#and you fucking stalked them and went to message them on another platform

[jaegeraether]

Sunsets and footballers (Part 90)

Lucy Bronze x Reader (68) & Jordan Nobbs x Leah Williamson (23)

Masterlist (other parts here)

((3.4k))

Due to popular demand, I'm going to post a chapter bi-weekly, every Thursday and Sunday night until we hit Part 100!

YFN POV

“For someone so independent, you’re very needy,” Jordan chuckled.

YFN pouted, looking at her watch again. “They’ve been gone all fucking day. Surely that’s a bad thing?”

The slightly smaller woman shrugged. “Not necessarily. I mean, what if they’re just tying everything up with a pretty bow to make sure that it’s all sorted today? With both Lucy and Leah speaking, and then our testimonials, along with Ridley and Alexia, and your injury report, surely that’s enough to have Kristie locked up for the foreseeable future.”

Kristie. She never wanted to hear that name again. Lucy had no intention of letting her be in the same room as her, and Leah had offered to go as a character witness, knowing that her fame would make them realise how important of a case it was.

Jordan reached out and squeezed her hand. “It should be an open and shut case. Especially seeing as you didn’t want to go for the harshest punishment.”

“I just didn’t want her doing it to anyone else. She needed to know it was wrong.”

“Some jail time and community service will definitely get the message across.”

“And restraining orders…” she murmured. That had been Lucy’s non-negotiable.

“Leah there is going to throw a spanner in the works too. Her platform is massive. No one in their right mind will want her publicly speaking about how Kristie got away with her friends being stalked and then assaulted to the point of this.”

She gestured to YFN sitting up in the hospital bed.

She squeezed her hand. “Thanks for being here, Dory.”

Jordan’s little smile took over from her serious, friend look. “Of course, mate. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

A few minutes later Lucy’s doctor returned, or rather, her doctor too.

“I’m sorry for the delay,” he said as he stood next to her bed with a gentle smile. He was one of those men that you were always comfortable around. The benevolent type. “The scans are good - better than I expected given your… history.” Another smile, though this one was sympathetic. “Would you like the good news or the very good news first?”

She felt herself let go of tension she didn’t realise she’d been holding.

“Save the best for last.”

“Very well.” He put the scans up on the light box and pointed to her collarbone. “The second surgery went well. The screws are holding, though I’m afraid I need you in the sling to keep it immobile for the next 4 weeks or so..”

She sighed, though knew it was the case. Her Christmas was officially in a sling.

He continued. “Unless there’s an incident, or any issues with pain, I won’t need to give it a check-up until just prior to Christmas, and then I’m hoping to have you out of it for the new year.”

She smiled and nodded. “Well, that’s positive…”

He moved onto the next two x-rays. “Your forearm and wrist are healing well, though I’m afraid the cast will need to remain on for the next 6-8 weeks. We’ll give you a check-up when we get rid of the sling. Your jaw is also healing nicely, I know the bruising has been persistent, but expect it to be gone in the next week or so..”

“I can handle the cast,” she chuckled. “My shoulder is just in need of a good movement.”

She’d just wanted to swing her arm around, to roll her shoulder, instead of having it stuck where it was. It was a level of frustrating that bordered on pain.

“There are a few small massages that you can do to help, though you’ll need to be quite gentle with them, and careful not to shift your collarbone too much.”

He handed her a sheet with the exercises.

“Lucy can help with these. Any issues, give me a call.”

“Thank you,” she replied, gratefully. She was always grateful at the opportunity for Lucy to touch her more.

Jordan took the sheet interestedly and looked over it.

“Now onto your ribs. They’ve been thrown around a bit…” he looked at her with eyebrows raised and she blushed, knowing full well that she’d been abusing them a little too much with Lucy. “…which I understand.” He was politely giving her an out. “You already had several past injuries and you’re very limited with your movements given your state, and so it’s understandable that your ribs are catching the brunt of it. Though, you’ll need to be more mindful. No overexertion. No twisting yourself. No…excessive movements.”

To his credit, he did seem entertained by it.

“I think you should call Lucy and tell her that directly,” Jordan joked.

YFN’s mouth dropped open, though he and Jordan shared a good chuckle at her expense. She made a mental note to not tell Lucy so that she didn’t lose any part of her sex life.

“Now onto your kneecap…”

She braced herself for bad news, but how could it be, when he’d said the worst of it first?

“It was only ever a minor crack, however I wanted you to keep your full weight off of it as you can’t exactly use crutches. I’m going to keep the brace on, however you can walk on it again.”

She grinned – her first thought being that Lucy was going to be so happy. She could picture her face lighting up now.

“Now don’t overdo it. Don’t put all of your weight onto it at once. Place your foot on the ground and ease your weight onto it. It’s a slow process, but you need to build that habit up so you’re not overdoing it. The brace will be on for another few weeks, and I’m hoping to take it off just before Christmas.”

No brace for Christmas. Lucy was going to be thrilled.

“Hoping…” he said again, making sure she understood that it was only a possibility at this stage. “…and you can take the brace off for showers now, just don’t put all of your weight on it in the shower.”

No more garbage bags. She nodded. “Thanks, Doc.”

They finished up with him, getting her scripts for medication and some more information. Lucy, ever the anatomy fanatic, would want to know every detail possible. Especially because it was her.

She walked slowly to the car, relished the feel of being able to use her legs like legs again. She was officially The Little Mermaid.

She groaned the relief for her hips and lower back as she did so, knowing this would take a lot of strain from Lucy needing to carry her around.

She slipped into Miles, Lucy’s car, and Jordan slipped into the driver’s seat. The footballers had taken Leah’s Mercedes as it was lower to get into and Lucy hadn’t wanted her dropping into the seat and struggling to get out.

It was later in the afternoon now, and she looked at the time, wondering why it was all taking so long.

“Celebration dinner?” Jordan asked.

“Why do I feel like you all had this planned already?”

“Maybe. You know Lucy…”

“Has she messaged you?!” She looked over at Jordan who seemed to barely be able to see over the steering wheel. She gave a sympathetic smile. “No, sorry. But the table is still booked, so maybe we should see if they make it? I would suggest Katie and Caitlin but they’re not in town. Most of the girls are with their international squads. We can ask Alex but Jill is in Manchester. There’s a few other’s in town.. LJ and Keira, maybe?”

“Oh, that’s an idea!”

Jordan gave them both a call. LJ wasn’t available, however Keira and Georgia were. They met them at the Italian restaurant Lucy had booked and made a night of it. The girls joked about how they’d be in trouble if they were caught eating carbs when they were in season, though YFN had convinced them that they’d deserved it after their hard fought victory over the Netherlands. The more she got to know Keira, the more she got along with her. She opened up slowly, though at the end of the day, they both thought similarly, and had a similar sense of humour.

It was also one of the first times she’d been close and in intimate conversation with Georgia since she’d caught the first kiss between her and Lucy. They spoke about the game, Scotland, how much they needed to win by, Lumos and the interviews. The three footballers had a good catch up now that they all played for different teams, and they saw less of Jordan.

The two opted to skip dessert as they’d apparently already been too bad, though once they saw Jordan and YFN’s desserts, they couldn’t help but try a taste.

When their dinner was ending, she checked her phone and her stomach sank.

“Still nothing?” Jordan asked, seeing her reaction.

She gave a sigh. “No. You?”

She shook her head.

“Doesn’t usually take this long, surely?” Georgia asked. “What, are they hand delivering her to jail?”

“There must be a good reason…” Keira comforted. “Either way, we have time to do the interview if you want?”

They were being efficient, with Keira offering at dinner to come over and do the couch interview that YFN had suggested was best to ease the ‘Wonze’ fanatics of the internet. She still didn’t know Keira well, though she could see that she’d offered partly because not only did she want to get it over and done with, as she hated interviews, but she knew YFN needed a distraction from the current legal situation that Lucy and Leah were tied up in. She called Bridget and Emily to see if they were available last minute for the interview. They were more than eager, as she knew they would be, though still offered them extra pay for the inconvenience.

After dinner, they made their way to Lucy’s and settled in, Bridget and Emily setting up for the interview while she ran through queries with Keira prior to it.

“Did you read the questions and prompts I sent..?”

She hadn’t expected her to, as the interview wasn’t supposed to take place until later in the month, however things seemed to be working this way for her for some reason.

Keira nodded, asking questions and YFN couldn’t help but be impressed at her eye for detail.

She’d said that Jordan and Georgia didn’t have to stay, but they’d insisted, wanting to catch up on lost time.

The interview went for just over an hour, though it was exactly what she’d wanted. Keira had not been tense at all, and she was proud of herself for creating such an environment. To be fair, she even felt like she’d flirted with her a little, which had surprised the Australian. She’d never seen an interview with Keira so comfortable before. Hopefully that would suppress the ‘Wonze’ fanatics who’d been sending her so much hate on social media.

Keira took photos for their interview, while she answered Georgia’s questions about the content process. She had very little content outside of the Lionesses as she played at Bayern Munich and they weren’t exactly known for their social media. They didn’t have time for another interview that night as the girls had training the next day before flying out to Scotland, and needed to get rest.

They all left, though Jordan stayed with her. She looked at her watch as they walked out of the door. 8pm. She hadn’t heard from Lucy since 7am.

She sighed, dropping her hand in defeat. Jordan gave her a cuddle. “They’ll be home soon..”

She cuddled into her friend, allowing herself to relax when her phone buzzed. She jumped immediately and grimaced at the pain that shot through her body as she grabbed for her phone.

Joe calling…

At this time of night?

“Hey, Joe,” she answered, feeling awkward calling her that.

“Hello, YFN. How are you?” Her voice sounded as soft and regally calm as ever. It was comforting to her.

“I’m doing well. It’s late – is everything okay?”

“Oh, yes. I was calling to check in on the hearing today. Did it go well?”

She wondered if she’d used any of her influence to help the situation. Her voice suggested that perhaps she had, though just a little.

“Luce and Leah aren’t home yet. They’ve been gone for over 13 hours.”

“I see. It’s not unusual, though. I’d like an update when they’re done, please. I need to make sure this is all wrapped up so that you’re safe.”

Seeing as you don’t want the security team I offered, she could practically hear her saying. Catherine was worried about her, which made her feel loved. She’d never had that from a mother figure beyond her grandma. Her heart softened.

“Thank you…” she said, gratefully. “I’ll let you know when I know. Also, I had a check up today. Everything is healing well, and I can now walk, albeit gently.”

“I read the report you sent through,” YFN could hear the smile in her voice. “I was very happy to read that. Hopefully you can be moving a bit more freely by the new year.”

“Fingers crossed!”

She gave a light laugh. “Mine certainly are. Now, I was thinking about the Gala event this week that Lucy and Alessia are doing this week. We’re a bit on the back foot with everything since there’s so much going on, however I was hoping that the timing will work out to have our own Lumos event this week, on Friday or Saturday perhaps. Do you think we could get any high profile players in that time?”

“How many were you thinking?”

“Ten maximum. I don’t want the focus to be lost if there are too many.”

“Well, Lucy will be with me for a little before headed back to Barca. Most girls will be back with their teams by then. I think I can get Jordan Nobbs, Leah Williamson, potentially any players from the WSL, and also perhaps… perhaps…”

“Perhaps?”

She pondered. “Perhaps… Alexia. That’s a big maybe, though.”

“Alexia would be the white whale, if we could get her on. Otherwise, it sounds great. Perhaps some other nationalities too, if you can?”

“Coaches too?” She asked, trying to think who would be available at a moment’s notice. “I could ask Sarina. Emma. I could get Caitlin for Australia, Katie for Ireland, Yui for Japan, Ashley for Canada, or similar if they're not available?”

“Brilliant. I do hate to drop this on you last minute, though I have been wanting to get it done before the rush prior to Christmas. If you could look through availability and give me a date and names, I’ll work on booking a location for Friday or Saturday so we can start promoting it.”

“Consider it done.”

“Thank you, YFN. About tomorrow night, I have a location to meet. I’m assuming Lucy will be coming also?”

“I think Leah and Jordan have a right to be there too.”

She could practically hear her nodding. “I’ve sent the location and time to Mark. I have an aircraft departing at night for you. I’ll put you all on the manifest. You may need to clear it with the Lioness management.”

“Leah will handle that…”

“Perfect. I’ll send you the flight details.”

“Cath-” She cut herself off. “Are you sure about this?”

“There’s only so much hiding I can do. This is an unnecessary evil, unfortunately. You’ve been through too much already. I won’t have you fighting him too. I’m hoping to finish this once and for all with him tomorrow night, though from then on, my intention is still to be the silent partner while you are the face of Lumos. Has anything changed for you in regards to that?”

The empathy in her voice had YFN feeling comfortable. Comfortable enough that she could have said no, and Catherine would have accepted it without question.

“Nothing has changed on my end. I’m just very eager to get us onto a schedule where I’m not chasing my tail with interviews and events.” She chuckled. Catherine shared in her chuckle.

“Oh, I know. I’ve been hoping the exact same. It’s good to hear we’re on the same page, though. We’ll speak more tomorrow night. Until then – keep me posted on the hearing and anything you need at all, let me know.”

YFN and Jordan fell asleep on the couch, their feet overlapping under the blanket they shared as their heads were at opposite ends. She wasn’t sure how long she slept for, however she was woken by a warm kiss to the cheek and Lucy’s deep, comforting voice. “I’m here, little one. Everything’s okay.”

“Luce?” She mumbled, half asleep. She opened one eye, followed drearily by the other as she looked at her favourite person. Her expression was peaceful, which calmed the Australian.

She looked down at Jordan who was sitting up with Leah next to her, the two talking quietly. She looked back at Lucy.

“What happened?”

“It’s done, little one.”

She tried to prop herself up, and Lucy helped her, wrapping a strong arm around her waist to pull her up into a sitting position. “It took that long?”

“The incident happened in Spain, so we were delayed due to that, however someone pulled some strings for us.” Catherine. Lucy gave her a knowing look. “Without her, this would have been dragged out for weeks.”

“It’s done?”

She nodded as she reached out to stroke the yellowing bruises on her jaw. “Jail time for a period. Community service for the rest, as you didn’t want her to be stuck in there for the maximum time. Restraining orders for life. She won’t be attending any games in the future. And she apologised. It’s done.”

“She…apologised?”

“Mainly to me, but yes. She cried a lot.”

“That must have been hard…”

“Yes and no. I don’t like seeing someone upset, but she did hurt the person I love so… my empathy was not there for her. I’m just happy it’s all over.” She leant forward and gave her a soft kiss on the temple. “What did you two get up to, love?”

“We had dinner with Keira and Georgia,” Jordan said from across the couch.

Leah gave YFN a smile. She looked tired.

Lucy was caught off guard. “Oh?”

“It was great,” she reassured, putting her hand under the collar of her shirt, and on that strong collarbone of hers. “I did my couch interview with Keira after it.”

Lucy looked impressed, though like she had questions for when they were alone. She didn’t blame her.

“And?” Jordan prompted.

“Oh! And Lumos wants to host a public event with 10 female footballers in London this Friday or Saturday. Are you all free?”

“You know I am,” Lucy murmured, leaning her head against hers.

“I’ll be in town.” Leah answered.

“You already know I’m in.” Jordan agreed, looking at Leah. YFN hadn’t realised until just then that it must have been a while since they’d done something like that together in public.

“And I messaged Riddles, hoping to get Alexia if she’s back in town…”

“Mmn. I’m sure it’ll all be perfect. You’re good at the last minute organising,” Lucy teased.

She rolled her eyes. “And whose fault is that?”

She gave an innocent look. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. But I do wonder how the doctor went today? I have an email titled: ‘No funny business.’”

Jordan cackled. Actually cackled. YFN blushed, a little embarrassed and frustrated that she had to tell her. Lucy didn’t understand. Bless her, she was incredibly smart, though a lot less quick for these types of situations.

“Everything is healing well apart from my…ah…ribs. They’ve not been having the rest they should.”

“I believe he said they’ve been ‘thrown around a bit’…” Jordan offered.

Lucy clicked and gave a guilty look. Before she could speak, YFN jumped in, trying to distract her with ten different things to keep her mind away from limiting sex with her.

“But everything else is healing well… hoping to be out of the sling by the new year and the knee brace by Christmas. Also, I can officially walk.” She gave a proud smile. “No more looking for the wheelchair in Scotland, Luce. I’ll be the one-armed flamingo with the Australian flag.”

[thymeandchai]

Crazy thought... But maybe you're the problem

I don't even care if you see this.

I took a couple of days to think about even making this post because I am not sure if it's worth my time responding to someone who lives in the delusions inside their head, but hey, here I am.

I can't believe I never saw all the lies and ignored all the red flags in the 8 year friendship we had. I remained loyal to you despite all the warnings I got from multiple people. "She's a narcissist," "She's self absorbed" they would tell me... little did I know they would end up being right all along. I never did ANYTHING to you except tell you how you made me feel. I defended you time and time again to people who would talk about you when you weren't around. I publicly supported you and shared your accomplishments on social media. So why do you have so much animosity and hatred towards me? I had a mutual friend reach out to me through Instagram about posts you were making on facebook, that pertained to me and others. So, I went back and I've read all your blogs and posts you've made over the past several months. Why? We haven't spoken in 2...3? years. I do not speak about you to other people, aside from the friend who reach out to me about said posts that one time. So what the actual fuck, Kristi?

Let me first start by making it VERY CLEAR that I had nothing to do with whatever you keep going on about that happened during Christmas, so please, leave my name out of it. Not that I think anything actually happened and instead it's something you've made up. Again.

Secondly, and this is the one that really ticked me off, what gives you the right to make up such a blatant lie when it comes to Nick? You are even manipulating your blog posts just in case he reads them (he wont) which is truly pathetic. You know the reason I had an issue with Nick is because of the message he sent me after sleeping with me. Not because he wanted to use a condom. I mean, which part of your ass did you pull that from? Because it's utterly ridiculous as I was very strict about using condoms which is why I kept them. Did I get a little ticked when he asked me if I was "clean" considering he slept around a lot more than I did? Sure. But that was not the issue I had with him and you know it. And further more, you go on to say I hated him but still follow him on social media.... yet don't elaborate on the fact that I followed him BECAUSE you asked me to. I friended him on facebook because you wanted me to, so you could stalk him through me, you delusional asshole. You wanted to know if he was still with Miriam and would straight up ask me to check his profile for you since he has you blocked on every social media platform. Then you actually used my Instagram to DM him some ridiculous bullshit about Amy trying to have you ejected from the city.... because you think this is fucking Gossip Girl and Amy is Blair Waldorf or some shit. None of that happened. It's another fabrication that you've made up in your head... just like this whole thing with Nick is. You and Nick never had an real adult relationship. He had an affair with you... over a decade ago, yet you are still obsessed with him. It's extremely unhealthy and, honestly, a bit scary. I would be scared if I were him or his girlfriend. I have spoken to Nick a couple of times since You and I stopped being friends and have no animosity towards him anymore, especially not over something that happened 11 years ago. But let's talk about you for a second. A few weeks before we stopped talking, you told me Jessica was a terrible person. You actually said several unkind things about Jessica. Then like a month after we stopped talking you came into town and who did you hang out with? Jessica. Then you came into town like a month ago and who did you hang out with? Jessica. So who is the fake person here, Kristi?

And lastly.... You've made several posts about how multiple people have called you a narcissist, selfish, self absorbed, etc. and how no one understands you. It's always everyone else's fault, not yours. Did you ever stop to think that maybe you actually are the problem. You minimize everyone else's issues and time and try to maximize your own. What I mean by that is that everything is, quite literally, always about you. Even when you aren't specifically talking about yourself, it's somehow STILL about you. You say you can't be a narcissist because you do nice things for others. Do you do nice things just to do nice things or do you do nice things so that you can brag and post about the nice things that you do? Do you do nice things to feel superior to others? Because that's how I see it since you like to throw what you have done for others into their faces. Just reading your post entitled "friends" says it all... it's all about YOU YOU YOU. Your friends are only good for what they do for YOU, how they make YOU feel important. You literally said "No one gets excited for me" "No one cares about where i've been or what my story is." & "None of the people who know what I've been through give any flying fuck." (Well, I did until you told me to fuck off and treated me like shit in general.) And you once said that I never said I was proud of you (which i totally did, publicly on facebook) yet you never once told me you were proud of me. You never got excited for me. You never cared about my story (Do you even know my story?) I remember hand making/drawing you a "congratulations" card that I sent to you in the mail for an achievement you got in school because I was happy for you. Only to hear you drone on and on about how your friends left you, Amy this or Angie that. I was never a good enough friend to you because I was not Amy of Angie. You always made me feel like absolute shit, but I digress. You are a perpetual victim of your own making but then also want to play martyr so you can go down in history a hero, not because whatever your cause of the moment is just the right thing to do. You constantly talk about your "legacy" (If i have to read that word one more time...) your book, your life, your self. You come of smug when you make comments about how you are are getting things done and doing things with your life... as if you're somehow better than others because you are going to college. Yet when criticism comes about how you might be making other people feel, you tell them to "fuck off" That's what you did to me. I told you that you make everything about you and you're literal reaction was "FUCK OFF" Judging from your posts, it seems other people have made similar criticisms towards you and you've told them all to fuck off and now you are complaining that you are alone. Well....? I mean....the common denominator is you.

I am sorry that you've had a shit life and have shit health problems, but your problems are not the only ones that matter and they damn sure don't matter more than anyone else's problems. If you actually stopped to listen and care what other people say, you might find yourself a little less lonely. It's a two way street. And your mental health is not an excuse to constantly treat people like shit. I have been depressed almost my entire life and I never used that as an excuse as to why I couldn't be there as a friend to you because I was literally always there for you, even when I wasn't in the best headspace. That's what friends do & you are simply not a good friend.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

CTRL+ALT+DECEIT

Warnings: non-consent sex and rape; oral, fucking, stalking, hacking, threats, implied violence.

This is dark!Jake Jensen x reader and explicit. 18+ only.  Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Synopsis: You find your pictures on someone else’s Insta but that’s not the only thing he’s stolen.

Note: Yay, another Jensen fic at last. I’m probably gonna try to work in more one shots between my series. I’m looking at Andy Barber, Ransom Drysdale, or Lee Bodecker right now for next week but we’ll see.

Thanks to everyone for sticking around and putting up with me and thanks in advance for all your feedback. :)

I really hope you enjoy. 💋

<3 Let me know what you think with a like or reblog or reply or an ask! Love ya!

The chirp of the chat pierced your eardrum once more as you ignored it for the spreadsheet of dates on your other monitor. Working from home could be both peaceful and distracting but the third bing had you muting and pushing your headset to your neck with a grumble. You switched windows as the chat box blinked.

‘So why didn’t u tell me u had a bf?’ Zia’s bubble blipped up followed by impatient emojis.

“Wat r u talking bout?’ you typed back and clicked back to the spreadsheet to update the status of each course. That noise came again and you flipped back.

‘I’m not stupid! Come on. He’s far away but he’s cute.’

You frowned and tapped the space bar lightly. You were utterly confused. The only activity in your daily life were the general notifications from Tindr. You repeated the question and she sent an emoji rolling its eyes.

‘I’m serious.’ you replied.

She sent a link and then a laughing GIF attached to another bubbled response, ‘I’m not buyin it.’

You clicked on the hyperlink and a new tab opened. You scrolled down on the Insta as the air was knocked out of you at the sight of your own face. Not only were their pics taken from your public profile but several you’d never even posted. Your skin crawled and the bing sounded again.

‘So… an online thing huh.’ Zia pressed on.

‘I gotta work.’ you closed out of the window entirely but stayed on the Insta.

You scrolled through about a dozen or so selfies of you, each labeled as ‘missing my lady’ or ‘she’s so sweet, sending me pics to keep me company’. Your stomached roiled with mortification and the unsettling sensation of intrusion. It was easy enough to guess you’d been hacked but to think this was what the creep did with it was even more startling.

You changed the password on your Insta and went through the process of doing so with all of your accounts and ran a scan on your PC. You would likely have to file a ticket for a proper inspection with a specialist. You couldn’t help but shake as you went back to the profile after checking your bank account and PayPal to make sure it wasn’t worse than just pics.

You went back to the profile and found photos of the culprit. His spiky blond hair and glasses were unsurprising and his comic book tee shirt was even less. Your disgust was quickly replaced with anger as you hit the chat icon above his info.

‘Hey, jackass, care to tell me how you have my photos on your profile?!’

The read icon appeared almost and you saw him typing. It stopped and then started again.

‘You’re so beautiful, I wanted to share it with everyone.’

You scoffed at the message and cringed at the screen. ‘Are you nuts? Like actually. You stole my photos! You hacked me. Creep.’

You blocked him immediately after hitting send and logged out. You opened Excel again and tried to focus on the coloured cells. You could hardly process what you were doing as your phone began to vibe on the corner of your desk. It didn’t let up and you couldn’t focus past the incessant buzzing.

You snatched it up and several messages covered the screen as you unlocked it. ‘You really think that’s gonna work’; ‘You can’t block me’... several in a similar vein that you deleted before blocking the number. You silenced your phone and turned back to your monitor.

Suddenly the screen went black and you blinked. You hit the keyboard and clicked, assuming it fell asleep. It lit up again but all you saw was yourself staring back. Your mouth fell open and you ripped the clip-on cam from atop your monitor. You disconnected it as the notepad opened and typing flicked up across the white space.

‘I didn’t want it to be like this.’

You could move the mouse or backspace. All control was lost and you sat there helplessly watching the scrawl.

‘I think we’d be really good together if you only gave me a chance. Can’t you see I worship you?’

Your phone began to shake constantly and a private number flashed. You picked it up and hollered into the speaker, “leave me alone”. You hung up but it kept on and your screen turned to black once more. Your PC was still on but there was no reaction from the machine.

Fuck, you sat back and looked at your phone. You couldn’t even call work to tell them because the damn thing wouldn’t stop ringing. You put your head in your hands and grunted in frustration. How the fuck did all this happen?

🖱️

After your initial panic died down, you disconnected your tower and shut off your phone. You left your cell behind as it was just as useless. You hauled the PC down to IT at your work and filled out the ticket without giving intricate details on everything the weirdo had taken.

You left with a borrowed laptop. You wouldn’t sign into your personal accounts and stick to the company portal. You were embarrassed but happy to have a temporary solution. You got home and set up the new computer and reconfigured your wi-fi. You finished the last of the day’s work and ended the day with a glass of wine.

When you dared to turn your phone on again the next morning, it was filled with notifications from all platforms but each one you clicked on errored and prompted you to sign-in. All your new passwords were wrong and you knew it was him. 

You checked the Insta and found a screenshot on his profile from the day before, your mouth agape in horror that could easily mistaken for surprise.

‘Her face when you pop the question on the call’. The caption made your stomach curdle and you nearly flung the phone away. You couldn’t comment without logging in or message. So you created a shell account with a throwaway email you used on Reddit.

‘Why won’t you stop?’ you sent the message through as you waited for your coffee to brew.

‘Stop what?’ he added a winky face with his reply and you growled.

‘You know who this is! Why are you doing this?’

‘Hmmm…’ he let the message hang there and you sat down with your mug and listened to the birds outside. ‘Imagine what someone else would do with everything I have.’

‘Look at what you’re doing. You’re ruining my life.’

‘Ruining? Sweetie, I’m watching over you. Protecting you.’

Your nostrils flared and you burnt your tongue on the coffee and planted it on the table so it sloshed over the sides.

‘Love you, sweetie. See ya soon.’

The chat box turned grey as you realised he blocked you. That pissed you off more than anything and you lobbed your phone away with a shout of anguish. This guy was fucked!  

You were shaking so much you couldn’t even drink your coffee. You got up and paced until you could think straight. You dialed into work and told them you were taking the day off for a personal emergency and shut down your phone. You were too afraid he would find a way onto your work laptop and you didn’t want to have to explain that to IT too.

🖱️

Zia showed up on Saturday and she wasn’t happy. She buzzed up and banged on your door impatiently. You let her in and she crossed her arms over the strap of her purse as she crooked her hip.

“I know I shouldn’t have snooped but if you’re mad at me, you should’ve just said so. I would’ve backed off,” she scowled.

“I’m not mad,” you said as you backed into the front room and dragged your feet over the rug.

“Sure, you’re just ignoring all my messages by accident,” she stayed at the other side of the room.

“Not exactly, no,” you shrugged, “it’s a long story.”

“And you couldn’t shoot me a message to say that at least?”

“Look, I’m stressed the fuck out. I’m sorry but the only reason I didn’t answer you is because I can’t.” 

“You can’t?”

“I can’t even turn my phone on anymore.”

“What--”

“Just--” you touched your temples, “I don’t even know how to explain--”

“Jesus, are you okay?” her anger slaked away as her voice softened.

“No, I’m not,” you sniffed, “I’ve been trapped in this apartment and I can’t think straight and I can’t even talk to anyone because my phone and my life is totally fucked.”

“How about we get a coffee and you can tell me once you’ve calmed down,” she said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so worked up.”

“You don’t know how bad it is. I really fucked up,” you whined, “I don’t even know how it happened.”

“Is this about the boyfriend?”

You huffed and shook your head, “I told you, he’s not my boyfriend-- Let me get dressed.”

After you felt presentable enough to leave the apartment, the thought of getting away ushered you down the winding stairwell and onto the sidewalk. You and Zia walked down to the cafe on the corner where you always overspent on their specialty drink and caught up.

You ordered but when you tried to use your card, the machine beeped in rejection. You tried again but still no luck. Zia offered to pay and you promised you’d pay her back. Anxiety pitted deep in your stomach as you sat. You’d have to call the bank and figure out why eight dollars would bounce.

“So,” Zia said as she shaded her eyes against the sunlight streaming onto the open patio, “he’s not your boyfriend?”

“I don’t even know the dude,” you hissed as you almost overturned your cup, “Zee, those pictures, they were all on my phone. I never sent them to anyone. I don’t even know his real name and when I confronted him, he crashed my whole system and blew up my phone. I haven’t been able to log into anything because of him.”

“You’re shitting me,” she chuckled.

“Zee, I’m not fucking kidding,” you blinked, “don’t you think if I was dating some dude out in who knows where, you’d be the first to know? You think I’m wasting my time with the idiots on Tindr for fun?”

“No way,” she scoffed.

“Zia, look me in the eye,” you said as you gave her a stern look, “I’m freaking the fuck out.”

“Did you call the police?” she asked.

You sat back and closed your eyes. You were so swept up in the panic, you hadn’t even thought. You could report it to the police, just get a record of it even if they didn’t do anything else. You heard horror stories of hackers and how little could be done but you had to at least try.

“I guess I should go down to the station today,” you ran your fingertips along your chin, “I don’t know, I felt so alone, I thought--”

“And call your bank right now,” she slid her phone over, “figure out what’s going on with your accounts.”

You took her cell and dialed the number on the back of the card. You dragged your finger down the side of your cup as you listened to the automated message and hit the buttons to direct you to customer service. The hold song bubbled in your head and finally picked up as you finished the last of your mocha.

You explained the issue after giving your information as Zia sat patiently across from you. She watched the other patrons and looked out across the street as you waited on the representative on the other end.

“Looks like your account has been locked. Your savings and checking have been placed on hold citing possible fraud,” the woman explained.

“Well, can’t you unlock them? Why would they be flagged?”

“Hmm, well I see no suspicious spending so possibly… it could be due to an external lock, not us.”

“What does that mean?”

“I can’t speak to that. Have you received any communications from the Revenue service?”

“Revenue service? I don’t--no,” you gulped.

“I’m sorry, there’s nothing else I can tell you,” she said, “you should consider contacting federal services.”

You hung up and handed Zia her phone back. “Apparently, I’m under investigation for fraud? I don’t know.”

“Shit,” she took her cell, “are you sure?”

“It sounded like it but-- I gotta check my credit card,” you stood and grabbed your empty cup and your purse.

You stormed down the street to the ATM at the corner and inserted your card. LOCKED the machine made a hideous noise and you pulled out your card in irritation. You put your wallet and touched the sides of your neck as the heat swelled through you.

“I don’t understand--”

“Um, you should see this,” Zia said.

Zia turned her screen towards you and your heart dropped to your toes. There was a picture softened by a blush Insta filter and the caption read, ‘just got into town, surprising bae with flowers’. Over the cluster of petals at the bottom of the image were you and Zia sitting at the cafe patio.

You spun and searched around for any sign of the man and the bouquet. You could hardly breath as it felt like you were being squished between invisible walls. You clapped your hand against the wall and steadied yourself as Zia gently rubbed your arm.

“Let’s go to the station,” you croaked as tears welled in your eyes, “please.”

🖱️

The police told you everything you expected. Even as you showed them the photos and explained how you never met that man in your life, they only offered you words on a piece of paper. They’d file the report and follow-up in case of any further escalation. It was a non-answer, a cold shrug.

Zia went home with you as she offered to stay the night. You gladly accepted and the two of you cozied up on your bed and spent the night watching early 00s rom coms. You found it hard to relax even with her there. You couldn’t stop thinking about how close he’d been without you even knowing.

You at last began to doze off as Reese Witherspoon triumphed and exhausted by the endless maelstrom of dread, you slipped into a deep but perilous sleep. You were locked in limbo between waking and slumber, almost as if you could hear everything around you but remained blind and unknowing all the same.

You woke with a start as you felt like you were falling. You sat up and reached to the other side of the bed. Zia was gone. She must have got up to get water or use the bathroom. You took a breath and turned your legs over the edge. You got up groggily and lumbered across the room, your mouth dry and head aching. Some tylenol and water would do you well.

You hesitated as you noticed the bloom of light just around the corner from your doorway. Zia must be having trouble sleeping, you guessed as you kept on. As you came in sight of the front room, you heard a whimper and you backed up against the wall as tall figure stood before the coffee table. The flowers laid across the wood, slightly crumpled from a struggle.

As Zia whined, he jabbed her with his foot and she grunted around the rag tied around her mouth. Her arms and legs were bound behind her as the man loomed over her. You recognized his blond hair and glasses, the menacing blue eyes as he raised his chin and crossed his arms.

“Been waiting on you,” he stepped over her, “I was disappointed when I realised it was her. Good friend though, hanging around…”

“Don’t hurt her, please. What do you want?”

“You can’t figure that out?” he taunted, “huh, I’m sure you can guess what it will take for me to leave her in one piece.”

Zia wiggled and received another boot. You pushed yourself forward and he stepped closer, predatory as he dropped his arms and clenched then unclenched his fists. He chuckled as you stopped short and gaped up at him.

“She’s cute,” he said, “she can join us if that makes it easier for you.”

“You’re disgusting,” you snarled and winced as he reached out to touch your cheek. You fought not to shove him away, your eyes on Zia’s bound figure.

“Play nice and I will,” he warned, “every time I hurt her, that’s on you. I wish I didn’t have to do this to show you how much I love you.”

You shook your head as your lip trembled. He pressed his palms to your cheek and ran his thumb along your lips. He leaned in and you cowered as you realised how big he was. You didn’t expect that looking at him from the other side of a screen.

“Do we put on a show for her or did you want a little privacy?”

“You won’t get away with this,” you hissed.

“Oh yeah? I locked you out of your social media, your pc, your bank… do you really want to see how far I can take this?”

He smothered your murmured answer with his mouth and kissed you gruffly. He pulled away and looked you in the eye. He bit his lip and hummed.

“So, do we do this here?”

“You’re sick,” you grabbed his hand and wrenched it away from your face. You yanked him and directed him to the bedroom, “you monster.”

“Now come on,” he twisted his wrist around and grabbed your elbow, “I could’ve killed her. Don’t think I won’t.”

You quivered as he forced you back into your bedroom, the street lights casting shadows between your curtains. He flung you ahead of him, as strong as his thick arms would suggest. You stumbled and caught yourself on the side of the bed. You turned as the door slammed and he prowled towards you like a wild cat.

“Well,” he threw his hands up and you caught a glint of light against the lens of his glasses, “you want me to undress you or you think you can handle that, sweetie?”

You puffed in repulsion and looked away from him. Even in the dark, you could feel his eyes on you. You jittered as you reached to the neck of your loose tee and slowly raised it over your head. You dropped it to crumple on the floor and you touched the top of your shorts. You heard him moving around and shied away as he flipped the switch and light shone across the room.

You pushed down your shorts as you heard a thump from the next room. His jaw twitched as his eyes lingered on you and he reluctantly glanced away. He swung the door open and stormed out into the front room. You went to the door and heard his snarl.

“Stop fucking moving,” he rasped, “every time I have to tell you, I’ll pop another out.”

Zia gave a muffled sob as you heard a sickly crack and you hurried to look around the wall into the room. He blocked your sight with his broad chest and pointed you back to the room.

“I didn’t say you could leave the room,” he spun you and slapped your bare ass, “fast, fast, fast… before I lose my patience.”

Your skin stung from the strike and you tripped through the doorway as he followed quickly. Another slam and he poked you further into the room with his knuckle. You stepped away from him and tried to cover yourself as you faced him in horror.

He quickly swooped his shirt over his head and revealed a buff chest thick with blond hair. He kicked off his shoes and fumbled to undo his fly. He tilted his head as he looked you over and groped himself through his jeans.

“You know what to do,” he said, “I’ve seen the way you touch yourself… cyber security 101, cover your webcam.”

You shuddered as he beckoned you closer. He stopped you and put your hands on the waist of his jeans. He leaned in and nuzzled your temple as his hot breath seeped into your goosebumped skin.

“My turn,” he pushed on your hands until you pulled down the denim on your own strength.

He stepped out of his jeans and snapped the elastic of his boxers. You stood and latched onto those shakily. He ran his fingers along your arms as you pulled them past his erection and they fell to the floor with a whisper. You didn’t look down, instead staring past him as his hand swept up to cup your tits.

His fingers crawled up your chest and his hands wrapped around your neck. He squeezed and turned you so that your back was to the bed. He marched you backwards as you felt his dick bobbing between your bodies. You gasped as he pushed you down onto your mattress, your legs dangling over the edge as he came up to straddle you.

“Such a good girl,” he taunted, “look at you… I bet you’re wet already.”

He pulled a hand away and stroked his length as he raised himself on his knees. He clung to your neck as he leaned over you and planted his hand on the bed above you. He hovered his dick over your head and you closed your eyes.

“Put it in your mouth,” he ordered, “now, or I’m putting it in your ass.”

You reached up blindly and angled his tip against your lips. He dipped his hips down and you choked as he prodded at your throat. Your legs twitched as he forced his cock past your gag reflex and your whole body tensed at the intrusion.

He balanced on the hand above your head and the one on your neck. He thrust harder and harder as sloppy sucking reverberated around the room between his dark groans.

“That’s it,” he purred, “look at you taking my cock. I can only imagine how tight that cunt of yours is.”

Your eyes welled and you flicked your lashes as you tried to bat them away. You kept your hand at the base of his dick as you tried to ease his motion. He ignored your reluctance and only delved deeper as he brought himself to his limit, your lips touching the fuzz along his pelvis.

When you couldn’t breath, you slapped his hard stomach and he reared out of you abruptly. You coughed up spit as he sat back on his heels and released you. He huffed as he looked down at his glistening dick and climbed off of you.

“Stand up, turn around,” he snarled as his eyes flashed. 

His glasses were low on his nose and he slipped them off entirely and folded them up on your night table. He squinted as he watched you stand and turn stiffly. He smacked his hand in the middle of your back and pushed you over impatiently. He stepped closer and tapped his tip against your cunt as you were exposed to him.

He bent his legs and poked along your slick folds. You were wet enough for him to glide in and fill you up completely. He was so big it was painful and you arched your back as you tried to take it. He pulled back and slammed into you harshly. You let out a garble and he repeated the motion, taking you off your feet.

He leaned over you and grabbed your knees, lifting them on the bed as he urged you forward. His hand brushed up over your ass and he pressed between your shoulder blades until your face was flush to the mattress, your arms bent around you like a broken doll.

He thrust again and the loud slap made you wince. He jerked his hips roughly until he found his motion, rutting into you with hissy breaths as his other hand groped your ass. He hummed as your body shook before him, ruled by his touch as your walls clenched him.

He pushed his thumb down between your cheeks and circled your asshole. You strained and lifted your head in alarm. His other hand quickly stretched over your crown and pinned your face to the bed. He felt along your cunt and slickened his thumb before trailing back to your puckered ring.

He pushed lightly at first and as he broke through you gasped and whined. You gripped the blankets as he moved his thumb in and out of you, his hips still rocking steadily into you. He slid his thumb out entirely and prodded with two fingers instead. Before you could react, he forced them inside and you cried out in surprise and pain.

“I know you want it, sweetheart,” he groaned, “I can feel…” he kept fucking you, “I can fucking hear it.”

Your holes tightened around you as he carried the pace. A new pressure began to bloom inside of you, unlike anything you’d felt before. The burning in your ass and the stretching of your cunt mingled to an agonized bliss. You sobbed into the blankets as you came uncontrollably around him, shamed by the unwanted release.

“Fuck,” he drew out the word as both his hand and his hips sped up, “look at you cumming for me. Cumming for this creep.”

You moaned and curled your fingers around the duvet tighter. You felt the same knotting deep inside and you came again as he reached a tantamount. This time, you gushed around his cock and felt the deluge down your thighs as the noise grew wetter and louder.

“Look at you, sweetheart, you can’t handle it, can you?” He snorted as he sucked in a breath suddenly and his hips staggered.

He pushed his fingers deeper and kept them there as he fucked you as hard as he could. He slammed into your cunt over and over. Your hips throbbed with each tilt of his pelvis and you smothered your cries as you felt him coat your walls in his release. 

He stopped just as suddenly and dragged his fingers out of your ass. He leaned against you until your legs collapsed and fell onto you with a sigh. He covered your body with his as his shallow breaths hazed around you. 

Your own heart raced as you stretched your arms out stiffly and quivered. You tried to pull yourself from beneath him. He kept you pinned under his weight and jolted you with a cruel thrust.

“Oh, we’re not done, sweetheart,” he muttered along the shell of your ear, “not even close.”

[syrossa]

REVOLUTION | vkook

[Jungkook x cyborg!Taehyung]

— wordcount: 3.8k

— genre: sci-fi/ action/ oneshot/ angst

— summary: Jungkook is on the side of the Resistance, but his heart belongs to the wicked Emperor's right hand. In a world of war, he'll have to choose between saving his people or the cyborg he's fallen so tragically in love with.

— notes: previously posted on army amino as "trust me not"

Space year 3043.

After seizing the throne of Nypso 773T , its android emperor has decided to exterminate all individuals human - the last bearers of free will still standing. To execute his commands, the order of the New Inquisition has been launched. Its wicked ways continue to terrorize the planet, and many humans have gone rogue to avoid death in Nypso's compression pits. Jeon Jungkook - the latest recruit of the Resistance, has been extracted from an Inquisition's camp after a month of captivity. During his stay there, an unexpected fascination with the order's leader has emerged. Now they're torn between duty and attraction, survival and the dire need of love in the robotic arms of Nypso 773T.

Pulling on his hood, Jungkook walked into the subway station where the mass of the automated proletariat was finally retreating to its charging points. The route of line 248 resonated in a pre-recorded audio in several transgalactic languages; the outdated robots and refugees here couldn't afford infixed translation. The next train was in seven minutes. Working machines were being produced without a sense of smell, so the coolants and liquids of the entire quadrant could drain freely, channelled through the platform. Supreme androids and cyborgs could almost tell the difference between fume-saturated air and waste matter. Humans, however, were bound to sense it.

Jungkook travelled with the scraps of a filtering mask over his nose and mouth.

A heavy overcoat protected him from curious eyes. Down its lackluster length, a multitude of pockets were sewn with the purpose of convenience, but the inner one by his right hip weighed with the wired device of a hologram transmitter. The message encrypted on it was intended for the eyes of the Resistance only, and its safe transportation had been entrusted to him. Was it the shortage of confidants or Jungkook's short, yet exceptional devotion to the cause that had brought him here, he couldn't tell. One thing was certain — danger stalked him somewhere in this crowd and it moved with a bullet's speed, disguised in coy metal. All solitude amongst machines was extirpated.

He wasn't alone.

But the field of his vision allowed him to suspect and nothing more. Between the industrial smog and the firearm fume, the human eye was unable to discern too much. Few instruction panels hung low over the heads of the departees, providing the dimmest of illumination in venom-tinted yellow where the light of all other signs failed to stretch out to. Propaganda scrolled through interconnected displays in the skyscraping height.

As the train arrived in virid smoke, drunkenly quivering atop the rusted rails, the mob prepared for departure, loud and on the verge of an electric collapse. In the midst of it Jungkook joined the aggressive momentum and it hauled him to the doors. The informants from Quadrant-3 had warned him about identification scanners — each entrance had been installed two of those, in addition to a memory-extracting mechanism, so that all workers could be wiped clean of cache; Nypso liked its slaves productive.

Blazingly red, the scanning rays licked the identification numbers off all mechanic forearms. Each number consisted of uniquely stringed digits and Nypsoian letters, irreplicable and theft-proof, unless, of course, forcefully extracted. Yet such force was hardly ever applied reversibly.

So when Jungkook lifted his sleeve, baring the tattooed numerals on vulnerable display, he knew he had engraved himself with the ink and blood of another.

Collateral damage, they'd call it — the dismantled, maimed anthropomorphic remains of those who had been sacrificed for the camouflage of the Resistance. Through the scanners and the all-seeing surveillance apparatus Jungkook slithered like a ghost, a phantom of matter but never of face. He seated himself in the vacancy of a secluded section at the back of the train, and watched as the vehicle resurfaced overground.

The halved star of Nypso 337T had begun to roll out of sight. Space wind evaded the thin synthetic atmospheric layers, bringing forth what the code specifics referred to as frostnip. Nights here began with euphoria, beauty amid the blistered flesh of the universe, but escalated just as abruptly. Thousands of beings fell victims to the unforgiving cold. The corpses would be disposed of in the vast abyss of the Omicron Galaxy and left to the mercy of the antigravity and destructive cyclones. Sometimes parts of them would fall back on Nypso with the acid torrents.

The cadaverous rains.

Upon crossing the interquadrant border, the train entered a zone of electric anomaly, causing all working robots to cease operating. Jungkook rose from his uncomfortable seat immediately. He was quick on his feet; he headed to the emergency exit in the back. Moving across a high-up, scaffold-like railway with speed disproportionate to its poor technicity, the vehicle was to reach a rail intersection in a matter of minutes — the only window he'd be provided for a secure escape. The man clutched the transmitter through the fabric of the overcoat. A flicker of utter fright glistened in his eyes, the one a madman's irises would produce before he jumps off to death.

A madman, yes, but not alone in his madness.

Because when he threw himself forth in the open air, he knew he would land in the hands of his allies, the members of the Resistance. With a thump and several Nypsoian curses, Jungkook was caught by an aircraft of the forces from Quadrant-4. The second he regained balance, the pressure in his lungs and brain dispersed to free space for relief. General Kim dismissed the crew to greet him.

He grinned. "Lucky to see you here today. We barely managed to get the plane off the ground with the low temperatures."

"Thank you, sir. Captain Jung wasn't lying 'bout your piloting."

"Don't thank me. Min over there conducted the maneuvers today, the lucky bastard." And Jungkook glanced at the back of the pilot's disheveled head, hair chopped and jet black. "Do you have it?"

Derivative of the devices from before the last technological purge, the hologram transmitter was an antique of its own, coded in a long-lost language. It was technically unhackable. The greatest legacy of its predecessors, though, was the function of restricted access, touch-activated to be precise. When the device came into contact with General Kim's palm, trillions of holographic particles erected the glowing, mapped structure of a hollow sphere.

"The core powerhouse!" Jungkook gasped.

"A precise, high-resolution map of the planet's life source. After all these years of gathering data and risking the wellbeing of our entire kind, it's finally complete. We have the key to taking the emperor down, kid." The corner of the General's mouth quirked up. "We have it."

As if prompted by the glimpse of hope, the graspable salvation of mankind, intermittent flashes of red spread like rashes on the titanium insides of the plane while alarms were triggered in the cockpit. Jungkook tripped as the aircraft went into a sudden dive.

The co-pilot cried out, "Enemy crafts, sir. Attempters FM-14, annihilation mode engaged."

"Min, can you make it to the headquarters?" Kim shouted, tying himself to a seat by the plane wall.

Jungkook was still upright, shifting his weight as if hoverboarding. His eyes followed the attackers as the unmanned Attempters deployed their missiles. With a target on its silver hull, the plane of the Resistance forces looped and spiralled between the Quadrant-4 blockscape similarly to a turbulent projectile. But before even managing to be vocal about the pilot's nonpareil skills, he glimpsed the violent gush of blood from Min's shoulder.

Jungkook yelled, "Captain, you're fucking bleeding!"

"I am?," Min shrugged, reducing the throttle from the plane's inversion, motions still as steady as a surgeon's. "About time I showed these can-openers I can beat them single-handedly."

"The Resistance has evaded all attacks again, commander. I must say the human persistence is exhausting me already."

Left arm spasming from damage, Taehyung replied tremulously, "I dispatched two of our best Attempters their way. They must've anticipated an onrush."

Next to the mechanical grandness, the soul-breaking presence of the emperor, Taehyung appeared like a solitary speck of steel; a cyborg utterly defenseless against his superior. He was second to his leader; the right hand of the radically unique conqueror of Nypso 337T and scion of the mighty Omicron race — undoers of time and space. To support his position and survival, he had been recruited as commander of the New Inquisition.

Over the metal of his palms, there was overmuch human blood. The emperor, however, was still unsatisfied with its amount.

"Their defense cannot withstand our supremacy much longer. Can you perhaps figure out why, commander? Why is humankind bound to die out?"

Some deeply buried piece of Taehyung shattered, knowing that the battle he'd deliberately spared the humans was nothing but a hurdle in the long run of their eradication. All his efforts to decelerate the inevitable — governed not by the remains of his anthropoid body but by those of his human mind — were, ultimately, futile. He'd reset the coordinates of the Attempters, encrypted the outdated frequencies of the Resistance, screened the infiltration of their informant, but at what cost? He hadn't given them advantage but mere false hope.

"Because of its will, of course. The free will of humans will lead them to their ultimate end. But first, it will lead them to me." The android's speech was toneless through the holographic projection, yet his virtual presence diminished all strength of the commander's. "Our high-rank infiltrator in the Resistance has information that an assault on the powerhouse is being plotted. I want all units in position tomorrow. The rebellion must be eliminated instantly."

"Through a strengthened line of defense?"

"A lethal one. There must be no survivors. Obey your system, commander, and your emperor."

"Yes, Your Imperial Majesty."

Bowing to the conquerer of worlds might have felt elevating once; it may have propelled pride, safety and life, yet it only sparked misery in the metal now. Once the hologram had dispersed, Taehyung collapsed in a stroke of electric current. The fine components of his bionic system had experienced pressure unfit for his outdated build, which happened often when machines failed a designated mission. The scheme with the Attempters would cost him pain unlike any other. Pain of both flesh and robotics.

It took him twelve full minutes to regain consciousness. When he finally did, the back of his brain was burnt to charcoal black, as if he could only recall the excruciation of being electrocuted and nothing before it. He was a high-ranking Nypsoian soldier, a breed of hominid warrior blood and light steel tempered in the titanium core of the star of Adastreia, and he remembered his own pain only. Little by little, bits of data deteriorated within him and memories faded away like flashes of a time long-gone.

He was slowly being erased.

Everything he'd done to protect the man he loved on the other side of law backfired right at him. Instead of saving humanity, he slowly ceased to be human.

He needed to hear his voice more than ever.

Even if he couldn't quite retrieve the sound of it.

The jittery projection of Jungkook's face illuminated the entirety of the bunker, and his eyes bore into Taehyung's, expectant, laden with horror. Each of their rare conversations would begin with shared silence. Life was a variable — both had to be prepared for it to assume its last value at any given moment. The signal was horridly damaged as both sides had dialed from their underground hideaways, one right beneath the emperor's throne room, and the other from the fortified catacombs of Quadrant-4.

"I'm sorry I couldn't call earlier, I--"

Jungkook forced a lopsided smile, enough to hurt but not to discourage. "It's okay. You called."

"Are you alright? The Attempters went close and by the time I seized remote control, they'd fired at one of yours. The pilot."

"Min. He's fine. I guess he'd seen worse than your machine guns," The man chuckled softly. "Man, he even fired back, one hand on the panel, and the other holding a BL-544 out the perforated windshield."

Then Jungkook burst into laughter, lighthearted and paranormally unfit in the midst of the misery of all else. His eyes translated into blueish pixels, so Taehyung could barely visualize the mottle of dark-brown and grey they were in the light, or the dual glint of gravely seriousness and daredevilry inside them. At times like this, it was the eyes that made him feel entirely human. His eyes.

Elated for a brief second, Taehyung said, "I wish I could see you. I think my memory is being messed up with, and I'm starting to forget you."

"That's why we call, right? So we don't forget who the real enemy is."

Who was the real enemy?

"They're planning an attack on the core. The arsenal should be distributed by tomorrow at noon, but it'll be no surprise if you already knew that," said Jungkook, voice suddenly thicker. "What's been ordered to the defense forces?"

"A direct confrontation, fast and brutal. He wants all units charged and ready to dispatch anyone at sight. I'll try to talk him out of the melee but I don't know how much I can do about it."

"You've done more than enough already. Just...stay safe. Whole, preferably."

"Okay, I told you, what happened in Apus was an accident. It was a one-time thing. One. Time!"

Jungkook chortled, having Taehyung join him shortly after, both high on the feeling of detachment from everything and everyone. It was the two of them in this conversation, in this little world of theirs, free from barriers and pain and tyranny.

"You too," Taehyung said. "Stay safe."

"Will do. I'll see you at the end of the world, right?"

"See you then. Hey, Jungkook, I just wanted to tell yo--"

But the signal was cut off and the picture turned grainy with empty pixels all of a sudden. The muffled aggression of bangs and kicks brought down the door of Taehyung's secluded bunker and a horde of his own inquisitors rushed in, driven by electricity, bloodthirst and imperial will. The cyborg was taken hold of.

His heavy body writhed in the intruders' grip, but to no avail. In the distance he overheard his former inferiors repeat the protocol of his detainment. Only one kind of seizure required the full unrelenting force of the Inquisition androids.

The one coming directly from the emperor.

As the Resistance soldiers advanced farther into the outer Core, the grip on their assault rifles weakened, wet from the heat accumulated, bewildered by the void of the empty powerhouse. The pulsating, current-pumping heart of Nypso operated under a dome of steam and titanium systems. In its veins surged the lifeblood of an entire civilization, the supreme vigor of the Nypsoian predatory machine and the technology behind its expansive aggression.

Today its heartbeat would flatline once and for all.

Jungkook carried a Proxima L-90 — a relevantly ugly, simple ray weapon meant to inflict moderate damage — with the back of it braced against his underarm, holding the shadows at gunpoint. His face burned under a filtering mask, yet the odds of being violently poisoned were too great to succumb to convenience. Fire in his ribs and steel in his brain, he moved forward.

The promised confrontation of the emperor's forces never happened. General Kim signalled for all units to stand down.

"The motion sensors show movement in our perimeter. 100 meters ahead, 50 sources," he whispered. "Charge your weapons."

But in Jungkook that sparked suspicion so bothersome it twisted his insides, made him want to vomit. Fifty defenders appointed at the most significant structure on the planet — something didn't seem — didn't feel — right. Yet his trust in Taehyung lay unquestioned. He'd spoken to him about a frontal attack and a frontal attack was to be. Nothing but those words could force him forward.

Nothing but the belief that today could change the universe forever.

A swarm of androids emerged from the depths of the powerhouse, wearing imperial armour. They imitated human forms, carried themselves in a human manner, but didn't hesitate in their stride, unlike the Resistance whose fear pierced it through. These were machines without faces, painted in the colors of war and destruction, forged with no soul and no purpose but murder; the inquisitors. And when they charged onwards, every being of flesh shivered in frail mortality. The androids opened immediate fire.

However, the fifty of them were not alone. More crawled out of the corners, the corridors, and every spot dark became a black portal spitting inquisitors. In seconds the Resistance forces were severely outnumbered.

Back against General Kim's, Jungkook tore apart enemies with ray projectiles with insufficient speed. Like demons from neon and metal, like nightmares flooding the innocent mind, the androids burst forth and immobilized the formation of the rebellion. Soon enough, the man was fighting machines with electrocuting blades and bare hands.

"I'm almost out of ammo. We need to get to the main generator and place the bomb," the General shouted as he shot an inquisitor's head through, thus releasing Jungkook from his grip.

"We gotta make our way through."

"I'll help with that!" With one arm immobilized and the other on the trigger of a close-range blaster, Min approached the two. His stubbornness had earned him a spot in the field forces today, but his injury must've weighed him down.

The captain, though, was a survivor.

"Run!" Min cried. "I'll blast whatever follows you."

Jungkook and the General sprinted forward that instant, too overwhelmed with gunfire and smoke and adrenaline to take in the sight of the captain relentlessly throwing himself into the crossfire. As they cleaved the imperial horde, as they fired and slashed their way through — fruits of the flesh in the unhomogenous battle broth — he held back their pursuers for as long as he could. The shrill vox of Min's blaster quietened while they ran, and so did the remainder of the fight, distant but heavy on the brain.

At some point, Jungkook found himself utterly lost in the hypnosis of metal and screams.

Kim snapped him out when they reached a dead end at a corridor intersection. The map led to a hatch in the floor, then to an underground space where the generator was located. When Jungkook pulled the horizontal door open, the General jumped onto the grated platform it revealed. Nightmarish shivers creeped under the former's skin as if on the brim of something horrible and irreversible. Something of monumental grandness, yet something hellbound had been released with their appearance in the Core. Unaware of its specifics, Jungkook descended shortly after, shaken by the feeling of death pricking on his bare nape.

"We have to be quick," General Kim whispered. "The bomb will create an electromagnetic pulse that will disarm all electric systems on the planet. It must be as close to the core as we can get it, so be prepared to do whatever it takes for this to work. Promise me that, Jungkook."

The man wanted to stutter, to assure his comrade that the Resistance is once again in luck and prevailing. But empty promises had no place in his head anymore. Rather, they belonged in the ashes of the man he used to be once; of the world he once used to live in. His answer came pure of all boyish naiveness.

"I promise, sir."

"Good. This way."

Monochrome light, combat boots against the platform. They travelled in silence and dark anticipation. The generator came in sight several meters after, oblivious in its lifeless shell of titanium and wire. The two men entered the holy premises of the inner Core like only heartsick worshippers would — with their heads craving redemption above all.

The bomb was wrapped in cloth — a hastily packaged weapon of mass destruction. The General stripped it bare. His face twitched in untimely satisfaction as he carried it to the top of the generator, whose size extended kilometers under the ground, highest point peaking through a cavity in the grates.

But as the General was activating the mechanism, a splashed, abstract pattern of his blood printed itself onto Jungkook, who remained paralyzed steps away. The laser projectile went right through Kim, exiting his torso clean of guilt and hesitation.

The younger pointed his gun at the distance, at the wide, half-human frame of the attacker, tears in his eyes as he came in the luminescent light.

"Jungkook, put the gun down, please--"

Buy everything within him screamed. "Stand back! I'm warning you! Stand back or I'll fucking shoot you."

Jungkook glanced at the sprawled body of General, eyes then set on Taehyung again. He went feral, wild with betrayal and shock that his mortal stomach could feast on for days. They held each other at gunpoint, lovers in the grip of a war unfought.

"Sir, stay with me. Just hold on."

"Jungkook, listen to me. Put your gun down. Now!"

"No, you listen to me! What have you done?! We've been fighting for this for so long and now that we have a chance to change everything, you turn against your own. We are on the same side, you fool! Help me save him!"

"I'm afraid I can't," Taehyung replied, voice stern like never before. "I can't help you anymore. I've done so much for humans and I've never been one, never will be. I am who I am and I've picked a side already. I picked the one I belong to."

"I thought we belonged together."

The bomb lay semi activated next to Kim. All that stood between it and Jungkook was his unwavering machine of a lover, the leader of the Inquisition with only half flesh, half heart. And neither of the two were willing to surrender now.

Not when the love of each was at stake.

"We can't both leave this room, Jungkook. One of us will have to shoot. It's either me or you on the count of three."

"I would've died and killed for you!"

"One."

"I wanted a future with you, Taehyung!"

"Two."

"I loved you!"

"Three. I still do."

And Jungkook collapsed, trapped between the corpses of his friend and lover, finger on the trigger that had failed to protect the former and ended the latter. Tears welled in his black eyes as he enabled the electromagnetic explosive.

The faith of the universe rested in his unsteady hands. His whole world, however, had fallen cold in his feet.

In the very last seconds of Nypso, he wished to have never set foot on the goddamned planet of death and destruction.

[kururuyakku]

little update on myself

hey guys, i never thought id post this here ever again but. hey. i want to give an update on myself since once in a while i get DMs asking what happened and ive updated on my twitter but not here. its under a read more because theres... few triggers.

first if you have question here’s a rundown

so, shit happened. thats the simple way to add it. on what happened on tumblr i wont go into it again because it was honestly so fucking stupid, but here’s the rundown: no, i dont ship pedophilia. i was AGAINST the ship, but someone cropped a comment where someone was wrongly explaining the ship to me, and people jumped at my throat from it. i never shipped it and spoke against the ship. no im not a terf for not wanting to have sex with someone, and sending me rape threats about it and shaming me for it is just rape culture, and it was disgusting of those who did it. shame on you. i’m not white, and all those racist ass anons y’all sent won’t change it. yes, I have black alters, i have alters of different races, and when I provided MANY legit sources yall just said ‘’im not reading that’’, as well as completely ignoring other people with DID who tried to explain. so that was straight up ableism. again, shame on you. (also this post from my friend that explains well too)

now, outside of these things, more shit still happened which im not proud of. but these things won’t be any more public than it has already been, because honestly, it’s nobody’s business but those involved and I already made a mistake by publicly attacking the person involved. so it’s all i’ll say on the matter because again, nobody’s business but those involved and i don’t want to turn my life into a reality TV more than it already became.

my friends and i, now for years, have been accused of pedophilia, grooming, and being predators. Now, yes, some of us/my friends have done wrong things, and we’ve/they’ve apologized for it, but pedophilia and grooming was not part of it. They have NO PROOF PROVIDED, their story never follow each others, and some claimed to be victims despite never having been in direct contact with my friends at all. we have a whole document that we spent weeks making in our defense with visual proof and statements from witnesses.

my abusive, compulsive liar, two-faced, cheating asshole of an ex is now spreading this mess and calling me a predator, and a danger to minor, and completely ruined my dream of wanting to write a children’s book, all because I defended people wrongly accused of pedophilia. I got trauma from the whole thing, even developed two new alters, went back into therapy, because I was harassed so badly from it, got many death threats every day, rape threats, said im a danger to my niece and my nephew, and was stalked and harassed on every platforms. i couldn’t hide, they would find them. we couldn’t block, they would message us on other accounts and tell us to die.

enough is enough. we went through self-harm and suicide attempts because of this shit. went to the hospital. brought to the cops and we’re heavily talking of a lawsuit, but we’re waiting until our friend is mentally stable enough and recovers properly. i truly, genuinely cannot do this shit anymore. im tired of being followed everywhere and having everything i do being watched, tired of crying when i think of my sister’s children, tired of my life being ruined over false accusations.

i know im not the best person in the world. i know ive done some mistake, but im owning up to them. im trying to be better every single day and im just trying to survive another night. but these days, internet culture is just too toxic for me as i battle through the revival of my BPD and crippling depression. 

so, please, leave me alone. leave us alone. we’re tired, and i cant bear seeing my friends go through another suicide attempt or, god fucking forbids, make it work. we’re tired. we just want to draw and have fun. stop with the goddamn harassments, stop calling us predators, stop the witchhunting that goes through social medias. leave us alone. im so fucking tired of fighting back.

ive suffered through rape threats, death threats and massive stalking that gave me massive trauma and caused two new alters. im terrified just posting this but i need to. im scared just commenting on my mom’s post on facebook because what if someone finds me there. im shaking when i hit ‘post’ when i try to be brave just a little and post my art to try and get back out there despite my name being dragged through the mud. im scared whenever i have a notification somewhere. i want to be okay again. 

if youve read this, thank you. if youre a friend of mine, and youve stuck with me through this entire mess, thank you even more. maybe one day i’ll be okay enough to be out there again without being terrified for my life.

[jchall110]

So ordinarily I would put something like this on my Twitter, as that’s kind of turned into my personal vent/diary platform as of recent, but this is going to be much longer than Twitter can allow, and I need to write this all out without losing my train of thought. It’s gonna go behind a Read More, and I’d like to request that you only read it if we’ve been mutuals for a while, and only if you really want to. I’m not expecting any response, hell I don’t want any responses, I just need to put my thoughts down somewhere, and if I put it in a Google doc or something I’m gonna come back to it later and dwell on it, but if I just put it somewhere and immediately delete it, I’m not going to be able to talk to my therapist about it on Monday. Anyway, content warnings abound, as I’m gonna be talking about depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicide, covid-19, stalking, emotional abuse, and a pretty negative experience I had in a partial hospitalization program at a local mental institute. You’ve been warned. (Also for those of you who are new here, “ignore me” is my personal rant/vent tag, feel free to blacklist it to avoid seeing future posts like this)

So. Here’s a brief recap of the past year and a half in my life. Back in October of 2018, my best friend went through a very bad breakup with her emotionally abusive ex, while another of my friends was struggling very much with his mental health and attempted suicide. I was miserable working at Target and was gearing up to return to school in the Spring. I had also had feelings for the friend who went through the breakup, and she sort of had feelings for me, but she also had feelings for the other friend, and I had some vague kind-of feelings for the other friend as well, so in December we all decided “fuck it, let’s all date.” I won’t recap the full details of the relationship but it was a goddamn shitshow. His mental heath continued to deteriorate and he wasn’t seeking treatment for any of it, her mental health was extremely poor as well as a result of two years of emotional abuse and extreme codependency issues, and my mental health suffered greatly because of the expectations placed on me, as well as his frequent mood shifts where he would go from wanting to spend the rest of our lives together to, at one point, telling me things in an effort to get me to hurt or kill myself. Not a good situation by any measure. School was good, though, and the two classes I took last Spring were excellent, and I was ready to go back to school full-time in the Fall. Flash forward to September of 2019. My mental health is terrible, though my academics are very strong. I decide, after a few specific incidents, that I can’t be in the relationship with the both of them anymore and break up with him. A lot of bad things happened. She ended up leaving him as well. Then, about a month later, she left me as well and moved out of the state with someone she had met on OKCupid only a few weeks prior. At this point I need to take a medical leave of absence from school and move back in with my parents because I’m so depressed and traumatized that I can barely function. You see, since breaking up with him, he had been harassing me, even after I had attempted to get the police involved. He would call me, text me, make new Facebook accounts to send me message requests, anything to try to get in touch with me. So with all of this happening, and with me basically unable to do anything, I decide to look into a partial hospitalization program at a mental institution not far from where I live. Insurance covered most of it, my parents said they’d pay for the rest, so I started the program in early November. Ordinarily it’s only a three or four week program. I was there for at least 5. It was essentially a day program, so I would be there from 9 to 3 every day Monday to Friday. It was a really great program, except for a few things. Firstly, because it was a program both for mental health and addiction, a lot of the programming wasn’t really applicable to me, as the only thing that I’m addicted to is sugar, and I have no plans to break that habit. There’s a history of temporary psychosis caused by mind-altering substances in my family, and I don’t want to even find out if it applies to me as well. I barely even drink. So anyway, I was one of maybe three people who was there exclusively for mental health, so my options for programming were a bit limited, until a bunch of us complained about the repetitiveness of that aspect of the program and they switched things up a bit. Unfortunately it was at the tail end of my time in the program, so I didn’t exactly get much benefit from that. Secondly, and more importantly, close to the end of my time in the program, one of the mental health workers, a pre-doctoral intern who was running most of the “classes” that I was in, said a few things to me that were really frustrating and upsetting. Firstly she said that “ADHD doesn’t exist, it’s just a reaction to trauma. Too many kids are getting diagnosed with it when they just have regular attention issues, and in adults a diagnosis is almost always accompanied with trauma. And of course people are going to perform better when they’re on a stimulant.” Which. Is wrong on so many accounts. First of all, it’s overdiagnosed in the wrong people and massively underdiagnosed in the people who actually have it, especially young girls. And secondly, of course it’s paired with trauma when adults are diagnosed with it. They’ve had to deal with it for their entire lives up until then without knowing why they couldn’t do things the same way as everyone else, and there’s also a lot of trauma in general that comes with having ADHD considering how many people say “Oh, you’re just not trying hard enough” or “You’re just making excuses,” not to mention the self esteem issues that come with it. And thirdly, yeah people will perform better when on stimulants, but does taking a stimulant make everyone else tired? Cuz it does for me because it lets me slow down my brain enough to actually sleep. So yeah, that was fucked up. But the second thing she said was probably worse, and it didn’t actually occur to me how much this impacted me until earlier today when I realized something, but I’ll get to that realization soon. So it’s my second-to-last day in the program. I had gotten almost no sleep the previous night because I had a massive panic attack right before bed because my asswipe ex messaged me some really fucked up stuff. So I’m way out of it, and my ability to concentrate is pretty shit. I’m doing my best, though, and I’m paying attention to the discussion. We were talking about the parts of the brain and how they’re impacted by trauma. There were a few times during that day where I had forgotten words but still knew what I was talking about, and at least one of them had happened in front of this woman. So she asks “Does anybody know what the part of the brain is that connects the two hemispheres?” I say “Oh, I do” cuz I do know what it is, but for the life of me I can’t remember what the name is. (It’s the corpus callosum.) So she looks at me and says, out loud, in front of the entire group, “You know, it’s okay if we don’t know everything.” So I get all flustered and embarrassed and mad at myself because, in my ADHD people-pleaser brain, the teacher just failed me in front of the whole class and now they all hate me. So I don’t say a goddamn word for the rest of the day, and the next day I leave without saying goodbye to that one woman, after leaving a glowing review in the exit survey. So the thing about this that’s really fucked up is that like two days before, I sat down with her and told her how I have a lot of specific trauma around rejection and failure, especially relating to my dad and how he constantly asserts that I don’t try hard enough or that I need to do better, shit like that. Like, that was a major theme with me the whole time I was in the program. It was like, getting over the intense rejection of my best friend/girlfriend running away with a guy she just met, and my relationship with my dad. That was it. (Of the two, the one there that’s still a major thing in my life is my relationship with my dad. At this point, she can fuck off with whoever she wants. I’m more pissed at her than anything else now.) So for her to turn around and embarrass me in front of the entire group like that, when there was solid evidence that a) I did know what I was talking about and b) I was having a very off day was really messed up. In thinking about it, there was quite a few messed up things that she did in the last week or so that I was there. Probably more during the rest of my time there but I don’t actually remember most of it because working on your trauma can be traumatizing itself, go figure. Anyway, I had almost completely forgotten about that until earlier today when I was thinking about how I was getting much more sensitive to rejection and perceived failure recently than I was before all this had happened. Part of it is probably my increased estrogen dose fucking with my mood, but the majority of it, I think, stems from that one incident of her pretty much violating my trust and invalidating me in front of like twelve people that I really trusted and felt close with. Fucked me up, yo. Anyway, so I leave the program and start working for my dad at his machine shop. Things are going super well, I’m making a fair bit of money, keeping in touch with my friends as best I can, and doing my best to avoid my ex harassing me further. About midway through December I change my phone number so that he’ll stop calling me (he had several ways to get around me blocking his number), and in the middle of February I change my name on Facebook so he won’t be able to find me and send me more message requests, cuz there’s no way to stop that from happening either, and the police were useless because “I wasn’t in any physical danger.” At this point he had moved away from my town, presumably back with his parents but I don’t really know, and I really don’t care. So he messages my siblings on Facebook trying to get my phone number, and then somehow finds my Facebook again and sends me a picture of him cutting his wrist. So I get fed up, go to a local domestic violence prevention nonprofit, talk with one of their advocates, and file a restraining order against him. It gets approved, and the messages stop. A court date is set for us both to meet with a judge to discuss everything and see if it needs to stay in place or not or whatever, and for about 2 weeks everything is great. Then covid-19 starts hitting. I get what was probably just the flu or a cold or whatever a few days before the court date. Then the state that I live in announces that most court hearings are postponed until mid-April. I check on the website and find that stalking and domestic violence, among a few others, are exempt from this and will be going on as scheduled. Because I was recently sick, I call the courts the day before and ask if I can appear over the phone. They say yes, it’s all good, great. So the next morning I call in and things get moving. It turns out that my ex didn’t show up to the hearing, even though he definitely knew about it. So I talk with the judge for a few minutes and we decide that I don’t need the restraining order anymore because he’s not likely to start harassing me again, and if he does I can always get a new one or get the police involved. And so far I haven’t heard a peep from him so I’m assuming that chapter of my life is closed for good, which is excellent. But then more things start to close down, and my dad basically tells me that he doesn’t really need me at work and it’s best if I stay home. So since then I’ve been staying at home. It’s been 15 days total that I’ve been home, with only minimal trips to work for an hour here and there. And I really don’t do well with isolation. It’s not all bad, because I live with my parents, so I have some social contact, but as was mentioned above I don’t exactly get along with my dad, I don’t have a lot in common with my stepmom, and my grandmother is a grumpy old lady who isn’t very good for conversations about much else than knitting and Jeopardy. I’ve been doing my best to stay in touch with folks online, and it’s been decent, but it’s still pretty rough. And when Animal Crossing came out and all of my friends started playing it, I started feeling even worse because I’m poor as shit and don’t even have a Switch, and they’re fucking $400, which is a whole student loan payment for me. So I’ve been pretty miserable the past two weeks. To top it all off, I have to register for Fall classes next week, and I don’t think I can even imagine that far into the future right now. The world is supremely fucked, and there’s almost no way that I’ll even be able to afford to go back to school. I’ll probably have to drop out entirely. For at least a few years. And I’m really not ready to give up on school right now. Like I said above, I’m really sensitive to failure, and this is the third time I’ve tried, and failed, at college. And I’m getting real frustrated about it. The first time it was my ADHD, which at the time was undiagnosed. The second time it was mental health and my asshole ex harassing me. Now, when I finally have my ducks in a row, it’s money. The one thing that no amount of treatment or medication or court hearings will change. Plus there’s all the political bullshit going on still, and the impending collapse of society as we know it, and any number of other global crises (yes, that is the proper plural of crisis) going on. Oh, did I mention I’m an empath and the moods and emotions of the people around me, and of the world in general, pretty heavily impact me? I’ve been able to tell when some massive tragedy occurred even before the news story breaks. So yeah, all in all I’m doing about the worst I’ve been doing since high school before I was on antidepressants, and it’s really hard to see any end to this tunnel. I know I’m one in several hundred million people who are struggling right now, and I’m lucky that I’m at least moderately healthy with a steady place to stay and things to eat, but goddamn if things aren’t shit for me right now. Like I said, I’m not looking for any kind of response, and if you even read all of this I’m legitimately surprised. I just needed to put this all down somewhere because keeping it in is getting to be almost too much.

Don’t worry, friends. I promise you I’m safe. I’m just scared, lonely, and really lost right now.

I love you all.

[voidendron]

The Outside: Chapter 61

Series Ask Blog: @asktheoutside​

Chapter 61: Fan Favorite Chapter Warnings:  Swearing, Minor Injury (bruising, sprains, dislocated fingers) Characters: Dr. Schneeplestein, Natemare POV: Dr. Schneeplestein

April 10, 2031, 4:00 PM Los Angeles, California

Fingers combing through grayed hair, then a huff. A shake of the head and one hand playing with a spool of thread. Two weeks. It had been over two weeks ago. Marvin was alive. But what if he hadn’t survived? What if…

No. Don’t think that way. He’d survived.

Schneep ran a hand across his face and grit his teeth together. His card. Why had he given it to Mad? He couldn’t…remember, now. The details were there, but just out of his reach. Fuzzy, if he tried to grab for them. Like an apparition in his peripherals as it wisped away when he turned to look.

Setting the thread neatly in the wall-mounted cabinet, just above eye level, his mouth twisted as he closed the door. He tipped his head slightly. Studied his own face in the mirror on that door. He brought a hand up to brush at the healing wound in his cheek. It had started scarring over, but he still winced at the contact. It felt like it was bruised. Was Natemare sure he’s gotten all the chips out of it? Hopefully. Schneep really didn’t feel like dealing with an infection…

He glared at his reflection, and it glared right back; studied his eyes just as he studied its.

He pursed his lips when his gaze fell on his false eye. It was too bright now. Too much like Seán’s. The other was darker than it had been. Not by much, but darker nonetheless. The difference was small but still too noticeable for his liking. If someone was to stop and stare long enough, they’d be able to tell. He was doubtful that Natemare and Devilplier, at the very least, hadn’t noticed the difference. Whether they thought it was heterochromia or realized it was a prosthetic, at least they didn’t stare or question his ability to do his job.

A sharp buzz on the counter next to him made him jump. He’d gone without a cellphone for so long that he’d forgotten it was there. It was used, not the best one out there by any means, but at least the other garage members could easily get in touch with him, now. The messages were from Natemare. He shouldn’t have been surprised. He…honestly wanted to say he considered the Sharp a…friend? Maybe? They were snarky with one another, but it was kind of endearing, in a way. Mare made him feel like he belonged somewhere.

Natemare: Could use you at Garage C. Idiot over here broke his hand

Natemare: …I think?

…You ‘think’? he replied

Natemare: Hey, I’m no doctor!

Schneep groaned at that.

You acted as doctor before I came here! How do you not know?

Natemare: …Cuz I wasn’t a doctor?

You are hopeless.

Natemare: Screw off.

Natemare: I’ll be there in a sec to bring you here.

Pocketing the phone with a roll of the eyes, he crossed his arms and leaned back against the counter. If Natemare was going to be there, he wouldn’t bother throwing together medical supplies. He’d just have the Sharp magic them up.

Schneep straightened just as Natemare appeared in the room. Just as quickly as the Sharp had come, both of them were gone from the little clinic. The doctor stumbled when his feet hit solid ground again. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to teleporting. He didn’t hate it, but it certainly wasn’t his favorite method of travel, either.

The Sharp led him to a bench at the garage’s…was it west? wall. Just by looking at the guy, Schneep was almost positive he was one of the garages’ mechanics: Oil-stained coveralls, calloused hands, and grease smudging his skin. He’d probably been working under one of the vans. The doctor had noticed weeks ago that they liked to leak.

A shake of the head, and Schneep seated himself on the bench next to the man. Human? Ego? Some other Figment? He didn’t know. Oddly enough, he was finding that he cared less and less. The garages were a strange combination, and the humans to work in them knew about the Egos.

Maybe that’s why the look the mechanic was giving him as he grabbed the man’s injured hand was putting him on edge.

“Is there something you want?” he finally asked as he cupped the hand between his to See the damage.

At that, the man startled. “Sorry. Sorry. Just uh… Would I know you? You’re an Ego, right?”

“Yes?”

The mechanic went silent for a bit after Natemare snorted. Schneep had to wonder why the Sharp found this so amusing. At least the hand wasn’t broken. Two dislocated fingers, the hand swollen and sprained, with some pretty nasty bruising, but no fractures.

Turning to face Mare, he asked, “You know what a wrist splint is, yes? I will need one. As for you, what the hell did you do?”

More laughter, from Natemare nonetheless as the doctor gestured for the clean rag near the mechanic. The damn things were scattered everywhere.

“Not my fault…” the man mumbled. “Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dumbass over there slammed my hand in a fuckin’ van door.”

When Schneep’s eyes landed on the duo in question, they scrambled out of his sight. No wonder Dev needed a competent doctor. He was surrounded by idiots.

“Bite down on this.” As soon as the rag was in his hands, he was shoving it back at the mechanic.

“Wh—no! Why?”

“What are you doing now?” Natemare had the wrist brace grasped loosely between two fingers as he leaned back on the wall next to the bench.

“You have dislocated fingers. I need to reset them, yes?”

“B-but shouldn’t you use like…anesthetic or something?!”

All Schneep could offer was a slow blink. “…I have never in my life used anesthesia.”

The mechanic’s face paled. “Y—” He brought one finger up in a “one moment” gesture. Schneep couldn’t help but roll his eyes at that. “You…are a real doctor. Licensed and shit? …Right?”

“I will have you know I am 100% Real Doctor! I—”

“Wait. Wait. Dr. Schneeplestein? No fuckin’ way!”

“I—yes?” It had…been a while, since he’d heard his last name. His real one. Not his alias.

“Shit…I loved that community, and—and you’re right here! I’m talking to you!” The mechanic was grinning wide. So excited. “You were my favorite!”

Schneep grimaced at that. A…fan. He’d never really considered the fact that he might meet a former fan who would recognize him. How… What was he supposed to think of that? He should be happy. Right in front of him was a fan who had admitted that Schneep was his favorite! Wasn’t that wonderful? Wasn’t it?

He couldn’t bring himself to smile back. His mouth twisted, as if in distaste. Maybe it was distaste.

“I want nothing to do with the fans,” he said at last. It was…colder than he’d intended, but he couldn’t bring himself to feel guilty when the man looked taken aback. “I am your doctor. That is all.”

When he glanced at Natemare from the corner of his eye, the Sharp didn’t seem phased in the slightest. It was common to feel as he did. Right? He was sure that it was. Bitterness toward the fans; Schneep felt it! He knew at least some of the Septics and Ipliers did, too. Did the Sharp? Mad? Devilplier?

A shake of the head. It didn’t matter. He needed to focus on the task at hand.

He couldn’t look the mechanic in the eyes anymore. All he could do was shove the rag back at him and, yet again, demand that he bite down on it. The mechanic made it harder than it needed to be when he kept jerking his hand away. Made it take longer than it should have. Schneep would be lying if he said his nerves weren’t wearing thin. Humans really were weak. Even Kyler would have bit his tongue and bore it as tears pricked his eyes. And he was just a child! Did Figments really have that much higher of a pain tolerance?

Finally, finally, the mechanic was sent on his way with instructions on how to care for the sprain over the next few weeks written clearly on a piece of paper, along with commands to revisit with Schneep.

“…Jeez.” Natemare had a brow arched as he watched the human stalk off. “You’ve seriously never used anesthetic? That’s not very reassuring.”

Schneep just waved him off. “I have no need for it. I have ability to knock my patients out with a little touch of my hand to the head. Why would I bother with anesthesia?”

“Huh. And what if your hands were injured or somethin’?”

“…I—I probably would not be doing a procedure if that was the case anyway? Besides. The abilities are held in the aura, not the physical form.”

Brushing himself off as he stood, the doctor gestured for Mare to lead the way. Schneep’s eyes roved about. This may have been the first time he’d been in Garage C. It was so much smaller than A! Not nearly as many people bustling about, and there wasn’t even a higher platform. It was all one level in C; two small vans (much smaller than Box) and a few motorcycles in varying states of disassembly. Honestly, Schneep doubted there were even a dozen people in there. He had to wonder if it was mostly a scrap garage.

“Ready?” the Sharp asked as he pushed himself away from the wall to stand at Schneep’s side.

One more once-over. Gaze drifting over the pair to injure the mechanic’s hand, then a man and woman throwing pallets into a corner. The woman had coveralls and boots on, while the man wore dress shoes and an almost dressy top if not for the fact it was mostly unbuttoned to reveal the tank top underneath. A cowboy hat pinned his long hair down, and he kept grumbling to himself.

…His hat was familiar. And the shoes, and the sunglasses perched low on his nose so he could peer over them.

That… Was that Edgar?

When Natemare noticed where his gaze had drifted, he just nudged the doctor. “Know him?” Schneep offered a little nod. “Guy’s more trouble than he’s worth, honestly. Jackass.”

“…Why is he here?”

“Dunno. I didn’t hire him.” Another nudge, “C’mon,” and they were back in Schneep’s clinic in moments. The doctor grabbed the edge of the surgical table to keep his balance and could only offer a glare at the Sharp.

“Warn me,” he grumbled.

A wide grin met him at that. “I did say ‘c’mon,’ didn’t I?”

“Yes, yes, fuck you, too.”

“Grow up.” Natemare offered a firm pat on the back before he turned toward the door. “You know. You don’t seem all that phased by Edgar working here?”

“I have never been fond of him,” Schneep admitted. He glared when he noticed a smudge in his glasses, right in the corner of the lens. “I am more than happy if our paths do not cross often.”

“Even if he could get you in contact with those friends of yours?”

“I…” What if..? No. “Edgar did not like the others. I doubt he has contact with any of them. Even if he did…I have a place here, yes?” He searched the Sharp’s eyes hopefully; relaxed when Mare shrugged and nodded. They wanted him there. He had a place there. He…wasn’t sure he could bare to see Marvin or Jackie or their creator face-to-face anyway. Not after Marv… God.

“I am happy here.”

[hexfelicis03]

Am I ready or not?

I’ve been in several dates and one night stands in the past 3 years. I know, it’s nothing to be proud of but I did enjoy my single life and got used to being alone. I loved myself more and learned how to be independent.

Now, don’t say that I haven’t tried to work on a relationship with someone. I did but I’ve pushed people away many times because I am afraid of being hurt. So instead of them doing it first, I’ll be three steps ahead of them.

But suddenly, it makes me look back 2016. I really was working it out with Saul. He was a Spanish expat who was the former CFO of Lazada. We met in Tipple n Slaw and that was were our story started. The Despacito song and Versace on the Floor was one of the highlights of our “relationship” We will have either breakfast, lunch or dinner or even out of town trip together. It was there. I met his friends, he met mine. He met and Jarrod. But there are times he wanted to hangout and I would choose my friends. I drink a lot. I party a lot. Then when I moved to Heineken, that’s where it just went off. No good byes. It was left hanging. Now he has a girlfriend. Was I ever over it? I was supposed to meet him last August 2018 but I blew it off too. If I met him, would we be back together? Or was it the supposed to be “Closure”? I missed those time with him but I have to accept that it was never meant to be. 

Then was Araam... who I met after Saul. It was in Libertine for Nico’s night. He was on a holiday in the Philippines. I wasn’t even feeling that I wanna go out but there, I went. I wasn’t in the mood the flirt or whatever. I was introduced to Chi and he introduced me to Araam. Then suddenly, conversation just flowed. We laughed and talked about anything. He went out to smoke and I can feel that I’m about to pass out because I’ve been drinking day and night. I was working in Heineken back then. I just stormed off without saying good bye. A few days after or maybe it was a day or two after, I saw notifications in both Facebook and Instagram. I saw Araam’s message. He asked me not to freak out because he stalked me and sent two messages in both social media platforms. He said if I wanted to stay in touch, he gave his WhatsApp number. I checked messenger first though and gave him my number there instead. We talked more. It was Heineken Circus in 2020 in Makati. Nico and I went while Raam, Chi and Theresa went too. I invited them over for more beers. Anyway, I didn’t see Chi and I saw Raam and Theresa. I didn’t know who Theresa was and was actually devastated when I saw them together. Then Chi came and Nico asked them to kiss... the typical Nico kiss and shot. That’s when I knew that they were husband and wife. Lol. Then Nico faced us and asked me and Raam to kiss. We were both hesitant and Raam whispered “I would definitely want to kiss you right now but I don’t want to be too forward cause we barely know each other.” That’when I knew that he liked me. I smiled and when the night was getting late and Nico asked us to kiss - we did. It was all sparks and chill. He went to Cebu with Chi but when he was back, he went to our event again in Tunnl. With Araam, he will be sweet and fun but he will ask if it is time to socialize. It’s all easy with him. I can trust him and he can trust me. We jive. I don’t get paranoid when there is a girl with them in the conversation. He would look at me and pull me and kiss me in the forehead. Even if we didn’t go out in the same place, he will leave his door open and ask me to go home to him. We both stopped talking for almost a year. I knew that maybe he had someone and I also had guys with me... LOL. December 2018 he sent me a Facebook messenger. I totally forgot that I didn’t send him my new mobile number. He thought I deleted him but no. I did not. We went to Vietnam after Valentine’s day and I was with him for almost 5 or 6 days. That’s where we talked and he said that if we were in the same place we would definitely be dating. I jokingly said “Are you sure?” He said “Definitely. I wouldn’t allow other blokes to have you.” He visited Manila in June 2019. All I know, if ever I want a boyfriend, I’d want the qualities of Araam... or can it be just us? 

Before Araam and I talked back in December 2018, I met Jonathan. Well, I’ve been seeing him in John’s social media because of the French community but we never really talked. Until July 2018. He told me I was beautiful and that maybe I should know. Jonathan and I talked and talked online whether it’s in WhatsApp or in Instagram. He was sweet, compassionate and passionate. He is too emotional though and that it was one voice only... but hearing his voice made me feel calm sometimes. He can sing, act. He is an artist. We made it official August 16. He booked a ticket to Manila on September. I remember the first time I saw him. No butterflies or sparks and flowers. It made me think that the picture I painted in my head when we were apart wasn’t the same as reality. There were off days, there were okay days. I felt like the meanest person because I pushed him away. I hurt him real bad. For his last day, he wanted to talk more and to spend more time with me. But instead, I pushed him away and left... never looking back. We still kept talking and talking. There were times when I would call him in the middle of the night because I’m sad. His voice still calms me. He told me he might go back to Manila and we should meet. I thought it was another chance for us. Maybe I was ready. Maybe our timing was finally right. He came and we never met because of his schedules and mine. He was about to leave the next day and I met him. Apparently, he will just break my heart. Karma, right?

I think one of the factors why Jonathan and I never worked out was because of Hannes. The German Heineken guy. Ever since I gave my resignation in Heineken, he showed more interest in me. I do know he was interested while I was still part of the team but when I was about to resign, that’s when I confirmed it more. He has been the distraction of my life. Giving me mixed signals here and there. I know he have other side chicks but I chose to ignore it. Even when I was with Jonathan, I will still go to Hannes. He is like a drug that I cannot ignore. I wanted more. I knew he was having a thing with another Heineken girl but I can’t be the one to judge or to be angry because we were never exclusive. He was surprised when I showed no signs of anger and jealousy. He made the situation seem like it was nothing to me... like he was nothing to me. Hannes and I can chill at home. He cooks for me and takes good care of me. He is more of the guy who will likely make me stay in more than go out. But don’t be fooled, I know it’s just him hiding who he’s dating. Like I said, he gives mixed signals. One day he is sweet. One day he is not. One day he will be angry for being jealous. Then one day he will say he will date other girls. He is toxic but I seem to like the drama. I like the excitement and that he was jealous when I posted a photo of Fede, his fellow friend in Heineken. We tried to work it out with communication and trust. Trust. What a word. We met after his trip in Germany and my trip in Australia. We tried long distance when he went to Amsterdam. But I can’t. I was in Vietnam with Araam when I started to tell Hannes I can’t do it anymore. He became more lose and more chill. Letting me enjoy time with friends. Sending me sweet messages. He was asking my plans ahead and when can I go to Amsterdam. I felt the pressure because I don’t know if I can even process the visa to Europe. I don’t want to lead it on with false hope and I don’t see we can work it out given the long distance situation. I think it just dawned on me all the pain of betrayal and also the fact that I’ve been blinded with his affection. I ended it... it didn’t end well. He forever hated me.

I’m done dating here and there and going back to square one. Looking back at the guys I’ve met, it’s only a few I remained friends with. Others have left Manila too. I enjoyed my nights with friends. I go out now just to be with them. Go home alone and drunk.Work and play was my daily routine. Then I met Bonnar. Bon was his nickname. Scottish Chivas Brand Ambassador. I was working with Bryan and his meeting was in Nokal with Niccolo. Bryan left and I stayed. I was drinking until I saw Chino and his team together with Bon and Julian (Jameson Brand Ambassador). Chino introduced me like he always introduces me to everyone. I was the Jameson queen. Just in time, it was a Jameson event in Nokal. Chino said of course I would be there because - duh- it was Jameson. Like Araam’s story, I was just there having fun. I didn’t really talk to Bon. I was just having a great time. I left them too. I did my ninja move. I saw that we all followed each other in Instagram. He sent me a message in Instagram that it was nice to meet me and I disappeared all of a sudden (see? like Araam). Then the next day he asked if I was going out. I had to check if I wanted to cause I was tired. I decided to go out still cause my friends are going out. I invited him to join. We pretty hung out and slept together - like literally just sleep. A few days more of hanging out, he mentioned that he really likes me. I was easy to talk to and very chill. There was this one time in Versus where I kinda ignored him and he said that five dudes wanted to fuck me and that I was annoying. He kept dropping hints about exclusivity, mentioning girlfriend, etc. I don’t know if he’s fishing or if he just wants to tone down. What I am afraid of, he is young (25 and I’m 29) and new here in Manila. Also my job required me to relocate here in Iloilo. I am also scared to be the paranoid girlfriend. I don’t handle overthinking well. I have anxiety issues. I don’t want to get hurt. He have some qualities like Araam but the part of socializing with people - I can’t say I am calm like I am with Araam. He explains who he was talking to but I don’t know. I don’t want to lose what I built. I don’t want to be weak. But my friends told me that he also wants to know what I want. What do I want? Am I ready to take it the next step? How? What’s stopping me?

Lol... Stay With You of John Legend just played. 

[the-walking-memelords]

Allegiances: Chapter 12

Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 |Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 13

Series is rated M

Word Count: 3003

Louis and Clementine accompany Mitch and Willy to scout out the Delta's ship before breaking off on a side mission in an attempt to track down an acquaintance of Clem's. Their progress is delayed, however, when they become confronted by a familiar face.

Read it on Ao3!

Read it on Wattpad!

Within the hour Clementine found herself hiking through the forest along with Mitch, Willy, and Louis. Mitch lead the way, map in hand, guiding the four of them towards the river where the boat was docked. The silence between them was deafening. The shaken trust left a gap that made her feel isolated from the rest of them. Every time she glanced over at Louis, he always had his eyes trained forward, concentrating on the path ahead, as if he was struggling not to look back at her. Louis claimed he forgave her, and maybe he wanted to, but Clementine could see a darkness in his eyes that held some semblance of coldness.

He hates me.

Clementine bit her lip and tried to focus on the task ahead of her, following along without a word.

“There it is.” Mitch picked up the pace as they entered a clearing above the river.

The four of them ducked low as the boat came into view. Clementine retrieved a pair of binoculars she’d looted from Yonatan’s body. She scanned large vessel, noting the guards patrolling both the pier and top deck.

“This is it.” Clementine confirmed. The rusted sheet metal haphazardly welded on hardly made the ship look seaworthy, it was honestly a miracle the thing could float.

“Prisoners are kept on the second deck. I know the way, it’s where I was held when they brought me here.”

“Why did they put you in a cell?” Willy asked.

“They always told me I was one of their people but it was never true.” She spit, holding but the memories of the shit Lilly had put her through.

“They treated me like an animal, kept me in a kennel. I wasn’t allowed in general population.”

Four blank walls and only my thoughts to keep me company.

Hell.

“I only went along with it to keep AJ safe. I’d never met a group that seemed worth the risk of fighting back before.”

“Well, I’m glad we had that effect on you.” Mitch said almost jokingly.

Movement caught her eye on an opening of the third deck. The woman she’d pinned with the couch escorted a young blonde girl at gunpoint. Clem spotted the girl’s head turn in her direction, taking a fleeting glance at freedom before disappearing back into the boat.

“I saw Violet!” Clementine gasped, her friend within sight but out of reach.

“We really found them.” A glimmer of hope shined in Louis’ eyes at the prospect of successfully bringing everyone home.

Finding them would be easy, actually getting onto the boat in the first place was another story. The pier itself had been messily lined with crates, creating a decent amount of cover, but the only way to actually reach the pier was to walk through a wide-open path. Absolutely no cover.

We’re going to need one hell of a distraction.

A loud shout from one of the raiders on the pier caused them all to jump in surprise. They froze for a moment before realizing they weren’t the cause of the alarm. Three active corpses stalked their way towards the guard. He didn’t even have a chance to fire his gun before each walker dropped to the ground in front of him, each picked off by Dorian from the top deck.

If she spots us we’re dead.

There wasn’t a better sniper within their ranks.

“So what, all we need is like, a dozen walkers?” Louis chimed in, only half amused.

“How hard can that be?”

“Maybe not as hard as you’d think.”

“Hey guys, check this out.” Willy called to them in a hushed voice.

A few more docks lined the riverbed, each loaded with crates of furniture and building materials. Nothing but a few ropes prevented the wooden platforms from floating away.

Spoils from the train station most likely.

“We should have that stuff.” The young boy’s tone was filled with frustration.

“I could build traps, weapons.”

“That could work as part of our distraction.” A plan was starting to form in her mind.

“I saw some horses tied up down the path.” Mitch pointed out.

“We could use the torches to burn the hay and the cut the rafts free, divert their attention in as many directions as we can.”

“Sounds like a plan, now all we need is a shit-ton of walkers to get us right to the boat.” Clementine was starting to feel confident in their odds.

We’re smart.

Smarter than all of them.

“How exactly are we going to lead a herd of walkers to the boat without getting chewed up?” Louis was understandably skeptical of the idea.

“Where the hell are we even going to find that many walkers?”

“I think I have a way.” A previous encounter sprang to her mind. A boy in the woods who might be willing to lend them a hand. Clem didn’t know how much their brief meeting was worth, but it couldn’t hurt to ask.

Right?

Clementine couldn’t really say she trusted James. He saved her life once, sure, but Clem knew the stories that surrounded the group that wore walker skins. Ruthless bastards who believed fiercely in survival of the fittest. She wondered how much of that mentality stuck with him since his escape. Clementine would lead with caution around him. The last thing she needed was to lose someone else because of misplaced trust.

“I… snuck out. About a week after I showed up here. I ran into a boy in the woods who used to be part of a group that could control walkers.” Clem felt best to leave out the gory details of the Whisperers.

“He lives somewhere in the area if we can track him down maybe I could convince him to help us lure enough of them to the boat.”

Honestly, any plan was better than no plan at this point.

“Why the hell would he help us?” Mitch’s disapproval was clear on his face.

“He wanted to help me when we met in the woods. Offered to let me stay in his camp for the night. If all I’m asking is for help moving some walkers, he might be willing to lend a hand.” It couldn’t hurt to ask, right?

Mitch crossed his arms as he considered bringing in a stranger to help them.

“Fine, but you’re not going alone.” He wasn’t a fan of the idea but it was as good a bet as any.

“I’ll go.” Louis piped up, stepping forward.

“You two go back and tell the others about what we saw, I’ll go with Clementine to find this guy.”

Clementine flashed him a small smile which he only briefly returned.

“Fine, but be careful around this guy.” Mitch bid them good luck as they split into two groups and headed in opposite directions.

As the two of them walked the trail alone, Clementine struggled to find something to say. Anything to fill the silence. She didn’t have to though, because Louis decided to speak first.

“Why did you sneak out?”

“What?” Her voice caught in her throat for a moment.

“You said you met James on a night you snuck out.” He glanced at her nervously but spoke as if the question had been eating at him.

“So… why uh, why was that?”

Raider business.

Clementine would rather not let him know she had been spilling all their secrets, but how could she keep lying to him?

“Part of my mission was to check in with Lilly and Abel. Tell them what I’d learned.” The memory made her sick to her stomach. Willingly going back to her captors like an obedient animal. Telling their enemy everything they wanted to know.

“I’m really sorry.”

“O-oh.” The look on his face told her that was the answer he was hoping not to get.

“That was… the morning we ran into each other. Before the hardware store.” Clementine felt

chilled in comparison to the warm memory of falling asleep in Louis’ arms.

Will we ever be the same?

She guessed it was too soon to tell. Maybe after all the bullshit with the raiders. Maybe then, they could figure out what they were now.

A loud chop echoes through the trees as they made their way down the path. They froze in place, readying their weapons.

“A raider?” Louis whispered as they ducked behind a moss-covered tree.

Clementine carefully peeked around the tree. Another chopping sound guided her eyes to a girl with flaming orange hair. The girl held an axe high above her head before bringing it down on a small log, splitting it in two. She didn’t seem to be a patrol unit, which gave Clementine some hope that Mitch and Willy wouldn’t encounter anyone this far into the treeline on their way home.

A soldier.

“Stay here, I’ll see if they know anything we can use.” Clementine flipped her knife around in her hand.

Louis nervously glanced between her and the raider before giving her a determined nod. A silent message to be careful.

Clementine tread carefully over the fallen leaves, leaving not a single crunch to give her away before she stood only a few feet behind her.

“Rockingham.” She said with conviction, causing the redhead to flinch mid-swing, missing the log in front of her.

The soldier spun on her heel towards Clem, expecting one of her comrades but instead getting her axe violently ripped from her grasp. Clementine kicked out the girl’s leg, sending her to her knees with an arm twisted behind her back and a blade pressed to her throat before she had a chance to cry out.

“The people you stole.” Clementine spoke with words laced with venom.

“Did Lilly hurt them?” She knew Lilly’s tactics. Inducing fear early on to break any will to escape.

“I-I don’t know what you’re-” The girl’s words were cut off by the knife being pressed harder against her skin on the verge of slicing it open.

“I’m not fucking around.” She growled. She held no sympathy for any of these people.

“N-no. They’re fine.” The redhead claimed though Clementine wasn’t too convinced.

“Clem! Stop!” Louis rushed over, keeping his voice low.

The Delta soldier took the moment of distraction to wrestle her way out of Clementine’s grasp, sending the smaller girl backwards with a shove. The girl eyed the axe laying in the dirt for a moment though she never dived for it, instead freezing when she saw the boy who stood next to her attacker.

“Hi, Minnie.” Louis said in slight disbelief.

Clementine looked back and forth between the two past friends.

This is Minerva?

He slowly approached her, pulling her in for a brief hug. Minerva rested her head on Louis’ shoulder, lips slightly parted in shock at the chance encounter. She buried her face into the fur of his collar before pulling away.

“After the attack… I wasn’t sure. I mean, I heard they burned half your school down.” Minerva spoke in a soft, slightly gravelled voice.

“Who survived? Marlon? Ruby? Tenn?”

Her little brother.

“Tenn’s fine, so is Ruby, b-but Marlon…” Louis’ words faltered as he bit down on his lower lip.

“He didn’t… didn’t make it.” His voice grew soft as his gaze fell to the grass below his boots.

Minerva seemed to share his moment of grief, Scrunching her nose in not disgust, but sorrow at the news of her betrayer’s death. Disgust eventually did cross her features though, but only when she had Clem in her sights.

“Clementine.” She spit, crossing her arms.

“You’ve got some fucking nerve showing up around here after the shit you pulled. Fucking traitor.”

“I never wanted to be a part of the Delta. I saw a way out and I took it.” Her loyalty had always been empty. Reinforced by fear instead of respect.

“‘A way out’? By turning my friends into an army and leading them into battle?” She raised her scar-crossed eyebrow.

“It’s a miracle Marlon was the only one who died from your dumbass idea. You ruined our whole plan.”

“That is some grade-A horseshit.” Louis countered.

“Clem saved us. Lilly would have taken us all.”

“And you all would have survived it.”

“You really think it would have been better if we’d just given up?” Clementine challenged.

“You really think it would have been better for your little brother to be caught up in all this? It’s bad enough they’ve already got Violet.”

Tennessee deserves better.

No one deserves to be a slave to the Delta.

“At least we’d be together as a family again.” The stoic girl’s demeanour cracked with a hint of emotion at the mention of her younger sibling and former girlfriend.

“Unlike you. Your little boy is fucked because of what you did. At least at the Delta, he has people who care about him.”

“You shut your fucking mouth!” Her voice began to rise. This was all for AJ. Why was that only apparent to her?

“Easy.” Louis put his hand on her shoulder, attempting to deescalate the situation.

“Minerva, where’s Sophie?”

Minnie’s eyes widened before being squeezed closed. The girl hesitated for a moment, taking a deep breath before responding to his question.

“Sophie…” Her voice wavered at the mention of her sister.

“Sophie died protecting the Delta. A hero.” The amount of pride in the way she spoke of her sister’s demise made Clem’s stomach twist. Lilly had dug so far into this girl’s head she wasn’t sure if there was anything they could do to undo it.

Louis let out a fatigued sigh, emotionally exhausted from losing so many of his friends. Old wounds no doubt reopened from lost hope of bringing both of the twins home.

“You could still come home, Minnie.” Louis pleaded.

“Disappear right now, help us get the others back later. We can do this.”

“I can’t. Someone would get hurt if I up and deserted too.” The taller girl cast a sharp glare at Clem.

“I can take care of myself, Louis.”

Clementine knew it wouldn’t work. Minerva had clearly completely drank the kool-aid. The collar she wore wasn’t coming off anytime soon.

“Minerva!” A sickening older voice called from the path ahead. Clementine practically shoved Louis into cover as a sharp burst a fear shot through her chest.

“Rockingham!” The girl called back, finally retrieving her axe.

We’re fucked.

Clementine’s nails dug into the leather of Louis’ coat, prepared to drag him away from this place if Minerva showed any sign of giving them away. Both teens held their breath, not daring to make the slightest sound as they sat at the mercy of whatever bond she still valued with her former friends from the school. Minerva cast them a side glance, pursing her lips together as Lilly appeared at the end of the trail.

“Finish up your work. I want to be in before dark.” The evil woman ordered with annoyance in her voice.

“Yes, ma’am!” Minerva didn’t immediately out their presence to Lilly, but once the girl was out of sight down the trail she wasted no time dragging Louis away from that place.

---

Clem spent a decent portion of their walk filled with paranoia, shooting a glance over her shoulder twice a minute for any sign of pursuers. Each peek coming up empty but doing nothing to calm her nerves.

“Do you really think Minerva would tell Lilly that she saw us?” Louis didn’t seem willing to believe it.

“She’s not the same person that you knew, Louis.” Clem knew Minerva was too far gone to be trusted.

“Those people brainwash you into believing what they do. It doesn’t take long to lose who you used to be.”

“Shit.” He tried to focus his attention on the path ahead, his shoulders drooped and Chairles swung loosely in his right hand. Suddenly his pace shifted, the space between them closing as he walked by her side.

“It doesn’t change anything. We still need to get onto that boat.”

Even the heat of the afternoon sun couldn’t warm her skin. Her body constantly felt cold. As if liquid nitrogen ran through her veins. But standing so close to Louis she could practically feel the warmth radiating off of him. She swung her hand out a little father than her natural pace dictated, her fingers just barely grazing his. A simple, fleeting touch that sent electricity through her arm, feeling it deep in her heart. Louis didn’t seem to respond to her touch, but the concentrated expression across his freckled face made it difficult for her to read his thoughts.

Her eyes fell closed as she walked next to him. Piano notes danced through her mind on repeat.

Clementine.

The song he named for her. The song he poured his heart and soul into.

The song played vividly in her ears as if they were back home, sitting in the piano room. The music swirled through her, her heart fluttering with every gentle press of the keys. The feeling of his lips against hers was something she’d never forget, and something she feared deep down that she wouldn’t feel again. The time they spent together the night before was the happiest she’d been in longer than she could remember.

Last night.

All of it, not even twenty-four hours ago. God, how could everything become so fucked in just a short amount of time?

A sudden jolt broke her out of her own head as she stumbled forward a little. Her ankle stung slightly from the impact of the root she’d tripped over.

“You alright?” Louis shot her a quick concerned look.

“Yeah, I just tripped.” Clem brushed it off, speaking slightly out of breath. She hadn’t realized how unsteady her breathing had become.

“Let’s just find James.” Her limbs felt heavy as the beginnings of her exhaustion clawed at her heels.

Clementine was just eager to get this over with before the thumping ache in her chest sapped away the rest of her energy.

[weeviljester]

This has to stop.

This has to stop.

Seeing @lorthemar-theron’s post about the abuse he’s suffered… I decided that it was time for me to put my own out in the open. It’s from the same exact person, after all.

I’d been friends with Sunreaving and Dave for a long time, and I’ve been in Dave’s server for quite a long time as well. I’ve witnessed a lot of what Dave has said and can personally say that yes, all of it did happen and almost exactly like he explained. Obviously my friendship with Sunreaving didn’t last either.

Under the cut I’m going to reveal my experiences. I’ve got as many screenshots as I could scrounge up but… from the bottom of my heart, trust I wouldn’t make such a post if it wasn’t serious.

Sunreaving took advantage of my empathy, and he took advantage of the fact that I was a fairly neutral party. He is abusive. He is toxic. He is manipulative.

I was friends with Dave and Eth through their relationship as well as their breakup. I was one of the people that suggested the two part ways, as I had seen and heard of the abuse that Dave was suffering-- I thought personally, that it would be better for both of them if they parted ways. Eth took advantage of the fact that I was a neutral party, and a very empathetic one at that, and used it to try and convince me of all the things Dave mentioned, which I found out later he did not do. He tried to tell me that Dave used slurs, he tried to tell me that Dave publicly ridiculed him and that he was racist.

I didn’t entirely believe him of course, I’ve been in Dave’s server, and I’ve been friends with him for a long time, and not ONCE has he EVER said a racial slur or tolerated anything to that effect at ALL. But he’d constantly push that point. It felt like he only talked to me so that he could shit talk his ex, or to threaten suicide and have me talk him out of it.

Multiple times in my RP guild, which he’d been invited to by the guild leader out of the kindness of his heart because he was worried for Eth, he would be disruptive and ruin specifically planned events. He would use his fetishistic dog character to do stupid things that wasted HOURS of our time. He would also leave passive aggressive remarks about the guild leader in the vent channel of our discord. He ended up being kicked for being toxic, but I stayed friends with him, because I was empathetic towards him. He promised me he’d do better.

On multiple occasions, though I may not have seemed upset by it, he pressured me into roleplaying with him/shipping with him... in one instance, he even pressured me into erping with him. I was incredibly uncomfortable with it, and it still makes me uncomfortable to think about. I found out later after telling a friend that they had also experienced similar behavior from him, and that it had really made them uncomfortable.

I was friends with some people that Eth had fallen out with previously because of his lying and manipulation. They had their own reasons to be uncomfortable with him, valid ones at that, but I don’t want to include their stories in my post. Constantly, he would stalk and harass my friends in game, standing on top of them in bear form as they tried to rp, using toys and mounts, and spam emoting at them while they were standing there trying to harmlessly roleplay. If they moved and blocked him, he’d get on a new character and hunt them down. This is when I was on the breaking point, hearing about him harassing my friends.

Then, I saw him sending anonymous messages to himself, again. I’d seen him doing this before, but it never bothered me enough to say anything. It’s hard to explain how I knew they were his doing… but the subject matter was so out of the blue and specific to something that he obsessed over, that I knew it had to be him.

The topic was that of black/brown elves. A topic that I’m strongly all for. I think elves can be any colour anyone wants them to be. But he has a strange obsession with making himself seem like the harbinger of all brown elves for some reason. He had begun sending himself hateful anons to get brownie points from his followers, and in my agitation, I sent him an ask saying ‘Maybe you should stop sending yourself anons and being self righteous about them’, and unfollowed him (as well as blocked him on all platforms), because at this point I was fed up with him CREATING drama.

Again, I know that this is hard to prove, but all I have is my word of mouth, and I ask you all to trust my judgement. I am 99% sure of my statement.

He then proceeded to post this screenshot to a chat which I was not in.

Mind you, I regret sending this anonymous message. It was very passive aggressive. I was just so fed up with his behavior that I snapped, and that is entirely on me. However, his reaction afterwards was completely uncalled for.

Previously, Eth had commissioned me for a total of 60$. I hadn’t completed his commission yet, and didn’t plan to after all of this shit went down, of course. So as I was about to give him his refund through paypal, literal MINUTES later, I received a message from a friend, telling me that Eth had gone crying to them that I had stolen his money.

I gave him his refund after he issued a paypal dispute, and it was solved quickly because I’m not a fucking crook, like he was trying to make me out to be. However… I found out that he had been going to not only my FRIENDS but to people I didn’t even KNOW and was trying to spread rumors behind my back. Thankfully, some of the people who he’d talked to either came to me, or I had talked to them about it and cleared it up. Because they knew I wasn’t the way he’d made me out to be.

This was what the person in yellow said when I talked to them about what was happening.

Soon after, my friends and I began receiving a lot of anonymous messages. Many claiming my friend and I had r*pe kinks, With absolutely no proof or justification at all. Almost all my friends and I received the SAME photo of Eth’s toes, which I was able to deduce because I have seen Eth’s desk before and I know his skin tone. It was creepy and disgusting. Around the same time, I also received these terrifying and offensive anonymous messages.

This was from either Kizz, or his friends. One of his friends was even harassing another of MY friends off of anon, without knowing the full situation.

This caused a lot of turmoil for me as I do my best to be a good person and to be friendly and approachable, but my friends and mutuals were being manipulated, just as I had been, by my own abuser. And it hurt. It hurt that I’d lost a friend, it hurt that I’d been lied to, and it had hurt that I’d been used in the way I did.

I don’t want anyone else to go through what I did with Eth. He promised me that he’d be better. He promised me he’d do better. But that was a lie too. He doesn’t care about anyone but himself.

[meanestbucket-blog]

lol I’m toxic

I just wanted to get something off my chest and this is a place I can dump junk out of my brain, feel free to scroll on if you’re not into reading drama.

Story Time:

I was just told that an ex-friend called me “toxic” because I wasn’t tolerating emotional abuse/manipulation from her anymore. I’m honestly not shocked, I’m just really impressed by the nerve of this bitch. She claimed that I told her to her face that I unfriended her just because I didn’t want to know if she ever killed herself... I told her that I couldn’t handle having a friend who threatened to kill themselves or move out of state to isolate themselves every single time a friend disagreed with her or pointed out any wrongdoing on her part.

The argument that we had that led up to it was stupid. It was like, really stupid. It was in regards to the schedule of financial aid disbursement dates for our school. She’d heard rumors from a facebook group, and I told her that I wouldn’t take that as a completely accurate source of info since it’s just a group of students that may or may not know everything about what was going on. We went back and forth a little bit and I just wanted it to end, so I said “okay”.

Then I got a big, long message in my DMs (the previous message was in a group chat along with mutual friends) telling me that she didn’t know why I was being so hostile and that she was just venting, and so on. In the meantime, she’s messaging a friend saying that she wants to die or that she wants to move away (I don’t remember which at this point because she used both threats interchangeably pretty often, the last time it happened she threatened to kill herself when our friend told her that they didn’t like her “joking” about their SO being ugly). I responded accordingly and told her that I was simply disagreeing and not being hostile and that if she was going to react in such a way every time someone disagrees with her then she needs to get help. She sent a few long messages and I needed some space, so I just ignored the messages to think about it. There were some more messages sent that I responded to in a little bit more of a snappy mood after all the melodrama, and I ended up unfriending her after a few days of just not responding and after telling her I needed the conversation to end, because the whole thing just really stuck with me and made me feel like things were not okay. I figured that maybe I would eventually cool down and that I could add her again once things had settled and I knew what to do or say to make amends.

Then she randomly started messaging my SO at work about what happened and why I blocked her, and decided to show up at my house unannounced. It was awkward. She apologized, and I told her that I don’t hate her but that I wanted her to get help for the sake of her and her friends. I told her that I’d deleted her because I hated the feeling that I’d find out one day that my friend killed herself over a dumb argument. I didn’t like not being able to have an adult discussion and tell someone I think they might be wrong without worrying about them either killing themselves or moving away because they didn’t like me because of it. She’s known for years that she needs mental help, she’s had the resources to get it if she wanted to. She chooses not to, and she and her friends suffer for it.

I will not apologize for what I said to her. I am not wrong for it. I don’t feel bad for it. NO ONE is entitled to anyone’s time, friendship, or emotional labor. If a person is detrimental to my own mental and emotional wellbeing, then I deserve to cut them off as an act of self-preservation. I wouldn’t really be shocked if she found this at some point, because she stalked another friend of ours who distanced themselves from her at one point and she tried contacting her on all kinds of social media platforms. If you’re reading this.... fuck off, take screenshots if you want. Tell everybody if you want. I know that I deserve not to be treated like this.

[blondrichclosetwitch]

First song. my clearest early memory of hearing this was the day I had ventured out to Bronxville to see “the healer for healers”, the Bulgarian.

All I can tell you is she had me sit in a chair for 3 hours and she basically pulled some black snake off my spine. That was the way both she and another healer who was known as the death doula explained it.

As I stood on the train platform to make my way back to Brooklyn, I hit shuffle and black hole sun started to play.

In disguises no one knows

In disguises no one knows

Hides the face, lies the snake

Times are gone for honest men

I have a picture of chris Cornell on the wall. He just said “save him”.

I should mention that there have been people coming through with direct messages. Tupac is a huge part of that. I don’t really have the words right now but they’re playing sweet Ophelia and they referred to Jakk. Promises that you’re hooked on.

There’s a video I made the night I made the Bulgarian. Spirits want me to put it up.

I close the book on them right there

I see myself change as the days change over

I hear the songs and the words don't change

I write them out of the book right there

We've been had, you say it's over

Sometimes I'm just happy I'm older

We've been had I know it's over

Somehow it got easy to laugh out loud

Oh to fight is to defend

If it’s not now then tell me when would be the time that you would stand up and be a man

And there are things you can’t avoid you have to Face them when you’re not prepared to face them

If I could, I would

But you’re with him, I’d do no good

I should have fought him but instead I let him

I let him take you

(Do I really need to spell it out? They keep on bringing up the trips to california and New Orleans, especially the latter. The tarot reader had been working on me for over a year at that point. Do you really think shit was just done to me? )

This was the next song.

It’s an instrumental.

Now first, this has played so many times.

I finally got it.

These moments of opaque-eyed knocked out rapture—-

(Opaque: not able to be seen through; not transparent)

Helpless as a calf at the capture

Far from the poison power of cash

Green cash reeking and heating the jet stream— this is a reference to the people were paid far away from our eyesight

Oh, the sharp sweet breath, she is my daughter (stella was our daughter in one of our past lives, freaky as that might sound. We were poor and it was tragic. No I haven’t told my brother. )

Daughter of the flashing instant, daughter of watching daughters of darkness—-this is pretty self-explanatory.

Feather haloed floating hair eye-flasher—Apparently someone thought it would be funny to start leaving feathers as a calling card whenever they fucked up a tree or left me some stalking sign , mostly because she knew that feathers are considered a sign from the other side. I finally figured out on the anniversary of Stella‘s death the feathers were also an indicator of of the lyric “I’m counting your feathers as the Bell tolls”…… well, when the Bell tolls is a sign of someone dying. That was enough to make me crack, and at the end of the weekend I voluntarily went into a psychiatric ward to get away. the first thing to greet me after I got out was the word “witch” sharpied on my building with a swastika, and a completely mutilated bird’s skeleton with its flowers feathers in a circle surrounding the tree. There is a video of it on my Instagram. So that’s that line.

You got a learn how to hang with the freaks and the Hicks in the heat of the lot you got a learn what is and what is not and you learn what it is is not a lot—- this is about learning to communicate with spirits, and discern what was true and what was a fucked up manipulation.

Calls of friends in the capital of cannabis —Well to me this is about Seattle which is where I lived before now. I told a lot of my friends…stuff. Stuff that made them think I was bat shit crazy, and soon they stopped calling.

When the cops down the block and they circle and they stop and they circle and they stop and they stop and they circle and they stop, God help because it’s a lot—— i’ve lost count of how many times I’ve called the police to help me, ants most of the time they asked me if I needed to be hospitalized or if I had stopped taking my medication.

It seems worth mentioning that a couple of the times that I was told by psychic Jack that he was shot or in jail for hurt I went down there and asked for him by name. Once he told me he had sex in jail, but it wasn’t very good. I don’t remember exactly what he said, but it was something along the lines of he wished it was me, and he was just so fucked up by what was happening.

At one point I was told by one of the healers that when he tried to leave Blond early on, there was some altercation that involved him and the cops.

Oh no, external actor— – this, if you haven’t guessed, is about blond. They want me to bring up HRC.

Silence and the voice don’t speak anymore—two parts to this one. 

This is partly about the fact that she doesn’t have access to me anymore. I don’t get let around or confused the way I did it in the early part of 2020, and all before that. Jakk is still under influence, he just doesn’t know it. The other translation of this lyric is what they have me sometimes have me sing in place of it, Cyrus and the boys don’t speak anymore. But that’s getting into a different character from our epic.

Btw… while looking for the picture of “witch”, I found these two pictures.

I Moved up to Yonkers in feb 2020, and it was March that this was left for me somewhere. Now, my niece loved frozen, and all I know about it really is Elsa was the main character.

Well I was desperate at this point to make what was happening stop, so I would stop by this strange house that had god literature. And one day this Elsa sticker is there. Which I took as a reference to me in the psych ward, and who put me there.

Days before I had just sent this text to my mother.

The other one was a day that I came back Into Manhattan ; and I was led to a tree to sing, far from the entrance. I don’t remember what song I was singing, but I remember being led from tree to tree, and then ending up at a tree, and gasping because jakk’s initials were scratched on the tree.

I ran out of there.

A few months I went back and found the tree. The J had been half scratched off, but it was still there. So I took a picture.

This sort of stuff happened for about two years.







[scummy-writes]

This blog is only going to be used to post personal fic updates from a much more controlled environment, AO3, and nothing else. 

This post has been set to queue post two more times for timezones and then no more after that.

Explanation under the readmore:

This is to the shock of absolutely no one, but I can’t do this anymore.

A lot of you guys have stuck here with me from the beginning, and, unfortunately, got to learn about personal stuff I never intended to share. Some of that came around in discussions, of some events that happened, or back towards the beginning of the year that severely impacted me and still does to this day.

Back before I made this blog, a few months before I had started playing MM. I loved it, thought it was great for an otome, and fell in love with all of the characters. Like a lot of people, I ran into the game when I wasn’t doing too well. Things at home were horrible, I had no job, I had recently gotten out of something life altering and was still struggling with myself. This game helped me out, sparked my creative flow again (I think the last time I had published something that wasn't for a friend was a good four years ago), and inspired me to write and share what I had written.

Then, when my stories got an incredibly large amount of hits, and I saw HC blogs circling around, I made one. This one.

I made it to share stories, ideas, and small headcanons- To share positivity, and maybe a bit of fictional angst. For a couple of months, things were going well. A got such sweet followers, I had great support- But then I brought back a fic people had wanted, originally taken down due to me unable to plan a decent plot, and harassment began.

And, well, a lot of you have been around for that whole debacle.

Then. Just more issues started coming up. Instead of this blog being fun, being something I was so glad that it was making people happy, things just went downhill. Constant negative messages/comments, constant drama- I just shrugged it off for the most part, but then I realized that most of this drama, most of what is starting to wear me down, is just because I didn’t write a character how one person wanted me to.

Just because I apparently wrote a character ooc, for two fics, apparently warranted harassment spanning over months– Like literally absolutely fucking months. Do you know when it started for me? March. February for others. But hey, everyone’s seen this, right? God knows I’ve reblogged it countless times hoping the fucking hateful anons would stop coming in. Except They. Kept Coming. Over and Over Again. I even took a fucking hiatus and stopped writing the fic this person couldn’t stop obsessively hate-reading only to immediately get shit on again.

I’ve had my mental Illness, PTSD, and overly traumatic and sexually abusive events in my life degraded, along with many of my friends and now victims of this who did absolutely nothing wrong, while friends and I were being told we weren’t ‘thinking of the abuse victims’ when being confronted about liking a FICTIONAL CHARACTER, Jumin, who was being deemed abusive by this ‘anon’ . My illnesses and abuse history that I had mentioned before and even directly to this person’s messages.

I’ve had the harassment that my friends and I have went through be deemed to be nothing because “Well this user always likes my posts”, “This user sends me a nice message sometimes”, while those same people ignored the posts of the user even completely opening up and admitting to what the fuck they’ve done.

You connect all this with some personal issues of mine- The issues surrounding my mother’s attempt, the strain with my family, and my own personal mental health namely- and, well. It’s hard to view this blog positively anymore.

I’m just not happy anymore. Namely, my current emotions are probably connected to another depressive episode, but even before today- It’s just been hard.

I made this blog to have fun- Because people enjoyed my stories, enjoyed my headcanons- And now due to all this drama and harrassment I just feel disgusting.

I don’t know where I’m going with this, honestly.  I never made this blog to be constantly harassed because some dipshit couldn’t ignore my fanfic, couldn’t block my blog and ignore me, couldn’t just move the absolute fuck on with their life instead of spending nearly a whole year attempting to stalk me, attempting to harass me for every little asinine thing. Of course this had a strain on my writing- I after the haitus I just could barely put out HC’s anymore. I kept saving drafts, getting stressed to fuck and back because I didn’t know if a typo was going to cause me to be blasted with insults to my writing and life, I didn’t know if I expressed Zen having insecurities was going to send another flood of anons like I had received many times before. You think all the messages in the Call Out are bad? All the ones that weren’t in it and I didn’t link in this post? What about all the ones you all didn’t see because I deleted them before I even let myself think about them, because I had no energy just to put up bullshit because all I ever, ever, fucking did was write a Fictional Fucking Character a little fucking different from canon.

And that’s not all- There’s a support group in a discord server my friend set up because I’m not the only person this dipshit has gone after. There’s at least ten god damned people that we know of getting this same treatment- and there’s probably so so so SO many more that are probably feeling the same emotions I did. And FUCK, friends of us are even feeling drained because it’s absolutely sickening that we’re being harassed for liking a genuine love interest in a fucking mobile otome game. In a VIDEO GAME.

You know what I did? I went back into fucking therapy because of all this, because my major depression and anxiety kicked into full gear because I was sharing my writing, something that I made, something that meant so much to me because for once I wasn’t being mocked or laughed at when I wanted to be creative. The harassment got to me so fucking badly I had to go to therapy again.

I’m so blown away by how all this shit I’m dealing with is because someone just couldn’t ignore my blog/ao3 stories. That they think harassment is excusable because I won’t write or stop writing what they want me to.

So now, characters I used to help me cope with a very serious issue of mine, just make me feel empty. My coping mechanisms are failing, and running this blog isn’t becoming worth it anymore, not if I’m even going to be bitched at for trying to show lesser known artists to some newcomer in the fandom.

So. I don’t know. That’s why I hardly post anymore. I feel disgusting and empty, for a game that I used as a coping mechanism. Instead of it making me happy, all this drama and this god damned person just makes me regret even writing in the first place.

So no more hc posts. My writing has declined, we all know it, god knows it won’t stop being pointed out to me, and I shot myself in the foot doing character limits. My Hc posts went from getting so many sweet comments to one once in a blue moon, the majority of the comments I receive on here about my HC’s are just a constant stream of hatred, and I just cannot fucking do this.

I just wanted to have fun. 

you guys can find me on my twitter (@Mm_Scummy) and my AO3 (Scummy). I’m not posting anything else to this blog unless it’s fic updates, and even that I’m debating on. I’m just keeping this blog up to keep what writings I did enjoy up, and just because I can’t bring myself to delete anything where I did get support.

If this post makes you angry, or makes you upset that it’s came done to this: 

SUPPORT CONTENT CREATORS. Don’t sit around and let them be harassed!! I cannot even begin to tell you how amazing it felt when I would get a message from a random follower just seeing if I was okay. Just saying that they hoped I felt better, or just sending heart emojis. Every little bit of support means so, so, SO much to content creators after they’ve been outright harassed or taken advantage of, because it shows that you care.

REBLOG THESE POSTS:

- THIS one because the word needs to be spread that content creators do not owe you anything.

- And THIS one because the user that keeps harassing me and so many people, so many that we may never know who all they have harassed, uses the Anonymous tool on every single platform they can to hurt people, and she is NOT above making new accounts to continue her harassment over and over again. Because god knows we have blocked her account and have never, ever, fucking unblocked it and she STILL didn’t get the most obvious hint that what she is doing is absolutely, undeniably fucking disgusting and in no way excusable. 

[rapmonster-notdancemonster-blog]

Kaisoo; Copycat pt. 2

part one

Sorry about the long wait y’all. I went to the Monsta X concert last Sunday and then all this week I had Chinese class, and I just took my final for the class. With the extra free time I sat down to write out this chapter. Enjoy :)

~ Δ ~ Kyungsoo’s comment section on his latest post on instagram explodes with fans saying that a fan-war broke between the Soos (Kyungsoo’s fans) and Ninis (Jongin’s fans) on instagram and twitter. Kyungsoo is known for his sweet, melodic voice and Jongin is a promising dancer who takes cute selcas every single day. The Soos accuse Jongin of imitating Kyungsoo, as he always uploads dance covers of the songs that Kyungsoo covers a day after Kyungsoo releases them. Feeling sorry, Kyungsoo leaves a private message on Jongin’s twitter.

~ Δ ~ Shy!Kyungsoo, Straightforward!Jongin

~ Δ ~ The title is pending bc I had Paradise by Millic ft FanxyChild on repeat while I was writing this. If anyone has any suggestions to what I could rename it as, pls do tell :)

~ Δ ~ Warnings: Rated T for sexual references and language

~ Δ ~ 1332 words 

~ Chapter Two ~

          That morning Kyungsoo sat at the head of his wooden table, coffee mug in hand. His expression, painted with self control and complete composure stared at the laptop seated in front of him; Twitter browser opened up to his home feed. He brought up his mug up to plush lips, glasses fogging up with condensation as he left it there. Letting the warm and welcoming aroma hit his nose, he exhaled with content, sipped, and set it back down gently in its coaster. He sat patiently waiting for his glasses to clear up, and thought about what he was about his next move.

         It’s the right thing to do. I need to get in contact with Jongin.

         Jongin. Jongin. Jongin, Jongin, Jongin. Just his name sent a small tremor up Kyungsoo’s spine. Flashes of the dancer’s smirk appeared in his mind and a small pink hue tinted his cheeks.  Shaking his head, he decided to put his mind to use. He quietly cracked his fingers and rolled his neck, feeling a bit too stiff. Looking again at the laptop screen, he quickly typed in “jongin” into the search bar, hoping for something to pop up. And boy, it did. Fan pages, daily picture accounts, body appreciation pages (that Kyungsoo totally did not click on) and so on. Deciding to take this to Google, seeing as he couldn’t find any official account, he types in “jongin dancer twitter” and is relieved to see that the first result is said dancer’s twitter account.

         Now anxious, Kyungsoo quickly clicks on the link, sending him back to the twitter website, and is met with the smiling face of Jongin and Fuck, Kyungsoo thinks.

         “He’s gorgeous.” He whispers to no one, face flushing. Clearing his throat he scrolls down the feed and sees cute selca after cute selca, posted daily. The more he scrolled, the more his infatuation grew - not that he’d ever admit it to himself. Bless him, he smiles, mirroring a smiling Jongin in a recent picture. Deciding that it was creepy to stalk his profile like how he was, he knew it was time. Opening the Jongin’s DM’s he started typing carefully:

         Good Morning. My name is Do Kyungsoo and I know you probably don’t know who I am, or maybe you do but anyways: sorry to bother you like this, but I feel like I have an issue to clear with you. It’s not that I’m accusing you of anything, on the contrary I believe that creativity should be shared and the internet is a platform created for broadcasting and showcasing talents of all kinds, but I was just wondering if you were watching my videos and making them your own? Again, I’m not accusing you of anything, I just wanted to address this issue because many people are sending me messages through social media regarding correlation between our uploaded videos. When you have time please message me back.  

         Before he could regret it, he clicked enter. And took a deep breath, nodding at his attempt to sound controlled. Almost immediately though, the check-mark appeared at the bottom of the screen and Kyungsoo closed the tab fearing his life. Deep breaths Soo, he told himself, and gave himself a minute more of buffer time. Ready, he reopened his Twitter browser to already see a DM notification. Nervous, he clicked on the tab and read some of the conversation:

         Thank you for contacting me, I have been waiting for your….

         Waiting? For him? Jongin was waiting for him? He opened the chat:

         Thank you for contacting me, I have been waiting for your message. I too have been receiving messages from your fans and mine, and I have seen how bad some of them have gotten to be. I also apologize since it is true, I did copy your video songs. If I’m going to be honest with you, I’m not sorry about it either, in fact I had hoped you would notice some way or the other.

         Kyungsoo blinked. What? Who in the world…. Did he just admit…. He did, didn’t he? He just admitted to copying my videos. He read on:

         Truth is, I’m a fan of yours, scratch that, I’m a really big fan of yours. And I wanted to collaborate with you, but we’re on different sides of youtube so I’d figured I would need to do something big yet secretive so that if I did it a lot it wouldn’t go unnoticed for long. Whaddya say Hyung?

         “H-Hyung?” He repeats. Does he think he’s being cute? The corner of his mouth twitched. Okay, he is cute, but still what the fuck, you can’t just openly admit to something like that and then brush it off like it’s okay. He took another sip of his coffee. Hm? What’s this? Another message popped up.

         When are you free? I also live in Seoul.

         Excuse me??? Kyungsoo choked on his coffee. He quickly typed:

         How are you expecting me to willingly meet with you even though you went through this extreme of fanaticism?

         Because I went through this extreme of fanaticism for you to notice me, you should feel flattered.

         Kyungsoo scoffed, this Jongin is something else, if he weren’t so darn cute I would’ve told him to go fuck himself already.

         Besides, aren’t you at least a bit interested in me too? You must’ve seen my videos as well. Not to brag, but from one talented being to the other, my dancing must’ve been quite something if you had even bothered to look at it. I’m quite good aren’t I? ;)

         Is he flirting with me right now? The nerve of this man! Kyungsoo huffed, looking at the screen, his eyebrows furrowing. He sighed, knowing that he still needed to clear up this issue.

         I’m going to choose not to answer that last question. I am free today.

         I’d knew you’d come through Hyung! Do you know Cafe Dalssi in Gangnam? I’ll meet you at 3:00pm. I’ll get a booth in the back for us ;) See you there! <3

         Seeing the last text, Kyungsoo knew that the conversation had ended. Cafe Dalssi, of course he knew that place, it was one of his favourite cafes, did Jongin happen to know this already? Kyungsoo looked down at the watch resting on his left wrist, 11:29 am. This gave him quite a few hours to get ready for his day.

         Feeling his stomach grumbled softly, Kyungsoo blushed softly. How can small things like bodily function still make him feel shy? Grumbling at the loss in his cool, Kyungsoo stands up from his chair, heading over to the cupboards below his sink. Crouching down, he opens the cabinet and reaches for the cat food. “Toby~” He calls out, “where are you?~~”

         Upon smelling the food that would only appeal to animals, a large grey cat ran in through the living room into the kitchen. The cat meows affectionately, clearly loved by his owner and vice versa and Kyungsoo smiles. He cracks open the can and sets it carefully onto the floor next to Toby’s hard kiblets and water bowl. Smelling the pleasing salmon, Toby digs into his food and Kyungsoo pets his soft fur. I wonder if Jongin would like Toby...  He laughed, Right, more like would Toby like Jongin…

         But then he stopped laughing, where did that come from? Why would Jongin even meet Toby? Shrugging off the thought, he rose back to his full height and washed his hands in the sink. Walking to his room he grabbed for the laptop on his table and wondered what else he should do before their meeting.

         Little did Kyungsoo know that when he had been scoffing and huffing from Jongin’s texts, the said dancer had been hiding from the screen of his phone behind the human sized plushies on his bed, fanboying and anxiously waiting Kyungsoo’s replies. His eyes curved into half moons as he squealed in delight, the ends of his mouth tugging upwards revealing straight, white teeth.

part one

[cookinguptales]

Okay, so... This post has been a long time coming. Like, long enough that I’ve gone back and forth and made many posts about this over the past week. ahaha. On one hand, I feel bad bringing up things that happened so long ago, and that almost kept me silent for good. It makes me feel grudgey and petty and like I’m abusing my fandom platform. But on the other hand, I’ve had certain things happen lately that have led me to reconsider my stance of silently blocking people who make me uncomfortable in fandom. And god, despite blacklisting and blocking this guy, he’s been showing up on my dash like crazy lately due to screenshots and whitelisting. He’s all over karabita fandom, and at a certain point, I realized that that isn’t just uncomfortable for me seeing him everywhere -- it’s also a bit worrying considering the age of many people in this fandom, who are honestly really young.

Cut for length.

Last spring, I started writing in the karabita fandom, and it led to a lot of firsts for me. I’d never really had many followers on tumblr before, and I almost never got asks before my fic for this fandom started getting popular. So I really wasn’t sure about ask/request etiquette, and I didn’t always lay down the law like I would learn to do so later. Basically, I wanted to be everyone’s friend, I wanted to answer everyone’s @messages and reblogs and asks and IMs, and I didn’t want to say no when I got requests and asks that made me uncomfortable. I also tended to answer asks I had any kind of problem with privately, which is a decision I’ve since come to regret. I learned that answering them publicly may lead to some fandom friction, but it creates a public record of someone’s weirdness towards you.

I’ve definitely gotten some weird asks over the past year. A lot of them have been anonymous, so I never really knew who to avoid. But starting last summer, one person sent me a long string of bizarre asks, and they did it logged in. president-frankenstein. I answered most of these privately bc honestly most of them made me weirded out, frustrated, or kind of creeped out. At least one I found deeply offensive. (And yes, I still have copies of all of these in my inbox.)

There was a strong element of pushing me to do things I didn’t want to do. He approached me asking me to write Totty/Chibita, a pairing I’ve never talked about publicly bc frankly, it’s a very much hated NOTP of mine. I told him this, and he was like “oh, that’s fine!” (Phew!!) And then he asked me to read his Totty/Chibita fic. (What??) And like all these beginning asks were couched in very complimentary, almost obsequious terms (which also made me kind of uncomfortable, but that’s more my own issues) so I was like. “Well, that was weird, but I guess not a big deal.”

Things took a turn for the weirder when the guy sent me a long, detailed prompt (completely unprovoked, requests weren’t open or anything) for a Pacific War AU that included, along with myriad other things, romanticization of Imperial Japanese soldiers, historically inaccurate details that would aid in that romanticization, and romanticization of (non-canon) disability, all things that make me incredibly uncomfortable bordering on offended. (As most of my followers know, I am disabled IRL, and as for the Imperial soldier thing, well, I’d be equally upset to get a request to write a Nazi soldier romanticizing fic. Protip: war crimes aren’t sexy.) I went back and forth on how to answer this weird, unasked for message, especially because I was honestly kind of seeing red about the contents of the prompt. I eventually sent back a polite but very terse message saying that the content made me very uncomfortable and I under no circumstances wanted to write it. And at that point, I basically washed my hands of it and hoped it was over and he’d stop talking to me.

He apologized. And he kept apologizing. Here’s a tip for people who are apologizing: if you apologize and the person you’re apologizing to doesn’t answer you -- but you keep sending messages until you get a reply back? You care about assuaging your own guilt more than the actual comfort of the person you’re apologizing to. And I will tell you, my comfort level dropped from “low” to “basement level”. I honestly never wanted to talk to him again, but I did eventually send him a message like, yes, I got your apology the first time, I just didn’t want to talk to you anymore.

And then the thing happened that switched me from “I do not like a person in fandom” to “holy shit this person creeps me out”. As soon as I told him I didn’t want to respond to his asks, he posted photomanip fanart for a fic of mine plus a multiple paragraph tumblr post fawning over me. There were a lot of red flags in there, and I could probably break it down point by point (and did, when I contacted several friends and showed him all his messages like “am I right to be incredibly weirded out by this guy” bc I still always doubt my gut reaction) but here are the main things that automatically alarmed me.

Publicly implying closeness that did not exist. Referring to me by real name instead of pseud, acting like he knew what I intended for my fics (he was wrong, by the way), talking about how long he’d been a reader (not that long, actually), etc. Huge, huge red flag.

Actually, continuing that second point, the assumption that he knew what was going on inside my head was presumptuous, entitled, and a little creepy. Like he straight up said that he was sure that if had made the fic longer or if I ever continued the fic, I’d definitely include this headcanon of his. (He sent me asks related to this (again, incorrect) headcanon of his later on, and I did not answer them.) Like he just took it as a given that he understood what I really meant when I said things, which is always a bit alarming when someone already doesn’t seem to understand what you’re telling them.

Tagging me in his post and talking about how much he hoped I liked it (I DID NOT) but not actually directing anything in the post towards me. Making sure I saw something but not talking to me. He was just like. Self-admittedly talking to my audience and cutting me out of the loop. He posted it in all the fandom tags. It was weird and offputting and performative. And very, VERY public.

Now, some background and further explanation about why this upset me so much. I have, in the past, been stalked online. And no, these events I’m talking about now never came anywhere near that feeling of unsafety. But guys, this is absolutely something that the guy who ended up stalking me did to me repeatedly, often enough that I finally realized that doing this is manipulative, not complimentary. Here’s the pattern: Be friendly, upset me until I no longer wanted to communicate with him, then make a public gushing announcement about how wonderful he thought I was. This part is complicated. Part of it is bound up in the whole (deeply problematic) trope of “winning a girl’s esteem back through an OTT gesture” that’s popular in movies -- and that I have grown to hate -- and some of it is linked to female socialization. Above all else, be nice. If someone compliments you, even if it makes you uncomfortable, you’re a “bitch” if you don’t acknowledge it and say thank you. When you tell a guy that you don’t want to talk to him and he responds by making a VERY PUBLIC (again, posted to all fandom tags) post full of gushing praise, it is a manipulative move designed to put you in a position where you need to respond. The guy knew I respond to everyone who makes fanworks of my stories (or, uh, at least try to -- I’ve definitely forgotten during busy periods a couple times), and the guy knew that a socially acceptable response to a post like that is public acknowledgment. It’s a way of bribing you into talking to them again (that grand OTT gesture -- whether romantic or, as in this case, platonic -- that makes any girl forgive you) and a way of putting you in a social situation where you have to talk to them again. It’s a shitty thing to do to someone.

And let’s be 100% clear about something. Putting a woman on a pedestal is just another way of dehumanizing her. There comes a time when praise becomes deeply uncomfortable rather than complimentary, and this guy saw that line and fucking pole-vaulted over it.

I went back and forth on how to respond to this. I thought about privately contacting him, which was my usual go-to response when things made me unhappy online. I thought about reblogging it with a simple message to stop contacting me, publicly for once so people would finally know how I felt about all this. (There was a point when people were actually straight up “shipping” me with my stalker (their words), so I knew the dangers of letting the illusion of closeness hang out in public where people who didn’t know our private history would see it.) In the end, I just ignored it and hoped he’d get the fucking picture.

Spoilers: he didn’t. He contacted me several more times, asking for meta and fic again. I answered one ask, out of that sickly guilty feeling I always get when I don’t respond to fandom asks and because it actually was information that I wanted to convey to my followers, and then just...stopped replying to any. Honestly, I wish I hadn’t even replied to that one ask because I fear that it encouraged him. He stopped sending me asks for a little while, but then I started getting anon asks that -- well, obviously I can’t prove anything, but the guy’s asks were always pretty easy to pick out of a crowd, so I had my suspicions. In the end, I was getting stressed out whenever I saw him in fandom (and disagreed with like...100% of his headcanons and fandom thoughts) and I didn’t want to have to worry about if he really was sending me anon messages, so I blocked him. Like the last thing I need is paranoia. I barely ever block people on tumblr, so this was a hard decision for me. But yeah, after several months of weird messages, I blocked him.

Going forward.... idk man. idek what I want. After I blocked him, he couldn’t bother me anymore, so that was good enough for rme. I blacklisted his name, which unfortunately blacklisted a lot of fanworks -- he tends to get his groupie on with other fan creators in the karabita fandom, so he sends asks to people ALL THE TIME and so a lot of fanworks have his name in the post -- and for the most part didn’t see him all that often. But then a whole bunch of things (detailed in other posts) happened in short order and between my realization that resolving my stalker situation privately allowed him to flourish in fandom and the fact that suddenly I could not fucking escape this guy, I started considering going public with my own discomfort. I don’t want anyone else to find themselves in the weird, uncomfortable situation I was in.

At the same time, though, like I said... The guy’s username is in all kinds of fan content posts. After a couple of followers approached me privately to get the story on the guy who was clearly stressing me out, they asked me if I wanted them to stop reblogging posts that contained his asks, especially ones that have screenshots of the asks and therefore can’t be blocked. And part of me really doesn’t want to see those things, but even more of me believes that to be desperately unfair towards the people who make fanworks that just happen to be associated with him. So like. Don’t do that. Please do not make any callout posts or harass anyone involved with this, either. I 100% do not condone fandom dogpiling.

I guess I’ll just tell you the same thing I told the (new) friend that I saw, to my horror, publicly praising the guy who stalked me for years as “a great friend’. You can be friends with whomever you want, but just know the guy’s done creepy shit. It’s possible that p-f is just socially awkward, like many people in fandom, and he just legit did not get that he was freaking me out. (Despite me, at a couple points, telling him I was uncomfortable.) But I’ve learned the hard way that repeatedly forgiving people who are “socially awkward” can land you in situations where you feel unsafe, and that’s never okay.

So I guess now you know?? I’ve gone over the reasons I hesitated to make this post many times in other posts, and I’ll add one more thing. I blocked p-f. Unless he logs out or someone c/ps this for him, he cannot read this, and he cannot directly defend himself. I do worry over that bc it seems unfair. But at the same time, I’ve come to the point where I’m tired of just not talking about it and privately, politely trying to get people to stop when they make me uncomfortable in fandom. Other people deserve to have fun and feel safe in fandom, but so do I! The fic that a guy wants to read, or his feelings of guilt, or his desire to smooth things over and make me like him -- none of those things take precedence over my own sense of safety and comfort while playing around in a hobby, and the fact that he prioritized those things over my clear discomfort is the biggest red flag of all.

Also, I have him blocked for a reason. I will not be looking at or responding to any reply by him, and please do not try to ferry messages between us. I will block you, too, bc I will no longer be able to trust you to respect my boundaries. (Again, that’s something I had to deal with when I finally spoke up about the guy who’d been sending me upwards of 50 messages a day on like 10 different platforms, going to places I liked IRL to find “traces of me”, trying to become friends with my friends so we’d run into each other in social environments, and publicly planning play dates for our future children -- and it tore me to bits when I lost friends that way.)

thank you if you read all this, and I hope you have a good night.

[brajeshupadhyay]

'Bois locker room' case pushes us to examine if — and how — technology is shaping misogynistic attitudes towards sex

In 2016, a clip of the then US presidential candidate Donald Trump went viral. In it, he was heard bragging about forcibly kissing and groping women. Following the cascade of censure, rage and shock across the world, Trump dismissed the swaggering braggadocio as nothing but “locker-room talk”.

The internet exploded with explanations on what this phrase that had now sprung into our living rooms meant. Urban Dictionary defines locker-room talk as “any manner of conversation that polite society dictates be held privately — with small groups of like-minded, similarly gendered peers — due to its sexually charged language, situations or innuendos”.

The term has, since, so seamlessly permeated into our lives that when the “bois locker room” scandal broke out last week, we knew instinctively what it might have entailed even without knowing the details. In December last year, a WhatsApp group made by boys from an IB school in Mumbai came to light. This group, too, was littered with demeaning and denigrating language about girls. The two incidents have, once again, highlighted one question:

What is the place of technology in the universe of patriarchy and rape culture?

We have long been sitting on a powder keg of a deeply misogynistic society that predates social media. Technology may have democratised gender-based violence but has certainly not created it.

“The content of what people are saying is not new. People spoke like this even before the internet,” said filmmaker and writer Paromita Vohra, who created Agents of Ishq, a website that aims to give sex a good name. “Technology and society have a dynamic relationship. Human beings bring all good and bad qualities while using it,” she said.

What we’re seeing enhanced today, is a kind of language that has been the fulcrum of misogynistic media, both in India and abroad, and which is freely available. This is what makes us react with shock and sadness when we see children engage in what we think is unimaginable. “You’re seeing a profanity that is a mixture of misogyny in Indian and western media. We know children can be cruel. We know about bullying and so on. But now, these are dimensions that are dystopic. We need to focus on the violence, not the sexual content in the group chats,” said Vohra.

***

Technology and society have a dynamic relationship. Human beings bring all good and bad qualities while using it, says Paromita Vohra. Image for representation only. AP Photo

Even though technology is not responsible per se for these attitudes, social media platforms do play an insidious role in perpetuating them. Social media websites currently claim that they are nothing but platforms, without control on the content posted by users. But they routinely monitor and delete photos they deem inappropriate. These include photos of fat women, queer people, people with disabilities.

“This only reflects the systemic beliefs of misogyny held by the people in power who make company policies,” said Richa Kaul Padte, author of Cyber Sexy, a book that rethinks pornography.

There is a scene in Sally Rooney’s novel Normal People where Connell, the charming, intelligent high schooler, is sitting with his two buddies, Rob and Eric. Rob whisks out his phone and shows photos of his naked girlfriend to the other two. Eric taps parts of her body on the screen with his fingers. Connell takes one look at the phone and says: “Bit fucked up showing these to people, isn’t it?”

Women recognise in this betrayal a certain kind of violence that curdles any idea of intimacy or consent. This violence is everywhere — on television, in films, on pornography sites.

“Consent is an ongoing conversation that needs to happen. But we are just not talking about it,” said Kaul Padte. “Porn is just one type of media which is being consumed with fewer restrictions. Mainstream porn is teaching young people things that are not representative of sex or consent. But we’re not creating a healthy context in which kids are accessing porn,” she added.

And the context is sex education, an acceptance of the fact that kids will be curious about sexuality and will watch porn. “This doesn’t mean that all of this would ensure that violence against women would not occur. But at least, we will provide a context in which we could hope that it would not occur,” said Kaul Padte.

Dr Avinash De Sousa, a visiting psychiatrist in three Mumbai schools highlighted the importance of this. He said it was imperative to start sex education, which includes cyber bullying, stalking, rational digital usage, as early as classes five and six.

“Thanks to the internet and easy access to information, kids know everything about sexuality at the ages of 10,11 or 12. Children are far ahead in these matters than we were,” said De Sousa.

***

Cyber experts said that cyber crime was a tricky territory, all things considered. “Crime is a product of victim, opportunity and offender. Now the triad has moved online. While the victim and offender dynamics remain the same, the opportunity provided by technology leads to the perception that it is okay to do certain things. Anonymity, end-to-end encryption, safety about a closed group give a false sense of superiority and invincibility. But in reality, you’re leaving breadcrumbs everywhere,” said Brijesh Singh, former cybersecurity head of Maharashtra. “Boundaries get blurred and children often don���t even know they are venturing into cyber-crime,” he added.

But criminal jurisprudence has an abiding, underlying doctrine — ignorantia juris non excusat, or ignorance of the law is not an excuse. Groups such as “bois locker room” then, could be a collective failure of society, of teachers and parents, in not making safe spaces for discussing cyber hygiene or netiquette.

In the absence of these spaces and nebulous boundaries, young victims don’t even know how and whether to report a crime. “In the Delhi case, the girls spoke out. But often, they don’t come forward because there is some amount of shame attached to it. Also, they are afraid that their internet freedoms would be curtailed,” said De Sousa.

These discussions, he said, can be had without intruding upon children’s privacy. “When you give your child a phone, you should at least be aware of what is on it. Parents should sit with their kids and ask them to show the apps that are on their phone, without asking to read the chats or messages.”

Supreme court advocate Khushbu Jain regularly gets cases — many sexual in nature — where conversations or photos shared between friend in private make their way through screenshots to others. She has mediated between kids, in front of their families, police and NGOs where the victim and offender were made to delete things on their phones.

Jain, who specialises in criminal and cyber law, said that the Delhi incident was a wake-up call for bringing about awareness of laws and safety measures around the internet and social media platforms. “Think of it this way,” she said, “From the moment you learn to drive, you have to also learn what happens when you drive wrongly, what the road and traffic safety laws are and what the punishment is when you break the law. This is required at a nascent age,” she said.

Both Singh and Jain highlighted a problem that makes evidence gathering in cyber crime a tardy process. “Companies have privacy policies which stops them from sharing data and content. So, law enforcement doesn’t move in real time. When you examine anything post facto, there are barriers. Stuff is deleted. A pseudonym comes up. Device address are changed and so on,” Singh said. “What has happened is, a country’s sovereignty has become subordinate to the privacy policies of these companies,” he added.

To curtail such incidents, platforms too, need to be held accountable. Jain had another analogy to elucidate this point: Imagine a bar that has served alcohol to those under 21 years of age, she said. “If the police find a bunch of teenagers drinking, who do you think will be arrested?”

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