#and they still choose to ruin their lives. that's it that's the whole post

[nights-at-crystarium]

thinking about ARRRaha sealing himself in the Tower in order to fulfill a wish of a long gone civilization, of a people long DEAD, that's a bs reason to stop existing, why would you prioritize some ancient legacy over your own life, and then my mind's eye turns to Emet

[merumis]

kuroo loves thunderstorms.

the first time he tells you this, he's standing just before the threshold of your balcony—the door cracked open but the screen still closed, feeling the wind curl its way around your building.

it's early november and he's wearing a sweater you gifted him last christmas. you bought it two sizes too big and he insisted on wearing it again the moment the weather started to get colder anyway. it's a rich blue and warm and soft enough that you constantly find yourself leaning into him—on the couch, in public, even before your balcony's screen door—sometimes you wonder if he wears it just for that.

between that and the way your cat swirls around his feet, his tail dragging along kuroo's calf, he seems to almost melt into your apartment. your first place post-grad, that weird mix of childhood, college, and new-adult decor muddling the whole of it: a couch that you got at a discount furniture store but fell in love with anyway; stuffed animals your friends send you every birthday; a childhood favorite of a book sitting on an old thrifted coffee table, a dark oak that you wouldn't be able to afford otherwise.

and kuroo. warm, thunderstorm-watching kuroo, whose mug of herbal tea has been long forgotten on one of your homemade coasters.

you're never quite sure what to call him. the man you sleep with some nights; the guy who will always match your halloween costume if you ask; your cat's favorite of your friends; the name your grandmother keeps asking you about every time you call. you know you told you him you loved him once—really loved him—in some drunken college stupor that feels more like watching a movie from across an open-concept's kitchen island than a memory now.

(that's a lie. you know every detail. the rum warm in your throat, being fresh off the high of his birthday. it was the first snow of the season but the rain the next day mingled with it and turned it to muck that ruined your favorite pair of boots. his breath was hot against your cheeks, the stoop of his apartment building a hollowly adored wind tunnel that decorated your instagram—stone chipped away at the corners, moss growing up the sides, a buzzer that only worked if you pressed the button three times. you kissed him like you always have and his nose was cold as it pressed into your cheek. you whispered it to him and he laughed. you didn't text him for three days.)

there's a familiar pull at your tongue now. a burst of lightning briefly illuminates your apartment and is then followed by the crack of thunder.

"you should probably close the door," you say—instead of i love you.

kuroo shrugs, turns back with a lazy smile on his face. "if you say so," he replies, like every word is a game that the two of you play. he swings the door closed and twists the lock shut. he moves in a way you want to describe as "moseying" tonight, like all of his limbs are relaxed four times more than they should be.

"you should stay here tonight," you tell him as he moves to your couch. your cat follows after him, pawing up his leg as he sits down. he jumps up and settles deep into his lap—there's a brief moment where you envy him. "rain and all."

"so you're telling me i brought my umbrella for nothing?" he teases.

you laugh. "you can use it on the balcony."

he has a pair of sweatpants in your top right drawer of your dresser. you reluctantly washed them last week after spilling apricot jam on the third wear. you never choose to dwell on how a pair of sweatpants gets left at your apartment—you can imagine what his answer would be.

kuroo hums, "it's almost like you want me here."

"i don't," you lie, "just figured my apartment had a better storm view with how much you've been lingering." his apartment is about four stories higher, a few blocks down—closer to his work. it has more windows, a larger living room, a leather couch that you can feel sticking to your bare back if you close your eyes.

it's the better view. it gets fog in the early mornings so you can only see the bounce of headlights from the street below. his bedsheets like to twist between your legs at night in a way that pulls them from the mattress, though—so you suppose you always win there.

"it's homey here," he replies, and you feel the smile tugging up at your lips, "smells like spruce." he eyes the candle he bought you on your kitchen counter, lit and melted to the edges. three wicks, because he knows it's your favorite.

the candle, your favorite expensive lamp your professor gifted you last summer, and the range hood are the only lights in your apartment at the moment. kuroo calls them homey, you call them headache-reducing.

he pulls a hand away from your cat to gesture towards you over the back of the couch now. a palm upwards towards the ceiling, fingers outstretched in a subtle beckoning of your own. your tongue curls with that sickly desire as you step towards him, slip your fingers into his as you round the couch, settling into the cushions as his arm slides across your shoulders.

you reach up to play with his fingers—absent-mindedly. you swore you would do better when you graduated, that maybe things would start to fall into place and, for once, you wouldn't find yourself chasing after a man you could have if you would just allow it to happen.

but you don't know how to say i love you on a thursday—because you swear friday will feel right. you don't say it friday because it's too young, a whole weekend ahead of you that you can't mess up. a movie on saturday, brunch on sunday. you don't say it sunday night because you won't see him until wednesday, but then you catch him for happy hour on tuesday. and you don't know how to to say it.

"you know my grandfather loved spruce," kuroo says, and you look over to catch his eye. he's staring out at your coffee table, looking at nothing in particular as he speaks. "he used to whittle—before arthritis and tremors and whatever—but his dad told him that spruce was the hardest to work with. something about how soft it is or the grain or whatever." he shifts with your cat, letting him crawl up his arm onto the back of the couch. his tail falls over kuroo's shoulder, and now you get the curl into him a little more.

he pulls you closer before you really get the chance to move.

"but he always loved spruce. the smell, the needles, the look, all of it, you know? it was just one of those things, so he learned to whittle with it.

"and when he met my grandmother, he started whittling her all these little things. a duck for their first date, a wooden box for her jewelry, eventually toy blocks, when she was pregnant with my dad." kuroo pauses, and for a while, you think you have something stuck in your chest. you thumb traces up his forefinger and he catches your hand, finally moving to look you in the eyes.

"it's nice to come here and remember him sometimes."

there's another burst of lightning and it crackles across the whole sky behind him, dodging in and out of buildings and making the texture of the clouds pop out against the whole open expanse of it all.

his breath is hot against your skin, his ears are tinged with a bit of red and for a moment you consider running to your thermostat to turn it down a few degrees, but then his lips find yours like they always do.

and in the muddle of lips, you don't even think before you whisper an i love you, murmured into his mouth as his nose traces frigid shapes against your own.

you don't have to listen to know he says it back—though you do, listening for the timbre of his voice and feeling the vibrato of it against your throat—but you can smell it, you can hear it, some days, you can taste it.

spruce-scented candles, thunderstorms that make the whole city colder, the burning of rum against the back of your throat.

you think you can feel it: leather that sticks to your skin, hands that only whittled while his grandfather was alive, but are calloused anyway, a sweater that you'd buy him in the right size if he asked.

you tell someone you love them without ever saying the words. you know he drinks three drinks at happy hour and you only have one—he insists on walking you home anyway and he always stays the night.

and you know he never brought an umbrella, that he works from home tomorrow and his laptop is sitting in his backpack next to your door.

you know that he's warm, that he's kissing you, and that he told you he loves you on the thursday evening as a thunderstorm turned into rain and fog.

[koiiiji]

being in big deals from beginning with Sinu, but leaving with Samuel after

pairing ; samuel seo x reader x jake kim

tw ; polyamorous, mfm, possessive! samuel

author note ; my first time writing for lookism and for this two, also im on chapter 343 only, so if something not accurate enough im sorry!! ALSO celebrating 400 followers!! and even tho ask box is closed, i still want to do something nice for you, so if you want you can leave your requests for SHMOL sketches under, i will do it super short and put it in one post!! lookism and windbreaker💋✨💐🤸🏼‍♀️

author note 2 ; not proofed, i wrote it after work with one eye open, so i just throw it to chat gpt to check any mistakes, if you find any you know who you can judge😤🫸🏻

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⋆𐙚₊˚ you have been with big deals even before Jake and Samuel joined, which means you were more close with Sinu, who was like a older brother figure for you

⋆𐙚₊˚ you always were good with calculating and make predictions so you literally was the reason why big deals didn’t have any debts to any other gangs or companies

⋆𐙚₊˚ when Jake and Samuel joined big deals they firstly didn't pay too much attention, just another girl spinning around Sinu, nothing new

⋆𐙚₊˚ but then they started to notice that you always appears at every meeting, even if it were just for big deal, not including girls who work on their street, always whispering something on Sinu ear and checking some papers

⋆𐙚₊˚ it was slow burn in beginning, they payed you more attention on meetings, started more small talks time to time, as soon as they caught that you are actual part of big deals. also, later they learned that you actually liked Sinu as older brother, and that was the moment when they start... acting…

⋆𐙚₊˚ of course you had your small moments together before. like you accidentally fall asleep on Jake’s shoulder when everybody celebrated another holiday, or when you asked both of them to show you some actions, - in case if you will be alone on the street, so you can protect yourself - and seemed that Samuel got a little carried away and pushed you too hard, but catching you by your wrist just moment before your head was about to hit the ground

⋆𐙚₊˚ there were always that moments between three of you

⋆𐙚₊˚ but first one who started to show off were Samuel

⋆𐙚₊˚ he already were jealous over the fact that Sinu choosed Jake as his favourite one, so he can’t let Jake to have yours attention as well. later it will be worse, when he will learn who Jake’s father was

��𐙚₊˚ Samuel would always flirt with you making it crystally clear that he likes you, and you wouldn't even notice it because of amount of work for big deals and of homework you still had in school

⋆𐙚₊˚ and when Samuel brutally flirts with you, trying to get your attention, Jake would snort, turning his eyes somewhere else, trying to ignore it and telling Jerry to "stop say stupid stuff like this" when he, once again tried to push his boss to admit his feelings towards you

⋆𐙚₊˚ for Jake it's complicating because he see how Samuel likes you, so he doesn’t want to ruin everything even tho he himself had so many feelings towards you

⋆𐙚₊˚ and Jake waited for too long...

⋆𐙚₊˚ when Samuel took leading position in big deals you were forced to stay by leader side to help him earn as much money as possible to pay to big four, but when Samuel left big deals for workers he asked you to go with him

⋆𐙚₊˚ Samuel was far from gentle man, but when his huge arms hugged your shoulders from behind, softly murmuring into your ear to come with him in new gang, to join him and stay by his side, offering you simply better life, where you won't need to calculate how to save more money until next month, where you will be able to buy expensive clothes, where you can offer yourself jut... more... it was hard to resist to Samuel espesially when you lived your whole life expecting how to safe money to the next month and economize as much as you can

⋆𐙚₊˚ so thats how you left big deals with Samuel, still with heavy heart for Sinu and big deals in general

⋆𐙚₊˚ Jake was feral when Jerry told him that. in his head it was more like Samuel forced you. oh, Jake were fully aware that Samuel were able to use power over girls, and Jake blamed himself for the fact that you had to leave the big deals

⋆𐙚₊˚ when you and Samuel become part of workers, he won’t let you go far away from him. you would be his personal assistant and manager. everything but always by his side. you always. by his side. always. Samuel even went that far that he rent big apartments for both of you, of course with separate rooms, you still didn’t accept his feelings and were naive about what kind of emotion you rise in him

⋆𐙚₊˚ Jake tried to contact you few times but, oh wow, what a surprise, Samuel always were the one to pick up the phone, telling him to leave you alone

⋆𐙚₊˚ to say less Jake felt terrible back then, things that happened to Sinu, Gun Park and his big four gangs, praises about money and the heir at his place, big deals, everything at one time…

⋆𐙚₊˚ and then prison… Jake felt like biggest loser on this planet

⋆𐙚₊˚ and he would never wish you to see all horrors of this place, but here you are sitting on the other side of safety glass, looking too beautiful to place like this, too pretty in your fitted white shirt and pleated skirt. Jerry probably yanked you right out of the office. another self note - to chastise Jerry next time for bringing you to place like this

⋆𐙚₊˚ “Jake… im sorry, i had no idea what happened to you” you murmured softly into the receiver of the phone connecting the two sides. “Samuel never said anything about that… I was shocked when Jerry just caught me near office and crammed me in the car”

⋆𐙚₊˚ after that day, you came to Jake more often, slipping away from Samuel under the pretext that you wanted to meet an old friend from school and he didn't need to attend girls' gatherings

⋆𐙚₊˚ when Jake finally got out of prison, one of the first things that he did was ask you to eat ramen together. you told him everything about your new life, that now you live with Samuel and he takes care about everything, starting with payments for apartments, finishing with fuel for car, as he always ready to ride you to any part of city

⋆𐙚₊˚ Jake felt feral when you told him whole story.

⋆𐙚₊˚ not only that bastard not tell you what happened to Jake, but he also controlled the calls and forced you to live with him. Jake knew what Samuel's feelings were for you, even if you perceived his care and relationship as friendly or brotherly, Jake still guessed what was behind it. but he never imagined that his friend would get to the point where he would keep you with him 24/7 and secretly control your phone calls from anybody from big deals

⋆𐙚₊˚ after that meeting Jake knew that he can’t offer you to stay at his small room he rent, even if he really wanted you to stay more by his side. he didn't tell you about his guesses about Samuel, you don't have to worry, yet you were safer with him than with Jake now. the only thing he did before sending you home in a taxi was hug you so tightly - tightly, it seems that his hands were a little lower than he should have allowed himself, and his hot breath was a little off when his lips were too close to your neck.

⋆𐙚₊˚ in the end, Jake pushed your hair off your forehead, and pressed his lips firmly to your forehead, shut his eyes and quietly promised himself to deal with Samuel later

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[h4ndwr1tten]

𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐚𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭?

characters — nanami kento x reader

note — this took me a long ass time to write. if it seems familiar to any other works, i requested something with the same plot on someone else's blog lololol. THIS IS PART 1 AS IT'S A LITTLE LENGTHY!!! dividers by benkeibear.

(am i posting this on nanami's birthday? yes.)

cw — not proof read, established relationship, kinda ooc nanami? like one mention of sex, pregnancy, strong language, arguing, crying, accusations of cheating, hurt/no comfort.

synopsis — the test results are positive and you aren't ready. when you try to hide this from your boyfriend of 5 years, he assumes the worst.

part 1 | part 2

this wasn't supposed to happen. it shouldn't have happened. you both took every precaution possible to prevent an outcome neither of you were prepared for — from condoms, to birth control, to plan b. it had kept you safe for as long as you started having sex. you never found yourself worried about carrying a life in you for 9 months.

so why now does the test read positive?

it felt like the world stopped moving. you didn't even know if you were still breathing. your heart had fallen into the pit of your stomach, your eyes wide and full of disbelief. you couldn't believe it. it couldn't have been correct. the 99% accurate claim on the kit had to be lying. there was no way it could've been true.

it took some time, but you were able to tear your gaze away from the test. you looked up to the ceiling, blinking away the hot tears you could feel building up. you took a few deep breaths and tried to swallow down the lump in your throat, your fingers trembling around the test.

you've thought about having kids before. you did want them, just not now. you were unprepared for this. how do you raise a kid when you aren't ready, when you aren't even married?

then it hit you — nanami's involved in this too.

the realization made you feel 10x worse. if you weren't ready for a child, you could only imagine how he would feel about this. his life was going so well right now. he was happy with his career and his salary, he was content with the apartment you both shared, and he was even more happy to be with you. he had his whole life and future planned out. he knew when he would retire and even what he'll do in life after he retires. nanami saw you in his future, you were always there when he would think of it. but would you still be there if he found out you were currently pregnant with his child?

you two had never fully talked about having kids together. you both were confident that you would spend the rest of your lives together. you've discussed marriage, homes, and briefly, kids. it was never a deep conversation — you only ever talked about having them and how many there would be. but never about having them earlier than expected.

gosh, you felt like shit. utter, absolute shit. you felt even worse for nanami. you felt like you were going to ruin his life plans. you felt like this would be the downfall of your relationship. and if it was, who knew if you would ever recover.

your phone buzzed with a notification, pulling you back to reality. you didn't realize tears had fallen until one slipped from your chin and landed on the hand gripping the test. you stood from where you sat on the closed toilet and checked your phone. it was a text from nanami.

i'll be home soon, my love. do you want me to bring anything home?

he was so caring. always considering you, always putting you first. you couldn't help but feel even more guilty.

hi ken. could you get some takeout pls? i'm sorry, i'm not in the mood to be cooking rn.

of course. want anything specific? are you feeling alright?

i'm fine. you can choose tonight :)

alright then. i'll be home soon, i love you ❤️

i love you too ��

you shut your phone off and placed it back on the counter, screen facing down. you felt horrible — he was always thinking of your needs before his. would this end now that your carrying his child? certainly he wouldn't want to have to worry about another person in his life at the moment. you wouldn't want him to worry.

you stood from the toilet seat, about to leave the restroom when you caught a glimpse of yourself in the mirror. your face was bright pink and red, your eyes also red but not super puffy and swollen. some people might think it was allergies, but not nanami. nanami wasn't some people — he knew you better than anyone, perhaps even yourself. he could see right through you, read you like a book. you began to worry what he would say if the pigment in your face didn't fade in time, if he would ask if you had been crying.

what would you say if he did ask? he knows you so well, it's nearly impossible to lie to the man. you could say you were rewatching your favorite show and got emotional, or reading another chapter or more of the book he bought you the other day. but nanami isn't dumb. he would catch on before you could even finish your excuse, he'd know something's up.

you sighed, inhaling and exhaling deeply. you didn't know how this was going to play out. you didn't know how to act or what to say to nanami when he came home. you were just hoping for the best.

the lock on the door clicked once, twice, and then the door opened. you had been in your shared bedroom, watching some corny rom-com to ease your mind. you had hidden any evidence of the pregnancy test. you threw away the box and instructions, then threw out the trash bag you tossed them in. you kept the test, however, and hid it in your purse that was now laying on your bed. nanami wasn't one to snoop. if he wanted to check something of yours, he would ask permission. and if you didn't grant it, he would respect your boundaries like he always does.

"my love?" you heard nanami's voice echo throughout the apartment. normally, you would've been waiting by the door for him and greeted him excitedly, but for obvious reasons, you weren't.

leaving the bedroom and walking to nanami, who was walking in the hallway and you assumed he was looking for you, you gave him a small smile.

"hi ken," you said quietly, wrapping your arms around his waist instead of his neck where you usually do. you stood up on your toes to reach his lips, kissing them gently and not for long. when you pulled back, nanami leaned down for another, a longer one. were you ever going to get these kisses again if he found out you were carrying his child?

for real this time, you both pulled away. you still smiled softly up at nanami, but he was observing you closely, worry swimming in his honey brown eyes.

three things were running through his mind right now: why were your cheeks and eyes tinted a bright red, as if you had been crying? why didn't you seem as eager to see him after work like usual, wrap your arms over his shoulders and around his neck, and kiss him for more than a second? something was wrong. did he do something? did you know what food he bought and were you not pleased by it? were you feeling sick?

"ken?" you asked, breaking him out of his thoughts. "are you alright?"

"are you alright?" he returned, worry still plastered throughout his face.

you then looked confused, though you weren't, slowly nodding your head, "yeah... why?"

nanami stayed quiet for a second. maybe you were just tired, maybe he was overthinking this. but that idea didn't sit right with him. it was like his gut was telling him that something was up with you. but he didn't know what.

not wanting to push you, he answered, "nothing. i missed you though. let's go eat?"

throughout dinner, nanami noticed how quiet you were. if it were any other day, you would have been telling him about your day, the latest gossip, about the episode you watched or the chapter you read. you were barely even touching your food too. you occasionally took small bites, but most of the time, you were just poking it with your fork.

while he was putting the dishes away, you grabbed yourself a glass of water. that's when nanami asked you, "love, are you sure you're alright?"

"yeah, i'm fine. why do you ask that?" you replied unsurely, looking down at your water.

"i'm sorry. you just seem... off." nanami washed his hands, looking you up and down carefully.

that was another strange thing he noticed. you hadn't looked in his eyes when you told him you were fine. you always make eye contact with him. you're never afraid to and you're not one to break it so quickly, much less avoid it.

he was beginning to question whether you were really fine.

you had just finished getting ready for bed, teeth and hair brushed, skin care routine done. nanami had finished getting ready before you, so he was waiting for you by the bed. but instead of reading a book or even scrolling through his phone, his eyes were glued to you in worry. you could tell he was becoming suspicious of you, and you wished you hadn't made your troubles so obvious. your head was beginning to ache and you were desperately hoping that nanami wouldn't ask any questions.

those hopes were left unsatisfied.

"my love, are you sure you're okay?" nanami asked for what felt like the hundredth time today.

you sighed deeply. "yes, kento, i'm fine," emphasizing the fine. "my head just hurts right now. have you seen the tylenol?" you added, hoping that it would be enough to stop his questioning.

"no, do you want me to check your bag?"

you felt stupid for having kept an small extra bottle of tylenol in your bag. nanami reached over to your side of the bed, grabbing your purse. he had pulled the zipper open when you realized what was about to happen.

"no!" you yelped, practically sprinting to the bed and snatching the bag away from him. you checked to see if the bag had been open enough to see the test, which it hadn't, and some relief washed over you. but then you realized how much worse you had made your current situation with nanami.

fuck. i fucked up. i'm fucked.

nanami's brows were furrowed together, his face painted with a mix of frustration, confusion, and concern. he looked you up and down over and over again, gaze switching from you to your bag repeatedly.

"okay, y/n, seriously. what the hell is going on with you? first, i come home and you don't seem as excited as you tend to be. then your face is all red like you had been crying. then you—you barely talk to me, hell, even look at me throughout dinner! you touched your food like, what, 5 times? and then when i try to look through your bag to help you, you panic and snatch it away from me?"

kento's ramble had you silent. you didn't know how what to say, what stupid excuse you could use, how to explain your behavior. you only avoided his gaze and stared down at your bag. the thick, suffocating silence lasted for a moment longer, then nanami finally spoke again.

"y/n, are you..."

he paused and took a deep breath, as if to prepare himself for what he was about to say.

"are you cheating on me, y/n...?"

you were dumbfounded. in absolute, utter shock. how could nanami, the person who you believed to have the most trust in you, think that you would be unfaithful to him? yes, you realized how skeptical your behavior was. but for him to come to the assumption that you'd cheat on him? it stung a little—a lot, actually.

"what? no... no, of course not, kento! how could you say that?" you retorted, finally looking him in the eyes.

"gee, i don't know, maybe 'cause you can barely even look at me and you're very obviously hiding something!" his voice raising more with each word spoken.

you had no argument to counter what he had just laid out to you because he was right. you couldn't look at him for more than 5 seconds and you were hiding something. you eyed the floor beneath you, opening and shutting your mouth as you tried to think of something to say. nothing ever came out though.

a heavy sigh cut through your thoughts. you looked up from the floor and saw nanami shaking his head, running his hand down his face. he was so disappointed, you could feel his hurt radiating off of him.

"i'm going to sleep," he muttered, reaching for the lamp and dimming it. lying down, nanami shuffled into a more comfortable position, facing away from your side of the bed, and pulling the covers up to his shoulders.

"ken—"

"night, y/n."

you didn't know what you were going to say anyways. tears slid down your cheeks and the least you could do for nanami was keep quiet and let him rest. you realized that you wanted to apologize. apologize for the way you had been behaving towards him this entire evening, for making him doubt your faithfulness to him.

you slid into bed next to him, facing away from him as well. your body shook with the sobs you fought hard to keep in, nose stuffy and pillow quickly becoming soaked. you thought that the positive pregnancy test would have been the downfall of this relationship—now you wonder, will this argument turn these past 5 years into a mere memory?

m. list

[inventedfangirling]

My friends i watched love for love's sake and I swear i don't have a fckin clue where even to start.

I know a lot has been said about the show already and i know a LOT more would be said about in the future, but i just can't help adding my own two cents to one of the most thought-provoking, moving and brilliantly executed pieces of art i have ever seen.

I'm not gonna go on about just how much I loved Tae Myungha's character and how he is one of the most interesting people I've seen on screen in a long time. I'm not gonna talk about how unbelievably squishable Yeowoon is and how his duality totally ruined me that I need him to get into my pocket and NEVER leave. And oh I need him to put Myungha in his pocket while at it. I'm also not gonna talk about precious 'of course i'm gay, i've always liked girls, you don't know how to be loved' Sangwon is to me, cos if i start I can promise you I will most certainly never stop.

So for the sake of the rest of this post, I'm moving on. (NOT REALLY THO)

I just LOVE LOVE LOVE all the interpretations that people are coming up with, LOVE LOVE LOVE the show for filling in the gaps but LOVE it more for still leaving room for pretty thought-flowers to bloom around.

You know those artworks or puzzles that have something obvious hidden in a maze of confusion and haze until somebody points out the pattern, you zoom out and realize wow it was this clear all along?? That's a LOT of what watching the show felt like to me. The pattern being how inexplicably inter-connected Myungha and Yeowoon are. Not because they are each other's blorbos, but because why they are eo's blorbos. Why they don't care for each other from a sense of sympathy, but from empathy, despite not knowing the depth of their connections explicitly.

Eventhough we do see glimpses of it from the start, it only gets more clear later how Myungha and Yeowoon really are mirror versions of eo. How the first time Myungha sees Yeowoon he's stopping him from killing himself, and then we later find out that Myungha ends up killing himself. How both of it was triggered by a series of disappointments in life, starting with a troubling family and ending with a grandmother who passes away. Of how both of them seem to really have no one else to call their own in the world. Of leading very lonely depressing lives, that seem to never have a glimpse of hope. How both of them seem closed off, but inside they really are so fragile it hurts to perceive the depth of their feelings. It all comes and hits you once you've taken the whole show in and have gotten a few 1000 seconds to think about it.

We start off with myungha's character wanting to make his blorbo's character happy, and he's in it cos he cares about him, he doesn't have to think about himself. A 'pathetic' character experiencing a lot of pain, what's not to love, Myungha thinks, not realizing that it's his own mirror self that he is feeling so much for. Myungha sees Yeowoon's problems as someone from outside and is therefore able to objectively look at it, and approach it proactively, taking so many steps to help him, my favourite (and arguably most important) of which is the effort he puts in to help form yeowoon a friend circle. Something that he couldn't do for himself cos he never even considered a possibility of that. Why would anybody want to be around him? He ruins everything right?

And then to go on despite believing that, to falling in love, to deciding to choose to save both his grandma and yeowoon, finally FINALLY taking control into his hands even if for a bit to say what he wants, to spending the last few days together, to breaking up cos he just thinks the worst of himself, cos he doesn't know better. And then to the eternal darkness, where moments before leaving, just like in his real life, he realizes he wants in, he wants to live, he wants to love, but more importantly this time, he wants to try being loved. Even if it's difficult, he wants to try.

I love how eventhough the show is heavily Myungha focused, we get meaningful dynamics with multiple characters. Round eyed gasp inducing moments dont just belong to the two mains but also to sangwon whose line to myungha post the stalker incident just ruined me and really set the tone for whatever the show was later revealed to be all about.

I love how complicated the narrative got while still telling a more or less coherent story, how in hindsight, a lot of it makes even more sense now. How as Myungha gets closer to yeowoon his self-hating tendencies manifest in the form of debuffs and errors, because of his own brain's inability to perceive himself as somebody deserving love. His childhood trauma and the numerous rejections life has given him, because of the kind of person he turned out to be because of those rejections, all appear to stand in his way of happiness, as if he can't help being a bundle of sadness and a harbinger of problems. Even as he says he doesn't believe in destiny or fate. Or as we initially are made to believe in the game as, yeowoon's happiness, when in reality this was never about yeowoon at all. Yeowoon never existed in the first place and in "real" life, he never does.

I was blown away by how Myungha is in fact no longer in the mortal world but that fact doesn't hurt as much as that he would have to leave a world where he could finally feel happiness, feel loved, feel cared for, even if he consciously tried avoiding them. They still came to him, they still cared for him, they still fiercely wanted to protect him, (Cos he is just a tiny meow meow, who has been hurt a lot in his life, who wouldn't wanna caress and nurse him back to health HUH) just as much as he wanted to protect them.

And coming to the question of what's the game, where is it happening and who orchestrated it? It's definitely set in the afterlife or the limbo between life and the life after. It could be the author friend doing it, or the author friend has given myungha's brain the power to control the game OR of course the possibility that this has all been happening in myungha's head the whole time.

Whatever it is, the whole point has been to take Myungha from a person not wanting to live his life, feeling so devoid of love and happiness, to a journey of love and friendship, of the importance of fostering connections, of making efforts, of helping others, but equally of letting others help you, of putting your hand out and asking for that help. And in my head I love it most when I think of it as entirely Myungha orchestrated. Of it being a desperate cry of pain to himself, from himself, to save himself. Yeowoon and the game and the missions and all of it was for him to see himself in ways he never allowed himself to be seen as, to take care of himself in ways he never has, to love himself like he has never known to. To finally run towards himself, even if pathetic and sad, the Cha Yeowoon of the game, the person waiting at the end of the finishing line was the Tae Myungha in him all along.

You know that tumblr quote 'do it for her' but its about your future self, right? Myungha rooting for Yeowoon is sort of like that? When he's protecing him, he's protecting himself? When he's cheering for him, he's actually cheering and rooting for himself? When he's loving him, he makes space and place to love himself?

I just love the idea of a (self) love story.

Eitherway Yeowoon x Myungha supremacy.

Extreme(ly accurate?) Interpretations apart, Love for Love's Sake is truly one of the, if not THE finest (self) love story I might have ever seen.

As a person who avoids fics/books with mcd or shows with tragic endings, it felt absolutely revolutionary to me that my biggest joy and relief came from the fact that the main character is dead (the thought of myungha having to leave the game was too much to handle) and he gets to live in this game where he has a cute boyfriend, a supportive, caring friend group and his grandma back. it wasn't the game that was temporary or non-existent, it was actually his life outside. And that's not bad? Cos this is a story and Myungha isn't real, but as real as he is, he got his happy ending.

The show taught us to love, to see love, to be loved and to share that love. It told us that maybe the afterlife is a videogame simulation where we all get to live in friendship and love forever, with our blorbo and our friends. There are a lot worse lives to live. And I'm glad he found it in himself, enough love, courage and hope to write himself a better one :')

[3liza]

seriously though from my experience dealing with other rich middle aged men I can tell you this right here, what we are witnessing right now, is the root of much evil in the world.

guys like Matt own and run everything that's privatized and larger than a certain level of scale. these guys get put in a steel tunnel from childhood onward into this weird little knotted ball of insecurity and entitlement, with no time spent during their youth in developing any interpersonal skills at all that aren't "talking slightly too loudly at a corporate party". I've worked as a domme, and a ton of these guys start hiring dominatrices when they get to Matt's age because they're unable to maintain anyone's attention without paying for it anyway and are so crippled with insecurity they can't be honest with women in their lives if they have any. this doesn't help them much because inauthentic human connection makes things worse. exposing even mild, normalized fetishes make them shut down and lash out, but it's not just a sex thing, it's their whole lives. I've watched so many of them hit their 40s, have a bunch of money and a little power, and realize all the poor degenerates they've spent their lives treating like a spectacle or a fantasy are the ones actually having fun, and who other people actually enjoy spending time around. this is pure speculation on my part, idk anything about his personal life and am not trying to find out. the posts are enough to diagnose a dozen extremely pressing problems he will have to painstakingly deconstruct in $10,000 Ayahuasca retreats to get anywhere.

and I wouldn't be so critical about their personal failings as a class of people if they didn't make those failings everyone else's problem. they are fully aware they are fucking up but have always been able to get immediate gratification by standing still and screaming until someone brings them exactly what they need. they know they could use their money to put people in houses or feed them, they deal with this by just not thinking about it. no one has ever genuinely liked them and they're aware of this, often including their own parents. they are frustrated with women. they have zero creative outlets and no skills. even if they have relationships they don't fall in love or experience limerance. all they do is make money or handle money, they are incapable of performing real labor and are alienated from the concept of labor itself so they invent weird orthorexias and compulsive exercise schedules to feel like they're performing labor. a lot of them develop substance problems because it alleviates some of the crippling inhibition and self doubt, but that causes more problems. some of them are narcissists or sociopaths which helps them cope with the extreme isolation but a lot of them arent, and just constantly afflicted with the same problems people get in solitary confinement or being the pariah at a high school. any of them could opt out of all this crap at any time and simply choose not to. these guys are ruining everything.

[thedecoy-if]

It occurs to you just then, the true depth of your helplessness: you've been taken to another universe, alone with no way home, you're stuck prisoner, your phone has no signal...and they don't even know what Wi-Fi is. Yeah. You're screwed.

DEMO (3/04/2023) ♔ FORUM POST ♔ ARTBREEDERS

♔ The Decoy is a dark fantasy that follows you, a 21st century normal human, kidnapped to an alternate magical universe to play the part of the missing heir to a powerful throne...who also happens to be your doppelgänger. ♔

Life, for the most part, has been all-around uneventful. You work in Manhattan at a convenience store under a sleazy boss in order to scrape by and support your struggling family. Your dad is absent, your mom is too tired to parent, one brother is getting arrested while the other has detached himself from the life he once had. Still, while your days as a twenty-something employee are mundane, at least they're predictable.

Meanwhile, in another realm, the magical dark world of Eterna is in ruin. A war against an entity and his bloodthirsty creatures is brewing, and after the powerful royal family is viciously murdered and the only living child--and now rightful owner of the throne--goes missing, that evil is one step closer to winning.

But of course, that's not your problem. That's in a whole other universe, one you don't even know exists. Your biggest worry is whether you'll be able to take on a double shift tomorrow. Right?

Wrong.

Turns out the missing heir is your doppelganger. In a desperate attempt to save face and stop from losing a war before it even starts, you're kidnapped and taken to Eterna in order to play the part of the monarch, all while working behind the (bloody) scenes to find the true heir and get home.

Stuck in a world of magic and fantasy you've only ever seen in movies, an entire country--and an impending war-- is now dependent on how well you can act.

No pressure.

The Decoy is rated 18+ for dark themes, violence, and explicit content.

FEATURES

Customize your MC from gender identity, pronouns, personality, and appearance.

Choose whether to adapt to this new world or reject it, whether to be defiant or not. Pick what kind of monarch you'll lead as and take full advantage of your new royal identity.

Build yourself up in this new world, focus on honing combat or knowledge of the realm, choose a preferred choice of weapon and more.

Romance one of eight ROs (two male, two female, one nonbinary, three gender selectable) with a variety of backgrounds and magical types. Some more dangerous than others.

Maybe teach your new makeshift gang what television is? Hopefully find some signal for your phone? (not going to happen).

CHARACTERS + ROs

SERIDA/SOREN/SAHAR CRETILLON (m/f/nb , identity dependent on player choice ): the successor to the throne and only living person left in the Cretillon line, S has gone missing not long after the slaughter that murdered their entire family. People have been waiting for them to be coronated in order to plan their next move, but they're now gone without a trace and without them and the power that binds them together, Eterna is vulnerable. That's where you come in.

AZRIEL DAMARIS [RO] (m, he/him): once S's primary royal guard, Azriel has been promoted as the general of the Eternan army and head of the operation to save S. Stiff, serious, and severe, Azriel is tasked with being guard and guiding you through the world of politics and royalty. Unfortunately, Azriel doesn't want you here and he doesn't do much to hide it.

NAMARA AL-LUVEN: [RO] (f, she/her) Azriel's second, Namara is a fierce warrior and loyal to the cause. She's quite difficult to read, distant considering who you are.

DRENWIN SILVA: [RO](m, he/him): a skilled Mage and jester, Drenwin works alongside the Eternan army and puts his skills to work. He seems to be the most approachable of the bunch, which isn't saying much.

VALE: [RO](nb, they/them) the boisterous, flirtatious and arrogant mercenary turned pirate captain of The Lady Mystica. Vale exists simply to make and spend as much coin as possible while engaging in their harem and abundance of bad habits.

CERIS BESILLE [RO] (selectable, she/her, he/him, they/them): a priest-in-training, Ceris is fiercely devoted to their beliefs. Reserved and easily scandalized, they haven't left their quarters in the church since they were twelve, contributing to their lack of outside experience and rather insular outlook on the world.

TALEEA FAREWYN [RO] - (she/her) A half-fae Healer, Taleea follows alongside you as your right hand. She seems to be the only one empathetic to your circumstances, but it's hard to trust anyone in this world, especially someone who is so keen on being...nice.

ARWEN/ARYA VALARIN: [RO] (selectable, she/her, he/him): A Valarin is S's childhood friend and their arranged betrothed. A has been S's other half since they were kids, which means you need to be extra careful around them. They have no idea you're not S and judging from your orders, it's better they never find out.

????? [RO?] (gender selectable) -- They are actively hunting you.

[tojifm]

ride or die (mafia au). ༄ ryomen sukuna.

― summary: you were living your best life, single and newly employed but sukuna had to swoop in to collect his payment (aka, you).

― TW: 18+ plot holes, dubious consent, choking, vaginal fingering, dom/sub undertones, a little bit of blood, uhhhh I think that's it?? I mean honestly sukuna comes with a warning.

word count: 3,721.

Crazy and high.

That’s how you felt as the man before you began to decide whether or not to kill you.

Crazy and high.

That’s how you felt when he asked what your boyfriend meant to you. Nothing. Your answer was breathless.

Crazy and high.

That’s how you felt when he grinned at your answer. His eyebrows furrowed as he questioned you once more.

“Nothing?”

“Nothing,” you confirmed, shaking your head. “W-we were broken up, months ago.”

He watched you for a moment that held too long. “That’s not what he said.”

Despite the situation, you feel a current of red hot anger moving through your veins. Maybe it was the pent up anger of having to be mature throughout the whole relationship as your ex tainted your image. Maybe it was the fact that even apart and allegedly six feet under your ex was still ruining your life. Maybe it was the fact that you were drugged, kidnapped, and presented before this made-up king on the day of your first real job. Or, maybe it was a combination of everything. “Well, he said a lot of things, but it says a lot about you if you choose to believe him.”

You are grabbed by the hair and yanked back, the grip was tight and your eyes met the ceiling. You wince at the suddenness and less at the pain.“Apologize,” a voice hissed. You clenched your jaw stubbornly, sliding your eyes down to see the demon who watched as if it was nothing but a pleasant exchange. He watched you curiously, chin resting in his hands, eyebrows still furrowed. The lighting was still too dim for you to make out too much of his face. Asshole.

A yank to your hair and you realize that you had said that out loud. “You want to die, don’t you, bitch?” That wasn’t Sukuna. No. It was the disrespecting, self-destructive, low-life who had his hand in your hair that spoke. Sukuna’s eyes don’t waver as you thrash, your tied wrists jerking around behind your back, and yell at the man to let go. He observed you as if you were a zoo animal that needed to be caged. He watched as your seemingly timid figure, clawed at the hand, not realizing the man behind you was triple your size. He took note of the blood on your blouse and the rips on your skirts, the strands of hair sticking to your face and your neck from the nervous sweat. Sukuna meets the eyes of his guard who waited patiently for the finalé. Waited for his boss to make the call. Waited to put an end to the stupid girl at his feet. Poor guy. Sukuna smirks and gives a small shake of his head.

The grip lightens and soon enough, it's gone. You raise your hands to rub the sore spot, not realizing Sukuna had stood up. You mistake his footsteps for the man behind you. You turn around to glare only to find a row of masked army, posted dutifully against the concrete wall. All of them are sized similarly. All equipped with a number of weapons. Vests heavy with bullets. Belts adorned with glinting knives. You try to lock eyes with any of them but they stare ahead. Sukuna had recruited these men that looked straight out of the games your ex-boyfriend played. Call of Puberty or whatever. It couldn’t have been easy. These types of men were not bought with money. They’d do anything for him. You had no idea how you had been able to escape them in the car but you’d rather not test your theories in such a vulnerable position. Newly intimidated you turn back around.

Only to find another problem.

Your nose bumps against Sukuna’s and you let out a soft yelp at the sudden proximity, jerking back quickly. But his hand is already there, behind your head, long fingers encased you, holding you close to him. He is smiling. Up close, you are able to make out his features much more clearly. The left side of his face was scarred almost handsomely. His hair was a faded pink, his face decorated with tattoos on his forehead across his nose, jaw, chin, neck and maybe even further down but the blood stained shirt covered his torso, cutting your eyes short. Your breath becomes ragged, coming in short bursts as your eyes widen in a mixture of apprehension and fascination. You looked like the deer he had shot last week. “Why so skittish?”

It felt almost intimate if not for the situation. Caught between the tumultuous flurry of fear, your body mistakes your racing heartbeat for attraction directed at the killer before you. You struggled to find your voice. “I am not.”

Sukuna's satisfaction becomes evident in the gleam of his dark, lidded eyes at the rasp of your voice. His enjoyment at your disorientation was palpable, a sinister delight that sent a chill down your spine. His hot breath mingled with your own. You are dazed and he is happy. “Oh, but you are,” his dark and lidded eyes scan you one more time, before delivering the verdict. “I’ve decided.”

Crazy and high.

Mad and madder.

That's how you felt when he leaned in closer and bit your bottom lip. And you could not find it in yourself to care for the words he had just let out.

Throughout the steps back to your room, you are nauseous. His words ringing in your head like a warning. You were relieved. But mostly, you were confused. He had spared you. No, he had ripped everything away from you. You were not thankful. Just relieved. That was it. Nothing more. 

You will not be a victim of Stockholm syndrome on the first day of captivity.  

Another thing was rushing through your head but it was not the words exchanged or the fact that you were most likely to be jobless in case you did make it out (highly unlikely), but rather something else . . .

A recap. A wildly inappropriate and embarrassing recap. In all honesty, you could’ve convinced yourself that you had dreamt the whole interaction if not for the dried blood on your lips and the sound of his reverberating hum that had echoed in the silent room. 

If not for the shocked moan, if not for the feeling of his smile against your lips, if not for the hot tongue that had coaxed your mouth into a pliant mess. If not- 

Shaking your head you tried to focus on your steps. You had to stop. Distraction you needed a distraction. You decide to focus on the pair of Sukuna’s masked guards that were now guiding you to a room. They were taller and leaner than the ones in the basement and dressed in Tom Ford. They seemed more agile, more alert. No wonder you were free of the ropes that had caged your wrists. They would not make the same mistakes the others had. They will not let their attire hold them back. 

You look around the hallways, there's nothing traditional about them. The walls are painted a crimson color so dark it was almost black. It seemed to bleed into the air, permeating the corridor with an unsettling energy. The flooring is a marble that seemed to glare at you for even looking at it. Definitely expensive. It wouldn’t be a surprise. You doubted Sukuna was donating his blood money to charities. He looked and dressed like he could afford to buy countries, it only suited him to live like he did. 

Your thoughts are interrupted when the guards stop in front of a tall mahogany door. One of them reaches in his pocket to retrieve a long silver key. With a deliberate motion, he inserts the key into the lock, turning it with a resounding click that reverberates through the silence. The room is dark and you cannot make out anything inside. You wait for one of them to reach inside and turn on the light but they simply stand. You stare at them, unmoving. They stare back, equally blank. 

“Get in,” one of them says, still not moving. His voice is calm but laced with warning. Hesitantly you step inside only to jump when the door is thrown shut with a slam that echoed. You hear the door click and come to the conclusion that you’ve been locked inside. You inhale your shock and try to locate the light switch.

“Assholes,” you mumbled into the darkness, “all of them. Stupid jerkfaces.” 

Your hand brushes against a smooth spot in the otherwise roughened wall, and smile victoriously when the lights turn on. The room is as big as your apartment but there is nothing lavish about it. The furnishings are functional but lack any sense of warmth or personal touch. To your right, a queen-sized bed in the center accompanied by two side tables honing a singular lamp on top. There's a desk pushed against the wall next to you and just above it was a seemingly new T.V. You delve deeper into the room and locate a door to a walk-in closet that led to a bathroom. What the hell was this house?  

You step into the bathroom and observe yourself in the mirror. Your hair was a mess. Your cheeks stained with the mascara that had dripped from your eyes. Your gaze falls upon your swollen lips, stained with blood, a vivid reminder of the violence and danger that has infiltrated your world. Your fingers tentatively brush against them, tracing the tender flesh, and a shiver reverberates through your body. It is a visceral shock, a jolt of reality that reminds you of the gravity of your predicament.

Was this your life now? From securing an internship to landing a job at the same building you had met your boyfriend. From scrounging for change to make up for the student loans. From shopping at stores until you felt satisfied. From sloppy lunch dates to being enslaved by a man wanted by the country.  

Hopeless. 

Your vision blurs at the sudden tears that coated your eyes. You blink, once, twice, trying to get rid of them but they just fall. Racing down the path already created for them. 

Within the walk-in closet, you discover a treasure trove of clothes, each garment carefully selected and tailored to fit your size. The array of outfits spans a wide range, from elegant gowns to stylish blouses, from casual shorts to impeccably fitting pants. From shorts to the most perfect pants. In a flurry of misplaced emotions, you had tried on almost everything, watching yourself in the mirror. The way the denim hugged your curves. The way the material of pants danced when you walked. The way the skirts cinched your waist and drew attention to your seemingly elongated legs. Almost everything had fit you perfectly.

Too perfect. 

You push back the question of just how Ryomen Sukuna would have access to all this information but you didn't need to trouble yourself with any more questions. The day had terrorized you enough, you didn’t need your psyche to do it for you all over again. You knew if you began thinking you would come back to the point of cursing a dead man you had cut out of your life. 

You walk back into the shower after picking out a silk pajama set hanging in the closet. Turning on the shower and undressing, as the warm water cascades down your body, soothing your tense muscles, you take a moment to relish in the simple comfort of the shower. With each passing minute, the weight of the day's events begins to wash away, if only temporarily. As you reach for the body wash, your fingers brush against a familiar label. Surprised, you examine the bottle more closely, and to your astonishment, you discover that it is an exact replica of the one you use at home. A sense of surrealism washes over you as you realize that the products in this bathroom are not mere imitations but rather the very same ones you have come to rely on in your daily routine.

He had these brought from the security of your home.  

Unsettled once again, you close your eyes, feeling the hot whispers attempt to relax your stiffened body. 

You feel refreshed after the shower. Dressed in silk and hair wrapped in the fluffiest towel to ever exist. Somewhat free of your conflicting thoughts you step outside the door to your closet, still drying your hair. 

Sukuna's gaze lingers on you, a sinister satisfaction evident in his dark eyes. As you go through your nightly routine, diligently applying the creams and lotions to your face, his presence feels like an unwelcome intrusion. Every motion, every touch of your hand, draws his attention like a predator observing its prey. The subtle satisfaction in Sukuna's expression is unsettling, his amusement at your compliance apparent. His presence, like an invisible weight, hung in the air. He watched as you massaged your temples, seeking solace in the simple act of self-care, unaware of the twisted pleasure it brought to him. His enjoyment at your satisfaction, at the contented hums that escaped your lips, bordered on sadistic

He felt his pants tighten. He watched as your previously distracted gaze raised to meet his giant figure sprawled out comfortably in your temporary bed. He grinned at the sudden shriek you let out. “Making yourself at home?”

“What are you doing here?” 

“Greeting my guest, what else?”

You clench your jaw, refusing to meet his gaze directly. His predatory eyes continue to roam over your body, making you feel exposed, vulnerable. The weight of his gaze feels suffocating, as if he is stripping you bare with his eyes alone.

It took you two heartbeats to realize that you basically were. You did not wear a bra or underwear because the closet had everything but the necessities to hide your freshly hardened nipples. It was all intentional . So here you were, in front of your captor, commando mode. You quickly throw your wet hair over your chest, trying your best to cover what the man had already seen. 

Sukuna's grin widens, stretching across his face, revealing a set of teeth that adds an unsettling edge to the situation. With a self-assured air, he lifts his hand, running it through his tousled pink hair in a seemingly nonchalant gesture. The action draws your attention, momentarily diverting your thoughts from the impending doom that surrounded you.

In a startling display of confidence, he pats the space next to him, beckoning you to draw closer. “Come here.”

Your affronted scoff breaks the tension in the room for a moment, a flicker of defiance shining through your fear. Despite the overwhelming sense of vulnerability, you refused to cower before him.

"I am not coming anywhere near you," you assert firmly, your voice carrying a mixture of determination and apprehension. The words spill from your lips before you could control it.

For a brief moment, the atmosphere seems to shift, the balance of power momentarily wavering between you and Sukuna. His grin falters ever so slightly, a glimmer of surprise flitting across his dark eyes. It's clear that he's not used to defiance, to someone resisting his commands.

Yet, despite the daring response you've mustered, you remain acutely aware of the danger that surrounds you. Sukuna's unpredictability leaves you on edge, uncertain of how he might react to your refusal.

"Not even on my face?" He pouted mockingly before his tone became menacing. “You don’t have a lot of options right now, doll. Come here.”

Doll.  

You repressed a shiver and weighed your options. Which were basically none. Running for the door holds little promise, as you suspect it's likely locked, effectively trapping you within this nightmarish space. Seeking refuge in the bathroom offers no solace either, as the man before you seems all too capable of bypassing such simple barriers.

Your mind races, searching desperately for a glimmer of hope. Yet, the room felt like a claustrophobic cage, suffocating and closing in on you. Fear and desperation intertwine, clouding your judgment as you grapple with the limited options before you. 

To choose him is to relinquish your autonomy, to place yourself at his mercy. Submitting to his control means opening yourself up to the unknown. However it is clear what you needed to do. 

With a heavy sigh, you find yourself moving closer to Sukuna. You were a butterfly drawn into the intricate web spun by a spider. Too distracted by the beauty to recognize the threat until it was too late. The trepidation lingers, your heart heavy with a mix of resignation and defiance. It was a compromise. 

Simple action. Simple defiance that consequently had your head against Sukuna's shoulder and his fingers in your pussy. 

- - - - - - -

"You gonna do it again?"

"N-no."

"Say sorry." He emphasizes the word by a particularly hard thrust of his long fingers.

"I’m - Please !"

“What is it?”

“I’m so- SUKUNA!” 

His name on your tongue sounded like a lullaby.

“You’re not telling me anything, princess.”

His fingers curl inside you, hitting a spot so deep you didn't even think it was possible. Your mouth is parted in a silent gasp and your back arched against his broad chest. He was still dressed whilst you sat in his lap as naked as the day you were born. Your stained silk pajamas long forgotten on the marble floor. His other hand slides up from holding your thigh open to tracing a path between the valley of your breasts and wrapping around your throat. Your sudden whimper at the grip had Sukuna chuckling half-heartedly. His body was hot against your skin. You could feel the taut muscles against your back. 

You could feel every rising breath. 

His amusement ended with an involuntary groan when you clenched around him. “You like that? Huh? Fucking whore.”

You shake your head to deny it. But to your surprise you feel your release building. You feel yourself clench at his fingers

“ Feels good, doesn’t it?”

You had to stop him. This was so wrong. For so many reasons. He had taken everything from you, ripped you out of your little bubble for his own selfish reasons- You had to stop him. And as your hands grip his wrist, his thumb lands on your clit. You absolutely keened at the contact, feeling your legs tremble. But it felt so good.  

“You’re so fucking wet. Makin’ a mess all over my clothes. C’mon, say sorry and I'll let you cum.” 

The sounds of his fingers thrusting into you were loud in the otherwise silent room. Wrong. It was all so wrong. You shouldn’t be doing this. It was too much for you to handle. 

“You hear that? Your pretty little cunt just taking it all in. All for me.”

You try to bury your face in his neck but his grip on your throat tightens. You were getting close. Your vision was becoming hazy from pleasure but you don’t dare tell him out of fear that he’d deny it for his own sick enjoyment. 

You were basically burning. It’s right there. You were close. Your eyes rolled to the back of your head as he continued the relentless attack on your pussy, plunging, twisting, curling... You were so close, you could feel it. You could just feel yourself pulsing and gushing all over his fingers. You were a mess. Moaning, whimpering, whining in Sukuna’s ear. 

His grip on your neck loosened and you found yourself biting onto the point between his shoulders and neck. His jaw was clenched and lips parted in concentration. 

“Say sorry,” he grunted, feeling you clench and tremble. “Say it.”

He wanted to give it to you so bad but you were defiant. Tight-lipped. Miserable. A mess. His erection is prominent against your leg, the giant bulge brushing against your lower back as your body jerked and grinded against his fingers. 

“Don’t you wanna cum?”

You don't answer, feeling it coiling in your stomach. But then Sukuna was pulling out his fingers, refusing to give you what he wanted. No, no, no, no, n-

“You think, I can't tell when you’re about to cum?” He breathed against your ear, breathing hard, the tip of his nose brushing against your cheek. Then he raised his head and looked down at you, pupils blown wide with lust. “Grinding on my fingers like that, you want it, don’t you?”

You nodded too fast. 

He smirked, his hand fell from your throat, brushing against your nipple. Asshole. “Say the magic word.”

“Sorry,” you gasped out not realizing that you had been holding onto your breath. “‘M sorry.”

He seemed satisfied. With your apology, in mind he went back to work with a newfound energy. He pinched your nipples, earning a high-pitched moan from you, before switching over to the other one whilst his other hand traced along the already damp and swollen lips. Your legs widened shifting in his lap, looking for the friction you craved, hoping he’d take the hint just this once.

 “You’re all wet and creamy. Fucking leaking all over me.”

You moaned at his words and you both groaned when his fingers finally, finally, slipped inside you. The sound that left his mouth did something to you that even his fingers couldn’t. A shiver runs down your spine, and soon enough you are arching against him. 

“A-ah, I’m clo- O-oh.” 

“Yeah? I feel you pulsing, doll, so fucking tight. Look at that, such a pretty and perfect cunt. I bet you’ll look so good riding my dick, c’mon, baby. Cum.”

Three more strokes and a thumb circling your clit, you were soon experiencing the most earth shattering orgasm ever. His soft hair brushed against your face as you leaned back against his shoulder, your pussy convulsing around his fingers from the aftermath. Your legs trembled. After making sure there was nothing more left, Sukuna pulled his fingers out and licked them swiftly. 

You watched him still breathless, still shocked at what had just happened. 

"You sound good when you apologize," Sukuna teased before he was sliding you off and leaving through the door he had come from. His pants still stained with your cum. 

What the fuck? 

a/n: literally my first time writing smut hehe. lemme know how I did!

honestly I don't even think I had a plot in mind when I started writing but I wanted mafia sukuna so bad 😭😭😭

[blackbird-brewster]

Meta: Jemily Queerbaiting

With the huge influx of posts saying 'Jemily is gonna be canon', I really appreciated seeing this post because OP was completely correct. I didn't want to write an entire dissertation as a reply, so I'm making my own post with my personal opinion on this. (All sources are noted in footnotes)

Before I began this rant, for anyone who thinks this is anti-Jemily. It is not. I have shipped Jemily for 18 friggin years and that's never going to change. This post is specifically my thoughts about queer baiting.

First off, I need to note that the showrunners (and the cast members who use social media) KNOW what a huge queer following this show has and that's why we got pansexual Tara Lewis in S16 [1]. Which, in itself, was SOOOOOOO important!!! Our first canonically queer main in SIXTEEN seasons was a middle-aged Black woman!!! That's phenomenal. (The fact it was horrible rep, because they instantly ruined her relationships once her queerness served it's plot point is a whole other post entirely)

In my opinion, the 'big Jemily moment' Paget posted about on Twitter [2] (and AJ hinted at during a recent IG live) is simply queerbaiting to get people to watch S17. I know a lot of you are newer to the fandom and I love your enthusiasm, I really do, ship and let ship, but listen, let's be real, Jemily is not going to be made canon. The showrunners aren't going to suddenly say (after 17 seasons) 'Surprise, Jemily is endgame'. This show has never cared about queer rep and now that CBS/Paramount have already ticked their queer rep box with Tara, they won't be in any rush to add any other characters to it.

Please buckle in, I've got a lot of thoughts on this matter --

What is Queerbaiting?

If you aren't aware of what queerbaiting is, here's a good definition:

Historically, queerbaiting has carried two meanings: the first is an act of aggressive heterosexuality to shut down queer subtext on screen while still teasing and catering to the queer audience in advertising, public relations, and fan engagement strategies; the second is an existing homoerotic tension between two characters played up on screen while met with derision by the professionals behind the scenes. [3]

The Medium article quoted here is from 2017, a time when parasocial relationships were really starting to take over social media. In 2024, actors are now only a mention or tag away online, they have direct conversations with fans, and this process has allowed for an even deeper form of queerbaiting.

Oftentimes online, actors are asked directly about certain ships and while some ignore these questions (usually to avoid breaking their contracts or other repercussions), others (looking at you, Paget) choose to instead tease fans about queer ships. She's done this for years upon years and if I've learned anything in the past twenty-years of existing in fandom spaces it's this -- don't hold your breath. In it's original meaning, for something to be deemed as queerbaiting there had to be malicious, or at least, purposeful intent to string queer fans along by teasing them with suggestive content about the ship in question, while knowing this ship will never come to fruition in canon.

The thing to remember is, Paget and AJ aren't the only ones who know about Jemily shippers -- the network and showrunners are well aware of this ship too. When networks/showrunners figure out they have a strong sapphic fanbase, they love to use that to their advantage to get more viewers and higher ratings. Queerbaiting is a goldmine to keep fans watching long running shows, look at Rizzoli and Isles, Supergirl, and OUAT for examples of this.

Jemily and Queerbaiting:

Ever since Emily joined the BAU in S2 (2006), there have always been fans who ship JJ/Emily (shoutout to the old LJ forums!). Way before celebs were just a tweet away from fans, back when all our fics began with disclaimers so we wouldn't get sued by networks, we went to great lengths to keep our fanworks far removed from actors/showrunners attention.

As far as Jemily goes, this reply from Paget in a 2009 interview with TVGuide.com [4] (which has now been deleted from their site unfortunately, but there are quotes on Tumblr still [4.a]) confirmed some fans' worst fear -- the actors had found our fanworks online.

TVGuide.com: Of course, a band of fans want her to hook up with Hotch.

Brewster: I know! I didn't realize that fans make these videos on YouTube? A.J. Cook sent me a hilarious one that made it look like Prentiss and J.J. were having a secret lesbian affair. You know, when Hotch was blown up in the SUV, we shot this scene where he's in the hospital and I'm standing next to him, looking at his bleeding ear. Our director came in and said, "Paget, you're looking at Hotch like you're in love with him. It looks really weird." So now, every day, Thomas [Gibson] and I flutter our eyelids at each other.

This was the first time I recall anyone acknowledging Jemily shippers publicly and at the time (Jan 2009), the show was still in Season Four (just before CBS fired both AJ and Paget [5]). Paget genuinely said it's 'hilarious' that fans shipped JJ/Emily. Even now, I'll see people say 'We know Paget and AJ have seen Jemily fanvids, so they obviously ship it too' -- but those same people rarely acknowledge the full context of the original answer. Paget not only thought JJ/Emily were 'hilarious', but then she doubled down and turned her reply back to how she and Thomas liked to play up the chemistry between Emily/Hotch.

While no one can say for sure which video it was that AJ sent Paget, just knowing they were watching JJ/Emily fanvids sent a bit of a shockwave through the femslash side of the fandom. To some it felt like an invasion of privacy, fanworks are by fans for fans -- knowing the cast were poking around in fandom spaces added an extra layer of worry around what we fans were posting online. Fifteen years ago, it used to be quite taboo for actors to outwardly discuss shipping or other fanon for whatever show they were in, and we fans were usually comfortably removed from the actors altogether.

Of course, now it's the norm for fans and actors/showrunners to co-exist online and interact with one another. This connection has opened new ways for shows to queerbait their fans. Pretty much every show has some form of social media account now and there is no doubt that the people running those accounts keep up with the most popular ships and hashtags. Not to mention that actors are constantly barraged with questions about whether they ship their character with x,y,z, or whether they think a ship should be made canon, etc. These interactions only serve to benefit the shows themselves, because whether the conversation is for or against a certain ship, it's all just free publicity (Why do you think CM now has a TikTok account?)

Every time AJ or Paget say anything about Jemily, the queer side of the fandom loses their minds. But this has been going on for YEARS now and every single time, it turns out to be nothing but social media hype and queerbaiting. Remember this AJ post? [6] Or what about the notorious reply by Paget to a fan, where she talks about how she and AJ held hands under the table 'for the shippers' [7] I've seen this cycle over and over again, so perhaps I am cynical, but I'm not getting my hopes up that Jemily will ever seriously be canon.

It's widely known now, after both Kirsten [8] and Paget [9] have talked about it, that there was an early idea where Prentiss was supposed to be queer, but that was ultimately scraped before it ever made it on screen. For context, please remember, this show has been airing for nearly twenty years. It began in 2005, during the highly conservative Bush administration. Queer people didn't have rights in the US, we couldn't get married, we were rarely protected under discrimination laws, and we could even be fired for simply being queer (in some states). Diverse queer representation on screen was extremely limited to things like 'The L Word' and 'Queer as Folk' (both aired on Showtime, so they were behind a paywall. And as far as tLw goes, that show was extremely male-gaze focused and is horrible in nearly all regards if you try to rewatch it now). As far as prime time shows went, queer rep was even more rare. Which is why Emily wasn't queer from the get-go.

Yes, things have changed since 2006 in terms of queer rep on TV. We have a myriad of queer identities represented in TV and film nowadays, which is why I think it's so easy for newer fans to say 'lf she was supposed to be gay anyway, they should just make Emily queer in canon!' I know this is what fuels most fans' demands for Emily being confirmed queer, and I get it, I DO. I would be all for it! However, I do not, in one hundred years, actually believe that is going to happen after they already canonically queer confirmed Tara in S16. The fact we even got ONE queer character is ground-breaking for this show.

It's also worth noting, that in the time between Paget's departure in 2012 and her return in 2016, she became very active on Twitter. This was when more and more fans began asking her about Jemily and after Kirsten's AfterEllen interview, fans also pushed for Paget to address the possibility of Emily being gay. 'Pushed' is actually an understatement for some of the outright harassment she would receive. (AJ received some of this harassment too, but less so because she doesn't use social media ass often) Back then, neither of them replied to these things directly. Yet, no matter what either woman posted, the replies were full of Jemily stans begging for her acknowledgement. (Did you know 'stan' is literally a term coined for stalker fans?) I remember one time AJ's friend was missing and she posted info on her IG about it, you know what the replies were? People asking her about Jemily. It was genuinely sickening.

Within this context, it was no surprise to fans when Emily came back in S12 , she and JJ's friendship was seemingly erased. The two women were rarely on screen together in the late seasons, plus the writers saw fit to even give Emily not only one (Mark in London, but two, on-screen boyfriends for the first time in the entire series. I personally do not think these changes to Emily's character were coincidence, I saw the hellscape of what people would say to AJ and Paget online and I fully believe that upon Paget's return to the show, the showrunners purposely tried to distance JJ and Emily to dissuade the more abusive side of the fanbase.

Can I prove that, no. But it is the only reason I can think of as to why Emily S12+ seemingly didn't care about JJ anymore, despite their deep and meaningful friendship. I mean, they both CROSSED THE WORLD to go rescue each other in prior canon -- but when Emily comes back, they acted like they barely knew each other. This was even more prevalent in S16, when JJ's main storylines all revolved around Will, and Emily barely looked at JJ in the entirety of ten episodes. (Remember how Prentiss didn't even hug JJ after bomb, but she did go hug Luke?)

So, do Paget and AJ earnestly ship Jemily, or are they continuing the long tradition of queerbaiting us? Who fucking knows, not me. But based on the history of this fandom, I think I can make a safe bet. (Interestingly, if you search all of Paget's twitter for the word 'Jemily' [10] she only has 3 direct tweets mentioning the ship. I don't think it's a coincidence that two are within the past few months since they started filming S17 (the other one was a RT of Kirsten (who tagged something Jemily)

This is all to say --

Just because Paget and AJ have publicly talked about Jemily,, this doesn't mean it's ever going to happen on screen. And you know what, THAT'S OKAY!! There has been this constant outcry (after Tara became queer confirmed) of 'Do Emily next' or 'Why wasn't it Emily with a girlfriend!?' and 'Jemily needs to be canon in S17!' -- as if people believe their ships aren't worth anything unless they are canon.

That couldn't be further from the truth! Fandom is built on headcanons and fan interpretations and rare pairs and all types of shippers. Your ship does NOT need to be canon for you to enjoy it. I will ship Jemily forever, no matter what. I don't think there will be some magical queer plot in S17, at best, we might actually get to see Emily/JJ on screen together again and after the train wreck that was S16 -- I'll take whatever I can get.

And hey -- if I am completely wrong, if Erica Messer pulls a Korrasami out of her hat, I will be ecstatic. I will be happy to be proved wrong, but at the same time, I'm not going to lose sleep over it and I'm DEFINITELY not going to go hound the actors about it on social media.

Sources:

[1] 2022 Digital Spy article about the importance of Tara's coming out

[2] 04/18/24 Paget Tweet

[3] 2017 Queerbaiting article from medium.com

[4] 2009 Broken TVGuide link

[4.a] Tumblr quote from the above TVGuide Interview

[5] 2010 Kirsten interview screenrant.com

[6] 2019 AJ Instagram Post

[7] 2020 Paget video on Twitter (via @karasluthqr)

[8] 2015 Kirsten interview AfterEllen.com

[9] 2016 Paget Interview CriminalMindsFans.com

[10] @PagetPaget search 'Jemily'

[hoofpeet]

is there any reason why you choose to build hoofology’s world the way you do? with the sort of sporadic posts I mean. that each incrementally focus on specific characters or the world itself, or just some random spattering of biology or design choices. I actually really like the way you do it even though I’m pretty sure it’s unintentional, it feels like looking through old newspapers or picking up a picture book from when you were a kid, if that makes sense? It’s more of “you can get a general idea for it very fast, but the deeper intricacies are yours to find”. I think back to your valentine flavored energy drink post a lot as a way for couples who aren’t the same breed(?) to go on dates if one’s nocturnal and vice versa. I love your work lots and lots and lots and think the way you go about everything is gorgeous. Hoofology as a whole has a very “uncomfortably comfortable” feeling to it. Like I’m visiting a grandparents house that I was at all the time when I was a kid but haven’t been to in over a decade.

Because I enjoy stories where the worldbuilding is something you can sort of choose how much you engage with; it's more of a suggestion that you can choose to ignore, but does add some fun to the story if you work to piece everything together. That probably came from watching Adventure time as a kid and being really obsessed with vague hints as to it being set in a post-apocalypse world, with background elements that suggest worldbuilding but never fully hand an explanation to the audience.

The other big inspiration for worldbuilding probably comes from Ghibli films; I feel like ghibli characters always feel very believably at home in their surroundings. Someone is generally already familiar with their surroundings, so they don't act like their own world is particularly extraordinary/unusual. I think the two big examples for what I mean would be princess mononoke and Nausicaa- where the characters are more concerned with looking forward and living their lives while somewhat ignoring the worlbuilding around them- because it's already familiar knowledge to them.. It's like watching landscapes pass by from the car window but still being focused on driving

--I also like stories where the characters themselves also don't fully know what's going on with the world around them. Most of the events/forces at work that shape the world Hoofology is set in are completely unknowable to both the characters and readers. Don't have many good examples of this but like- settings with a lot of ruins and such

[cyanide-sippy-cup]

Okay now that Anissa is in the show, I have to talk about THAT storyline. There's not much particularly new I can say that hasn't already been discussed but I need to gather my thoughts on what the show has to do to be successful in this regard. With that being said,

Spoilers for things the show has not covered yet

And massive Trigger Warning for discussions of sexual assault and post-assault trauma.

So first things out of the way, I do not believe they should cut it. The changes the show has made are ultimately pretty minor. A character change, order of events swapped. With them sticking as close as they are to the comic, I think it would be a massive problem to skip over it from a story telling standpoint.

From a real world standpoint, it's even more important. Male sexual assault is something that rarely gets depicted properly. It's usually a joke or a moment of triumph and that very much has had an effect on the way we look at it in the real world. And since Invincible is now a show pretty much everybody has their eyes on, choosing not to talk about it would be missing an opportunity to have a very real, very important conversation that very well could educate men on how to navigate and survive what they are going through.

I'm also worried that they'll be too afraid to actually say the word "rape". Lots of modern adaptations delete important discussions like Sokka's sexism or the gender discussions from Cowboy Bebop in order to avoid properly handling them and usually replace them with something worse in a sort of "all bark and no bite" liberalism. Directly saying it as it is is incredibly important to showing that talking about it is not only NOT shameful, but also necessary in getting the help you need and the healing that is necessary to survive.

And from a storytelling standpoint, saying it is important too. The moment where Mark tells Eve what happened is not only great in showing that telling someone is important but is also the moment where Mark is forced to admit the truth to himself. "She raped me." Those three words are a massive turning point for the whole story. Character dynamics change, this becomes a focus for most of Mark's loved ones, and it fundamentally changes his life.

Markus. This is a piece of the puzzle I don't see many talk about. While the rest is a showcase of what to do, Markus as a character is a showcase of what not to. It is so, so rare that a child conceived of a rape is properly depicted, nevermind discussed. From Mark's POV, he holds no ill will towards his son. He simply wants him to live a life on Earth with his family like he did and just can't be with him because he is needed in space. But to Markus, his dad hates him. He thinks his father keeps him on Earth so that he doesn't have to think about him. And this idea of his father's disgust contorts his image of himself. He begins to feel self-hatred, hatred towards his mother for making him this way, and hatred towards his father for abandoning him and leaving him to despise what he sees in the mirror. "You made Terra with love. I was made with hate."

Whether Mark meant it or not, his neglect of Markus ruined his early life. No matter how many friends he made, what groups he joined, they could never fill that hole. He idolized his father. I mean, how could he not? His father was, IS a great hero. A man who was out at that very moment leading the movement for universal peace. But because Mark barely visited him, he only had an idea of what his father was like. A man who sacrificed so much to help the world, who fought in space and yet still managed to save the Earth dozens of times. A man who had the time to help everyone and yet couldn't make time for him.

(Important edit: in no way do I mean to say Mark is obligated to be a part of his son's life, I meant that Mark chooses to be there but ultimately fails to do so and that causes issues)

And don't get me wrong, this story has some pretty glaring flaws. For example I think they tried a little too hard to teach Mark that the person who hurt him is human too and has positively affected the lives of many. Like absolutely there is a conversation to be had there but because they had to move on with the plot they kinda just went "HEY MARK DON'T BE SAD SHE'S COOL NOW AND ALSO SHE'S DEAD SO THERE'S NO POINT IN LINGERING OKAY BYYEEEEE". But I think instead of these flaws scaring the show away they should invite the show forward. It's an opportunity to improve on the story and discussions rather than shy away from it.

Oh and also harking back to my previous point in paragraph 2, there's another aspect that makes it stand out in an important discussion. If I'm remembering correctly, the comic makes it pretty clear that Mark could have overpowered Anissa but didn't for a couple of reasons, namely not wanting to hurt her. And that is SO important and SO rare. A discussion surrounding an assault victim who could have fought back but didn't where the victim is NOT portrayed as in the wrong and in fact just as worthy to be traumatized as any other victim is SO DAMN IMPORTANT and could legit change a lot in the way we look at these topics.

So yeah, I think the series should adapt it. Also I think it would be great if they brought on actual victims and experts and whatnot so their depiction could be just that much more focused around what needs to be said. Sorry if all this read as klunky, I have a lot of thoughts bouncing around up here that I kinda just spewed onto the page with no particular order. I'm also obviously not the most educated on the topic. My personal experiences with this were relatively minor and not something I've ever felt comfortable addressing. And yeah I know it's important no matter how "small" or "minor" it seems and I'm not trying to downplay any of that but I just don't really have the words to phrase that differently. Which is exactly why I think we NEED education and discussions about this stuff so that we DO know the words to navigate the topic.

[runesp00r]

I feel like it’s not 100% unreasonable to say that James Potter had a serious savior complex. Think about it. He is arguably the most normal, untraumatized individual when he gets into Hogwarts and for his first six years there (to my knowledge), and he’s still friends with some of the most freakish, damaged outcasts in the entire school. And he has a lot to choose from — he’s smart, rich, capable, attractive, funny, mischievous, popular — but he chooses these people.

Psychologically, there has to be something there, right? Moreover, his rivalry with Snape is obviously a story device used to explain why Snape had generational beef with Harry, which is fine. But let’s put some depth to it: Snape was kind of racist in his childhood years (and might still be? I can’t recall), and James’ crush was a Mudblood, and also Snape’s best friend. James Potter already has a very strong set of morals, and when you combine that with his crashout level of harassment on Snape, you can kind of extrapolate that he might’ve been cruel to Snape because he was an asshole. In no way does this defend James’ behavior: he was incredibly cruel. But sometimes savior complexes give you an ego, and that ego tells you that you’re allowed to hex people you think are assholes.

Also, his savior complex is not the romanticizable one. Again on the ego: he probably thinks he’s making the other three’s lives better just by being in it. James Potter is your average frat guy, when it comes down to it: he pulls pranks and throws parties and bullies people, but he’s so popular that the people he’s close to get elevated by association. Some part of him probably thought he was saving them in that way, saving them from the life he imposed on Snape.

But I digress on that point. Let’s consider the implications of a savior complex on the Marauders as a whole. It was James’ idea to learn how to be Animagi for Lupin’s sake — a point towards my argument, if anything — and he was also close to Sirius. Sirius is an abuse victim. Abuse victims tend not to open up about the extent of their suffering, because they find it shameful or dangerous if their abusers learn they’ve been loose-lipped, or some combination of both. I can guarantee it took Sirius years to open up to James in full, and when he does, James realizes he’s totally missed the bar. He rethinks every careless joke he’s cracked and how Sirius’ stony face wasn’t some sort of prank against him — it was because his jokes were Sirius’ actual life. (Same for Lupin, right? A rumor spreads in Hogwarts about a wild animal on the loose at night, and James suggests hunting it. Totally misses how Lupin’s face goes ghostly pale.) He realizes he’s got so much more on his hands than he’s expected, and since he’s elected himself the group leader (by ego alone), he thinks it’s his responsibility to make up for it.

Moreover, there’s James’ loyalty. Lupin says James sees it as the “height of dishonor to mistrust [your] friends.” Learning people keep secrets from you when you’ve been so open about your life can be severely discouraging for anyone. And of course, James has a privilege of being open: it is much easier to say your dad yelled at you for crashing the car than it is to say your dad beat you bloody for saying the wrong thing at the dinner table. He didn’t get that. He trusts his friends with every aspect of his life and then realizes that they felt they couldn’t trust him. Or rather, that the truth would ruin the relationship they have with James, which is one where he provides them with some sort of happiness and connection, and it would be stained by him knowing the true extent of their damages.

(I’m excluding Peter from this. I think he genuinely was just a social outcast who got a better life because the Marauders took him in, and kind of fucked it up because he also, oddly enough, has an ego problem. There’ll be a post on this later.)

For Sirius, James (and the Marauders) were the family he wanted more than anything. For Lupin, they were a chance to feel human in the in-betweens. For James… they were just friends. He somehow overestimated and underestimated his importance to them at the same time. He takes it as a burden, later on, to maintain himself and therefore maintain their happiness. I think that’s a fun idea: after all, why not make the father of the Boy Savior want to be a savior of his own? What did he do in his dying moments, if not try and save his family in a valiant final stand?

Why not make this savior complex dangerous and overdone in his later years? He realizes he has their lives in his hands and that it isn’t so simple as just throwing parties and sneaking out at night, that they’re all horrendously codependent, that the love he desires from everyone is nothing in comparison to what they have for him. Fleeting admiration and envy pales in comparison to the brotherly love they have. They’d lay down their lives for him. Would he do the same for them? He finds the answer is yes. Let’s see him being overly proactive, monitoring every passing glance and fidget from his friends, trying to make sure they’re feeling alright around him. Let’s see them getting frustrated, because they didn’t want a savior, they just wanted a friend who didn’t see them as projects to improve (not knowing he kind of saw them that way anyways, because, you know, ego).

He grew up well. Safe. Loved. His parents always told him how blessed he was and that he should always try to make people’s lives better when he can. To stand up to the evil you see in the world (though the extent to which he did this was… a little cruel, and unfortunately expected for any teenage boy). He took it to heart.

I suppose I should’ve prefaced this by saying I haven’t read any of the Marauders fic that people hail as new canon here. I’m just going off of my gut and trying to respect what was put in the books, even though I really don’t agree with JK Rowling on much of anything. So maybe this is not a new idea at all; just wanted to share my take on it.

[popagan]

Sure, reading fics where Izaya or Shizuo gets destroyed(destroy themselves) or never getting better or never lived to tell the tale is cool. Reading post-ketsu Izaya coming back or to suffer in agony and die alone is cool. But what about fic where post-Ketsu Izaya gets better? Not because of Shizuo, not out of love perhaps, not out of companionship. Just Izaya, just him, just Kanto (or wherever else), and maybe just him getting better.

Maybe he traveled across the world just for the kick of it (mild To Hell and Back reference), maybe he went everywhere else but home. Maybe he’ll long for it but will choose to let go, or grieve, or whatever else. Maybe he finds new friends - those who cared in their own way, maybe he and Tsukumoya go around to find new myths, new legends, new things, and they remain in contact as gossip friends (or as friends in general); maybe Izaya will get a pet, and find something to hold onto and to try to better himself for it.

And it doesn’t have to be something Izaya consciously try to do or acknowledge, maybe not as many self-reflection as one would go through when they try to improve; but it’s subtle and it doesn’t necessarily have to be good for other people, just for Izaya. Selfishness and happiness can go hand-in-hand for a man like him, I think.

And I don’t mean Izaya getting a redemption or becoming a “good” or just “good enough” is out of the table, but I think he can be better without becoming good or a law-abiding citizen with an honest job and tries to help people; but maybe he’ll be less “bad” (as in ruin people’s lives less) if you get what I’m saying. He can be happier and healthier and still be somewhat of a little shit. Mischievous little shit.

Something light-hearted, something tender, something that Izaya can do by himself - or with the help of others - but not necessarily by the help of ones who walked in the past. (Looking at you, Shizuo, Shinra.)

(But truthfully I don’t mind with anyone, such is the joy of reading fanfiction.)

Typing this out make me realize I just really like the Slice of Life genre/drabbles. Just fun times in general, mainly because I think we all would need that ever since Kuramerukagari haha.

I had a whole spiel I want to type about how much I love fics where everyone just become friends and have a happy-fun-time or the world goes to shit and everyone dies, but maybe that’s another can of worm for another day. (City of Sunshine (viridianjester) my beloved.)

(TLDR; I reread Clair De Lune by NoteInABottle and I want to find/read more of those.)

(TLDR2; Izaya needs to stop being a lonely bastard and find peace for himself.)

[kienava]

So someone asked me to make a post about Blake’s development so far in order to discuss the question of where Blake’s character can progress at this point in RWBY given that her arc with Adam wrapped up in V6 and she didn’t really carry a plot line in V7-8. I do media and story things for a living, but I’m also an intimate partner abuse survivor - needless to say, Blake’s story is important to me. Hopefully my perspective helps answer concerns about Blake’s story being “over,” because I think it’s very much the opposite.

(Continued below the cut because this turned into an entire essay.)

I want to preface this by saying I understand why it might be difficult to picture what Blake’s story looks like going forward. I largely credit this to the relative dearth of compassionate, healing-oriented narratives about abuse survivors in media. A lot of what we see is either revenge fantasies or stories about facing the abuser and arriving at a point of ultimate catharsis. In some sense, this is a broader fault in the standards of western storytelling, which is oriented around that singular, climactic catharsis, but that’s another essay. In truth, a mostly linear progression towards a pivotal point of recovery isn’t how healing from abuse works. It’s a messy process, and life is rarely as linear as in fiction. I think RWBY incorporates that nonlinearity into Blake’s arc very well.

Speaking of Blake’s arc, let’s look at that.

When we first meet her in volume 1, she’s introduced as an aloof, independent loner who’s very resistant to getting closer to people. Most of her classmates perceive her as mysterious and alluring at best, callous and cold at worst. Once we start to understand more of her history, it’s easier to see her attitude as the defense mechanism it is. She wants to keep people at arm’s length because she doesn’t trust them not to hurt her – but she also believes that she will harm people she gets close to just because of who she is. That whole Beauty and the Beast dichotomy, you know? Adam told her that she ruins things. It doesn’t help that he groomed her into a terrorist organization and thus her surrounding community has also labeled her a threat. She’s got a few overlapping layers of distorted thinking to work through when it comes to her image of herself and others. The way she perceives people is, at first, overwhelmingly informed by her traumatic experiences with Adam and the White Fang.

It’s pretty strongly implied that Blake bent the rules in the forest and intentionally selected Yang as her partner. When we first see Blake dashing around in the shadows, Yang is taking down a Grimm while sassing it to death. Blake talks later about how Adam’s charisma drew her to him initially, so it’s no surprise that when she was choosing her next partner, she gravitated to the same superficial qualities. During the first White Fang arc, after her self-destructive spiral, Blake starts to genuinely trust her teammates for the first time. That trust is tested when Yang fights Mercury. In this moment, Blake is confronted with the possibility that a pattern might be repeating itself: what if she was drawn to Yang for reasons beyond the superficial? What if Yang doesn’t just share Adam’s positive qualities, but his negative ones, too? The impulsiveness, the violence, the abuse – but Blake stops herself. She chooses to trust that Yang isn’t Adam, and she says as much. She’s accepting that Adam is in her past and electing to move forward. How perfectly, neatly linear. 

Then the end of volume 3 happens.

For an abuse survivor, the idea that an abuser you’ve gotten away from might come crashing back into your life is possibly the scariest thing in the entire world. This is exactly what happens when Adam shows up, and Blake’s worst fears come true. He makes a point of hurting someone she cares about simply because he can to prove that he still has power over her. Blake runs because she thinks the only way she can protect the people she cares about is to be away from them. That paradoxical duality of (1) fearing harm will be done to her by others and (2) doing harm to others herself rears its head. 

One specific question I was asked is why Blake talks about Yang so little in volumes 4 and 5. If Blake isn’t talking about the people she left behind, is she even thinking about them? I say, well of course she is. It’s coloring her entire attitude.

When Blake returns to Menagerie, she’s back in the place where she met her abuser. She’s at her parents’ house, a place that has been a symbol of everything she left behind when she ran away the first time. Now she’s run from another home. Menagerie is riddled with traumatic memories for her, both interpersonally and on a structural, systemic level. Everywhere she goes could be a place where Adam said something awful to her, made her obey him in some way, asserted control. She also has to confront him in person again, too.

With Adam around, of course she’s not going to risk mentioning Yang. He got one inkling that Blake cared about someone else and cut their fucking arm off. The one time Blake mentions Yang by name, her voice cracks so obviously it’s like she’s forcing herself to get the word out. Through both of these volumes, Blake has other external goals, but she’s still trying to protect someone she cares about. At this point, she’s constantly struggling with two motivations: hope and fear. She wants to make the world a better place, but she’s terrified of what she’ll have to confront in order to do it because of what she’s already lost. Her choice to reunite with her team and fight shows that ultimately hope wins out.

In Volume 6, Blake and Yang facing Adam is essentially the B plot of the whole volume. He appears in flashes before the major confrontation at the end, but the damage he’s done to both of them is intrinsically tied into Blake and Yang’s relationship throughout.

The end of this volume offers the climactic moment of confronting and overcoming the abuser. Afterwards, Blake collapses and cries. Catharsis! Yay! We’re done now, right? This may be why, to some people, defeating Adam is the obvious “end” of Blake’s character arc. Again, I’d argue that this perception comes from how abuse is often depicted in media, but there’s also a very intense pressure in the real world for survivors not to speak out and share their stories. Even people who are abuse survivors might not publicly claim that label for a multitude of reasons. Namely, it fucking hurts to think about it, and also sometimes people are real weird about it. I don’t blame anyone who doesn’t want to carry that weight around all the time. We can see some inklings of Blake dealing with this challenge over the course of the show, though they’re subtle. Early on, she explicitly avoids talking about Adam until she absolutely has to, and even when she does start to unpack what he did, she often talks about it with visible shame (averting her eyes, etc). Unfortunately, shame is a very common sentiment for abuse survivors to carry, and addressing it is a major part of Blake’s journey as she starts to heal in volume 6.

Another point of interest posed was to look at Blake’s role in volumes 7 and 8. There’s an argument that she doesn’t really do anything or that her role is as a somewhat generic support figure within the group. I wholeheartedly disagree.

While Blake doesn’t carry a plotline herself during the Atlas arc, she and Yang embody polarized attitudes towards the global conflict the group is facing, and that contrast serves the larger narrative very well. Because she was raised by activists in a context where she was constantly thinking about civil rights, Blake wants to address the broader ideological conflict at play. Yang, whose childhood consisted of raising her younger sister, wants to help people in a practical, immediate way. Blake is an abstract, big-picture thinker, and Yang is more focused on what’s right in front of her. This isn’t a dig at either of them; it’s just a difference in prioritites. At first, Yang worries that these differing priorities will be a source of tension between them, but when she and Blake talk things through they’re able to understand each other without judgment. Blake is learning to reconnect with the idealist she used to be in her early youth, someone who fought for a cause purely because she wanted to make the world a better place. She’s able to embrace that side of herself around Yang even though they have different priorities, and they’re still able to support each other’s goals.

Furthermore, on a purely interpersonal level in V7-8, Blake has interactions with other characters that speak specifically to the healing journey she’s been on. Yes, these are significantly quieter moments than a fight to the death on a bridge over a waterfall, but that doesn’t mean they should be written off. Quiet and peace are part of healing, and that doesn’t have to undermine the story’s integrity. Dramatic tension is still possible amidst this, as we saw in Blake’s talks with Yang where they discuss their team’s split strategic approaches. When Blake talks to Nora about the importance of not losing yourself in someone else, that’s her speaking from experience. She’s lost herself in a relationship before, and she knows how hard it is to come back from that, but she survived. She healed. The asserted importance of self-compassion in relationships has a unique gravity coming from Blake. She has a strongly developed ability to balance interpersonal empathy with community- and global-level stakes, which we’re already seeing glimmers of at the beginning of V9 as she steps up to come up with a plan on the island. 

In summary, Blake’s arc isn’t just about that final showdown with Adam. She faces her abuser, runs away, faces him again, and again, finally evicts him from her life for good - and after that, her story continues.

She goes on to find ways to heal from her past. That process involves renewing compassion for her loved ones, her community, and the world as a whole; learning how to love without fear; and reconnecting with who she was before she was forced to become aloof and detached to protect herself. Although the circumstances of abuse convinced her that she was a coward, she is, and has always been, an incredibly brave character. She’s finally recognizing that at the current point in the story. Ultimately, I think this is the thing connects her to Yang and the rest of team RWBY so strongly: they’re brave enough to love and have hope even when forces of adversity tell them they shouldn’t dare to. Blake is a courageous idealist with a heart full of compassion, and ultimately not even Adam could destroy that about her.

My serious answer to the question of where Blake’s character will go now is that I think she’ll be a sort of de facto leader on the island as Ruby spirals into existential depression. Hopefully that arc resolves in a way that’s consistent with the show’s overall message about hope winning out, and past this volume Blake will still carry that optimistic but grounded revolutionary spirit and continue to be a center of compassion and hope.

My catharsis-oriented answer is this: aside from being trapped on a magical fairy tale island, Blake is free for the first time in a very long time, and she can go wherever the fuck she wants.  

[redscreendarkwin]

You would never shift with that mindset All you do is complain and argue with everybody else. You will be forever stucked in this reality grow up and learn what shifting reality is. You're doing more effort in being a limiting person than doing an actual work in shifting. You don't understand how in every reality it's a different past for every race. You sound very inexperienced you mini shifted once and act like you know how this universe works. You are stuck in CR circumstances. This is why your account is flopping instead of posting motivational stuff you complain and create discourse. The universe won't give you award for best in morality you are just nothing(in void way). Too woke you're not educating anyone you just add more problems and limits. But I understand because you're too young and never experienced shifting for a long period of time. Stop focusing on cr. If you affirm you're not in 3d then do it ignore post about race changer if you hate them. I used to be like you before I call out everyone cancel them because we don't have the same moral values but as time passes by I notice I don't see any improvement with my journey all I do is argue with everyone in the comments and not changing my mindset. I tried changing my mindset I accept if I'm consciousnees being aware I can just shift anywhere else where I like it there's an infinite amount of realities don't focus on what you perceive as negative if they race change or date minors you can post about calling them out but that wouldnt change them although you can manifest these type of people won't exist in your reality but in another they still will so all your efforts of calling them out and you're proving them wrong are just a waste of energy and efforts. It is better to pour this effort with shifting and changing your mindset. Try improving your mental health and separating your self with contents that ruin your motivation block everyone else that disagrees with your opinion simple as that don't interact with their energy never post them dont acknowledge them just observe and block these people won't change. You're the one need to change. What i meant by you need a change is to change how you view this people see them as temporary and you will never interact with them once you shift to your desired reality. Don't get attached with the cr circumstances they're just temporary problem of your cr self but you're already living as dr self. The feeling of pain is the memory of past live in pleasure and happiness because you live now as your future dr self already. Tumblr is just an app that helps you communicate and interact with your community it's just an app all this opinions of people don't matter to you because yours matter the most use this app for love about shifting and your dr. these hating negative people can dissappear in just a tiny click of block button choose your moots well.

HELLLPPP, I can't even take you seriously. @mywitchyblog, going on an alt account just to write this shady ass anonymous comment is just well, I would say low but the bar is already in hell.

First off, thank you so much for my first hate ask. Didn't know you were this obsessed. 🤭

Now I'm beginning to realize how you saw my post a while back when I blocked you. You do know you can take your own advice and block me as well instead of getting on an alt just to hate? Better yet, put on your big boy pants and address me directly without anonymity.

And again you fail to comprehend my point but then again this behavior isn't anything new from you. I said that anything can be classified as a limited belief. Just because someone believes one thing doesn't mean they aren't going to shift. Which is why the whole "limited belief" concept is stupid. I don't see race changing or aging yourself down to date minors as morally right because it isn't. That’s my belief. I can call it what it is which is racist and pedophilic. Doesn't mean I'm not going to shift because I minishifted on multiple occasions and there are people out there who hold the same beliefs as me who have shifted for years.

For someone who acts all high and mighty about their journey, you fail to realize that everyone is different and everyone shifts at a different pace. This is how I know you barely know anything about shifting. You just go around saying the popular opinion and never have once had an original thought in your entire life. You're also talking about shit like the universe when it's widely known that the universe isn't gonna make you shift, you do.💀

I also love how you called me woke because I said I didn't want adults to fuck children. I would rather "flop" than have a whole bunch of pedophiles and racists agreeing with me. You're really making a case for yourself. I hope to god I never find myself bragging about how “successful” I am on TUMBLR of all social medias. You’re averaging 12 notes per post, how exactly are you not “flopping” also? I genuinely believe this is the only thing you’ve got going for you.

I'm not stuck in my cr circumstances, I just have morals. Your morals shouldn't change once you get into a different reality. Even if I saw people as temporary that doesn’t mean I can’t address them. With this logic, why should I care about world issues or anything for that matter. I could off someone but guys guys, don’t worry it doesn’t matter because this reality is temporary going by your logic 😱

And even if the limiting beliefs thing did exist you shouldn’t change your morals just to shift. That just says a lot about you and how flip floppy your morals are. There are realities where murder is seen as perfectly ok, doesn't mean I should follow. Me believing that murder is wrong isn't me being stuck in my cr circumstances. Any shifter with a murder dr could turn around and say that you’re wrong for thinking that murder is wrong and you’re “stuck in your cr circumstances”. Do you see how stupid your argument actually is? Can you get that through your skull? I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall here. One thing going in one ear and out the other.

Doesn’t matter how many people you send my way (like last time) because unlike you I actually stick to my morals. You can hop off my tip now. I am a minor after all.

Realize that I BLOCKED you for a reason and going on an alt because I blocked your main is ACTUALLY insane.

You and the counselor are twinning btw:

[not-goldy]

jimin has always been the one showing his attraction to jungkook while jungkook was the one who was shy about it. jimin was the one bringing up the hickey, saying he was with jungkook on his birthday, posting pictures about jungkook, while jungkook did none of those things. it's really interesting how you have persuaded yourself into thinking that jimin was the shy one and jungkook was the one encouraging jimin because it was absolutely not like that until jimin decided to take a step back from posting and engaging with jungkook. even in 2023, it was jimin who was the one consistently commenting on jungkook's lives while jungkook did it once! jungkook didn't visit any of jimin's promotional activities, yet you celebrate jimin flying to new york. you know jimin has always been the one to show up. when did the narrative change to fit your "jungkook is the best boyfriend" spiel?

Okay..... but Jimin didn't bring up the hickey Jungkook just snitched on him on his own.

Jimin is.... kinda shy though ....

I mean underneath all that rah rah

Sure he is extroverted but being extroverted don't mean you are impervious to shyness or vice versa.

Let me tell you a story

I met a beautiful older woman we talked we flirted we crossed certain lines flash forward 6 months and we are sort of seeing eachother but it's not official.

I wasn't fully out only a few people knew AND I wasn't prepared to come out not to anybody.

She seemed out out more so out than I was but for some reason she wanted to keep us a secret. She had divorced her husband because she admitted to him and herself she's gay.

Some how being with me was a bit embarrassing for her- she didn't say this but I just could tell. Me and her kids get along well and they all think I'm just a younger colleague of their mom.

Her ex husband thinks we are dating but he's always looking at me as some toddler and even joked a couple of times he would have agreed to a threescore with me if she wanted something "young and fresh"

One time he said now my ex can appreciate why men prepare younger women.

She doesn't say it bothers her as certain topics are off the table and we don't broach into that at all.

She's done well for herself over the years worked hard and climbed up the ladder and She's top gee in the work place. Everyone respects her but particularly so because she represents this conservative Christian family woman living the traditional life style.

She's been with others before me that's for sure but I'm the first after her divorce.

Now do I want to come out to everyone about my sexuality- no. But we were always arguing because I also didn't want to be kept a secret especially to people meaningful to us.

I wanted our relationship to be seen as valid and respected for what it was.

Saying this to explain the complexity of the concept of outing and showing- its not as simple as oh this person is bold and brazen and isn't afraid to hold hands and show affection.

My ex could do all that but still recoil in front of a different crowd. She doesn't mind being intimate and showing around her kids but she as a different person around her ex husband and their mutual friends.

She didn't mind being showy around my friends and family but around her colleagues she acted as if I'm just one kid who likes to bother her.

When I see Jungkook I don't see him picking and choosing or even reading the room most times- save for a few random instances. It can be frustrating dealing with someone like that who wants consistency to the point they become reckless.

When I was with her I was always accused of being reckless and wanting to ruin her hard earned reputation as a respectable woman. One time I kissed her in front of our colleagues and everyone cheered. But we didn't speak for a whole month afterwards because she said I embarrassed her. She said it wasn't meaningful because I was drunk blah blah blah. Fuck her. Hope she never finds love again.

In retrospect may be I could have been more thoughtful and considerate but geez I don't really play into respectability politics ion give a fuck what no one thinks of me or us.

Anywho try not to oversimplify some of these issues two things can be true at once it's not always either or and try to catch the nuances of some of these things.

And why can't they both be best boyfriends😩

They are both best boyfriends

Say it with me