you love the Sara/Grissom relationship dynamic as much as I do (and your content has kept me endlessly entertained for what I think has been 9 years now ((I just realized this wowwwww — 19 y/o to 28 😵‍💫)) I mean, you’re basically my favorite writer, too!!! ☺️) anyway, I wondered if you’ve ever felt somewhat similar about a relationship dynamic in a book. I’m craving something like it, and I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump so anything sort of similar would be ideal - though I understand a show that’s spanned 20+ years had more time to explore said dynamic lol. I’ve read the classics and stuff but wondered if you had any recs! And if not, any book recs would do. Like I said, I’ve been in a bit of a slump :/

And again, if you have none that’s fine too! Just wanted to ask!! Thank you 😊

hi, anon!

thank you for your kind words! you've been following my content for nine years? wow! i'm honored, truly. thank you for being part of my little corner of the internet! ❤

as for your question, i can't say i've ever felt similarly about any literary dynamic as i have about gsr.

albeit gsr is my otp to end otps, so they're kind of in a class of their own for me, regardless of medium—especially because, as you mention, they are pretty unique in their construction, as a 20+-year primetime tv romance slow burn. there's just nothing really like them out there!

while there are a few literary dynamics that evince particular aspects of gsr for me, almost all of them come from classic literature, so you're probably already familiar with the texts (e.g., odysseus & penelope from the odyssey by homer, hamlet & ophelia from hamlet by william shakespeare, just the general vibes of a lot of regency and victorian-era romantic pairings as in the works of jane austen and the brontë sisters, etc.)—and none of them is really a full match anyhow.

meanwhile, i don't tend to read a lot of contemporary fiction where romance features heavily in the plot.

all of the above so, i can't really think of any "similar to gsr" book recs for you.

the best i can do is just something more general.

i don't know what type of books you usually tend to read, but one book i do enjoy that does feature romance—not at all like gsr in its particulars, except that the two characters involved do start out both doubting their own lovability and come to find acceptance and affirmation in each other—is the shipping news by annie proulx.

it's a realistic fiction novel about a single american father who, after a family tragedy, moves to a remote fishing community in newfoundland, canada with his two young daughters and takes a job with a local newspaper.

though the romantic plot isn't the main one (i.e., it isn't a romance novel, just a novel that happens to feature a romance), it is ultimately quite sweet, and the book itself is well-written. for me, it was a highly enjoyable read.

of course, i should probably say something here about how because i am in my life outside of the internet a creative writing professor, the things that make a story enjoyable to me tend to have more to do with the author's craft practices than anything else. i don't really have any preferences when it comes to genres or settings in fiction; i just want the author to do what i would consider to be cool shit with their language, and i'm good to go. your mileage may (and probably will) vary, depending on your tastes.

anyway, since i struck out on offering you anything even remotely gsr-like with my rec, i will put your question out to anyone else who cares to chime in:

does anyone know of any books with gsr-esque dynamics in them for my dear anon? if so, could you share them in the replies?

please and thank you!

good luck, anon! i hope you're able to find something enjoyable to read to get you out of your slump. ❤

[gtamobile]

Don't get fooled by scammers! Grand Theft Auto 5 cant be play on Mobile devices

There has been lots of phishing going on the internet in this Millennials/Generation Z regagrding GTA 5 Mobile. It has been rumoured that Grand Theft Auto V is available on the mobile devices, but beware of that because it may turn into somekind of malware or scams. Guess what! we have tried it and it turned out to be fake, so we researched different ways to play GTA V on mobile. Voila! We have found different simple ways to play this game on mobile devices. But first you have to own GTA 5 on other platforms too.

Remote Play

One of the easiest method is none other than Remote Play. First you have to own GTA 5 on other consoles ie PS4, PS5, Xbox and PC. You can simply stream it on your consoles and connect it your mobile devices by downloading remote play apps.

Emulator

This can be your best method to download GTA 5 on mobile. It might be hassle at first but if you tried it once then you can be able to play this game on mobile easily. But it is mainly based on PC version because you have to install the PC emulator such as Winulator or Moblox on your android devices. There's the great news for iOS users too because Apple has recently made emulator friendly for mobile devices too.

Cloud Gaming Services

Cloud Gaming Services can be much more easy way but you have to pay a lot for the cloud subscription. It may be expensive for some of the gamers. Anyways Its provides quick access to the game on your mobile devices. There is no guarantee on FPS in this services.

Mods

There are lots of mods available which help to make older Grand Theft Auto series lookalike GTA 5. For example Mods can help to make GTA Sandreas similar to Grand Theft Auto V. There might be downgrade in the graphics of the game, but this is also not bad idea to play GTA 5 on Mobile devices.

Fan Made Games

Since Grand Theft Auto Series is one of the popular among the people because of its immersive gameplay and its hooking story with its realistic graphics and control mechanics. Because of that there are fans who want to developed this game on the mobile devices since the game engine used on GTA 5 Consoles and PC version are made with RAGE game engine which is game engine that develops games for mobile devices. But fans tried to developed this game using Unity and Unreal Engine 5 so this can be your favourite method to play GTA 5 on Mobile devices.

So these are some simple ways to play Grand Theft Auto 5 and Grand Theft Auto 6 on mobile devices but there are lots of gaming community that has made similar game as GTA 5/GTA 6 like Gangster Vegas, Dude Theft War and many more. This can help for the developer as we support them to create Masterpiece game like Grand Theft Auto 5.

Join our Discord Channel for more Grand Theft Auto 5 contents and Information.

[makorays]

Hi mako

I just wana say firstly that I love your content and hope for you to get out of your slum of depression soon thank you for helping me learn that you can be feminine without being a girl outright you opened up the idea a lot

Secondly what would you say as a response to people who say that being or identifying with femboy type things are "primary a fetish or sexual thing" I know Its not remotely sexual for me and I heard you're similar

I'm still working on figuring myself out but I know I wana be sort of girly but still like "one of the boys" if that makes sense

I hope I don't come across as a complete weirdo I'm still figuring myself out

And I live in an extremely Christian area

ask them if they think girls wearing panties is a fetish thing, if not then ask them what the difference is. none of the differences they give you will be logical enough to justify their position.

i was also raised christian and consider myself a more boyish tomboy so it's good to hear i was able to help someone similar

[blue-jester]

Hello I was there when the thing from last year happened, and I can confirm that Opal didn't groom anyone.

Grooming, because you obviously didn't look for the actual definition and are just using it as a buzzword, is when an adult tries to get a child in a romantic and sexual relationship with them through methods of isolating them from their peers, sending them suggestive dms, content, and asking explicitly sexual content of the minor, from videos to nude images and sexting.

None of this happened there. Nobody was isolated. Nobody was dmed with gross things. We were all just reacting to something that admitably Opal shouldn't have posted where minors could see it, but it was never aimed at anyone. It was, in all regards, a joke that went too far. I think we all forgot our ages, which is easy when you're online and can't actually see the person in front of you. And Opal has long since changed her behavior and hasn't done anything REMOTELY like it ever again, it she has it was in adult chats where only adults could see, as she should have done in the beginning.

None of this happened in the magoverse server, most of all. It was over long before Giygas ever came to the Magoverse. And as for the Magoverse..

I'm gonna be honest, as someone who was there through everything, nobody knew that you were supposedly feeling bad until you left with that guilt trippy ass message. Want to know why? Because you never told anyone. And now you're here making accusations with words you don't understand.

You were 12. You kept making mistakes that made everyone uncomfortable. You would apologize and do something similar again later. You kept saying the most guilt trippy thing and honestly I can recall [and find] more times I was calling you out on it then Opal or Blaze did- they usually came in after I called you out. So if you should be mad at anyone it should've been me- but you can't find any reason to call *me*, a fellow kid at the time a groomer, could you?

Also harassment is constantly and violently hurtling abuse of some kind at someone a lot. That also never happened. Opal and Blaze were both incredibly respectful and kind to you. I can't find a moment of them being otherwise

I believe you are a highly immature individual, you are 13 after all and you joined Magoverse and tumblr at 12, so I don't expect you to be all that mature- but this is going too far. You're just mad you felt bad and wanted to attack the people you thought were responsible.

I don't even need to add anything, everything I've said was brought up and supported with screenshots by Opal already.

I understand that you are very young, and as so, even though at 13 you're allowed on tumblr and discord.. The best advice I can give you is to just. Log off. Go do your homework. Go play video games, go be a kid. Don't waste your time trying to ruin someone's image just because you don't like them- I know at this age you think you've got it all down but as a former 13 year old on the Internet you're gonna feel real silly and real embarrassed about all this when you're older.

Tldr: Calling out bad behavior and doing your job as a mod is *not* harassment.

Gonna be interrupting the ongoing Neo3 saga for a bit, because something serious needs to be addressed.

Its come to my attention that there have been some serious allegations against me and another member of the Magoverse server. The posts were brought to us by someone in said server and that’s how we all found out.

Im here to provide proof against them.

TLDR: There has been a person lying about some very serious matters. I will discuss and provide proof against their claims below.

A former member of our server, giyagas-strikes-back, has claimed that I have been generally harassing them while they were there. They have stated that they have no proof of their accusations. There is no evidence of this because it did not happen at all.

I did not abuse or harass them. All I did was address the behavior that was making other members of the server uncomfortable. We were not once rude to this individual. We had spoken with them regarding their disruptive behavior multiple times, including their disrespect towards our members when they had asked them to tone things down and failed to regard such wishes.

 Seen below:

For this next series of screenshots, they were involved in an rp involving sudden angst/violence that made members in the server uncomfortable. I was not the one who addressed the concern, but I did agree with the point of the one who did.

Another event where they commented something negative about something and someone else talked to them about it. Again, I was only agreeing with someone else, I did not speak harshly to them at all:

We never held a grudge against them, and only spoke to them in this way when they made someone uncomfortable.

Additionally, they told us that they were at least 13 (minimum age for joining the server) when we talked to them. We all thought we were speaking to an individual who would handle criticism we gave them seriously. We found out later that they were lying about their age:

Because we weren't notified, it only came to our attention much later into their membership, as is shown here. (Edited Discord notifications do not provide an "unread message" tag, and with a massive influx of members coming in at that time, this message was quickly buried.) We do not accept members under the age of 13 in our server. Every member under the age of 18 must inform us that they are a minor (no specific number required, just that they're under 18), and they are given a tag indicating that they are a minor. Additionally, we have multiple guidelines in place regarding minors and VC manners. We all mind our distance. To note: Before we could confront giyagas-strikes-back they left the server. We are unsure if they left because they caught wind we knew about them lying about their age, or if they left because of the multiple times that members of the mod staff had been forced to step in to handle behaviors or statements made by them that made other members uncomfortable.

An extra note to add, giyagas-strikes-back claimed that all this happened in a server where the “mod was always away”. We are the mods, and they were fully aware of this. The status of our mods is very apparent and in no way shape or form secret. Even our nicknames are given a specific color to indicate that we are the mods of the server. We only ever interacted with them on the specific server that we mod, so I am unsure if this is another lie, or if they legitimately didn’t realize we were mods and that is why we kept addressing their behaviors with them.

They also mentioned that I associate with Blaze, who they claim said weird stuff to them/is grooming them. But doing a quick search on a statement they made proves otherwise:

I believe these allegations are an immature act of retaliation due to our addressing their ill behaviors.

Theres one more thing I need to address. It was also brought to my attention that someone is claiming I stole an AU. I was never approached about this, neither has Blue as far as I am aware, and honestly have no idea what AU they're referring to, so I'm going to assume it is CtyH (Close to Your Heart, the au where Mags marries a god). We first discussed this au last January 26, 2023 -- here are screenshots of the first discussions about it. This AU started off as an offshoot to my interp and evolved from there. If anyone ever felt I had stolen something, it was never brought up with me or Blue, and I never wrote this AU with anyone elses in mind.

In closing: A healthy reminder. When people are accusing others of something, never take just their word as fact. Always look into it before making your own decision about the person in question, even if it comes from someone you trust. Never let anyone's opinion be your opinion. Always, ALWAYS, find the facts and discern for yourself! Make your own choice. Don't allow others to choose for you. Take this evidence as you will, but please, if you know those responsible for damning our names and making these baseless claims, we ask that you do not harass them on our behalf. We will not tolerate anyone speaking ill of them in my name. Yes, what they are doing is bad, but would any of us be better if we reciprocate in the same manner? That helps no one. Instead, simply inform and educate others. Be peaceful, be respectful. Be polite. Do not attack these people under any circumstances.

[say-al0e]

Future

Rating: PG - Pretty tame!

Summary: The only future you see involves Steve Harrington, even if moving in with him proves to be a challenge.

Warnings: Brief mention of the events of the show but everyone lives and gets a happy ending. This is soft bullshit.

Pairing: Steve x fem!reader (actually might be GN but just in case)

Word Count: 1.9k

Stranger Things Taglist | Stranger Things Masterlist 

“I know I labeled the box. I just… don’t remember what I labeled it.”

Steve stood, brows furrowed and hands pressed to his hips, in the middle of the living room. Large brown boxes surrounded him, nearly eclipsed his figure from your position in the kitchen, with only a flash of brown hair and the blue of his sweatshirt remaining visible.

The boxes were all labeled - the ones you packed with a neat scribble and a brief description of the contents, his with a room written in barely legible hand and mostly taped over - but that did little to help as you wandered from the kitchen and its similar state to join him.

There was supposed to be a system in place to prevent this, a way of organizing the boxes devised by your mother and put into action by the ragtag bunch of children - teenagers, nearly adults, now - that helped you pack. Steve had been left in charge of packing the kitchen utensils with Dustin but none of the boxes he’d haphazardly labeled ‘kitchen’ contained anything remotely useful in your pursuit of making dinner.

“D’you label them before or after you packed them?”

At the sound of your voice, much closer than it had been only moments before, Steve lifted his head. His expression softened as he held out an arm, wrapped it around your shoulders without caring very much that you were both still covered in a thin sheen of sweat and in desperate need of a shower, and sighed. When you arm wrapped around his waist, he leaned into your side and allowed his frown to deepen as he glanced around the living room.

“What d’you mean?”

Stacks of books - yellowed paperbacks you picked up from thrift shops, textbooks you paid too much for and could never resell, a handful of favorites from Steve’s childhood bedroom - and a few piles of knickknacks poked out of the tops of open boxes. Others looked well-filled, stuffed to the brim with things plucked from your old apartment, and you were fairly sure none of them contained the pans you were searching for.

“Like, did you write on the box and then put stuff in it or did you put stuff in the box, tape it shut, and then write on it later?”

Steve took a moment to think, his brows furrowing even as his body relaxed against yours, and you took the time to study him.

The exertion of the day had taken its toll on him. The soft fabric of his sweatshirt was rumpled, sleeves shoved up around his elbows and hem hitched to the waistband of his jeans, and there were a few stains on his jeans - rust from a railing, dust due to the lack of occupants in your new place - and you weren’t surprised. He’d left Hawkins at first light, children and a handful of last minute boxes stuffed into his car, and headed straight to your old place to help pack the pieces of your old place into the rented truck.

His infamous hair had been the first casualty of the day, damp with sweat and curling around his ears as he lugged box after box, and there was a soft purple bloom beneath his eyes. His shoulders relaxed at the weight of your arm around his waist and the set of his features was as easy as you’d ever seen it. Though his mouth was set into a frown, it was contemplative and soft, still relaxed despite it all.

The silence passed syrup slow before Steve grimaced and tipped his head to glance at you. “The second one, I think.”

You’d gathered as much from the piles of stuff littered around the living room, yanked from boxes labeled ‘living room' and ‘kitchen’, and bit back your laughter as you trailed your fingers down Steve’s side. He melted into the touch and you could feel the weight of his arm growing heavier around your shoulders as he pressed himself closer.

“What else were you packing when you packed the kitchen?”

Another moment passed as Steve recalled the hectic events of the morning - packing boxes with the kids, attempting to wrangle them all as you ogled at this item or crowed at that one - before he smiled sheepishly. “The bedroom, maybe? Think Will had the bookshelf while Max and Robin took the closet.”

Steve sighed as he tipped his head to rest his chin on your shoulder. He nuzzled his face into the crook of your neck, warm breath fanning across your skin in a way that pulled a content from deep within your chest, as you bit back your laughter. “So, theoretically, that box labeled ‘books’ could actually contain all of our cookware?”

An agreeable hum escaped him as his lips pressed to the sliver of shoulder exposed by your t-shirt collar. “Theoretically,” he admitted, if only a little begrudgingly. “But it’s absolutely Henderson’s fault. He wouldn’t shut up about their last Hellfire campaign. Can’t believe those little shits are fucking graduating.”

Before Steve could spiral - he’d done it a handful of times already, going on about how time had passed and how the pair of you were getting old, even at barely twenty-four - you lifted a hand to drag it through the soft locks of his disheveled hair. As your fingers worked through the silk strands, he deflated and tipped his head to press a soft kiss just beneath your ear in an effort to distract you. “Steve, honey, focus. The cookware in the book box. D’you wanna open it and see or…?”

Steve blew a raspberry against your neck, easily pulling a quiet giggle from you as his lips pressed to your heated skin, before stepping away from you. “You know what,” he huffed as he placed his hands on his hips, pausing a moment to glare at the mess barely contained in your living room. “Forget that box. I think we should just order pizza. First night in a new place, we shouldn’t have to cook. It can be, like, a tradition, or something.” His brows furrowed then, as if an idea had just occurred to him, before he pointed at you. “A housewarming! It could be like a housewarming. We didn’t get one at the old place, I just kinda moved in with you. This is our first real place together.”

“As sweet as that is, a housewarming usually includes more people, honey. It’s like a party,” you corrected gently, arms folding over your chest as you watched him plant his hands on his hips and frown. “‘Sides, I’m sure the kids and Robin would want to be included.”

The exaggerated roll of his eyes made you grin, pulled a snicker from you even as he shot you an unimpressed look, but his own smile followed soon. While you remained rooted to your spot, Steve took a half-step closer - slotted himself back into your personal space - and reached for your arms. When he lifted them, wrapped them around his neck before wrapping his own around your waist, you raised an eyebrow at him.

“A housewarming can be whatever we want it to be. It’s our house,” he declared, grinning at the reminder that after a handful of years together - partially long distance, with you in Indianapolis and him in Hawkins for the most part, save for the odd days off Steve spent sharing your bed - you were finally really living together. “And I think I’d like it to be pizza and cuddling with my girl.”

“You’re telling me you’re tired of manual labor?”

Steve rolled his eyes at your question, brows and lips pulled into an unimpressed line, before he scoffed. “If I have to do anymore work tonight, I might just go back to Hawkins.”

When you grimaced, Steve tossed his head back with a groan. “Hate to break it to you, Stevie,” you teased, laughter lacing your words, “but we still have to put together the bed frame.”

“We could just sleep on the mattress tonight,” Steve offered, eyes wide as he tipped his head back to look at you. “I really don’t want to dig through boxes for tools right now.”

“Steve, honey, I don’t think we own any tools.” Steve hummed, acknowledging your statement to be true, and laughed quietly as you rolled your eyes fondly. “But Eddie said he’d drop by in the morning and bring his toolbox. So, I guess one night of sleeping on the mattress isn’t a big deal.”

“It feels weird,” he hummed, laughing slightly as you raised a brow. “We’ll all be in the same place again. Us, Robin, Eddie, the kids; it kind of feels like home. Minus the supernatural bullshit beneath our feet.”

The exaggerated, thoughtful frown that tugged at your lips made Steve laugh. “I don’t know,” you hummed, badly concealed grin as Steve squeezed your hip. “Weird shit tends to follow us when we gather.”

Steve looked less than impressed, lips pulled into a thin line as he tripped his head to meet your eyes, but the easy set of his features never tensed. There would always be a lingering fear, a reminder of the years you spent fighting for your lives, but it was a distant memory now. The fight was over, won, and Steve reminded you of that as his hands drifted beneath the hem of your - once his - t-shirt.

“Right now, the only weird shit I’m worried about is whatever science experiments Henderson will be up to. The kid’s going to end up making himself a key and we’re going to walk in to serious weirdness in our living room.” Steve looked fondly exasperated, eyes rolling, but you could see the hint of a smile at the thought that you would all be close enough to gather once more.

“As opposed to you just giving him one? C’mon, Stevie. We both know this place will be filled to the brim with teenagers in about a week.” 

“Like you haven’t missed it.” Steve grinned when you rolled your eyes, laughing when you tugged lightly at the soft strands of hair between your fingers.

“I have. I’ve missed the kids and the noise and the weird conversations I can’t follow. I’m excited to have them all back. But I know we’ll never have another moment alone in this place,” you teased, grinning as Steve’s brows lifted as your fingers trailed down his neck, brushing at the heated skin. “Maybe we should make the most of it.”

Steve grinned as he shifted away, hands falling from your waist to intertwine his fingers with yours. “That pizza place delivers until midnight,” he pointed out, grinning as he began walking backward, glancing at his feet to avoid boxes. “We should totally make the most of our time alone.”

As Steve wandered down the hall, narrowly avoiding tripping over boxes, you watched him. The fall of his hair over his eyes, the flush of his cheeks, the warmth of his eyes; there were a million little pieces that made Steve beautiful, a million little things that made you love him, and you were grateful that the future you were piecing together included Steve.

Meanwhile, Steve was grateful that you’d left the boxes alone for the time being. Hidden away in one of them - not lost, only somewhat misplaced - was a little velvet box. It was what he’d been searching for instead of cookware, a more pressing need than a set of pots and pans, and he knew that he would continue rummaging after you’d fallen asleep.

The future you were piecing together was bright and, when Steve managed to find the little black box, that bright future would begin anew. It would be the two of you, ready to take on the world with your ragtag bunch of friends by your side, and neither of you could wait.

____________________________________________________________

Author’s Note: I dunno, man. Promise your regularly scheduled Eddie bullshit is returning. This one was just 98% done.

Taglist: @x-avantgarde-x, @thisisparadisemylove, @eddiesprincess, @slvdsjjk, @munsonlover, @tasmbestspdrman, @urofficial-cyberslut, @jxngwhore, @hopelesslylosttheway, @meaganjm, @lazuli-leenabride, @deiondraaa, @piscesmesss, @glowyskiess, @kiszkathecook, @missryerye, @solarrexplosion, @ofherscarlettwitchways, @lovedandleft-haunted, @trappedinlimbo15, @sweetiekitten, @bookfrog242, @gwendolynmary, @sage-bun, @zealouslibrariesparadiselight, @castiels-lilass, @tojis-little-brat, @emmah787, @theworldsendxx, @asuperconfusedgirl, @flores-and-sunshine, @passi0np1t, @laurathefahrradsattel, @hellf1reclub, @slut4yourmom, @niko-04, @hannirose-loves-you, @mrs-eddie-munson, @screambabe, @vllowe, @ryswritingrecord, @cheriebondy, @ryswritingrecord, @thewitchofthewilds140, @bootlegmothman420, @maruushkka, @honeymoonpython, @keenesbeans, @jess-bonn, @sammysinger04, @khaoticken21, @denkis-slut, @spiderman-berries, @lotus-es, @amortiff, @stardust-galaxies, @ure-a-sunflower, @1-800-ch3rry, @ladybeewritethings, @ynbutbetter, @hunnybunimdun, @breathinfive, @s-u-t, @s4ntacarlal0stk1d, @rae-iin, @pennamesgame, @stefans-wife, @voldieshorts, @frankie-mercury, @bbymochi1, @serendiipty, @saturnsworld01, @eddiemunson1sstuff​, @valthevalkyrie-main​, @crying-caro​, @inglourious-imagines​

If you’re not tagged, it’s because Tumblr wouldn’t let me!

[duchessonfire]

On problematic content in fandoms

Look, I get that a lot of people see fandoms/fanart/fanfics as a form of escapism to get a few minutes break from the shitstorm that is reality. And for plenty of people, escapism means looking at cute fanart, wholesome fanfics and generally entering a pastel-colored world full of beloved tropes where everyone is woke af and nothing problematic ever happens. I get it.

But remember that escapism comes in as many different shade as there are different people. Escapism for one person can mean delving into a super dark/violent/twisted work that will act as a catharsis for the viewer and creator. Maybe it's looking at seriously f-up p*rn of their favorite characters as a way to remember that different (and sometimes scary!) forms of physical intimacy can be enjoyed safely and vicariously in a fantasy world of their choosing. Maybe it's about seeing a really racist/homophobic/toxic/hateful character getting the living shit beat out of them. But none of these forms of escapism can exist if we try to bleach fandoms of everything that looks remotely problematic or even (gasp) R-rated. That's why tags and trigger warnings exist.

"But OP, sometimes fanworks are improperly tagged and people see stuff that can trigger/shock them. Why shouldn't we just make all fanart PG-13 by default?"

Glad you asked, because there is already a solution to your problem, without having to hide everything R-rated under the rug like it's something shameful when it's not. The comment button. Just use the comment button and gently tell the author/content creator that they should add the proper tags for their work. I don't know why, some people seem convinced that content creators are malicious in their tagging. In most cases they're not, they simply aren't aware of how extensive the tagging system is! When I arrived on AO3, I had no idea you should put tag or tw for things such as "eating disorder" or "gaslighting" or "toxic characters". I don't live in America, in my country, trigger warnings are barely a thing. How am I supposed to know these things if no one takes the time to tell me about them, and tell me about them politely? No one wants their works to traumatize their audience, most of the time people create content they think will appeal to a specific audience that shares similar interests. We're all learning, so don't come guns blazing at someone who is probably already anxious about having put something precious they work hard on out into the world.

And guess what? Sometimes, no matter how well-tagged a work is, someone will find it that is obviously not the intended audience. What do you do in that case? Just scroll past. Screen. Use the block button. Curate your experience. But don't go harrassing people because they had the audacity to co-exist in the same space as you. When you see someone on the street dressed in an attire that makes you want to scratch your eyes out, do you harass that person by saying they should change before going out into society? Or do you just turn your head the other way and ignore them? (I hope for you it's the second one, otherwise, spoiler alert, you're an a**hole). Same thing for fanworks. The internet/AO3/Twitter/Tumblr is made for everyone, not just under 18s and people who want nothing to do with s*x/problematic/disturbing content. Stop bullying people into the shadows and think of yourself as some sort of righteous angel preserving the delicate eyes of like-minded innocents.

Don't erase other people's forms of escapism just because they're different from yours.

[verecunda]

Thinking about Aegnor and Andreth, and one thing that strikes me is how much their relationship seems rooted in the landscape around them.

Finrod tells Andreth that Aegnor will always remember “the morning in the hills of Dorthonion” - presumably a reference to their first meeting. More poignantly, he talks about their last encounter by Tarn Aeluin. This is the same Aeluin described in the Silmarillion: “with wild heaths about it, and all that land was pathless and untamed, for even in the days of the Long Peace none had dwelt there.” It’s a remote place, wild and rugged enough for Barahir and his men to hide out successfully for several years (and in fact, their hideout is only discovered because Sauron torments/tricks poor old Gorlim into giving it away). It’s an unlikely place for a lovers’ tryst, even a parting. It’s clearly a place well off the beaten track, yet it’s a key location in Aegnor and Andreth’s story. You’re left with the impression that their relationship, which seems to have been relatively secret, flourished in these remote, wild places, away from the eyes of their kin.

For me, this idea is reinforced by the impression given in the Athrabeth of Andreth being an active, even athletic woman. Finrod describes the young Andreth as a “maiden, brave and eager” (he describes Aegnor in similar terms - “swift and eager”), and though the forty-eight-year-old Andreth sees herself despondently as “old and lost”, one of the footnotes describes her as being “in full vigour” at the time of the Athrabeth. This idea of physical health and activeness also comes across when she speaks of her relationship with Aegnor: “I would not have troubled him, when my short youth was spent. I would not have hobbled as a hag after his bright feet, when I could no longer run beside him!” She’s speaking figuratively, of course, but the image it conjures up in my mind is of the two of them running together across those moors and highlands of Dorthonion.

And the physical landscape also has a role to play in the end of their relationship. Finrod claims that Aegnor ended it because he has no faith that the Siege of Angband will last indefinitely, and that in times of war “the Elves do not wed or bear child.” I’ve seen Aegnor get some flack for this, with people pointing out that other Elves seem to have no problem marrying and having children during the war-torn First Age. 

However, to return to the Silmarillion, we’re told that as the Siege of Angband rolls on and Noldor and Men alike establish themselves in Beleriand, Fingolfin ponders another assault upon Angband: “But because the land was fair and their kingdoms wide, most of the Noldor were content with things as they were [...] Among the chieftains of the Noldor Angrod and Aegnor alone were of like mind with the King; for they dwelt in regions whence Thangorodrim could be descried, and the threat of Morgoth was present to their thought.”

That passage alone makes sense of Aegnor’s motives. Most of the Noldor have actually grown complacent during the siege, but he’s one of the very few who hasn’t. He can’t - his fortresses are actually within sight of Thangorodrim, and the northern slopes of Dorthonion that he and Angrod rule are regarded as a key bulwark against any attack from Angband. It’s constantly there in his mind. Even setting aside the mortal/immortal divide, it’s only too easy to imagine what a shadow that would cast across his relationship with Andreth. Finrod reckons that Aegnor is too duty-bound to imagine abandoning his post and fleeing south to safer lands with Andreth; but equally, I think he’s too duty-bound to countenance the idea of marrying her and bringing her north to face the danger of the front line. (And the danger, as it turns out, is real - after all, he and Angrod are among the first casualties of the Bragollach.) Again, the landscape, and his awareness of their place in it, that influence Aegnor’s decision to call things off. 

Taken altogether, Aegnor and Andreth and their story seem inextricably tied to the landscape they inhabit. So it is for the reader, and so it is for the characters themselves. Finrod suggests that Aegnor’s predominant memory is of “the morning in the hills of Dorthonion”, while Andreth conjures up an image of Aegnor, “bright and tall, with the wind in his hair,” suggesting that her abiding image of him, too, is set outside, with the wild hills of Dorthonion as a backdrop.

[thedoctorisinlove]

eddie munson ; taking care of you while you're sick headcanons

genre : fluff

pairing : eddie munson x gender neutral reader

disclaimer : none

author's note : established relationship!

⋆ honestly doesn't give a shit if he, himself, is sick. but you? that's another thing. he'll be skipping school to take care of you before a word of protest can even come out of your lips.

⋆ he'll be by your side 24/7 and i mean every single second until you're finally back on your feet. eddie doesn't give a shit if he gets sick from you, his immune system is extremely high he's only gotten sick twice his entire life.

⋆ since eddie never had to take care of himsef (or quite anyone else) when sick, he doesn't know how to take care of you. he just knows you have to eat porridge and drink medicine (that looks far from medicine to him) every 4 hours.

⋆ now, this man does not know how to cook anything like at all. so we can assume he has never tried to ever make porridge his entire life since he's seen no reason to. so he finds a quaker's box in the far back of his cupboard and is like "fuck it", dump some oats on a small bowl and fill it with hot water and prays for himself that he did it right.

⋆ he'll watch you eat all of the porridge and medicine, he doesn't trust you alone just in case you end up pouring the contents away 😭. if you're throwing a pouty fit, he'll playfully tease if you wanted him to spoon feed you (most of the times he does end up spoon feeding you). totally the type to count down from 10 until you drink the medicine.

⋆ despite eddie's lack of knowledge on how to recover from flus and colds, he does know the general basics of it (in which you just literally need a lot of rest and sleep). so most of the time while you're recovering in eddie's trailer (in which you were already staying at until you succumbed to sickness), he'll be making you take multiple naps a day (he always wake you up when it's the time to drink medicine). would totally kiss your forehead while you're unconscious and readjusting your blanket if you shuffled it out of your way. there will always be a cold glass of water beside the bedside as well in which eddie refills every 1 hour.

⋆ if you throw a fit back at him, he'll remind you how you need to stay in bed while promising he'll take care of you.

⋆ eddie will always be the one starting your bath, checking every second to make sure the water is perfectly lukewarm. he'll literally be using those thermometers that he bought at a nearby convenience store just for you 😭. he wants you to have a speedy recovery so he's obsessed with having everything perfect and made out for you.

⋆ whenver you are awake though, you'll be on his lap a lot of times, no exceptions. his hand stroking the back of yours and cradling you like an infant. he'll be spoiling you with lots of forehead kisses and whispers and murmurs of how much he loves you. he peckers your entire face with kisses everywhere. more kisses evident on your ear and cheek.

⋆ if you get tired from being on his bed the entire day, eddie'll offer to make a pillow fort for you. he'll refuse for you to help him though, telling you to stay put and rest some more. he plants a quick kiss on your forehead before setting out to his living room to begin his new quest.

⋆ he'll be filling the pillow fort with a dozen of pillows (fluffing them out to check if they're hard by literally repeatedly hitting on it until it literally dissolves your head in), gathering your favorite plushies that you sometimes bring to his house in previous occasions in which he'd adopt them.

⋆ once he's finished with his work, he'll step back and admire his work for some time before going back into his bedroom for you. he'll be lifting you off the bed (bridal style yes really) and plopping you inside the pillow fort.

⋆ he'll disappear for some time in the kitchen and then return with a bowl of oatmeal (if it can even be considered oatmeal 😭) and a shot glass filled 3/4s of the way with medicine (shot glasses are the only thing eddie has that is remotely similar to medicine cups 😭). after a lot of bickering and thrashing between you two, he convinces you to eat all of the oatmeal and medicine.

⋆ he's humming to you and kissing your forehead once more, telling how good you're doing. he'll be humming your favorite song softly and clearly so you can catch every sound of it. sometimes he'll make a tune right on the spot that's dedicated and inspired by and for you. his thumb would be soothingly stroke your cheek, his hands will find its' way on your hair, playing with it.

⋆ it'll all be a repeated routine until your symptoms are frequently getting better and you're on your feet once again. until then, expect your boyfriend to be pampering you the entirety of your journey.

[lightlycareless]

First, it hurts— Chapter IX

Summary:

Naoya Zen’in x Fem!Reader

While arranged marriages are not uncommon in the jujutsu community, it was strange to receive a proposal from none other than the Zen’in’s, nonetheless your clan accepted and before you knew it, you were married off to Naoya.

Your new purpose was clear: to serve and submit, to be seen and not heard. To forget any sense of individuality in favor of obeying your husband.

Will this marriage ever flourish into something else? Will it change…for better or for worse?

Chapter warnings: NSFW, non-con, explicit content, oral, misogyny, violence. What’s new with these people 😐

A/N: Managed to get this chapter ready for this week! This is my last week of break, so starting next Sunday (April 10th) I will post Chapter 13 on my Ao3! It’s so exciting to come back; thank you for waiting this long!! 🥺❤❤

This chapter is mainly to explore other characters and y/n’s views on them. I looooove writing these kind of things, I get to basically develop characters however I want 😈 I hope you enjoy my depiction of them 😊 Without further a do, happy reading!

Masterpost ➸ Chapter 10.

Ao3 link.

The morning began with ragged breaths and rhythmic thrusts. 

To an outsider, it was the image of a married couple indulging in each other's bodies, trails of doting kisses and gentle caresses covering every inch of skin visible to the eye. 

The man adopted the role of dominant, fulfilling his duty of guiding his partner through different positions, ones that would heighten the desire and pleasure of both.

And the woman kept the role of submissive, expressing her approval with quiet whimpers, futilely attempting to hide her embarrassment with tightened lips whenever he would grace a sensitive spot deep inside her core, which only encouraged him to work harder. 

It was a wanton portrayal of their love for one another, that would have many engulfed in jealousy.

But to one of the parties involved, that notion couldn’t be further from the truth.

Desire was certainly not absent. But it was not portrayed in the way some servants—who had the misfortune of hearing their activities when passing by— thought.

Lust came partly, if not solely, from Naoya. His high libido combined with his power over your individuality left you locked away in his chambers for days after your arrival. Whenever he felt like it, he would ambush your body, releasing all of his frustrations in the forms of bites and hickeys against your skin, or sloppy thrusts against your womb.

Love was a foreing concept. Your husband claimed to love how your body reacted to him, how he could make you come undone with the right movements, but it couldn’t be more distorted from the truth. His version was corrupted and perverted, void of any compassion or willingness to sacrifice personal gains for the sake of the other. He only took away, never once considering your needs.

Perhaps the closest thing you’ve come to love were the moments where he would leave you in peace after he unsheathed himself from your insides and retreated for the day. But even then, that love was short-lived. Successions of days past being a clear reminder that you could never truly lower your guard.

At one point, you began questioning if he could even feel something remotely similar to love.

Your evident role in this marriage was that of an sexual object, a sex toy. One that Naoya had access to 24/7, to use and to mold to his liking, just like this morning.

You don’t remember how long you’ve been awake for, or if you were conscious at all, but the one thing that was clear in your judgment was the fact that the moment you opened your eyes, you were already in the middle of being assaulted by your husband.

Apparently, he’d managed to prepare your entrance by stretching you with his fingers, precise scissoring movements, up and down against your warm walls that lead your body unconsciously submitting to pleasure; his intentions becoming clear when the burning sensation of his length stretching your entrance turned too much to ignore and woke you up.

You cried and begged him to stop. If not, to be gentle at least. But your word fell void in his ears as he kept pushing further into your cunt, tip touching your cervix, and his cock finally snuggled in between your hauntingly warm walls.

With one cocky smirk at your teary eyes, he began thrusting his hips against yours, rough and fast, without a moment to become accustomed to his presence. Grunts and moans escaped his lips as he showered you with wanton comments on how exceptionally tighter you were in the morning and that you should’ve expected this a long time ago.

You forced yourself to take no importance to his rambling words as you pulled your arms back to your chest, and attempted to curl away from his ministrations. You close your eyes tightly, your mind beginning to run through different scenarios that would help you alleviate the disgust you were currently feeling; you didn’t care what it was, as long as it made his actions tolerable.

Note, force yourself , because even if he was an insufferable bastard that only seemed to care for his own pleasure, he knew very well what buttons to push to make you come undone.

Ever since your stay at the honeymoon ryokan, your husband had effectively brought you to orgasm in every instance he’d taken you. Call it the pursuit of greater pleasure for himself, you couldn’t deny that he knew what he was doing.

And you resented him for that. Your body had grown fond of presence to the point that a single touch, the smallest caress of his fingertips, and you would begin to feel warm and bothered, slowly preparing yourself for his visit.

But something changed these last few days.

Even when your body seemed all too fond to welcome him, his efforts were now accompanied by a twinge of pain.

It wasn’t the first time you’ve encountered something like this.

For example, the day after your first night with him, your lower body would hurt, specifically the part where your hips and legs connected, and inside the walls of your vagina; it wouldn’t take long before any movement you performed —such as standing up or sitting down— became a herculean effort. But Saki, the old woman in charge of the ryokan, taught you that it was normal for women to suffer such pain soon after they lost their virginity. Having nothing to seemingly worry about, she gave you an organic ointment with indications on how and when to apply it, tea, and sent you on your way. After a few days, your soreness was gone.

But the pain was back, yet— different .

This time, neither your legs nor hips hurt. The pain you felt was located more inside your core than anything else. Sure, as a now sexually active woman, your vagina was bound to hurt once in a while, but you couldn’t help but think this pain was far from the norm.

Nonetheless, you didn’t voice your concern. First of all because whenever you requested anything from Naoya, he would simply dismiss it. And your ladies had been gone since that day thanks to him as well, although you could also attribute your silence to fear and shame.

If it weren’t for Saki noticing you dragging limping body through the halls, you would’ve never told her yourself.

Far from being fearful of openly talking about sexuality, since disliked treating a normal aspect of humanity as a taboo, you were also very aware that not everyone is open about discussing said matters, and in a house where women are basically just to serve as wife and have their needs tossed to the side compared to the desires of the men living under the same roof, you rightfully asserted that the moment you opened your mouth to complain about your pain, you would be received with backlash. 

Thus, the prospect of not being able to take care of your health in a safe manner plunged you deeper into misery. With your value as a human diminished to the lowest, you remained quiet while Naoya continued to dote on your body.

You knew the formula all too well by now to realize that Naoya was creeping to his release. 

His hips would heighten in speed, lazy thrusts to push his cock as deep as possible, your walls tighten your grip on him as he proceeded to stroke and hit the spot that had your toes curling and throat constricting as you subtly whimpered to the air. 

Naoya would lower his lips onto yours, capturing them in a sloppy yet hungry kiss, feeding into his subconscious need of intimacy, tongues fighting with one another as drool began to cover the rim of each others mouth, eventually his cock began to frantically twitch, giving one last throb against your gooey walls, and finally, release his hot seed into the depths of your core.

His thick release would continue to coat your walls in white until it became too much to hold and began to spill through your entrance once he pulled away. Naoya looked down at his work, admiring the syrupy trails sliding down your leg onto the covers,  and echoed his approval with the release of a deep sigh and a smirk. 

And then you would be left to compose your figure, breathing heavily, chest rapidly going upwards and downwards as you tried to assimilate the dissolving pleasure into smaller and smaller waves, until it was gone. The sticky sensation between your legs had you freezing in your spot, not wanting to move as you believed it would only become messier, but the notion leaving you hot and bothered nonetheless.

However, pleasure was not written in today's session, and instead of receiving a toe-curling orgasm that would leave your mouth gaping and a blacked out vision filled with stars—as he intended, you were received by the ever-growing numbing sensation of your walls seemingly ripping apart; you groaned in discomfort as he rubbed his cock out of your walls, a gesture that he mistakenly perceived as neediness to keeping him inside and mocked you with the implication of your whorish nature, not even once considering that it was genuine pain you were voicing.

And even if he’d noticed the sudden change of tune in your moans, it was not in his nature to show empathy.

With your slit currently leaking the product of his release, he placed the tip of his index finger against your lower lips and in a gentle but swift motion, slithered upwards, effectively retrieving any excess and pushing it inside.

Sure, he was still very adamant in not having a child, but he couldn’t deny that the thought of filling you up to the brim and having your breasts and stomach grow by each passing day struck a nerve deep inside him.

He inhaled as he motioned you to come closer, which took far more effort to complete than you would’ve liked, but done so with a moment to spare.

“Clean me up” Naoya gestured to his softening cock, still glossy from his and your combined fluids. There was a small drop of his seed patiently resting on his tip, ready to be licked away with your tongue. He relaxed back onto the futon, his elbows serving as support, keeping him upwards and in a way that allowed him to keep a good look of your reddened cheeks and swollen lips—the same ones he’d now taken great pleasure to use on his cock.

You gulped and carefully retrieved the cock from his fingers, careful to avoid any prolonged contact with his digits, and propelled forward to kiss the tip, seed now spread in your lips.

Even when soft, his length remained of an impressive size; Naoya had already proved that he could fit and will fit inside you, nonetheless, there were still moments where you were taken aback and wondered how such a thing was possible in the first place.

Nonetheless, you decided to not give much thought to the provable and focused on fitting your cock deeper into your mouth, eventually to the entrance of your throat. With gentle swirls of your tongue, you began recollecting the combination of his seed and your fluid, swallowing the repugnant taste that had you forcing back the need to gag.

Naoya kept his golden gaze on you as he admired how you bobbed your throat up and down against his length with much more eagerness than the first time; the imagine before him was more than enough for his desire to heighten once more and ravage you, but instead, decided to focus on relocating your displaced strands of hair that were now covering your face and thread them behind your ear. Call it a post-effect from his release, but the small gesture had him seeking glimpses of intimacy from you and decided it was the best time to partake in pillow talk.

“Starting next week, I’ll be deployed on missions.” Naoya revealed. The meeting with Naobito quickly formed in his mind. He wanted to see your reaction thus he dropped his gaze into your eyes, but you did not look upwards to meet him. This irked him in a way that left him unfulfilled, and continued, knowing well that his next words will definitely rattle you.

“There are a few things I want dealt with before I leave—your family”

You, whose thoughts were anywhere but at the moment, were brought back to reality with the sudden mention of your relatives. Just how he wanted. You tried looking up surreptitiously, as if you weren’t overwhelmed with intrigue and far. Naoya noticed your subtle reaction and smirked, finally earning the much awaited reaction he searched.

“Especially your sister. She’s been bothering my family with never ending letters asking about none other than you ” He said incredulously, as if your disappearance wasn’t the motivator behind her queries. “The nerve of that harlot ”

A rising urge to bite down his dick began to form in the depths of your mind, a way to punish him from using that distasteful word to describe your beloved sister. But decided against it, knowing that if you were already on thin ice, this would only push you deeper into trouble; After all, you’ve seen the repercussions of acting out of emotions first hand. Fear pushed you to do anything just so they wouldn’t repeat.

Also, this was the first time you’ve heard of him talking about your family in another way that wasn’t interlaced with threats. Thus, curiosity also held you back.

The mention of your family had come to you in the form of a shining ray of hope, one that managed to come through the dark clouds of the Zen’in clan.

A silver lining, informing you that you’ve not been forgotten by the L/N clan just yet.

Regret began to fill your body as you admitted to mistakenly painting them as greedy betrayers who were all too happy to get rid of you, letting you fall into the clutches of your husband if it meant they would get social ranking amongst the jujutsu community.

But if anything, those letters represented that they never gave up on you, and perhaps, they kept their distance thanks to Naoya’s efforts of isolating you.

With your attention solely focused on his words, you continued to slurp and gag on his cock, trying to act as if you didn’t care but urged him to continue.

Even with your time living under the same roof as him, you sometimes failed to realize that every step Naoya took, was not without an ambiguous undertone.

His next words would prove this theory.

“I’ve come up with a solution to deal with this small setback once and for all. You’re going to contact your sister” Your ears perked at his words and you froze “Invite her to the estate and tell her—to fuck off”

You paled.

“What?” You managed to say, even with your mouth suitably busy.

“You heard me” he added arrogantly “You’re going to call your dear sister, tell her that you’ve been wanting to speak to her for days , but you were too busy settling down into your new life and responsibilities. That you’re getting along well with the rest of the family and that you fear her letters might be interpreted the wrong way, so you’ll kindly ask her to stop . That everything is fine , nothing to worry about. And if time allows it, she’ll even be able to visit you!” 

He ended his carefully prepared script, one that you would be forced to study and deliver convincingly to your unsuspecting sister, with a laugh.

The noise emanating from his mouth filled your ears and ire began to fill every fiber of your body, desperately holding back any yearn to go over the edge and finally snap. Give him a piece of your mind, hit him, run away from his grasp and let everyone know how much of an asshole he truly was. 

But things could not be done without meticulous thinking, at least if you wanted them to truly affect him and be able to escape without a single scratch, and instead, you remained motionless in your spot before him. Under all that fury that you harbored for your abuser, stood the root of all your true emotions: sorrow.

Grim realization began to skin when you realized that, even if you were to see your sister after many days of absence, it would be under a controlled environment and only to push her away. You wouldn’t be able to tell her about all the things that happened and how desperate you were to leave the estate. 

Hinata would come, see how you’re faring, perhaps tell you a bit of how things are going back at home, her missions, and call it a day. And you, in return, would feed her the arranged script of how happy you were to be living with your husband, how you’ve been indulgent in the riches of the Zen’in clan and that life has been nothing but pure bliss .

Perhaps she’d see through your insincerity—having been her sister all your life meant being able to deduce the true meanings of your words. But would not act upon it. After all, it was you pushing her away. If you told her the same thing over and over again, she would be bound to eventually believe it and give up.

Nonetheless, you would take the opportunity to see your family one last time, even if it were for fleeting seconds, and if you played the role of naïve sister, perhaps he would allow Hinata to come back.

But Naoya had no intentions of allowing that, not in that matter anyways. He was merely mocking the idea of allowing your sister into his home, a new paragraph on the script that would add credibility to that scenario.

In his mind, your relatives had to be kept away at all costs, but at arms length so as to not raise any tension between the families. Especially from your sister, who had been a nuisance for as long as he could remember.

Back when he was still a 1st year student at jujutsu high, he was invited by one of his seniors—with influence of his family— to participate in the exchange event of that year, held at the Kyoto branch. He was eager and anxious to see the great Gojo Satoru in action, only to be disappointed when he was paired against your sister.

He didn’t think much of her at first, believing that women were not suitable to be sorcerers, considering them too emotional and would only allow their feelings to get in the way of missions and irk any curse that crossed their path.

That is, until the match began, and he immediately regretted misjudging her.

Hinata kept a close look at Naoya's movements, observing and analyzing every step he took, why he turned right here, why he turned left there, and in minutes, had already formulated a plan to bring victory to her team. From that day forward, he hated your sister.

Defeat that moment stung him for days, but instead of taking the time to observe and see where he had failed, he attributed his failure to working alone, or in other words, having incompetent teammates that didn’t pull their weight (although they had nothing to do with it, since it was a 1v1 combat)

But that was years ago. He was much younger, inexperienced back then, and perhaps a bit more arrogant than what he is now.

Now, he wasn’t alone: he had his clan and various assets at his disposal to use as he deemed appropriate. Thus, after taking into consideration how sneaky Hinata was, thanks to his encounter back then and the future missions they were unfortunately paired with, he managed to compose a plan that would pass under her radar, rattle your clan and earn him your hand in marriage. 

He was on edge for days, waiting to see if any of the parties involved failed to do their part, but as time went by and he had yet to receive any words from the respective authorities or your sister, he counted it as his well earned victory. Naoya proudly thought your sister wasn’t as good as she thought she was. 

Fast forward to the present, dealing with her directly was something he still considered a difficult task, even with one victory over her. Nonetheless, this advantage gave him enough time to assemble the way he would keep her away:

At first, he thought forcing you to write a letter detailing the same excuses he wanted you to recite would be enough. But he quickly realized Hinata would only not buy it, but would also push her to confront him directly. Worse case scenario, she would seek help from other clans and he would now have to deal with various sets of eyes on his every move. 

Now, if he approached her directly—placing you on the front lines, have you preach words of happiness interlaced with satisfaction, inviting her to not worry or spur tension with your in-laws , then he knew that if Hinata wasn’t at least convinced, she would be confused , giving him enough time to formulate another way to push her away. 

It’s perfect he mused, and couldn’t wait to see her face crumble at his victory.

But for now, he would have to focus on other matters, such as your settlement and new responsibilities as his wife.

As much as he wanted to keep your attention solely on him —even more than what he’d forced you to do these past few hours— his father, Naobito, urgently wanted you to settle down as soon as possible and see if you were as great as they said , regarding the value of your womb.

The head of the clan kept various political matters under covers, but even the servants were knowing that the lack of strong sorcerers born into the Zen’in clan—with cursed techniques, of course— had him worrying about his standing alongside the other families, since the Kamo had recently appointed a new heir with their innate technique, and Gojo…well, there wasn’t much to say about him that wasn’t known already.

This put an enormous pressure on Naoya, one that would be taken out on you when the time was right.

Naoya shook the image of his father out of his thoughts and went back to you. It was distasteful and out of place to be thinking of an old man with drinking problems when he could easily be focusing on his beautiful wife before him;  it was a disappointment that you couldn’t see how right it felt to have you like this, gently sucking and licking his cock, occasionally twitching when your tongue hovered his frenulum—with much more initiative than last time.

Tired of the same position, Naoya used his elbows to push his body upward and straightened his posture, not peeling his gaze from you for one second. With his right hand, the same hand that moved your locks out of your embarrassed face, he lifted your chin and peeled you off his cock, a string of saliva connecting your lips to his tip.

The view of tongue peaking to clean the saliva of your reddened lips and teary eyes glossed over with a subtle layer of panic was more than enough to make him hard again, but he quickly remembered why he stopped your ministrations and scheduled his intentions of taking you right then and there—to later that night, not without having a last taste.

“Don't’ look at me like that, wife” Naoya cooed, his eyes imitating something likened to kindness, smile soft; but it was nothing if not deceivement. “Don’t you want to be with me forever?” He removed himself from in front of you to behind you, manhandling you to sit in between his legs, hands resting gently against your breasts as he began to knead them and pinch your protruding nipples; his thoughts solely on your breasts as he began to wonder if they'll ever leak once you were pregnant. You squirmed against his chest and held back a whine from escaping your sealed lips as he continued to harass you

“If your sister keeps bothering us, we won’t be able to be like this” his hands then traced downwards, passing over your soft abdomen, followed by your hips and finally, ending where your cunt started, fingers pressed against your bud. Another squirm, this time, you couldn’t hold back a moan and you whimpered when he plunged two fingers at your sticky entrance, scissoring motions against your gooey walls as you began to release more remnants of his seed onto the futon below. The thought of one of the servants coming in to clean this mess filled you with embarrassment, and you begged for Naoya to reconsider.

“S-stop—”

“Don’t you want to be with your husband, the one that makes you cum every day?”

You inwardly cringed at his words, but before you could respond, he forced a reply out of you when he teased that spot that had your toes curling. Surprisingly, these gentle acts did not incite the ever-present stinging pain that you felt throughout the recent session. This time, you could somewhat enjoy this pleasure and moaned back in approval.

“Of course you do, my little sex doll” He smirked, pressed a soft peck against your cheek, and just when you felt the coil in your core tighten a bit more, his fingers retracted from your entrance and left you begrudgingly waiting more.

Naoya detached himself from your body and headed towards the closet, reaching for the hanging clothes of the day that his staff had previously prepared the night before. A simple black and white yukata , fitting with the traditional customs of the family. 

He took out a pair of fresh underwear and with a swift movement, began getting ready.

While he usually had his servants tend to him, such as dressing him up, they were ordered to stay away for the next few days in favor of being in complete uninterrupted privacy with you. 

In a way, it didn’t matter if they were never called back, after all, once you begin getting acquainted with your role around the estate, you’ll soon learn that one of your responsibilities is to dress him. He looked forward to having your soft hands fasten his attire, just as you’d done the contrary.

Once he was ready, he darted another glance to your resting body over the futon and bid his farewell “I’ll see you later, love ” 

The new nickname caught you off guard, but instead of enjoying his sudden affection, showing genuine appreciation for the woman who was —for all intents and purposes— his wife, it felt more like a mock.

Deciding not to go around in circles debating the obvious and enjoy what little time you had without him, you laid back onto the futon with a sigh and closed your eyes.

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Your ladies were quick to enter your shared chambers and lead you to the bathroom to get you ready for the day. It was a sight you were all too accustomed to, since Naoya often left you in deplorable states that were unfitting for the everyday eye.

The three of them were informed that their mistress would be focusing on learning her new responsibilities and the inner workings of the estate, thus, their services would no longer be required for the rest of the day—until further notice.

Others in their shoes would’ve taken this opportunity as a break, a moment to complete other pending tasks or to rest. But they would be lying if this change of routine didn’t…unsettle them.

Ever since that fateful day they were introduced to you for the first time, and at the same time, recovered your body after Naoya’s punishment, you’ve been nothing but the shell of a woman. Seemingly void of any emotion or care, you’ve begun to eat less and less, sometimes not eating at all. This reasonably raised concern with your staff and they began finding ways to prompt you to eat for your sake, but you kept taking little bites here and there, not what any person would call sufficient to fuel your body, nonetheless, they never gave up. 

Your body, covered all the way up to your cleavage with warm water, sat motionlessly at the wooden tub as Haruko and Hitomi carefully tended your limbs and hair respectively; concern also came when they perceived your lack of involvement whenever they would ask if you had any preference for the kind of perfume you wanted to wear, often letting them choose whatever they wanted, pushing them further to act as if you were a doll they were allowed to dress up and admire to their liking. 

That’s what you were for the people out there anyways.

But just as how they never gave up caring for you, the liveliest of the three, Haruko, decided to cheer you up at the prospect of a new day.

Her sister Hitomi, a fellow lady-in-waiting, had brought a beautiful light blue silk yukata —adorned with handmade embroidery, for you to wear that day. 

Sure, you were meant to stay all day inside tending to work around the house, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t look presentable while doing so, and with the budget that came along with being the new Lady of the house, it meant they were able to afford more luxurious pieces.

Haruko, always being one to admire luxuries, thought she could share her same passion with you.

“Oh, Lady Y/N, the yukata you’re going to wear today is beautiful!” She said as she dropped the scrub from her hands, dried her hands with quick pats against her own yukata, and rushed to get the dress held on a nearby hanger. “See, wasn’t I right?” she Haruko hyped as she inched closer to your figure, careful to not get the garment wet, and stretched the sleeves and skirt for your admiration “Finest embroidery if you ask me!”

Your head swiveled at the direction of her voice and looked down to the yukata. Sure, it was beautiful, that much you could admit, but you had no interest in the gifts the Zen’in had to offer, no matter how appealing to the eye they were. But the eager look in her eyes had you feeling obligated to respond.

“Yes, it’s beautiful” You responded in a monotone manner. Far from being Haruko’s expected answer, but just to get a reply out of you was more than enough. 

“Hitomi-chan made it herself, even the embroidery” Haruko continued, displaying admiration and pride for her sister’s talent, spreading the sleeves and the skirt around so you could see the detail of her work. You didn’t know you had a seamstress in your midst, and that led you to silently admire her skills as well. “And look! She even put a small wolf at the corner over here ”

Her finger pointed to the canine, and you looked closer. There you noted that she was, in fact, right. A white wolf was stitched across the fabric on the side of the skirt.

“A wolf?” You queried, stranger to her decision.

“It’s the symbol representative of the Zen’in family” Hitomi’s soft voice broke through the silence as she explained the inner workings of her decision. “I thought it was an appropriate welcome gift, as to signify your acceptance and union to the clan”

You remembered now. The wolf was adopted as the symbol of the Zen’in clan to symbolize their innate technique, the Ten Shadows. 

When a user was graid with said skill, the first indicative was the receiving of a pair of divine dogs, one white and one black. Thus, it made sense why they would choose such a noble animal to represent them.

But that was the only quality that could be tied to the Zen’in, as they had nothing of the caring and protective side of the alphas, instead, selectively keeping the aggressive and violent aspect to impose dominance, even with their own kin.

“You’re very talented” You complimented out of genuine appreciation, and from the corner of your eye, you managed to catch a small dash of red across her cheeks.

“Thank you”

“You should see her other works—she’s very shy about it and often downgrades her talent, but she’s really good when it comes to it! She’s even dressed—”

“That’s enough, Haruko” Mariya called as she slid the bathroom door open, closing it quickly once inside so the warm steam would not escape. Her eyes trailed down to the yukata Haruko was holding and up to her gaze, without any further words, the latter quickly understood and put it back in its place. “Don’t overwhelm Lady Y/N”

“I’m sorry” Haruko apologized, looking down to the floor, regret evident in her face.

“I know” Mariya sighed and she sat beside Hitomi, taking over her duty to wash your hair.

She wasn’t angry nor disappointed at them, she never truly was, well… except one time. But she only attributed Haruko’s attitude to being young and impressionable, and you were a young woman too, perhaps she felt comfortable with you more than she had been with the other wives.

Nonetheless, it was her duty to keep them in check so they would not have issues with other masters or fellow servants. Haruko was the hardest one to handle, with the housekeeper named Meiko already having her in her sights.

“But we don’t want to inundate Lady Y/N with things that will only distract her from her duty today—by the way, Lady Junko is to be your guide”

Junko?

The name sounded awfully familiar, but you couldn’t pinpoint to whom it belonged. You don’t remember her face or if you ever met her at all…

Mariya noticed your confusion, and proceeded to clear your doubts.

“She’s Ogi-sama’s wife”

Ah, that Junko.

You previously met her during dinner. You don’t know how you managed to forget her face when she was the only woman allowed to sit at the dinner table with the rest of the men, besides you of course.

She didn’t speak much, aside from hushed comments here and there when referring to her husband or to the other men, with the sole purpose of serving them more to drink or eat. Besides, the main topic of the evening was your family and character, you couldn’t blame her for not wanting to intervene. Their comments were not precisely amicable, and any sane woman would not dare participate in a conversation that could easily shift against her. 

Your interaction with her wasn’t enough to formulate a clear opinion on her, but you do remember thinking she was beautiful, but sad. Junko also looked far younger compared to her husband, but age gaps were normal in these kinds of arrangements and instead of dwelling longer on her relationship, you reflected back on her mysterious presence.

It made you wonder if her present pictured your future.

Mariya might not know you for long, but with your silence and frozen posture, she could sense how nervous you truly were for today’s activities. 

She’d conversed with Hitomi and Haruko about their worries, and how they feared another similar incident happening once again, you were borderline losing yourself, and if it were to occur one more…they expected the worst.

Nonetheless, even when distracted by your own thoughts, Mariya took it as the right moment to show her support.

“We will remain close if you need us”

Her words interrupted your trail of thinking and your shoulders tensed, a gesture not unnoticed by your surrounding ladies.

Something inside you pushed a frown to the surface as you began to harbor a disgust you never thought capable of holding, that is, until you met Mariya.

How could she even say that, when she was the one that allowed Naoya into the privacy of your chambers? After you requested her privacy, a moment in peace, just a second to recollect your thoughts before sinking deeper into mystery.

Worst of all, she heard every single thing. She didn’t even bother barging inside and remind him that you were sick, or give him a stupid excuse, anything to pull him away. No—nothing. She stood there, remaining motionless as she allowed Naoya to take advantage of the situation one more time. 

It was foolish to even consider them your friends just because they were assigned to personal tend your every need, but you didn’t think their alliances were so blatantly aligned with your husbands family. 

But why wouldn’t it be?

They were his staff before yours. It was her job to stay aside and let things flow naturally, without interruption. Mariya was just another piece in Naoya’s wretched game, and sadly, she was not in your entourage.

Mariya couldn’t blame your anger either.

She was very aware that you were still suffering from the disappointment and ire of her failed duties; you had requested for a moment of rest before he went back to tormenting you, and she really thought he would find it in him to leave you alone, after all, Mariya believed that when it came to someone’s health, many would not dare cross that limit and endanger them.

But not to Naoya. Her thought was shockingly refuted, further proved when she saw your shaken body after he ordered her staff to clean you up. The pain she felt when Naoya pushed her away from the entrance, and eventually saw your wronged state,  could not compare to the pain of his emotional and physical assault on you.

She tried making it up to you as well, staying close as possible, tending to your needs whenever Naoya was out doing god knows what around the estate, even when you didn’t request it—only to be pushed away. She didn’t lose her resolve, until Naoya ordered them to leave you two alone for the next few days; it was then Mariya knew that the window to seek your forgiveness was closing.

She truly regretted disappointing you, but you were not to hear her excuses.

Both women were conscious they had no control over the situations that happened around them, fated to follow the role they were assigned by others.

But what they failed to realize is that, although they were pieces in the cruel game of the Zen’in, neither were part of their alliances.

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Just as you were intrigued by Junko—Junko was intrigued by you.

Ever since your introduction at the dinner table, you have been permanently fixated in her thoughts.

Even when she prepared herself for the day, dining her usual light green kimono, silky black hair pulled in a perfectly groomed bun—she couldn’t stop thinking about you.

It all started when whispers began circulating regarding Naoya’s intention in finding a bride; her whorehound nephew was suddenly interested in settling down. She was suitably surprised.

He didn’t strike her as the kind of person who would want to marry so soon either. After all, he was very fond of spending his time fooling around with different women, even to the point of bringing them to the estate when he thought nobody saw, with the help of a young boy named Ranta, who swore that Naoya-sama was only training , or that he is running late from a mission . He was too kind hearted to be supporting the likes of Naoya, perhaps it was within his nature to help him, becoming his go-to witness, especially after seeing first hand what an angered Naobito could do when confronted.

But Junko was not one to be easily fooled. She saw the whole thing, in between shadows, and knew that the kind of woman he brought where not of the caliber for the Zen’in. Whoever accepted to become his wife would have to be either incredibly mundane or exceptionally intriguing .

Thus, by process of elimination, she investigated who was the lucky bride.

First of all, she didn’t consider his previous affairs worthy to upgrade from one-night stands to lifetime partners. Naoya was very evident in the way he treated them that he only desired a quick fuck to relieve stress and move on; not even bothering to remember their names, as shown one night where one of his girlfriends shrieked in disbelief when Naoya confused her with someone else.

That night, servants and members alike arose from their slumber to see who was the author of the wailing cries. Once the culprit was found and properly disposed of, Naoya found himself in deep trouble and never again did he bring another woman.

Even when the Zen’in clan were far from being considered a commendable family —at least to those involved—they still had images to uphold, and having an errant woman running around demanding to know who is Akari?! Was not one of them.

Junko eventually found out that his fiancée would be someone external to his social circle.

You.

A relatively known woman amongst the jujutsu community thanks to your sisters previous engagement with the Gojo heir; coming from a prestigious clan with an impressive background of producing strong sorcerers through generations and good reputation amongst the other clans: it was right to say that you’d caught all of her attention.

From what she was allowed, Junko began to investigate more of your background, away from the privy eyes of her intolerable husband:

Product of a strong father and strong mother, both sorcerers—now retired.

2 older siblings, active sorcerers. One usually stationed in the prefecture of Fukushima, the other in Nagano; somewhat close to your home.

Excellent grades throughout your academic career, earning you various achievements during your stay. Had a bright future as a sorcerer if you decided so.

Born with the ability to use cursed techniques and see curses; trained in your families long lasting traditions of curse sealing.

You were, without a doubt, the striking contrast from the profile of women Naoya used to lower himself with. In a way, it also made sense that a woman as prepared as you would try to get connections to other clans, after all, the Zen’in still held influence over the community.

If it wasn’t for their misogynistic ideals, you would’ve fit perfectly with them.

Taking all of this into consideration, Junko believed that your arrangement wouldn’t go through and Naoya would eventually move forward to another woman, one more suitable to the expectations of the clan—submissive and with no clear aspirations for her future besides serving her husband.

So when news graced the estate that he had married you, Junko stated her final verdict:

Naoya must’ve gone mad.

You were, without a doubt, far out of his league.

At least compared to her.

Junko remembers all too well the time she used to be in your shoes. The new bride, the youngest one, the new toy.

Unlike you, Junko came from a small clan. Distant relatives of the Zen’in; a miniscule amount of cursed energy, knew the basics of sorcery to understand herself better, but desired to pursue an academic career asides the fundamentals or to become sorcerer.

Nonetheless, she was labeled by her family as a highly valuable woman from an early age, thanks to her demure personality and exemplary skills to tend housework. 

Junko learned her place very well in this world—to be a woman, to serve a man.

This eventually landed her with a matchmaker as soon as she became of age. With no reason to embellish aspects of her persona, the matchmaker took no time advertising her as the best option of a wife for all men looking to get married.

And when Junko Tanaka, from the smallest branch of the Zen’in, managed to catch the attention of Ogi Zen’in, from the main branch.

He was much older than her and did not have the best of moods, but his intentions of obtaining a wife were non-relenting, and in less than a month, the two were wed.

Hoping for a relatively calm marriage was something that fate would not bless her with.

Junko saw various impactful changes happen in the Zen’in clan, and although most of them were not related to her or her husband, she often found herself getting the shorter end of the stick.

She’d seen Toji Zen’in —the black sheep of the family, get ostracized and rejected by his own kin due to his lack of cursed energy. They did consider him strong, but useless because he couldn't see curses. This eventually pushed Toji over the edge, and when he decided to leave the clan, he gave his family one last fuck you , her husband taking out his frustrations in the shape of yells to his wife. 

She’d seen Ogi get frustrated with Naobito and herself when it was time to choose the next leader of the Zen’in. The most qualified candidate at the moment was Naobito’s youngest son, Naoya, but the elders were willing to negotiate if another contender came forward.

This exerted an incredible amount of pressure on her to beget powerful children, and was forced to become pregnant as quickly as possible.

Ogi berated her when she miscarried her first child, but when the second pregnancy came along, Junko thought she would finally earn a break, a moment to rest before focusing on her growing family, and perhaps—a compliment from her husband.

That is, until the doctor informed them they were to have twin daughters.

Junko recalled how her heart dropped to her stomach when they were born without a single drop of cursed energy.

Without a second to waste, Naobito was made head of the clan, and Naoya appointed his heir. And Junko?

Junko was found unconscious by servants who grew worried of her unexpected absence—laying in her shared chambers with swollen bruises across her face and chest, alongside a bloodied lip and nose, indications of having been beaten with bare fists.

Comparing what she had gone through, she knew you would have an easier life thanks to your background, and that irked her in a way you could not imagine. She’d lived through so much just because she was a woman (seemingly failing at that as well), why wouldn’t you too? Were you that special?

Nonetheless, she couldn’t help but feel a bit relieved that there was someone else to experience some degree of her abuse. For the first time in years, she was no longer alone.

When junko eventually came around to the room where your ladies had left you to wait for your guide, you were taken aback by how silently she had approached you.

If it weren’t for the fact you were looking at the door when she came in, you probably would’ve never noticed she was there.

Both women took this opportunity to get a better look at one another.

Your statement remained true: she was beautiful, but gloomy. As if a raining cloud were following her everywhere. Her face was clear and seemingly soft to the touch, asie from a few wrinkles around the corners of her eyes and mouth, but they did nothing to diminish her natural appeal. And her eyes were hypnotic, a pair of dark orbs reminiscent of the clear sky on a summer night. Two never-ending depths that, if you stared too long, would fall into their labyrinth and never escape. 

But as captivating as you found them to be, they were void of any glimmer or life. Like a walking corpse, barely clinging to life out of responsibility.

Junko  also thought you were comely, far nicer than the other girls that had caught Naoya’s attention. There was an air of nobility surrounding you, from how you stood to how you looked at her. 

With your hair decorate with a small but luxurious silver gold pin on the left side of your head, a beautiful yukata she thought unsuitable for today's work (only because it had embroidery in it) and face subtly layered with natural makeup, she couldn’t help but inwardly cringe in disgust at your evident intentions of boasting your status.

“I’m Junko” she finally said after a few seconds of silence, slightly moving her head downwards, because even when the two of you were wives of the members from the main ranch, you still outranked her. Nonetheless, she could do with teaching you a thing or two about humility, she didn’t want you getting comfortable acting like these around the men and would suitably reprimand you when the time was right. It was her duty to mold you into the perfect woman, after all.

“It’s nice to me—”

“I’ll be guiding you through your responsibilities” she continued, not even apologizing for interrupting your greeting. If anything, it seemed Junko had done it on purpose. 

You didn't react to her action, the walls you’ve set days ago to protect your sanity prevented you from caring. Yet, you couldn’t help but feel a sting of disappointment—thanks to the false hopes you created of getting along with a fellow wife.

“As wife of the heir, you’re not expected to do much around the estate, but it is important for you to become acquainted with what happens inside the house, so when the time comes, you’ll be able to oversee any changes”

You nodded as you began wondering if Junko had to go through a similar introduction, if so, who guided her? Was it Naoya’s mother? 

“And since you’ll find yourself with an abundant amount of free time , you’ll be tending to your husband’s every need. Naoya-sama’s staff will be relegating their duties to you over time, which covers from dressing him to serving his food”

You held back a frown. It wasn’t enough for him to use you as a sex slave, he had to go ahead and use you like an full-fledged slave . You were sure your mother had never been humiliated this way when she married your father; sure, the L/N was a bit outdated in certain standards, but your father had never gone to the extents to destroy her individualism, if anything, he respected her as his equal and encouraged her to do whatever she wanted. This only served as a reminder of how contrastingly different each clan was. No one would believe the sick twist of fate that made you end here.

“We shall begin at the kitchen” Junko finalized and headed out the chambers with you closely trailing behind her. 

All hopes of getting to know each other were thrown out the window as she kept her gaze directed to the destination and walked several steps before you.  No amicable greetings, no inquiries wondering if you’ve had a good night’s sleep or the cliché comment of the weather—just silence. 

Her silence only highlights the evident notion of your solitude; your family out there, seemingly not caring for your well being besides your sister who would promptly be pushed away, and your new aunt, who instead of showing empathy for a woman in a very similar position, decided to vent out her frustration on you for the way the men treated her first.

Was there a reason to fight anymore?

As you continued to accompany her, you failed to notice there were a pair of dark eyes curiously following your every move.