#as having a specific ED then you’re aware of exactly what you’re doing & at least some of the risks behind it & you’re certainly not going

[bloodycorpz3]

Hello my friend,

I just wanted to stop by based on the nature of your account and send you a bit of much needed love. Your strength and perseverance, even though you shouldn’t have to work so hard, is something beyond admirable. I know that it will have little effect telling you I was in your exact position quite a few years ago and this disorder continues to ruin me, but I figured I’d still leave a little message as I know EXACTLY what you’re going through. Okay, maybe not the exact specifics, but I know the extreme suffering you are going through and that you deserve to be recognized and congratulated. Despite it all, you continue to still exist. The worth you hold is insurmountable and unequivocally important. Give yourself a break for me. Take a moment to reflect on how far you come and get excited for what will come. Despite your struggles, you leave your mark on this world in such a beautiful way. Things will be okay. I can’t promise soon, but I can promise it will. Stay curious about the future. Find something to strive for. Remember everything good about you (and you are not allowed to say there isn’t anything). The fact I am leaving this message means there’s at least one person who knows your presence and will be impacted if you’re gone. I encourage you to get help asap, but it’s okay if you are also not ready. Do your best to stay safe and remember to give yourself a break. You deserve peace of mind and soul. Don’t settle for anything less.

You matter. Your struggles matter. Your story matters. Your suffering matters. You are worthy of getting better and impacting the world even more.

I am rooting for you. I see you. And I know it’s hard, but, though you shouldn’t have to, you will get through this. I’m sending you love and peace.

-Your new friend <3

This is absolutely beautiful, incredibly well written, and a much needed reminder that I am human and not invincible. I, admittedly, am not ready to recover, yet I will take such kind words to heart and try to prioritize my body's heath and go easy. Genuinely, this is a great way of approaching someone struggling with any mental health issues.

---------

This now, is arrogant and reeks of privilege as the writer completely dismisses this is not a choice it is an illness and I am fully aware that my words and my thoughts may trigger someone as they are a real and raw representation of what (my) anorexia looks like and how it impacts me. It upsets you? It makes you feel taken aback? Maybe grossed out in horror? It is my life, and although my words are blunt, imange actually living them.

However, I do support recovery in full, and my apologies(gen) if my writing has upsetted a few yet, I highly recommend that maybe don't go snooping around the very obvious ana/ed tags if you do not wish to see ana/ed content. *gen//like seriously, do not purposely trigger yourself and then get pissy you're triggered. Stay safe, stay smart.*

Like I was saying, stay safe to all my gentle souls out there, drink water, and rest loves. <3

[fingertipsmp3]

Do I have to add ‘thinspo blogs dni’ to my header now. Is that something I have to do

[amorremanet]

WIP Wednesday: “but fools will be fools”

What time is it? ……Time to shove more WIP fic at tumblr.

Today we’ve got modern cultivation AU Wangxian, and they……sure are.

Upfront, this fic’s title comes from a lyric in the classic Harold Arlen song, popularized by the exquisite Judy Garland in her version of A Star Is Born (1954), “The Man That Got Away” (see also: her performance @ Carnegie Hall, Ella Fitzgerald, Jim Bailey in Judy Garland drag on The Ed Sullivan Show, Rufus Wainwright at Carnegie Hall, Rufus Wainwright @ The Hearn (June 2016), Rufus Wainwright @ Capitol Studios, Andrew Rannells @ Broadway Backwards 2014, and—THE MOST ESSENTIAL LISTENING, if you listen to no other version of the song, listen to THIS ONE—Billy Porter performing the song as Pray Tell on Pose).

So, yeah, that’s about where Wangxian are, right now.

Specifically, that’s where Lan Wangji is about everything. They certainly did have an epic falling-out about ten years before this fic takes place—which LWJ alludes to while he’s mostly being In His Feelings—and since then, Wangji has spectacularly Not Moved On Even A Little Bit.

Wei Wuxian hasn’t moved on, either; he’s just been more openly dysfunctional in the process, in ways that have recently landed him in rehab. But he’s trying! And when they reunite (in ways that were absolutely *NOT!!* orchestrated by Nie Huaisang, he has no idea what you’re talking about* 😇), Wei Wuxian feels much more “Here You Come Again” (Dolly Parton) and “Do I Wanna Know?” (Arctic Monkeys) about it all.

*: Nie Huaisang knows exactly what you’re talking about, and his motives are about 5% “wanting his brother-in-law [Xichen] to be less stressed, which makes Da-ge less stressed,” 10% “wanting Lan Wangji to be less………Like This, because it stresses out Da-ge, Er-ge, and San-ge when he is Like This,” 10% “wanting something nice to happen for Wei Wuxian because he’s one of the few people Nie Huaisang can genuinely call a friend and he’s really Been Through It lately,” and 75% “oh, I can’t wait to see how this turns out~”

Last Wangji heard, his fated person yet endures, still alive, though not for lack of trying on his own part. Unfortunately, he commands attention, and even studiously avoiding cultivation society prattle hasn’t let Wangji escape any awareness of his fated person’s copious lost weekends, blackouts that ended with him in San Francisco or Hong Kong or Amsterdam, and two near-death brushes with alcohol poisoning.

Or was it three? Four? Oh, who even knows.

Per Xichen’s latest attempt at engaging his younger brother in gossip—in that process violating another of the many rules that comprise their family’s spiritual practice—Wei Ying has lately tried to help himself, for once, this past summer. Or perhaps his family finally forced him into it. Either way, Xichen seemed hopeful about Wei Ying’s future and Wangji cannot, for the life of him, imagine why. Probably a bunch of talk, whatever he heard about Wei Ying checking into rehab, neither more nor less. These days, the old cultivation clans produce more empty words than anything else.

Same as last night’s boy, incidentally. Slouched against the threshold, he says something about not really being the best hand in a kitchen. (Unfortunate for him, though if past patterns hold true for Wei Ying, his cooking likely remains atrocious enough to make this boy seem gifted—a thought Wangji keeps to himself. Hardly polite to discuss another boy while the one from last night wears out what little remains of his welcome.)

Apparently less than satisfied with Wangji refusing whatever conversational bait he meant to lay, the boy tries implying that he wouldn’t mind a hand, or at least a guide about what goes where, since he’d hate to mess things up. (Hardly worth the bare minimum acknowledgment, because Wangji has no time for offering him a guided tour. A kitchen is a kitchen, scarcely complicated, and Wangji has work to do. The tune he plucks out on his guqin has haunted him since adolescence, sad, and sweet, and longing, and perpetually unfinished. Failing to put it together by midnight will mean failing to satisfy another of this calendar year’s goals. In turn, this will mean that, come Friday, when he sits down with Hayden, his therapist, Wangji must discuss everything he could not accomplish in the past twelve months. So help him, that is one of the last things Wangji wants.…

If pressed, he’d call it a tie between “once more hitting the wall with this piece he can’t give up, despite all obvious evidence that he should” and “Wei Ying darkening his doorstep ever again.”

But as he ignores his increasingly unwanted guest in favor of the strings, Wangji’s fingers feel heavy and stupid, not graceful and skilled from a lifetime of practice. Thick and slow, like he’s shot his hands up full of Novocaine.… It’s hopeless—but honestly, what did he expect? Wangji’s muse for this piece died from exposure to a vapid, desperate frown and an infuriatingly beautiful voice insisting “But I—I’m straight, Lan Zhan! I like girls.”)

[echodrops]

Is there anything you wish your students would do, not do, or get better at? Other than like... Making sure to read their syllabi? Just curious!

1. Please, I am begging you, read the assignment instructions. In fact, read them twice. At least. 

I’m going to tell you a secret: every (decent) professor will tell their students that there is no such thing as stupid questions and to please contact us with any question (please please please). However, the truth is, even though every (decent) professor will politely answer any question a student sends, if the assignment instructions say “Read the poem on page 345 of our textbook and answer the following close reading questions” and then I open my email and see that a student has sent me a message asking “What page is the poem on?” that is, in fact, a stupid question.

After an entire day’s lecture on determining purpose and audience in essay assignments, I recently gave my freshman students an activity that was clearly labelled “Figuring Out Who Your Audience Is.” This activity was a packet that contained the instructions for three different essays, with instructions at the top of each page that clearly stated “Read the assignment guidelines below, and determine who the target audience of this essay might be. Think about demographics--is this essay targeting older people, younger people? People of a certain ethnicity or from a specific location? Describe the intended audience of the essay.” At least five students from the class failed to read the instructions and, instead of describing the audience for each essay... They simply started trying to write three full essays. (Because yes, I definitely wanted you guys to stop in the middle of our unit on audience to write a full op-ed piece about bicycle trails...) 

Read all the instructions on the assignment, please. 

-

2. Be an active participant, not a hapless bystander.

At least a few times a semester, I have a student come to me after an assignment was due and go “I’m sorry I didn’t turn the assignment in. I didn’t know how to do _______ thing, so I didn’t want to turn it in and be wrong” or “I’m sorry I didn’t do the peer review, I couldn’t find my partner’s contact info.”

What? Every time this happens I just thousand-yard stare for a second, because honestly, in what world is not doing anything the correct response to being confused?

If you’re confused, you do need to ask your questions (yes, even if the questions seem dumb). Just doing nothing because you’re confused about something is the absolute worst response. If you don’t know how something works, don’t know how to find something your professor told you to go work on, or don’t know who your group members are for a group project, do not just passively assume the information will be given to you if you wait long enough. 

You need to be a proactive participant in your own education; if you cannot find something your professor told you to go find, you need to ask for help right away. If you don’t know who your group members are, you need to ask for help right away. If you don’t know which pages you’re supposed to be reading that week, you need to go look for that information right away, not two days after the work was due.

Likewise, I also want to specify here that even though (decent) professors will answer the really obvious questions (honestly, a student once asked me “What chapter are we supposed to take notes on for the Chapter Five Notes assignment?”), that doesn’t mean that students are excused from putting in a modicum of effort to try to find out the answers to obvious questions on their own. If you can’t find the pages for an assigned reading, check the obvious places (your LMS such as Canvas, the class syllabus, etc.) first before asking. Re-read the assignment title and instructions before sending in your questions. Check through your emails/LMS announcements for messages from the professor first. 

If you’re confused, please ask questions--but do put in a basic amount of effort to check first and see if your question has already been answered.

-

3. Learn how weighted grades and percentages work and how they will impact you. 

Most classes in college sort assignments into weighted categories. What this means is that even if two assignments are both listed at 100 points, one might actually be worth more if it is a category that is “weighted” more heavily. For example, if there are three categories in a class, one worth 50% of the final grade, and two worth 25% of the final grade, assignments in the 50% category are automatically more important and worth more to your final percentage than assignments in the 25% categories.

Understanding this is important because this is how you get away with not doing everything.

To be honest, as a literature professor, I assure you that I am fully aware that students are not going to do every single reading assigned in my class. When I was a literature student, I didn’t do all the readings either. I’m aware.

But what I do expect, as a professor, is that students think ahead and skip strategically--make sure to do all the assignments in the heavily weighted categories, and if you’re going to miss assignments, make sure they’re the smaller assignments in the lower-weighted categories, which will have less impact on your total final grade.

Often I see students fall behind and then tell me they are working hard to catch up. But what do I see as they’re trying to catch up? They turn in all the little assignments and leave the big assignments missing, which means that inevitably they still struggle to pass the class as a whole.

Pay attention to the weights of grades and assignments in your classes so that you know exactly which ones are going to affect your final grades the most, and make sure to work hardest on those.

There’s plenty more, of course, but I think that’s enough for now.

[comic-book-jawns]

Closure

“Dani? Dani, what’s wrong?”

Jamie cups her cheek. Dani wants to be able to explain, wants to assuage the concern etched all over Jamie’s face. But her mind feels simultaneously like it’s racing and not working at all. All she can do is hyperventilate, which isn’t even her doing, just her body’s automatic response to what she just saw — or more specifically, who she just saw.

She can’t even get a word out, but Jamie seems to understand. She feels Jamie take her hand and squeeze it.

“You’re okay, Dani. You’re with me. Hold on to me, yeah?”

Dani manages to wrap her other hand around Jamie’s upper arm and lean in closer.

“Good, baby. Good job.”

She hears Jamie whisper it as she stares down at the floor, not wanting to see the eyes inevitably turning toward them. It’s pathetic really that she should be a focal point amidst an array of world-renowned paintings, but she gets it. It’s human nature. But that doesn’t make her feel any less uncomfortable.

“You okay to walk?”

Dani jerks her head and then feels Jamie gently pull her along. She keeps her eyes down, trying to focus on Jamie — her warmth, her scent, the callouses on her hand.

When’d they first gotten together, on that fateful night a decade ago now, Jamie had been embarrassed of them, felt the need to apologize.

“I like them.”

Jamie had almost laughed as she’d lain on her back next to Dani, who’d lain on her side facing Jamie, propping her head up with one hand and holding Jamie’s hand on top of the covers with her other.

“Dani - ”

“No, I’m serious. They’re like - ”

“Sandpaper?”

Dani had rolled her eyes.

“They’re like you... They’re... ” She’d sighed. “Grounding.”

In the dark, Dani hadn’t been able to see her blushing, but she’d heard it in her voice.

“Oh.”

*****

“Did ya see her?”

Dani whips her head up. How could Jamie possibly know that? She didn’t even know what... oh, that her.

Jamie had sat her down on the closest stairway she could find. It wasn’t secluded, exactly. But the people passing by aren’t really paying them any mind. And Jamie’s crouched down in front of her, partially blocking her from view and holding her hands.

Dani shakes her head.

“Eddie- ” She sees Jamie’s eyes go wide. “Eddie’s mom. She’s here.”

Jamie opens her mouth but doesn’t seem to know what to say. She nods.

“Okay.” She nods again, processing. “Okay, we’ll leave when ya feel up to it.”

“Jamie... ”

They had a limited amount of time on this vacation in Philadelphia, and today had been specifically designated for the Museum of Art. If they leave now, they won’t be coming back.

“Poppins, what d’ya think I care more about: you or some bloody art?”

Dani laughs, despite herself. It was hard not to when she put it like that. It was hard not to laugh around Jamie, period. And she feels even lighter when she hears Jamie chuckle after a moment.

“Danielle?”

Just like that she feels all of the tension come flooding back to her body. That voice — older, but just as gentle, just as kind. Before she can react further, she feels Jamie squeeze her hands, then watches her stand and turn around.

“She’s okay. Just a little lightheaded. Needs to eat.”

It’s not entirely a lie. They had been planning to take a lunch break sooner than later.

“Oh, here... ”

Dani hears Judy step closer and leans over just enough to see her take something out of her purse. It’s a bag of pretzels, Dani’s favorite childhood snack. It’s coincidental, of course, has to be. But Dani can feel her eyes water ever so slightly. She ducks back behind Jamie as the woman who practically raised her looks back up.

“I know we’re not really supposed to bring food, but — well, everything is just getting so expensive these days.”

She laughs as if she’s making small talk, Dani thinks — as if she’s not trying to feed her former almost daughter-in-law, whom she hasn’t seen since she abruptly disappeared from her life without a word. Dani hears Jamie take the bag.

“Thank you. That’s very kind ah ya.”

“You’re not from around here.”

It’s not said with judgment, Dani notices, more an air of curiosity.

“What gave me away?” Dani smiles as she hears Judy laugh again. Jamie is charming — she, of all people, should know. But she also knows Jamie is fairly shy, especially around strangers. She usually leaves the talking to Dani, but here she is stepping up for her sake. “I’m from England, originally.”

“Oh, how lovely. I am, too, actually.” Dani furrows her eyebrow, unbeknownst to Judy, but Jamie must be wearing a similar expression. “My family, I mean.” She hears Judy chuckle. “I try not to talk about it too much because my husband was Irish.”

“Was?”

The words are out of her mouth before Dani even processes what she’s doing. Jamie turns back to look at her, inadvertently putting her in full view of Judy.

“Danielle?”

She says it more softly this time. Realizing her mistake, Jamie moves in, but Dani puts a hand out. Jamie takes it, helping her up, and she finally comes face-to-face with Judy. Her hair is still brown, clearly dyed; and her face is wrinkled.

But her eyes are unchanged, warm as ever — though Dani had noticed them widen for a moment. But she’s grown accustomed to it. Even people who haven’t know her since childhood don’t expect her to have different colored eyes.

Dani swallows.

“Mr. O’Mara... ”

Judy smiles sadly.

“A few years ago.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Dani hadn’t been as close to him, but he’d always been welcoming. In fact, he’d helped teach her how to drive, readily loaned his car for practice, so she wouldn’t have to wait for the one reserved for her Driver’s Ed class to be free.

Eddie had pushed back, insisting that he was the one who would be driving them around, so what was the point. But Mr. O’Mara had also pushed back, with a laugh. “I will be buying the car, and I want it to remain in one piece, so I think Danielle will be doing the driving.”

Eddie had barely spoken to her for a week after that, so Dani had not been entirely grateful for the support — always worried about keeping Eddie comfortable at her own expense. And she had also been aware that Eddie’s insecurities partially stemmed from his father being hard on him, on all his sons, in a way that he wasn’t on Dani — not that it was an excuse for Eddie’s behavior.

In the end, it was Eddie who drove them around, but Mr. O’Mara had made Dani follow through with the class; and, upon her getting her license, he'd told her she was welcome to drive the car whenever she wanted, even by herself.

Judy’s smile brightened.

“Oh, it’s all right. Thank you, sweetie.”

She goes to reach out, but then hesitates. For a moment, Dani just continues looking at her, taking the moment in, and then she takes a breath and reaches out herself.

And suddenly, it’s as though no time has passed. She’s nine years old again, and Judy is walking her home from ballet class.

Her mother was supposed to pick her up, but she hadn’t showed. Dani had called and an intoxicated Karen had insisted Dani must have told her the wrong day. Crying, Dani had tried to explain that she hadn’t. She’d been attending the weekly class for two months now, and it had always been on Wednesday nights.

Karen had refused to accept that Dani was right or even apologize. She’d told her to walk, which was what Dani usually resorted to. She’d only called because it was raining, and she didn’t have an umbrella or even a jacket. But, out of options, tears still streaming down her face, she’d set off.

Halfway home, hugging herself as she shivered, she’d heard it.

“Danielle?”

She’d looked up to find Judy a little farther down the sidewalk, wearing a jacket and holding an umbrella.

“Hi... Mrs. O’Mara.” She’d said through chattering teeth.

She’d seen her a couple hours ago, having gone home with Eddie after school. She’d offered to drop her off, but Dani had explained that she needed to go home first anyway to get changed and that her mom would be picking her up.

She’d then walked to the rec center from her house, having reminded her mother where she was going when she’d walked out the door. Her mother had responsed with an “uh-huh” that had told Dani she wasn’t really listening, but she’d still held out hope.

Judy had run to her and wrapped her in her jacket, hugging her and rubbing her back and arms to try to warm her up. Then, she’d taken her hand, and they’d set off together. Judy had invited her to come back to her house, but Dani, having not called her to pick her up out of embarrassment, had declined. She’d even told her that she had told her mom the wrong day, that it was her fault.

Dani had been able to tell, even then, that Judy didn’t buy it, but Judy hadn’t pushed back. She’d simply said that if it happened again, she wanted Dani to call her, and she would come get her. Dani had tried to decline, graciously, but Judy had held her ground.

So Dani had promised to do so, smiling shyly, and Judy had offered to at least make her some hot chocolate — Eddie would want it, too, anyway — before walking her to her own home. Dani had agreed. The next week she’d called Judy after her mother was a no-show yet again; and the week after that, Judy had been waiting for her outside when class had let out.

And that was their Wednesday night routine for years, through middle school, anyway. Sometimes Eddie would be with her, and she’d take them out for pizza or ice cream. Sometimes it would just be them, and she would take Dani to go get their nails done; or she would just walk her home, and they would talk. And Dani would smile and laugh and relax, in a way she never could around her own mother.

And even with everything that had happened, all the pain that had come later, Dani feels herself slipping back into it now, just a bit, into that comfort that she’d felt in presence for so long. She doesn’t even realize she’s crying until she feels Judy, still smiling, gently brush her cheeks with her free hand, then lower it back to her side.

Dani turns to Jamie, who’s still holding her other hand. Jamie smiles at her, and even looks rather misty-eyed herself, if a bit in shock too. Dani has a question to ask her, but there’s no subtle way to do it. She’s about to ask Judy if she can talk to Jamie alone for a moment, but then she feels Jamie squeeze her hand. Dani raises her eyebrows, then feels Jamie squeeze her hand again.

Dani smiles herself now. She wants to kiss Jamie so badly, but she settles for squeezing her hand back.

“Oh, this is beautiful.”

Dani turns back to her, and her eyes go wide. She hadn’t thought of which hand she was giving Judy when she’d reached out. But it’s too late now — Judy is lifting her hand to examine the Claddagh ring up close. And then her panic is replaced by anger, at herself. She loves Jamie, and how dare she feel uncomfortable about it.

But that wasn’t it. She’d wanted to tell Judy, but not like this. If she’d just -

“It’s Irish, too, you know.”

Well, the name was rather a dead giveaway. But Dani holds her tongue. She knows Judy is just making conversation. Surely, this was awkward for her to. She did almost marry her...

“Who’s the lucky man?”

Dani feels her heart break as she feels Jamie shift her hand in hers so Jamie’s own ring is facing away from Judy’s. But Dani understands. Jamie isn’t ashamed, either. She hasn’t let go. She’s just giving Dani exactly what she wanted — control over the situation.

Dani takes a deep breath and proceeds her original plan.

“Mrs. - uh, Judy.” Dani clears her throat. “Would you want to join us for lunch?”

*****

“So you go by Dani now?”

“What?” Dani has been so preoccupied planning out how she wants to tell her, her comment doesn’t register at first. “Oh, uh, yes.”

Judy smiles.

“I like it.”

Dani feels herself blush slightly, then feels rather pathetic for Judy’s acceptance of her name meaning that much to her, but...

“And I like her.”

She watches Judy glance over toward the bathroom. Jamie had gotten up a few moments ago as part of the plan Dani had come up with, which she’d relayed to Jamie before they’d left the museum, having asked Judy to go on ahead. They would meet her outside in a moment. She just wanted to freshen up in the bathroom.

She had, in fact, done so while explaining to Jamie that she wanted to tell Judy alone, if that was alright. Nodding, Jamie had suggested she come back to the table in two minutes, either way. Dani had nodded and then started crying as Jamie slid off her ring.

“Jamie!” She hadn’t fully realized what she was asking of her. They’d literally just celebrated their 10-year anniversary a few months ago. “I - ”

Jamie had put the ring in her front jean pocket, then looked up and cupped her face.

“S’alright, Dani. Doesn’t change anythin’. We know, yeah?”

Jamie had smiled softly, then leaned up and kissed her forehead.

Dani is smiling now as Judy turns back to her. This would either makes things easier or even more painful, if she immediately changed her mind once Dani told her. Dani takes a deep breath.

“How long have you two been together?”

She should be relieved, but instead Dani feels all the air being sucked out of her lungs. Of all the scenarios she’d played out in her head over the past half hour, none of them had involved Judy figuring it out on her own.

“I - ”

She feels Judy lay a hand on top of both of hers, which she’d been wringing incessantly for the past thirty seconds.

“I’m sorry about before... for assuming.” Judy laughs awkwardly. “It hadn’t even occurred to me, considering you and - ”

There it was. The person neither of them had yet acknowledged. Dani feels herself starting to get lightheaded again.

“I’m sorry! I - I shouldn’t’ve... ” Judy sighs, closes her eyes briefly, then looks down. “This is like Carson all over again." Dani furrows her brow, not sure what Eddie's younger brother has to do with her and Eddie. But before she can ask, Judy looks back up and presses on. "What I’m trying to say is... I love you, Dan-Dani... and I’m very happy for you... Jamie is a very... a very lucky, uh... woman.”

For a moment, Dani says nothing as she feels her eyes watering once more. And then she completely breaks down.

*****

“Can I ask - ” Judy nods encouragingly. “How - how did you, umm - ”

Judy smiles warmly.

“I’ve never seen you look at anyone the way you think at her.”

“That so?”

Jamie is back with them now, sitting beside Dani in their corner circular booth. Jamie’s arm is wrapped around her shoulders, and Dani is leaning against her, breathing her in. Sitting even just a few inches away from her before had been torture. Dani turns her head to catch Jamie’s smirk.

“And I noticed the tan line on Jamie’s finger.”

“Ah, fuck me!”

Jamie’s left hand has been resting on top of Dani’s on the table. Her ring is back on, so the line is no longer visible, but instinctively, she starts to lift her hand for a closer look. And then she freezes, blushing. She puts her hand back down and clears her throat.

“Sorry.”

Even with her grey hairs — which Dani finds incredibly attractive, as she’d told Jamie when they’d started coming in and Jamie had grown self-conscious — Jamie looks adorably like a schoolchild who’s just been scolded for using a bad word. Dani can’t help but giggle. Jamie looks back at her and smiles sheepishly, blushing even harder.

“Edmund would be happy for you, too.”

Dani feels herself tense up again. Jamie must too because Dani feels her squeeze her shoulder. But this was why she’d wanted to talk to Judy alone. It wasn’t fair to Jamie.

She knew Jamie didn’t feel that way, would never feel that way, but that only made Dani feel more strongly that it was. She needed to protect Jamie from her own selfless — Jamie, who was already trying to ease her nerves. Knowing Jamie wouldn’t leave now, even if she asked her to, Dani turned back to Judy, sighing.

She could go along with it, pretend. But they were past that now. If this undid everything, so be it.

“I’m not sure that’s true.”

“Honey - ”

“You don’t - ” Dani swallows. “You don’t know everything that happened... that night.”

That stops Judy. A bit wide-eyed, she waits for Dani to elaborate. Dani takes a shaky breath and feels Jamie squeeze her shoulder again.

“I wasn’t his fiancée... when he... at the time of his death.”

She feel Jamie massage her shoulder as she watches Judy, who opens and closes her mouth several times, before landing on a response.

“I see.”

Dani doesn’t elaborate further. Jamie, of course, had helped her come to terms with it years ago, not that she hadn’t her moments here and there — on his birthday or even when she’d see a young boy and a young girl playing together — but she’d still known that Jamie was right: it wasn’t her fault, never had been.

Judy is silent for almost a minute, and Dani feels the time has come. She’d accomplished what she’d set out to do, said all she’d needed to say, right? She’d known it might end like this.

But just as she sits up more, preparing to stand, Judy take her free hand.

“Well, that... that doesn’t change anything... You’ve always been like a daughter to me... Dani. And you always will be.”

For what seems like the millionth time that day, Dani feels tears springing to eyes.

“Thank - ” She chokes on the word and clears her throat as she feels a few tears break free. “Thank you.”

She feels both Judy and Jamie squeeze her hands and then sees Judy look over her shoulder.

“And Jamie, too. Welcome to the family.”

Dani feels Jamie tense up and turns to find her gaping at Judy. Then, Jamie looks at her, and Dani sees the corners of her mouth twitch upward, but she’s still wide-eyed and rather pale.

“I’m sorry if I... I didn’t mean to overstep.”

Dani sees panic now creeping onto Jamie’s face. Dani flips their left hands so that hers is on top and squeezes Jamie’s. Then, she turns back to Judy, smiling as she lifts the same hand to wipe her face.

“You didn’t. Jamie is very grateful.” She feels Jamie nod behind her as she places her hand back on top of hers. “As am I.”

Judy smiles, relaxing. For a few moments, they sit in companionable silence, almost silence. Dani is still sniffling a bit.

“Oh, honey. Here.”

Judy grabs a napkin and reaches over. Dani feels Jamie’s hand slip out from under hers.

“I’m sorry.”

Dani hears Jamie’s voice crack as she takes the napkin, and she turns around in alarm, kicking herself as she sees Jamie’s face crumple. She’d miscalculated, assuming Jamie would cry once when they were alone. Jamie rarely let herself get emotional in public. She slips her hand out of Judy’s, takes the napkin out of Jamie’s and turns around more fully.

“It’s okay, Jay.”

Cupping Jamie’s cheek, she lifts the napkin, but then thinks better of it. This is about making Jamie comfortable, not Judy. She puts it back on the table, cups Jamie’s other cheek and closes her eyes as she leans in until their foreheads are touching.

“It’s okay.”

She hears Jamie’s stifle a whimper and feels Jamie bring her right arm, that had been draped across her shoulders, in closer until Jamie’s hand is rubbing the back of her neck. After a few moments, she hears Jamie starting to breath more evenly, then she feels her pull back.

Dani opens her eyes. Jamie looks better but embarrassed. She can feel the heat as she brushes her thumbs across Jamie’s cheeks to wipe away the remaining tears. But it’s Judy who speaks.

“I’m sorry.”

Dani glances back. Judy looks a bit uncomfortable but more out of concern, it seems.

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Dani turns back to Jamie. “My wife doesn’t take compliments well.”

Dani grins as Jamie laughs. It morphs into a cough, and Jamie pulls away, bringing her elbow up to cover her mouth. But when she turns back, letting her arm drop back onto the table, she’s smiling. It’s her crooked smile, and it’s then that Dani decides she can’t wait any longer.

Cupping face again, she kisses her, softly and quickly. Even around someone other than Judy, she wouldn’t really feel comfortable doing more than that, and she knows Jamie wouldn’t either. That’s not their style, and they are still in public.

When she pulls back, she looks Jamie over. She appears to be mostly recovered, and as if reading her mind, Jamie nods, still smiling. Dani smiles back, then turns back to Judy, who, as it turns out, is smiling herself.

Dani feels her smile widen, though she’s not quite sure what to say, what there is left to say. But Judy, apparently, has something in mind.

“Jamie, now that you’re a part of this family, I think I owe you some Dani stories.”

“If that’s all right with Dani.”

Jamie’s arm is back around her shoulders. Dani leans against her once more, squeezes Jamie’s left hand and nods to Judy.

“Has Dani told you about the first grade pageant?”

For a moment even Dani draws a blank, then she feels her cheeks start to burn as she laughs.

“Oh, god.”

“Ya know, I don’t believe she has, Judy.”

Dani hears the smirk in her voice and feels Jamie nestle in closer.

As Judy begins the story of her six-year-old self going completely off book after her class had spent a month learning a choreographed dance, Dani squeezes Jamie’s hand three times. She hears Jamie’s breath catch for a moment, then hears her sigh and feels her squeeze back three times.

[laurelnose]

monster! parasites!

you know how a few days ago i said we weren’t going to talk about monster parasites? that was a fucking lie.

the basis of my monster parasite thoughts are: every organism comes with its own internal ecosystem that goes with them everywhere. it’s like having built-in friends! ergo, when monsters crossed over to the witcher dimension during the Conjunction of Spheres they must have brought many new and delightful parasites with them. you know what fiend manes are full of? MITES. you know what drowners got on their skin? COPEPODS. what can we do with this information? anything we want.

i promise there are no pictures below the cut. i have tried to put warnings on all my sources but click any of the links below at your own risk. warning for internal and external parasites of animals, monsters, humans, and witchers; parasites altering the behavior of their hosts; and probably general body horror. if you read the eating-liver-flukes post that’s probably a decent baseline for how revolting you will find this post. 

also, super obvious bias towards aquatic parasites as referents. my degree is fisheries science not terrestrial ecology so that’s primarily what i’m drawing on even though nearly all of the witcher monsters are terrestrial. there is a TON i’m missing here bc of that bias! specifically i really wish i could talk about how parasites of invasive species often act as co-invaders with their hosts and monsters definitely count as invasive species and would have majorly reshaped ecological interactions on the Continent but i don’t know enough about terrestrial ecosystems to speculate properly. (ETA: while i still think monsters would have majorly reshaped ecological interactions on the Continent, I don’t actually think they’re invasive species anymore!) hopefully you enjoy it anyways!

it is, hilariously, canon that parasites are used for alchemy. according to The Last Wish, the Temple of Melitele’s grotto grows a bunch of different “rare specimens—those which made up the ingredients of a witcher’s medicines and elixirs, magical philters and a sorcerer’s decoctions” and some of those specimens are, uh, “clusters of nematodes.” nematodes being parasitic roundworms. this is really funny because it’s so fucking weird. also everything else in this description is a plant or a fungus and nematodes are definitely animals? i choose to believe the world makes sense and nematodes aren’t plants in the witcherverse. therefore parasites are alchemical ingredients, it’s canon, give me more witchers digging through monster intestines in search of worms and put a nematode colony in the basement of corvo bianco please and thank you

this actually leads right into my personal favorite drowner headcanon (hello yes i’m tumblr user Socks Laurelnose and i am always thinking about drowners)—you know those bits where drowners kind of have red blotches in their skin? those are nematodes, actually, because i said so. the reference is Clavinema mariae, a nematode that infests English sole. the worms are basically harmless but they’re dark red and you can see them through the skin. it freaks people out and makes it hard to sell sole. (IMAGE WARNING: a picture of an infected flatfish. it looks mostly normal but there’s a dark red lesion near the fin.) said lesion is probably a coiled-up Clavinema. sole have so many of these, it’s not even funny (PDF article link, IMAGE WARNING for worms visible underneath skin of flatfishes. relevant images pointing out exactly how many worms on page 5). “but the red parts of drowners could just be flushed from blood”—no. worms. 

okay that was my main specific-parasite-for-specific-monster headcanon (except also succubi probably have a unique species of lice for their hairy legs. but that’s barely even a headcanon, basically all terrestrial vertebrates have a unique species of lice.) i wanted to start with it because i think that everyone should feel free to arbitrarily assign a totally benign but conceptually gross worm to their favorite monsters. why not, yanno? also it probably sets the tone for the rest of this post. 

carrying on: “what monsters might have nematodes, besides drowners,” you may be wondering? probably all of them! all of them are full of nematodes. nematodes are fucking everywhere. allow me to share a deeply unsettling quote from nematologist Nathan Cobb: 

“In short, if all the matter in the universe except the nematodes were swept away, our world would still be dimly recognizable, and if, as disembodied spirits, we could then investigate it, we should find its mountains, hills, vales, rivers, lakes, and oceans represented by a film of nematodes. The location of towns would be decipherable since, for every massing of human beings, there would be a corresponding massing of certain nematodes. Trees would still stand in ghostly rows representing our streets and highways. The location of the various plants and animals would still be decipherable, and, had we sufficient knowledge, in many cases even their species could be determined by an examination of their erstwhile nematode parasites.”

jesus christ! thanks nathan, I hate it. nematodes are usually both benign and microscopic, but we’re talking witchers, we want some parasites we can fuckin get our hands on. sperm whale placentas are sometimes infested with nematodes up to 28 feet long but only a centimeter in diameter (Wikipedia link, no images). like an incredibly awful spaghetti! we don’t really seem to know if this bothers the sperm whales. also, i unfortunately do not know enough about the size of whale organs to tell you how big the placenta is in relation to this worm. the point is: real big monster? REAL BIG NEMATODES.

moving on from nematodes—okay, you know, since i mentioned eating deer liver flukes at the start of this post, let’s just go there. real life flukes max out at about 3 inches long, but hypothetical monster flukes could be much bigger and equally edible if desired. (if you’re wondering what a liver fluke would taste like: the flukes feed on the liver and they have very few organs of their own, so they would taste basically just like liver, just also long and flat like a fruit roll-up. if you’re going there, a witcher should not eat any flatworm live. if they’re digging them out of cockatrice livers or whatnot they should kill them before munching or save to cook later. it would probably be safe to eat one live, but you know that cliche “their tongues battled for dominance”? handling a live flatworm is like a handling very strong and energetic tongue complete with slime, okay, it wouldn’t be nice.)

parasites often need more than one host to complete the life cycle—for instance, Leucochloridium paradoxum (VIDEO WARNING: you may have seen this, it’s the one that makes snail eyes pulsating & green) has a bird stage and a snail stage, and it makes the snails look and act really weird in order to attract the birds. parasites altering host behavior to attract the next host in the life cycle is pretty well-documented; for instance, there’s an eye fluke that can make fish swim near the surface where predators can eat them (New Scientist article link, images of a microscope slide & a normal-looking fish) and a tapeworm that does the same and makes the dark silver fish turn white (JSTOR article, no images). i posit that at least some monsters are accompanied by “ill omens” of animals looking or acting strangely because they become infected with a stage of one of the monster’s parasites—usually, the mechanism is that internal parasites lay eggs that are passed in feces & transmitted that way. witchers who are up on their parasite ecology might be able to identify what monster is hanging around by observing exactly what kind of freaky-looking animals or animal behavior is going on around the area!

(if geralt is involved you may desire to have him explain this totally non-supernatural mechanism for abrupt animal appearance or behavioral changes at excruciating length to the chagrin of all present. or maybe that’s just what i desire. it would be funny okay)

potentially even more hyperspecific application of dual-stage parasites: there’s a dinoflagellate parasite that, when it infects crabs, makes the meat chalky and bitter like aspirin (Smithsonian link, images of healthy crab and microscope slide). geralt hunts down dinner, digs in, and immediately sighs and grabs jaskier’s portion away from him to the poet’s complete bafflement before going to get his swords because judging by the flavor there’s definitely a shishiga nest in this forest. 

like. parasites are one of THE most hyperspecific things in biology. the majority of them have very specific hosts and life cycles, many of them are completely unique to a species, if you think a fictional parasite is too specific to be plausible you’re probably wrong, make it even more specific. “the witcher monster lore is so hyperspecific lol” IT AIN’T TRULY HYPERSPECIFIC UNTIL YOU CAN IDENTIFY EACH MONSTER SPECIES BY ITS UNIQUE PARASITIC LOAD, OKAY.

and, with regards to behavior-affecting parasites, before anyone brings up Cordyceps (Ophiocordyceps, as of 2008): yeah that sure is a thing! if you weren’t aware, just a couple of years ago we found out it actually is not a mind control fungus!! it bypasses the brain entirely and affects the muscles (Arstechnica article, Atlantic article—photos of fuzzy ants and electron microscope pictures of fungi). or as Ed Yong puts it, “The ant ends its life as a prisoner in its own body. Its brain is still in the driver's seat, but the fungus has the wheel.” which is. significantly worse than the brain thing. awesome!! i bet there would absolutely be similar fungal parasites of endrega and arachasae. real Ophiocordyceps still very much does not affect humans, but you know what, if plants can be cursed into becoming archespores and cultivated by mages i see no reason why mages could not also curse endrega fungus to affect humans, just saying

aaaand quickly back to hyperspecificity: monsters in different geographical areas having different abilities because of their symbionts. forktails in vicovaro acquire a bioluminescent symbiont in their diet that forktails in other parts of the continent can’t get, and they can create flashes of light? that’s sure gonna fuck a witcher on Cat up when he comes in the cave expecting a normal forktail. (geographic location affecting bioluminescence is a thing that actually happens in midshipman fish—Wikipedia link, no parasites.) geographically-dependent symbionts can also produce different toxins and such for their hosts! this isn’t exactly a parasitism thing per se (although parasites are also symbionts because ‘symbiosis’ refers to two organisms in close association not two organisms in positive association) but like. it’s cool okay ecology is so cool

writing fic and tired of all these same-old monsters-of-the-week? quick and easy way to spice up either the horror factor or just make the hunt stand out slightly: just add parasites!! i know i’ve read fics where monsters were described with distinguishing old wounds. you can do the same with parasites! i would fucking swoon over a detail like an ancient water hag’s eyes glowing in the dark, one of them marred by a dangling parasite—geralt notes the blind spot and presses his advantage. (Wikipedia link, no images: this one is referencing an aquatic copepod called Ommatokoita.) also, please put barnacles on skelliger drowners, i want it so badly. just—some percentage of monsters should be Extra Grody on the inside and/or the outside, that’s how nature works. spicing up a mundane hunt by making the monster a little extra gross for its species is Valid, is what I’m saying.

also, every single time frozen specimens with obvious fungal/ectoparasite infections come into the lab we absolutely always take extra close-up pictures of those suckers and make sure everyone else gets to see them. witchers bringing field sketches and notes of the weirdest shit they found on the path back for winter. lambert declares they’ll never know if this alleged fiend tumor was a fungus or mange because geralt sucks at drawing. eskel, the man who hauled a katakan corpse all the way up the mountain so he could dissect it, produces actual skin samples of his own encounters for examination, possibly in the middle of dinner. this elicits mixed reactions.

quick detour into preservation, since I went there—witchers are probably immune to parasites that infect humans by virtue of having pretty different biology to begin with, and probably immune to parasitic infections from other sources by virtue of superhumanly boosted immune systems and all the poison they put into their bodies on a regular basis. picking up a monster parasite would probably not be a big deal for witchers, either in that they have total immunity or that they would only be minimally and briefly affected, but the field of monster biology is likely such that they probably just don’t actually know what would happen to them in the majority of cases. this has potential as a source of battle stories and/or stories intended to freak out trainees, i think. therefore, out of caution, a witcher harvesting/preparing parts for alchemy might want to be sure to treat them first. personally i think all monster parts should be preserved immediately anyways to avoid attracting necrophages, and given that alchemical concoctions in witcherverse are alcohol-based, preservation in strong alcohol is probably the best way to maintain potency and kill basically everything. (cons: alcohol is SUPER heavy and jars are fragile. tissues or organs which are thicker than perhaps half an inch or an inch require additional preparation for the alcohol to penetrate properly. other preservation methods are more efficient for travel. depends on how soon your witcher intends to use or offload their stash.)

also, here’s an absolutely wild marine parasite that would make it worth a witcher’s while to make certain everything was dead! pearlfishes are long eel-like fishes that live inside the anus and respiratory organs (which are attached to the anus) of sea cucumbers, and they have pretty nasty teeth (PDF article link, IMAGE WARNING: dissected sea cucumbers literally stuffed to the gills with pearlfish). the highest number of pearlfish discovered in a single sea cucumber was sixteen (ResearchGate article, free PDF; no images). a different fact: we discovered tiger sharks eat each other in the womb because a researcher got bitten by a fetal tiger shark while he was dissecting the mother (NYT link, no images or parasites). what i’m saying is: parasites are often very small relative to the host and usually harmless to things rummaging around inside, but what if the monster’s parasites were also monstrous. give me a monster that has to be very dead or when you start rummaging around for alchemy ingredients the things in its intestines will lunge out and bite you. 

what happens if a human becomes infected with a monster parasite? bad things, probably, i mentioned before that parasites in the wrong host, if they don’t just die, often super fuck things up internally (if you get tapeworms outside of the intestine where they’re supposed to be... it’s not good y’all. CDC link, no images). host-jumping for parasites is actually fairly rare since most of them are highly specialized for their hosts, but it does happen. humans are very not my strong suit so i’m not going to dwell on this but it is entirely possible that something like necrophage infestations or monster-contaminated water sources or just being a little too involved on a witcher’s monster hunt could produce strange parasitic diseases in humans. up to you how well-known and/or how clouded in superstition these effects might be! opportunities for hideous whump? gross body horror? messy and horrifying parasite-driven behavioral changes? terrifying and potentially prolonged uncertainty over what the issue actually is because of minimal information about parasites? the decision whether or not to dose with a witcher potion? excellent possibilities.

okay last one, just because i think it would be fun: myxosporeans and sirens. Myxos are a parasitic relative of jellyfish that produce whirling disease in baby salmon. whirling disease causes neurological and skeletal damage and has a pretty high mortality rate, but it also makes infected fish do this, well, whirling behavior and it’s honestly fascinating. (video link: a pretty normal-looking young trout spinning like a fuckin top). imagine a siren doing that in the sky. i just think myxos are neat!

tl;dr: extra grody hyperspecific biology of monsters!!!

[evesbeve]

Hey there, you said your ask box was open for Justin Min's whole thing? I guess I just slept through the whole thing, honestly - could you just go over a gist of everything that happened? I get that it seems like a PR team didn't know how to use twitter (which, mood) and f-ed things up for him, but what were they "cleaning up" in the first place, who's Anna what did they do that warranted such a bizarre thread from the PR team, etc...? 😳

Hey! Okay so this is going to be a lot, so buckle up.

Right off the bat, I just want to say that Justin isn’t cancelled. The situation has been mostly resolved right now (more on that later).

So around a week ago, Justin Min started deleting his replies to fans. Depending on whether you’re on Twitter or not, you might know that Justin is one of the most interactive people of the cast. He knows a lot of fans by name, he has inside jokes with us, and he just interacts a lot with his fanbase. So you can imagine why him suddenly starting to delete his replies was a bit upsetting. There was nothing we could do about it though.

And suddenly, two days ago, Justin deactivated his account out of nowhere, which caused all kinds of drama to go down.

People started pointing the finger at specific accounts saying it was their fault that Justin deactivated (don’t even get me started on that logic; why a grown-ass adult deactivate because of a few teenagers is above me, it literally made no sense), even sending death threats. Others suspected that he got suspended because Twitter’s algorithm saw all these tweets get deleted and was like “welp, bot time.” Long story short, lots of misinformation was going around.

And then out of the blue, Justin’s account was reactivated, and he made a thread directed at Anna.

Now, who is Anna? Anna is a stan on twitter, whose @ I won’t be sharing for privacy, but here’s how they’re relevant in this:

Remember when I mentioned the inside jokes? Well, one of them was between a fan called Matt and Justin. Matt kept commenting on Justin’s tweets asking him to say trans rights. On the one year anniversary of Matt asking Justin to say trans rights, Justin finally said it. Then, Matt made a poll asking other stans what he should have Justin say next, and lesbian rights won.

Around a month ago, Matt replied to one of Justin’s tweets, and Justin responded with something along the lines of “haha, i know this is just an attempt to get me to say lesbian rights,” referencing the inside joke. People started commenting that the way he phrased it was a bit :/ so then he replied to his own tweet with something like “well, i’ll delete this before i get cancelled,” and that’s when things spiraled.

[id: Justin Min’s tweet #1: i see that you are trying to butter me up to say lesbian rights, nice try, matt. nice try.

Justin Min’s tweet #2: oh, here we go. this is an inside joke between myself and matt, if you’ve been a part o fthis fandom for more than a few weeks. but alas, i will have to delete this now before i’m cancelled by the end of the day. keep loving, everyone.]

Lesbians get spoken over and looked down upon not only by straight people, but also the LGBT community. So when Justin tweeted that, lesbians were like “this sounds as if you care more about your own self image rather than our community.” Then, non-lesbians got involved and started either a) calling Justin lesbophobic (which lesbians never did) or b) blindly defending Justin and saying he did nothing wrong.

(Side note: I am not a lesbian, and I’m not trying to speak over lesbians in this situation. But I did talk about this to some of my friends who are lesbians, and they told me that what Justin did wasn’t as big of a deal as Twitter made it out to be. These are their words, not mine. All I know is that it was definitely not bad-intentioned, just a huge misunderstanding.)

Anyway, Anna made a thread explaining to Justin why him defending himself came out as harmful towards the lesbian community, and then Justin apologised and that was it.

Which brings us back to yesterday (26/9/2020).

Everyone is freaking out, posting misinformation, panicking. I don’t exactly,,, know how, but the #justinminisoverparty hashtag started being used for actual hate towards Justin for deactivating, and some people (including Anna, though I think their tweet was in the context of a joke? please take this with a grain of salt though. update: it was in the context of a joke) mentioned that Justin is a lesbophobe.

A few hours later, Justin reactivated his account, tagged Anna, and said this (though it was actually his PR team, more on that later):

[id: Justin’s Tweet: @ [redacted] quickly jumping back on here from my twt break because i’m receiving messages that you’re continuing to spread misinformation, so i want to clarify.]

[id: Justin’s Tweets: 1. all of my interactions with you were deleted because of the need to set clear boundaries due to the fact that your incessant messages and replies from multiple accounts over the last several months were veering into stalking/harassment.

2. for someone who appears to pride themselves on reminding their friends/followers on a daily basis to be careful of the language they use on this app, you seem to be fine with flippantly labeling someone as homophobic/lesbophobic as if they’re cute little adjectives to give to someone, not realizing that such labels have real-life consequences.]

[id: Justin’s Tweets: 3. also noting here than in your original thread, you stated that you neither considered me nor my words to actually be lesbophobic, so a bit confused as to why your story has suddenly changed.

4. i realize you’re young, so i’m genuinely hoping you use this opportunity to learn and grow andbe a little more mindful the next time you decide to tweet.]

The next twenty minutes were pure chaos. Justin deactivated again, everyone started freaking out because that was very out of character for him. People were cancelling him because this could have easily been resolved in DMs, or tweeted without the mention of Anna (a minor) from a mainstream Twitter account.

And then, Justin Min DMed another fan on Instagram (her name is Em) about the situation.

Who is Em? For starters, I’d like to say that I personally know Em and that she’s one of my best friends. I’ve known her for more than a year now, and I can personally vouch for her. Everything that she posted is 100% true (if you want the thread where she posts proof of the DMs, please send me a different ask because I’m scared tumblr will not post this in the tag if I include it here).

The reason Justin DMed her out of all people is because he also kinda knows her? As I mentioned, Justin interacts with us on Twitter a lot, and Em is the one person he’s responded to the most, so he knows who she is. (He’s tagged her more times than other cast members, at least before all his tweets were deleted by his PR team.)

Anyway, this is what Em tweeted:

[id: Em’s tweets: please read this !!!

justin dmed me on instagram and basically the gist of it is that he hired a pr team and they tweeted the thread at anna without knowing everyone could see it. all of the tweets being deleted/ him deactivating was also them.]

Below is the image Em attached to the tweet:

[id: Justin’s DM to Em: hey. this is justin. i’m just hearing about what’s happening on twitter right now. for context, i was asked to work with a team of people to “clean up” my twitter in the past few weeks. they’ve taken the liberty of deleting a bunch of my responses and posts in order to safeguard me (whatever that means) as well as deactivating my account to comb through other things.i believe they accidentally sent anna a message and mistakenly believed the function for her to comment only would mean that she would be the only one to see it as well. needless to say, i’m no longer working with this team and want to personally apologize to her. do you know any way i can get into contact with her?]

And then, in a follow-up tweet:

[id: Em’s text at Justin: sorry for dming you again. is there any other way i can help? i just feel really bad about this whole thing and i know how quickly this stuff can spread if it’s not taken care of

Justin’s text: i mean, i guess you can share the information i’ve given you? it’ll take a bit of time for me to take back ownership on everything as i sever ties with that team, so maybe the sooner the better people know.

Em’s text: okay ! is it okay if i tweet a screenshot

Justin’s text: sure.]

Then Justin’s account got reactivated an hour ago (almost 24hs after Em’s tweets), and he tweeted this:

[id: Justin’s tweet: hi. it’s me. thank you for all your messages. this has been an incredibly tough week for me on multiple fronts. some things you might already be aware of; many other things you don’t know about.asking for a bit of privacy as i take sometime to unplug. hoping to be back soon.]

And that’s all, I think? There’s lots we don’t know about what happened yet, so please please please try not to spread misinformation. This is a stressful situation for us on Twitter, and especially for Justin, and misinformation going around is the last thing we need right now.

tl;dr: Justin Min hired a PR Team that started deleting all of his tweets and deactivated his account. Misinformation started spreading, people started cancelling Justin for no reason. The PR Team decided to respond to Anna, made the response public, deactivated again. Justin DMed Em and explained the situation, and an hour ago, he reactivated and said he’s taking a small break to sort things out.

If anyone has any other questions/clarifications, my askbox is open! Hope this shed some light on the situation <3

UPDATE 28/9/2020: Justin has DMed and apologised to Anna for the situation, and Anna has accepted the apology. Anna posted all of it on their account, but again, if you want a link, send me an ask!

[liesyousoldme]

9 or 12? (Or both💓)

“I seriously don’t thinkI’ve ever been this hard before, in my life.” & “Touch me.”

 college aged reddie accidental phone sex - continued under the cut

 “Okay, I got 26.4, too, do you want to try it or should I?”

Eddie shrugged, even though Richie couldn’t see it throughthe phone. His laptop was open on his lap, MyMathLab staring back at him on oneof the last problems of the night’s homework.

“I think I did the last wrong one,” Eddie replied. They always took turns entering their answers so if they messed up, only one of them would get it incorrect. It was absolutely saving their math grades.

“Okay, I’ll do it,” Richie said. Eddie waited a moment forRichie to enter their answer and see if they’d gotten the problem correct.After a moment, Richie yelled indignantly. “It’s doing the fucking thing again!It says the correct answer is 26.4, my answer exactly matches, and it’s sayingI got it wrong!”

Eddie sighed. This happened at least twice on each homeworkassignment. Technology was such bullshit. “Let me try.”

The computer told him he got the correct answer. When hetold Richie, he began cursing. Eddie laughed. “Calm down, dude, last one. I’llgo first so you don’t lower any more of your precious score.”

“Don’t make fun of me for wanting good grades, Edward,”Richie said haughtily. “Some of us are trying to keep our scholarships.”

“Some of us?” Eddie asked incredulously. “Both of us are onscholarships, dumbass. And making a B on one homework assignment out of thethirty we have this semester is not going to do much damage. Homework is 10% ofour –“

“Eds, I gotta be honest, I stopped listening,” Richieinterrupted. “Let’s finish so I can go jack off.”

“Richie!” Eddie felt his cheeks heating up. He hated that,hated that even after almost 15 years of friendship Richie could still make himas red as a tomato. It hadn’t always been that way. When they were in theirearly teens, Eddie had mostly felt slight disgust at Richie’s sexual comments. Asmuch as he wanted to, he didn’t see anything appealing about girls or boobs orvaginas and the fact that they seemed to be Richie’s favorite topic was generallyan annoyance.

That had changed when Richie had made his first commentabout fucking Bill’s dad instead of Eddie’s mom, which was how he’d decided to tell his friends he wasbisexual. They’d been 16. Eddie still wasn’t interested in girls, but at leastby that age he knew why. From that point on the blush appeared any time Richiementioned sex, mostly because Eddie had begun to picture what Richie might looklike; he never imagined another person with Richie, more just a blurry blob ofa human (for his own sanity). Unless Richie had specified someone – not so muchEddie’s mom or Bill’s dad, his two favorites, more like one of the Losers orsomeone from school – he managed to keep his fantasizing brain under control with the mental images.But when he did specify someone, Eddie didn’t blush. Didn’t feel the awkwardtingly sensation is his hands, didn’t feel his stomach swoop. He felt that sameannoyance from when he was young.

It became clear quickly that this feeling was jealousy.Because as much as Richie called Eddie cute cute cute and pinched his cheeks,Richie had never made that kind of comment about him. He hated how aware he wasthat he was the only person in the Losers Club that Richie hadn’t joked abouthaving sex with. Which – as much as he tried not to think about it – was stupidbecause he was so far up Richie’s ass in love with him that it wasn’t even funny.He shouldn’t want Richie to joke about having sex with Eddie when Eddieactually wanted to have sex with Richie. But he felt singled out in the worstway. Was he that childish to Richie? Too cute cute cute, too much like a kid? Didhe still imagine Eddie walking around in short shorts and a fanny pack? He knewRichie didn’t actually think he was cute – it was just a bit, like a hundredothers he had, but sometimes he wondered if Richie found him unattractive, tothe point that he wouldn’t even joke about sex with Eddie.

What Eddie hated most was how often he thought about it. Hehated that he knew all of the comments Richie had made to their friends overthe years, hated that he knew which of Richie’s comments would make him blushand which would make him jealous. He wanted to just see Richie as a friend,because then it wouldn’t matter and Eddie’s brain could think about normalthings, like their shared freshman algebra course or remembering which hallwaythe tutoring center was on.

“Did you get 9.8?”

Eddie blinked. As he’d been sitting in silence,contemplating Richie and his sex jokes, Richie had actually been doing theirhomework.

“Uh, yeah,” he said, glancing at his scratch paper.

“Did you even do it?” Richie asked.

“Uh, yeah,” Eddie repeated.

Richie snorted. “What have you been doing the last fiveminutes, watching porn?”

Eddie shut his eyes tightly. How could he have forgotten?The only type of sex joke Richie did direct at him. He cleared his throat. “No,I’m not watching porn.”

Even he could tell he sounded oddly defensive. He wasn’tlying! He wasn’t watching porn!

“That…” Richie paused, laughter in his voice. “That didn’tsound convincing, Eds.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Deflecting?”

“No!” Eddie exclaimed, feeling his cheeks get even hotter.He rested his forehead in his palm.

“Are you sure?” Richie asked, almost sounding… curious. “Becauseyou’re definitely acting like you do when you’re lying. You’re a bad liar andyou should stop trying. Were you seriously watching porn while we’re doing ourhomework?”

“I wasn’t!” Eddie claimed. “You would’ve been able to hearit over the phone!”

Richie paused like he was mulling it over. Eddie pushed hislaptop off his lap, scooting back on his bed until his back was against thewall. When Richie spoke again, he sounded teasing. “So if you weren’t watchingsex then you must have been thinking about it.”

Eddie choked. “I – no! I wasn’t!”

“Oh my god, you were!” Richie crowed. He was laughing andEddie wanted to crawl under his covers and never come back out. “What were youthinkin’ about, then? What gets little Eds going?”

Eddie no longer wanted to crawl under his covers to hide. Hewanted to die. Little Eds. He would die and then he would haunt Richie’s stupidass.

“Why have we never had this conversation before? What kindof best friend am I that I don’t even know what gets my best friend off?”

“The normal kind,” Eddie said, his eyes still squeezed shut.

“No, this is important information. What do you search forwhen you visit PornHub? Do you have a favorite category?”

“Oh my god,” Eddie muttered, wondering if it were possibleto be even more embarrassed than he was right then.

“Do you like just some classic anal? Or are you a kinky guy,going for like, spanking and bondage and shit?”

Eddie was wrong. He could be more embarrassed. Richie continued talking as though Eddie wasn’t melting from the heat that was spreading from his cheeks down his chest.

“Nah, I think you’re a classic kinda guy. I don’t wanna callyou vanilla, Eds, but. Yeah, vanilla. The real question is whether you’re a topor a bottom.”

“I’m going to kill you,” Eddie choked out. He hated the wayhis stomach clenched as Richie spoke. He could still hear the laughter in hisvoice. He’s making fun of you, he reminded his dick.

“No, you’re definitely a bottom,” Richie decided, saying itas though he were absolutely sure. Eddie’s jaw dropped.

“Richie!”

“What? Are you saying you’re not?” Richie asked,incredulous.

“I – I’m not saying anything, asshole!”

Richie laughed. “So that’s a yes, then.”

“This is not a normal conversation,” Eddie stated, sure he’dnever been as red as he was in his life. “Like, is this something you’vethought about? Do you talk to Bill about whether he’s a bottom?”

“No of course not, Bill’s straight,” Richie said, as thoughit were obvious. “But he’d totally be a top.”

Eddie didn’t say anything.

“Is that the kind of guy you’re into, though?” Richie asked,and Eddie had to muffle a gasp. He’s still making fun of you, he told hisdick. “You wanna get fucked by Big Bill?”

“No,” Eddie answered, disgust in his voice. “He’s basicallymy brother, that’s gross.”

“Well if not Bill…” Richie trailed off. Eddie wasn’t surewhere he was going with this, but he didn’t like it. “Maybe Mike’s more yourtype. Or Ben? Do you like ‘em broad and muscular, Eds?”

“Jesus Christ,” Eddie said. “No, I don’t want to fuck them,either.”

“I’m not saying them specifically,” Richie said. “I’m sayingit as a type, you know? So is it? Is that your type? I can picture it.”

Maybe Eddie was already dead, and this was Hell. “Pleasestop picturing me having sex.”

“I – yeah,” Richie conceded, almost sounding embarrassed. Hepicked right up again, though, so Eddie hardly noticed. “Come on, Eds, yougotta help me out here!”

“I really don’t,” Eddie retorted.

“Fine,” Richie said, and Eddie huffed out a breath of relief.“Let’s talk about what I like.”

HE’S STILL MAKING FUN OF YOU, his mind yelled at his dick.

“I mean, I’m mostly a top but I don’t mind bottoming. I likea really nice ass, you know? Pretty eyes and a nice ass, those are myrequirements. I love a real cutie,” Richie said casually.

Eddie’s dick had stopped listening to him entirely. Cutie?Cutie?

“Now you gotta tell me one,” Richie told him. “It’s onlyfair.”

Eddie bit his lip. What was a safe answer? “Tall. I liketall guys.”

“Hmm.” Richie’s voice was curious again. “Muscles?”

“Uh,” Eddie stared up at the ceiling, wondering when thiswas going to end. “No. More – um, you know. Lanky.”

He would swear he heard a sharp intake of breath on theother end of the phone. Oh god. Was that too much? Of course it was, everybodycalled Richie lanky all the time. Beverly was constantly sending him carepackages and telling him to eat more because he was too lanky.

“Do you, uh,” the laughter was gone from Richie’s voice, buthe still sounded conversational. “What about hair? You into blondes? Redheads?”

Eddie knew he couldn’t answer. What was he supposed to say? I like dark hair with curls like a birds nest, Rich, know anyone like that? He turned it around onRichie. “No, it’s your turn. Do you like tall guys?”

Richie took a moment to answer. His tone was serious when he spoke. “No, I like shorter guys.”

Eddie was hardening with each word Richie spoke. Richie was just talking about sex - in a vague way! - and it was already getting him going. This was –this was awful and terrible and wonderful and he wanted it to stop, to end, tokeep going forever.

“Oh,” he answered, wincing at the breathlessness in hisvoice.

“Yeah, uh,” Richie’s voice was lower, Eddie was sure of it.He bit his lip. “I like ‘em smaller, ‘cause then I can – I like to… You know, Ilike – I like a guy under me that I can – uh – like, cover every inch ofhim.”

Eddie pressed the heel of his hand against his dick, bitingback a whine. He could hear the nervousness in Richie’s voice, but there wassomething else, too, something Eddie thought might be lust. He wanted to push,to say something that Richie wouldn’t be able to misinterpret, to make hisfeelings known, but he couldn’t think of what to say. His mouth was dry, hecouldn’t speak even if he knew the right words.

Luckily, Richie had always been the talker. “Do you likethat? ‘Cause you like tall guys, do you like ‘em –“

“Yeah,” Eddie interrupted, knowing how desperate he sounded.He squeezed himself through his shorts. “I like – I want somebody on top of me,you’re right, I’m – I’m a bottom, I want –“

“Fuck,” Richie groaned. Eddie cut himself off with awhimper. Richie sounded even better than he’d imagined. “I seriously don’tthink I’ve been this hard before, in my life.”

“Oh,” Eddie choked out, reaching inside his underwear andsighing when he wrapped his hand around himself. His cock twitched in his handwhen he heard a gasp through the phone. “Are you…”

“Yeah,” Richie answered. “I – fuck, Eds, I want you so bad,I’ve always –“

“Rich,” Eddie whined, squeezing at the base so he wouldn’tcome.

“What about you? You’re touching yourself?”

“Yeah,” he breathed, slowly moving his hand again, looseninghis grip and stroking slowly. “I’m – um, pretending it’s you.”

“Oh my god,” Richie mumbled lowly. “You – you’re thinkin’about my hands?”

“Mhm,” he murmured, beginning to move his hand faster. “Alwaysdo, always wish it was you, always want you to…”

“Want me to what?” Richie asked. Eddie choked on a gasp.

“Touch me,” he answered after a moment.

“Really?” Richie’s voice was awed and breathless.

“Yeah,” he said, thumbing over the head and crying out. “Always,Rich, wanted you so long –“

He listened as Richie began to moan louder, louder, and then a sharp cry before he letout a low sigh. He’d just made his best friend come.

“Oh my god,” Eddie groaned, feeling his stomach tighten ashe stroked himself faster, letting the phone go and holding it to his ear withhis shoulder. He reached down with his free hand and pressed a finger to the skin behindhis balls, coming with a gasp.

He stroked himself through it, hearing Richie’s heavybreathing as he came back down.

“Hold fuck,” Richie muttered when their panting hadsubsided.

“Yeah,” Eddie agreed, glancing down at his now messy shirtwith a frown. Then, unable to help it, he asked, “Did you mean it? When yousaid you – that you always…”

“Of course I did,” he said softly. Eddie opened his mouth toanswer but Richie kept going. “You were my fucking gay awakening, are youkidding?”

“I – what?”

Richie huffed out a laugh. “I’ve been jerking it to you foryears, Eds.”

The blush was back. “Um. Me too.”

“Can’t see why, but I’ll take it,” Richie said. “Not every day somebody hotas fuck admits something like that.”

He blushed even harder. He figured, if Richie kept sayingthings like that, maybe blushing all the time wasn’t so bad after all.

[lilibetts]

the motion of the ocean

(Part 2/3)

Falling in love with Riverdale, Theme 2

The weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day were some of the busiest of the year, so the shifts tended to pile up and their other boss, Hilda, was kind enough to make sure overtime pay was offered. Consequently, those of them who were still there at closing on Friday decided to celebrate with a small staff party in the employee break room: Betty, Jughead, Veronica, Kevin, Reggie, Toni, Cheryl, and Sweet Pea. Bottles of domestic beer mingled with plastic cups of expensive wine that Veronica had supplied and bags of valentine’s candy littered the table, an acknowledgment of today’s holiday.

“The unrealistic part, boys, is that porn has everyone thinking they have to change positions every...thirty...seconds,” Veronica stared down every male around the table over the top of her aubergine cat-eye frames as she imparted that piece of wisdom. “Constantly moving around ruins the buildup, and yet there’s still so much artless thrusting,” she scolded.

You see: it was a truth universally acknowledged that employees at a sex toy warehouse must at one point discuss their sex lives. 

All around the table, there were murmurs from the other women who agreed with Veronica, Betty included. Reggie and Sweet Pea stared around, wide-eyed, absorbing that revelation. She hid a smile as she took a drink of her wine, noting that Jughead was just nodding pensively from his spot across from her, toying with the toothpick between his teeth. That one specific curly lock of black hair had escaped the confines of his beanie, tempting Betty with the urge to tuck it back in herself. Or just yank off the hat.

The rest of their shift after that awkward run-in at the Reject Boxes had been mercifully quiet, with both of them focusing on their individual tasks. If anything, the silence in the Content room had been too thick, their usual friendly conversation not there to dispel the tension. 

“Apparently lots of boys and men haven't heard of 'it's not the size of the boat, it's the motion of the ocean’,” Jughead quipped, sending her mind into overdrive. Betty imagined herself straddling him in the chair, skirt bunched up by his hands and her underwear clinging to one knee, canting her hips in rhythm with the movement of his while he murmured encouraging words into her ear.

“Exactly!” Veronica chimed. 

From across the table, Cheryl snorted, bursting Betty’s little fantasy bubble. “Obviously...unless you’re Kevin, who’s a self-proclaimed size queen.” Hoots and hollers followed, and Kevin good-naturedly took the ribbing and accepted the air-kiss Cheryl blew him.

“Whoa dude,” interjected Reggie, assessing Kevin with a curious glint in his eyes. “Have you given my boy Colt a try?” He jerked his thumb over at two of the massive dildos in their plastic encasing, innocuously on top of the communal fridge. All eyes widened as they turned back to Kevin, who scoffed.

“No thanks, I’ve watched the amateur videos, and those were traumatizing enough for me. And besides, why are we picking on me when we should be picking on Betty?”

Betty flushed as seven heads swiveled over to her. Kevin had thrown her under the bus and Veronica wasted no time pouncing. “Yes, because there is a mystery afoot in this employee break room, and it’s why Betty Cooper gave up on The Year of Horny Betty, in February, after two measly dates.”

Sweet Pea, who had been balancing on the back legs of his chair, winked at her. “The Year of Horny Betty? I could stand to hear more about tha—whoa, fuck!” Someone (presumably Jughead) kicked at his chair from under the table, forcing him to bring it down with a loud thud. 

Betty, however, was too busy glaring daggers at Veronica for having the temerity to bring up The Year of Horny Betty while Jughead was present. Chancing a glance over at him, she was surprised by the heat in his stare. For a moment, it was almost like they were the only people in the room. 

“Spill!” Reggie slapped the table, starting a chant with Toni and Kevin, the traitor. “Spill, spill!”

“Fine,” she told them, “if you must know, those two dates were just too…” she shuddered, making a face. “The first guy was a snob who wouldn’t shut up about all the expensive things he owned, the prestige clubs he had membership in, and I swear sometimes when he looked at me he was fantasizing about wearing my skin or something. The second guy was boring as hell and kissed like a wet vacuum.” 

That got her a series of sympathetic grimaces.

“FYI, before this, she hadn’t been on any dates nor had any sex since she broke up with her high school sweetheart Ethan before graduation,” Veronica explained. To Betty, she said cajolingly, “B, don’t you miss partner-assisted orgasms?”

“I wish I could, but Ethan never even made me come,” she murmured before knocking back the rest of the wine in her cup as a chaser.

“WHAT?” Veronica, Kevin, Cheryl, and Sweet Pea shouted.

“That’s just wrong.” Reggie shook his head.

"Not even during oral?" Toni asked. At Betty's meaningful stare, she muttered, "Shit, I make sure women come when I go down on them, it's like the number one rule." Cheryl turned to give the pink-haired woman an assessing look.

“At all?” Veronica asked, brows furrowed as she tried to understand that concept.

Betty shrugged. “Me rubbing my clit while doing all the work on top of him doesn’t count.”

It felt good to finally admit it out loud; it felt even better when her confession led to a varied and in-depth discussion about the struggle for honesty with sexual partners. All the while, she sat there, feeling warm all over, either from the wine or Jughead’s attention, interjecting with her opinion from time to time and generally participating in a debate about sex in a way she hadn’t thought she could.

Come six o’clock, when the alcohol wound down and several of her coworkers begged off, citing a need to go grab dinner, Betty felt light. She donned her coat and shouldered her tote, heavy with the naughty goodies she’d helped herself to, and waved the others goodbye as she started the trek to her college.

“Betty.”

Spinning around, she saw Jughead hurrying to catch up to her. “Hey, Jug.”

“Mind if I walk with you the rest of the way?” She knew he was at Jonathan Edwards, which was slightly closer than Grace Hopper, her residential college.

“Sure.”

They walked in silence at first, but Betty could tell Jughead was on the verge of saying something. She decided to be patient.

“So, I’m a virgin” probably wasn’t the last thing she expected to come out of his mouth, but she was shocked nonetheless. 

“Okay,” she said hesitatingly. 

“I just want to be upfront,” Jughead told her, looking nervous but determined. “Our conversation at the afterparty got me thinking and...I have a proposition for you, Betty Cooper.” At her intrigued eyebrow raise, he continued, “The last thing I want is to come off as a creeper, so feel free to say no and I’ll forget all about this, no questions asked and no umbrage taken.”

“Ominous, but go on.”

“Since sex, good sex, can benefit from continual communication, I was thinking I could help you resurrect your New Year’s Resolution.”

“The Year of Horny Betty, you mean,” she said dryly.

Jughead grinned mischievously. “Well, you came up with a very clever plan title there, it deserves to be seen all the way through to completion.”  She didn’t need to ask to know he meant orgasms. “And I’m aware that porn has been the gateway Sex Ed for many, but I’ve taken advantage of some of the many instructional videos the store has which I theorize would be more useful in application.”

He made it sound like Betty would be testing out a hypothesis. Her mind flashed back to the dvd he’d chosen out of the Friday Reject Boxes.

“So…” she dragged out the vowel, “I’d be doing it for the science?” she teased.

“It’s a noble pursuit, just ask Masters and Johnson,” argued Jughead.

Betty really wanted to have sex with Jughead, that wasn’t in question. Lots of sex. A big part of her was jumping at the opportunity he was offering her.

“And what do you get out of it? You want me to...god, I can’t even say it...pop your cherry?” When it came to Ethan, she had been a virgin the first time they had sex, but her ex wasn’t. 

“Cash in my v-card?”  he grinned. “I rather like ‘making my sexual debut’, though.”

“Virginity is a social construct anyways, but...me? Are you sure?”

Jughead stopped right there in the middle of the sidewalk and earnestly told her face-to-face, “You asked me what I’d get out of it. The answer is you, Betty. Satisfying you.”

That was quite possibly the most romantic and erotic thing anyone had ever said to her.

“Okay,” she said, a little breathlessly. “So...your room or mine?”

Jughead had the grace to look a little abashed. “I was hoping we could at least eat dinner first.”

[josephsaturn]

Danganronpa Trial 6/Epilogue thoughts

Here’s the ending! I really enjoyed this game, And’ll prob give a full review sometime later, but which game should I play next, dr2 or dr:udg?

Either way:

That’s a lotta ultimates

Nice of Komatsuzaki to shade kyoko’s patootie so we can’t see her unmentionables

Girl you should be more worried about slipping than me with those heels

Hm that’s a kinda sad backstory

My opinions on u don’t change, but I have some respect for ya

Hm

Dang Kyoko way to sell that

Bear jokes? Who are you, Teddie?

Oh dang…it really is a final showdown

Dang, she never broke a rule, eh?

Why u mentioning Junko now?

Yay! My friends! And Byakuya!

Harsh…

Miss Cleo? Am I missing something?

Ok miss pot is there anything else you wanna call black or just the kettle

I am once again asking toko fukawa to please cease

Aw hina don’t say that!

You’re more useful than Hiro at least

Honestly I can see some ship tease between our boring hope man and milk-bag swimmer girl

Ok, let’s go!

Ruins?! Hey what’s this?!

Nice swanky bathroom they have

The headmaster’s room, huh

Also quite swanky

A hidden room? We’ve reached levels of swank I don’t think exist yet

Aww his password for the computer is her name!

So sweet if u don’t remember he left her in the care of the extended family

Oh, a box?

HOLY SHIT

Aww, what a cute picture

Game are you trying to give me a seizure?

Hello eye of Horus, what are you doing here?

Oh dang, that’s mukuro?

A whole Monokuma room? Really?

Why would you not check the hatch, Makoto

CHECK THE HATCH

THE HATCHHHH

WHAT DID YOU THINK WAS IN THERE???

Is this a bio lab or a morgue?

There are 16 fridges…

Girl you have the spine of a sea cucumber, of course people won’t accept you

Aw dang, I thought it was trial time…

Strange…hiro

A photo?

It sure is nice, though

Are you not even gonna consider that Junko’s face is blocked?

I stILL can’t go in there?

Come ON!

Why’s everyone avoiding me?

At least Jill isn’t

Wow! That doesn’t sound foreshadowy at all, Jill!

Ooh a cd!

Wait…interviews? For what purpose?

Staying here forever?? Why tho??

Ok is it actually trial time????

WOOOO HOOOOO

TRIAL TIME TRIAL TIME TRIAL TIME TRIAL TIME TRIAL TIME TRIAL TIME TRIAL TIME TRIAL TIME!!!!!!

Why’s everyone so mean-looking??

If byakuya’s team dad then Kyoko’s team mom

They’re both just disappointed

The localization team really had a lot of fun didn’t they?…

Too many deepers, Mako

Very…Spartan

Even Byakuya’s too disgusted for words

Holy…girl needs some moisturizer

Y’all are just now realizing it’s Junko??

Heh, Xanadu

That was a p. Cool ending frame for the closing argument

Smoke?

Ope there she is

What’s with the robo voice?

At least the game is self-aware enough to point out that the twin reveal is kinda dumb

Woah she changed

Maybe the last name thing is that Junko’s using a moniker

GAH again??

Dang a complete verbal cutdown

jeEEZ

again??? Why tho???

How could u expect that Kiri?

Geez

I find that hard to believe, Junko

“Always filled with despair,”????????

How many personas does this girl have

My thoughts exactly Hiro

That’s a bit of a stretch, Junko

Also it seems like she repeated the words Togami said in his first FTE

Her Monokuma voice is kinda nice

At least she’s cordial

A theme?

She seemed so fake when congratulating me for the second time

Ok I’ll admit this is pretty cool

Crazy Eddie??? Whomst???

Wuh-oh

Wow, that foreshadowing was important

hAH

that’s the name?

Hah, the secretary

Ooh, a fourth-wall break!

That’s…kinda sad…

2 full YEARS?

I know that amnesia is a weird thing…but that specific???

She loves us????

???????????????

What even happened during the tragedy?

Yeah it is a lil hard to believe

That’s a pretty cool splash art

Wait but when Sakura…that doesn’t make sense

That’s hypocritical of you, since u forced your despair-filled view on everyone

…sHiT

I mean she HAS a point…but still

Chunsoft really saying “fuck ur ‘abused Junko’ headcanons, she she just don’t care”

HAH

Schrödinger’s cat is very apt rn

Pfft

Ooh a new voice clip

Liar💖💖💖💖

Oh, the main theme!!

Cool!!

So he’s the…Ultimate Hope?

Didn’t expact that, eh?

A callback to Leon? In MY trial 6?

Not gonna lie…I almost died in that last BTB

Has Junko’s face always been on there?

Dang she really is crazy

First and last colossal despair?

I would say I want what she’s smoking…but I’m kinda scared to even think abt what that is

Whoa those some crazy eyes

There she is

What?

She’s going through EVERY PUNISHMENT?!

How is she surviving all of these?!

And in the end…crushed to death, but not before having a small spot of hope

(I’m putting the epilogue here as well)

Are you sure it isn’t just the lack of air, mako?

Toko. CEASE.

It took 2 hours to do that trial…

Here we go!

Aw, it just ends?!

Who’s kujira?

At least the ED is nice

WHA?!

HE’S STILL ALIVE????!

I got an eestur egggg

That’s the end, huh?

SEE YALL IN THE NEXT GAME!!

[sailorbellewrites]

Fools Rush In... VIII

characters — yoongi x reader (ft. members of bts and other original characters)

summary — min yoongi, music executive and perpetual bachelor, marries a las vegas stripper he’s only known for six months. chaos ensues.

inspiration —  fools rush in (1997 rom-com starring salma hayek and matthew perry)

information — a drabble series loosely based on the 1997 movie fools rush in. drabbles not posted in any linear order and written as a creative writing outlet. 

warnings — mentions of sex work; age-difference; light sugar daddy themes; smut; light angst (specifically in parts V & VI).

I - II - III - IV - V - VI - VII - VIII - IX - X - XI

VIII — latte (ft. various original characters)

You fucked up.

Or at least, you had made a very big mistake in coming to Kim Hana’s Sunday brunch. It was your first time at her biweekly event and you already wanted to go home. All of the women there were older, faces tight with botox and fillers as they ooh-ed and ahh-ed at one woman’s jewelry and another’s purse. They made surface level comments about politics and fashion and so-and-so’s son who was seen walking around Apgujeong with you-know-who’s daughter. It was mind numbing, but Hana ate it up in a way you didn’t fully understand. Yet, you couldn’t let yourself text Yoongi, couldn’t bear to see the disappointment on his face at you wanting to ditch. He had been doing so much for you recently, so adamant that he had to be sure he didn’t make a mistake in convincing you to marry him. There was nothing you could say to make him believe that you would follow him into an active volcano if he wanted. So you had to at least try.

Still, it’s hard to keep up the facade of a dutiful wife when Kim Hana yells out, “Oh, you’re finally here! I was thinking you’d never arrive! Please, come over. I have someone I want you to meet,” into your ear. The woman who just walked into the private area, lithe and pale with long dark hair, freezes briefly, seemingly unaccustomed to being spoken to so directly. She recovers quickly though, throwing on a blinding white smile as she saunters over to where you and Hana sit at the head of the table.

“Hello, Kim Hana. It’s nice to see you again,” the woman offers, bowing deeply to Hana as though they were worlds apart in the hierarchy that was this brunch.

“A pleasure to see you too. Choi Mina, might I introduce you to our friend Min Yoongi’s new wife? She’s such a doll,” Hana says, tone light despite the suggestiveness of her words. She would have been a great stripper in another life, with her ability to placate people even as she was readying for attack. 

“Oh,” Mina responds quietly, eyes trained on your seated form in a way that you were more than used to. Every woman Hana introduced to you had looked at you in the same exact way. She was sizing you up. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” you say, bowing your head to her slightly.

“I know this can be a bit strange, seeing as you two have been with the same man. But I actually think you guys have a lot in common and would be great friends,” Hana explains, eyes bright with an excitement that you suspect is rooted in her innate desire to make everyone else feel inferior. You end up glaring at Hana due to her words—of course, she’d find a way to bring you around one of Yoongi’s exes. With this new information, the weight of Mina’s stare increases. You hate it. “Ah, you should sit near us. There is so much to discuss.”

As it turns out, there isn’t much to discuss. You didn’t have a lot in common with Yoongi’s ex outside of you both being “dancers”. In fact, it’s hard to see what he would have seen in a professional ballerina who spent half of the year performing in Europe. She speaks in a soft voice, laughter ringing out like windchimes at every joke that was not so secretly told at your expense and she moves so gracefully that even the act of her chewing makes you feel like a slob. She has the type of polish Yoongi often said made him uncomfortable. But, as the conversation progresses, you find it hard to see what Yoongi has seen in you. It is made all too clear that women like Choi Mina and Kim Hana were the expectation for men with money and influence. You weren’t even good enough to qualify as an exception to the rule.

Your resolve weakens. You text Yoongi. Right as you put your phone down, Mina asks, “Your marriage to our Yoongi must have been recent right? I wasn’t even aware that he was dating someone.” A few women murmur in agreement at her observation.

You roll your eyes when she refers to him as “our Yoongi” and shrug. Hana answers for you, “He wasn’t dating someone last year! They rushed right to the altar. It’s incredible. They didn’t even have a wedding here. They got married in America!”

“Oh?” Mina says, a perfect act of curiosity. “Well, how long did you two date?”

Your phone lets out a long vibration as Yoongi’s picture flashes across the screen. Hana again answers for you, excitedly saying, “Only six months! Can you believe it? Namjoon and I didn’t even know he was dating anyone. He must have felt like he had something to hide, though I don’t know why.”

You pick up the phone, only to be greeted by his exasperated tone asking, “Which ex is there exactly?” 

The women continue talking about your relationship as though you aren’t there, but Kim Hana’s continued glances towards you lets you know that she is listening. Instead of answering his question outright, you say, “Hi honey,” in a voice far too sweet to be subtle. 

Yoongi sighs on the end of the line.“Is it the politician's daughter?” 

“Oh no, I’m having a great time! You don’t have to worry,” you respond, hoping he picks up on what you’re trying to say. You can hear a womea say how happy she is that Yoongi is finally sharing you with the world the way he used to in his other relationships.

“Okay… or is the ballerina?”

“Yes, that’s alright,” you answer, patience wearing thin.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” he responds, sounding sad. You feel sad too. You fucked up again.

The ten minutes pass by slowly and in that time, you learn several things. Yoongi and Choi Mina had been considering marriage before they broke up. They dated on and off for three years. It had been a rough breakup. Jimin did not like her. Namjoon did. Mina is now engaged to a professor in Nice. She will always have love Yoongi and hopes that he is happy with you. That last part sounds like a lie. 

The ‘I’m outside’ text you receive feels like someone just handed you a tank of oxygen. You take a deep breath, keeping calm as you explain to the women that your husband had to pick you up early due to another appointment. The excuse seems to appease most of them, though Mina insists that she walk you outside so she can say hello to her “dear old Yoongi.”

Your husband sits behind the wheel of his car, paying no attention to his surroundings as he taps away on his cell phone. You feel tension melt from your shoulders as you open the passenger door, sliding inside even though he doesn’t acknowledge your presence. Mina helps you close your door, sticking her face in the open window to say, “Hello Min Yoongi!”

“Hi Choi Mina,” he murmurs, not looking up from his phone. 

She is undeterred. “It’s been quite a while since we have seen each other.”

“It has,” he answers, before cussing softly under his breath and angrily throwing the phone in the empty cup. Mina’s eyes widen at his actions, making you giggle. You knew Yoongi wasn’t really angry, just irritated—nothing that would cause the concern the ballerina was showing.

“I just wanted to tell you that your wife is lovely. Truly, we all couldn’t take our eyes off her. You really picked a winner,” she states diplomatically, playing her part well. 

Yoongi finally looks up at her, eyes bored as he moves to rest a hand on your thigh. “You really think so? I think she’s kind of awful,” he says darkly, though the pads of his fingers rub small circles onto the skin of your thigh. You try to scoff at his words, but it transforms into a quiet laugh. “She’s cute enough I guess, but I wouldn’t call her lovely. I mean she’s not a ballet dancer or anything. Just a stripper. And she spends all my money, too. I don’t even think we would be together if I was broke.” The ballerina’s mouth drops open in shock at his words and you press your lips together hard to stop from laughing. After three years of dating and so much supposed love between them, she should have been able to tell when Yoongi was joking; but it was clear she had no idea. 

“Min Yoongi, that’s no way to talk about the woman you married! If you are having a bad day, you do not take it out on others,” she chides, turning her head to you finally. “I’m so sorry he is being this way with you. I hope his actions don’t stop you from coming to the next brunch and that he cleans up this act!” Mina bows her head to you slightly before turning swiftly and heading back inside the restaurant.

You let out a deep sigh and Yoongi squeezes your thigh gently. “Thanks for playing along,” he tells you sincerely. You shrug, but he continues, “Not just with Mina, you know. I mean with this whole… thing.”

“It was just brunch. No need to thank me.”

“It was a brunch with my ex present. That’s just… not right.”

“Yoongi, it’s okay. You wanted me to go, so I went. I’m just sorry that I made you pick me up early.” 

He clicks his tongue at you in disbelief, removing his hand from your thigh to put the car in drive and pull away from the curb. He is silent for a few minutes, leading you to believe that he has accepted your lies until he says, “I didn’t want you to go. Namjoon suggested it. I knew you wouldn’t have a good time, but he insisted that you might make some friends.” 

You hum quietly at his words, wondering if that’s who he was texting when you first got in the car. “So you’re not mad that I left early?”

He shakes his head. “I’m surprised you didn’t ask to leave earlier. I was waiting for you to call for hours.”

Your heart swells at his admission. He knows you well. “Yoongi?”

“Yes?”

“I love you.” He nods in acknowledgement of your words, but says nothing. You try again. “You make me happy.” He reaches a hand over the center console to grab your own, a small smirk resting on his lips as he continues to stare ahead. “I’m happy I’m here with you.” 

“I love you, too,” he finally responds. You know he believes you. 

[ohmightydevviepuu]

our little life (rounded with a sleep) / chapter 3

our little life (rounded with a sleep) chapter three

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful detective. She had blonde hair, green eyes, no family, and she was good at finding people; in fact, she proclaimed this on her office door. “Swan and Humbert,” it said. “Private investigations, missing persons, and bail bonds.”

Only lately, she's been thinking that maybe it should say "Emma Swan: Loner, Loser, Complicated wreck."

Her partner's been killed on a case after she made a deal with her landlord to find what had been taken from him. But when she tracks a possible perp to a bar on the outskirts of town, Emma will find out exactly how deep the rabbit hole goes.

--

always, always, always because of @thisonesatellite​​ and @profdanglaisstuff​ thank you AGAIN to the amazing team at @captainswanbigbang​

cw: canonical character death rating: T/M (implied violence, language) AO3 chapter one | chapter two | chapter three

chapter summary:   Emma’s tracked down her suspect but then he looks into her eyes like he can see her, like he recognizes her--

And it’s a big fucking problem. She doesn’t trust him.  They are not a team.  No matter what he says or how blue his eyes are when he reads her like an open book.

--

“I’m sorry if I’ve kept you waiting,” James Hook said. “A woman such as yourself deserves my full and prompt attention.”

His voice was familiar; exactly as she had heard it in her dream down to the cadence of his accent.

“Does that line ever work?” Emma asked.

His eyes twinkled with appreciation. “I,” he said seriously, “will let you know, yeah?”

He was wearing eyeliner, kohl smudged around his eyes. Blue button-up shirt--partially undone, matched his eyes, would look even better on the floor--buttoned waistcoat, jeans that showed off his--

Fuck.

Emma needed a drink before she ended up like one of the co-eds.

“MacCutcheon,” she said simply.

“How do you like it?”

“In a glass,” she said, raising an eyebrow.

“Tough lass,” he said with a laugh, pouring her a shot.

“Yeah, well,” she said, picking up the shot glass and downing it in one. The condensation left a ring on the cocktail napkin. “It’s been a long day, and I’m thirsty.” She looked around, taking in more of the place--anything to look at instead of staring at Hook and his partially-unbuttoned shirt. “What’s with all of the swords?” Emma asked, gesturing at a wall covered in weapons.

The Rabbit Hole fell on the upside of ‘dive’, but only just barely. Maybe it was the Edison bulbs. The soft yellow glow gave everything a patina of ‘vintage’ instead of ‘grimey’. 

“And what are those, boat hooks?”

“Aye,” he said.

“What are you, some kind of sailor?”

“In another life,” he said, the fake grin stretching across his face, “I served in the Royal Navy.”

“You’ve practically got an armory in here,” she said.

“That’s the idea,” he agreed.

“You don’t seem like the type of guy to collect old-fashioned weapons.”

“Aye,” he said again, the eyes twinkling--again. “I collect blondes from bottles, too.”

Emma was a natural blonde--probably another legacy from one of her parents. She returned his gaze and said only, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

There it was: the real smile. “Perhaps,” he said. “Perhaps I would. James Hook.” He held out his right hand to her, and Emma shook it, which was when she noticed that he only had the one.

“I know who you are,” she said.

“Ah,” he said. “So you’ve heard of me? Well, it’s always nice to leave an impression.”

“Oh,” Emma said. “You have. You’re handsome, and charming--”

“Do go on,” Hook said, shifting his weight against the back counter.

“The kind of guy who--now, stop me if I’ve got this wrong--steals a man’s wife and leaves a boy motherless, then keeps up the grudge by breaking into his home and stealing from him again.” Emma watched him during her recitation. This was her favorite part: skips always broke down when the hot piece of ass they’d been planning on nailing turned the tables and cuffed them.

Not in the fun way, either.

But Hook just looked at her, stepping forward again and bracing his elbow against the bar, his chin in his hand. His fingers curled against his upper lip, his eyes were wide and innocent, and the fake grin had returned; the change was so smoothly done it was--almost--imperceptible.

“Sounds like a lovely tale,” he said. “But I’m going to wager the truth is rather more gruesome.”

Emma was calm. She was focused. And he was not lying.

“Besides,” Hook said evenly, “I’m going to need you to be a mite more specific in your accusations; you see, I’ve had many a man’s wife.”

“And I need you,” Emma said, matching his tone, “to return what you’ve stolen.”

His smile--the fake smile--faltered. Just for a second. “Tell me something, love,” Hook said, leaning into her personal space, his eyes never leaving hers, “If a woman comes to you and begs you to take her away, is that theft?” He ran his tongue over his lower lip and winked at her.

“But--why would she leave him?” Emma asked before she could stop herself. The son, they had a son--

What were they even talking about?

“Because he was a coward,” Hook said easily. “Because she loved me.”

Emma pulled herself away from his gaze. Whatever was going on here--he wasn’t lying.

“So, lass,” he said, “you know who I am, but you won’t even tell me your name?”

“What fun would that be?” Emma said.

“If you’re helping Rump--Gold,” Hook said, with particular emphasis on the name, “I’m afraid you’re fighting for a lost cause.”

“I’m not fighting for anything,” Emma said, “except for my fee. Tell me what you know about Graham Humbert’s death.” She grabbed his wrist. “And I’m gonna let you in on a little secret--I’m pretty good at knowing when someone is lying to me.”

“He came in here the other evening, on the hunt,” Hook said, biting down hard on the ‘t’. “He often did. It’s rather a target-rich environment, as you can see.” He gestured at the crowded room and leered. “That’s the last time I saw him.”

Emma smiled, the kind that showed no teeth, that was small and controlled, and tightened her grip on his wrist. With her other hand, she pulled her phone out of her pocket, unlocked it and scrolled to David Nolan’s entry. “He came here looking for you the night he died,” she said. “A fact I think the sheriff--” Emma held up the phone to show him “--will find fascinating, don’t you?”

He started to pull away, but Emma twisted his wrist just enough to put pressure on it--enough that pulling away would make a scene and potentially force someone to call the sheriff anyway. The singer finished a song to a scattering of applause, and Emma kept her grip and her gaze on Hook.

“Well done, lass,” he said. Emma let go of him and his hand reached up to rub the back of his neck. He had rings on two of his fingers and his thumb, and a freaking earring, a black stud. “You’ll be Emma Swan, then.”

“There goes my air of mystery,” she deadpanned.

“On the contrary, love,” Hook said, licking his lips again. “You’ve bested me. I can count on one hand the number of times someone has done that.”

“Is that a joke?” Emma said drily. “Because you’re a terrible liar.”

“Ask me what you’ve really come here to ask, Swan,” he said, and something in his face had shifted, like he had dropped the act of whatever part he was trying to play. His eyes were serious and the tone of his voice had lowered.

“Did you kill him?”

“I did not,” Hook said.

Emma believed him. Shit.

--

“Now then,” Hook said. “Emma Swan. Bail bonds, private investigations. Twenty-eight years old?”

They weren’t in the bar anymore.

According to the paperwork Graham had pulled, Hook had owned The Rabbit Hole for more than twenty years--clearly a typo as the man appeared exactly as Gold had described him: mid-thirties, no more, no less. It was difficult to picture him running off with a woman Gold’s age.

He’s older than he looks, Gold smirked, and had looked at Emma in a way that made her want to shower. And rather partial, I’m afraid, to brunettes.

Emma had confirmation of this, at least, when Hook had called out to a beautiful brunette in a micromini, tights and an artfully ripped t-shirt. Lacey, my darling, cover for me here, will you?

She’d laughed and given him--and Emma--a wink, and it was obvious what she thought Hook and Emma were doing, and why they needed cover. I’ve got this, Jamie, she’d said.

And he’d taken Emma to a small but immaculate office, dimly lit, rimmed with books, and offered her a chair with a bow before taking a seat behind the desk. She’s new, Hook had said of Lacey, but she does the job like she’s been here for decades. Something about that had amused him; Hook seemed consistently to be amusing himself with jokes only he understood. Any man who kept a skull-and-crossbones on the wall was definitely a man with an unusual sense of humor--in fact, this room had a distinct nautical theme, with a red flag draped above the black one and an honest-to-goodness ship in a bottle on his desk, and it was all a far cry from the badly-curated murder-tinged whimsy that made up the decor of the main bar.

“That’s oddly specific,” Emma countered. “Do I, like, get a prize if you’re right?”

“An educated guess,” Hook answered, and said nothing else as his eyes settled over her. Emma felt like she was being evaluated; not the first time that had happened, and she had no idea what he thought he was looking for.

“So, then,” he said. “Your Graham Humbert came looking for me.”

“He wasn’t my anything,” Emma said quickly. Maybe too quickly.

“Aye,” Hook said. “Of that I’m well aware.” He twisted his thumb against the metal of one of his rings and broke eye contact, looking down and away from her. “We weren’t friends, you know. Barely even acquainted. But you might say that we had certain connections in common.” Hook looked at her quickly and looked away again. “I hadn’t seen him in as long as I can remember.”

There was something strange underlying the words. Not a lie, but not the truth. And something about the phrase tickled Emma’s memory, like she had heard it somewhere before.

“He was involved with Regina Mills,” Emma said, realizing it at the same moment she said it.

“Indeed he was.” Hook made a sound, almost like a bark, and it took Emma a moment to realize it was a laugh. There was no amusement in it. “You wouldn’t know it to look at him, but she rather held his heart in her hands.”

Emma winced.

“Apologies, love,” Hook said quickly, and with apparent sincerity. “That was in rather poor taste, I admit.”

“You were too, weren’t you?” Emma asked instead of acknowledging his half-assed apology. “Involved with her?”

Another harsh laugh escaped him. “Indeed I was,” he said, “though not in the way you’d think. I did some work for the family. A long time ago.”

Emma smirked. “A man who used to be a sailor and now owns a bar?”

“‘Used to be’ is right, Swan,” he said, “but one might consider the bar payment.” He did that thing again, where he over-emphasized the harsh consonants. “For services rendered.”

“You realize you are the only one in this entire neighborhood who owns their property outright instead of paying rent to Robert Gold?”

“Am I?” He examined his fingernails. “That’s fortuitous.” It was obscene, the way Hook made words sound, but Emma knew a distraction when she saw one. This man used words as deflections, armor not unlike her collection of leather jackets.

“She came to see me,” Emma said.

“Did she?” That got Hook’s attention. “And what did you think of Her Majesty the Queen?”

“Her what now?”

“Regina, love. Latin.”

“You speak Latin?” Emma’s eyebrows definitely went up.

“And Greek,” he pointed out, smirking.

“They teach you that in the Royal Navy?”

“Something like that,” he agreed.

Emma’s head was beginning to hurt. This was shaping up to be the world’s worst first draft of “Who’s on first”--she wasn’t getting anywhere, and she needed another drink.

“What did she want?” Hook asked, and for the first time, there was genuine curiosity in his tone. He twisted behind him, pulling out a bottle, then repeated the process and came up with two glasses pinched between his thumb and forefinger, placing one in front of her. He pulled the cork with his teeth, poured himself a shot, and then gestured at her with the bottle.

Emma gave him a look.

“You’re something of an open book, Swan,” Hook said, the picture of innocent hospitality, “or did you not want another drink?”

“Regina wanted to know,” Emma said, ignoring his outstretched hand, “what I was doing about Graham’s death.”

“Don’t make a man drink alone, love.”

“I don’t want a drink,” she lied. “Or a man.”

Hook pouted. “Now who’s not telling the truth?”

Emma took the bottle from his hand and poured herself three fingers’ worth.

“I do find that spirits can be an excellent solution to so many of life’s problems,” Hook said with false cheerfulness, “so I am glad to see that you are making progress.”

Emma left the glass on the desk and leveled a glare at him.

“Are you?” he said, raising his eyebrows, “making progress?”

There was a knock on the door at the same time as it opened, and a young man stepped in. Nearly as tall as Hook, he had long, dark blonde hair that he’d slicked back, leaving some fringe to fall messily at his temples.

“Alright, Liam?” Hook said.

The young man--Liam--coughed and ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, only Lacey said you were back here--”

“And you wanted to interrupt?” Hook asked, a mix of exasperation, fondness and something sharper in his voice.

Liam shrugged.

“Swan,” Hook said, “allow me to present my lit--younger brother, Liam, who was just leaving.”

Emma nodded at him, with his slightly-less-blue eyes and the curious way they watched her.

There was a look in Hook’s eyes as his brother walked out that Emma was not prepared to acknowledge. She pushed her untouched tumbler of rum back toward him and snapped, “Enough. Why did Graham come here to see you?” Emma demanded.

Hook shrugged.

“He tracked you down through property records,” Emma said. “Because the Mills Organization paid you in real estate for work you did for them a long time ago?”

“So it would seem,” he said.

“You know it says on the deed that you’ve been the owner here for as long as I’ve been alive?”

“Does it?” he smirked. “And yet I’ve retained my youthful glow.”

There it was again--not a lie, but not the truth.

He’s older than he looks.

Emma sat, toying with the tumbler she had pulled back toward her seat, running her forefinger around the ring of the glass and saying nothing.

“What can I say, Swan,” he said. “‘I contain multitudes.’ Not unlike your Graham Humbert.” He looked at her as though he was expecting a reaction; Emma stared at him.

“Is that supposed to mean something?”

“Ah,” he said, as though to himself. “Not a believer, then--well, surely that will stop you getting killed.”

Hook considered her for a moment before tossing back his shot, then said: “Walt Whitman, lass. American poet.”

“Didn’t study poetry at any of the high schools I got kicked out of,” Emma said. “What does my listening to you recite poetry and mutter to yourself have to do with Graham?”

Hook shook his head. “Absolutely nothing, love,” he said. “Merely pointing out that you might be surprised by what they teach you in the Royal Navy.”

“You don’t know anything about what I believe,” Emma said sharply.

His blue eyes blazed. “I know that everything you think you believe is wrong,” he said.

“A man is dead, Hook,” Emma said. “I need you to stop fucking around and give me back whatever it is you’ve taken.”

“She’s dead, Swan,” he said sadly, the fire gone just as quickly as it had come, “and whatever that bloody crocodile has you looking for, I don’t have it.”

He had that look again.

Crocodile.

“Just like Milah, when the crocodile took her from me.”

“His wife?” Emma said. “Look, I’m sorry she died, but Graham--Graham was murdered.”

“Died,” Hook snorted. “Like it was some kind of accident--”

“That’s not what I said,” Emma protested, feeling suddenly on the defensive.

“--lass, it was no more of an accident than Humbert laid out in the alley.” Hook poured himself another shot and held it. “And you, Swan, helping him? I fear we’re working at cross purposes.”

“I’m just here to retrieve something on behalf of my client,” Emma said, exasperated and confused, “and to get paid Same as Graham, only he ended up dead and I would prefer to avoid that.”

“It’s a shame, really, Emma,” he said, apparently not listening. “I think we could make quite the team.”

“And what,” Emma wanted to know, “would our objective be?”

Hook paused and looked at her before he drank the second shot, and Emma still had no idea what he was looking for. He took a breath and said: “To avenge your partner,” he said, as if it would be that simple. “To exact revenge on the man who took my hand, Rumplestiltskin.”

--

“Swan!” Hook called, rushing after her. “Swan, wait up!”

Emma was ten or fifteen feet out the door of The Rabbit Hole when she doubled back quickly and pushed herself against him. “Whoa!” she cried. “Whoa, whoa, whoa.”

Hook smiled at her and pulled them closer together. “It’s about bloody time.”

Emma hit him. “I seem to have a shadow,” she said, gesturing at the figure running into the darkness--the one that had lunged itself at her and forced her up against Hook.

“I suppose,” Hook said, pretending to consider it, “that’s a plausible excuse for grabbing me, but next time don’t stand on ceremony.”

Was the man insane? “Do you have any idea what you sound like right now? Who the fuck is Rumplestiltskin?”

Hook’s face fell. “I sound like a crazy person,” he said. “Apologies, love, I realize Humbert didn’t--” He paused, took a breath. “Would you settle for ‘dashing rapscallion’?”

“Excuse me?” Emma stuttered.

“As opposed to ‘crazy person’, Swan,” Hook pushed, and then leaned in closer at her continued silence, angling his head so their eyes were level. “Scoundrel, perhaps?”

He was close enough to--

He was very close.

“I think, Swan,” he said, very softly, his eyes boring into hers, “that you are not the only one with a shadow. Don’t turn,” he warned, “just look at me.”

The full focus of this man’s attention was nearly unbearable. Emma desperately needed to break eye contact and maintain her wits, which was how she noticed the red streak on his shoulder.

Where she’d grabbed him.

Unfortunately, that drew his eyes to the spot as well, and he knew immediately what it was.

“Swan,” he said, and he sounded disappointed. “You’re bleeding.”

“It’s nothing,” Emma insisted. “Just, the jerk who came after me must have had a knife or something.”

“Give me your hand,” Hook said.

“What?” Emma said, trying to pull away.

He wouldn’t let her. “It’s cut,” he said, getting impatient. “Let me help you.”

“No,” Emma said, taking a definitive step back. Hook countered by stepping forward, back into her personal space. “It’s fine.”

“Swan,” he sighed. “It’s not.”

And he ran his hand down her arm, curling his fingers around her wrist and lifting it for closer inspection, balancing her hand on his left wrist against his prosthetic.

“I’m not taking medical advice from a man who has named himself after a character in a fairy tale and who thinks my client can spin straw into gold,” Emma muttered. “Not even when he suddenly decides to be a gentleman.”

Hook’s face twisted, that already-familiar smirk pulling at his mouth as he took something out of his pocket. “I,” he said, and his tone was serious in spite of his expression, “am always a gentleman.” He looked at Emma through eyelashes that were thicker than hers were after several rounds of lash primer as he repeated his bit with the cork and moved to pour the contents over the small slash in her palm.

“What is that?” Emma asked suspiciously, then swore as the liquid hit her skin.

“It’s rum,” Hook said. “And a bloody waste of it.” He handed the flask to her before she could refuse and pulled out a handkerchief from his coat pocket, pressing it into her hand before Emma could try to pull away again and tying it off with his teeth.

Just--his teeth . Why?

His eyes never left hers, not even as he stepped away from her.

“He’s gone,” Hook whispered.

Emma sighed and took a swig of the rum in resignation. “Scoundrel it is, then,” she said, taking a definitive step backward and crossing her arms across her body in the universal signal for back off. Because she knew what he was doing, she had seen this movie before, and it hadn’t ended well.

They were not a team.

They could not be a team.

“Why were you following me?”

“I wanted to continue our conversation,” he said. “Is that so hard to believe?”

Emma shook her head slowly.

He grinned, shrugged. “And," he said, "I would like to see Regina Mills. I was hoping you would be so kind as to facilitate transportation.”

“You don’t drive?”

“I don’t drive a car,” Hook said. “It’s not by choice that I live here in the city, love, it’s by necessity.”

Emma felt her resistance wavering. “What makes you think I’d be willing to help you?”

“You seem,” Hook paused, as if searching for the correct word, “motivated.”

“What happened to cross purposes?”

“I look at this very simply,” Hook said. “I help you get what you want, and it gets me what I want. No more, no less. Besides, I find that I quite fancy you--when you’re not yelling at me, that is.”

“I don’t understand you,” Emma said.

“The mystique is part of my charm, I assure you,” Hook said, raising his eyebrows.

But she had already given in to whatever scheme this was, had given in the minute she pushed herself against him.

The minute he had held her arm and pushed into her space.

Emma gestured for him to go ahead, and they started walking to her car. Hook took in the careworn yellow Beetle with a grin on his face. “Quite a vessel you captain here, Swan,” he said, pulling the door open on the passenger side.

“It seemed like the best choice at the time,” Emma said softly, meaning it, momentarily hating herself for how wrong she had been--and how much this felt like the same beginning all over again. She ran a quick address search on her phone and came up with nothing; it was odd, given the extent of the Mills Organization’s influence.

“I know where she lives, lass,” Hook said. “I’ll navigate.”

Emma pulled out of her spot, the silence growing between them, interspersed at odd intervals with his muttered directions until he spoke. “You know, Swan, most people would find your silence off-putting, but I should warn you that I love a challenge.”

“No challenge,” Emma said. “I’m not looking for someone who’s gonna give his heart to the world, or some true love riding to my rescue.”

“But?” Hook prompted.

“I mean,” Emma said, dripping with sarcasm, “somewhere in the universe, there's gotta be a guy who'll keep me warm when I'm cold, feed me when I'm hungry and maybe, on occasion, take me dancing.”

“No,” he said. “That’s not it. You’re afraid--to talk, to reveal yourself.”

“Am I?” Emma said flatly. “What are we doing now? What happened to ‘a bit of an open book’?” She finished with a horrible imitation of his accent.

“You’re afraid to trust me.”

“Afraid to trust the guy who believes in fairy tales, Captain Hook?” Emma snorted. “However did you guess?”

“Bartender’s a sympathetic ear, love,” Hook said, “but I don’t need you to share. You have that look in your eyes.”

Emma’s entire body went still.

“The one,” Hook said, as if she didn’t already know--didn’t own a freaking mirror--hadn’t seen the look on his face that very night, “you get when you’ve been left alone.”

“Now I’m some kind of lost girl?” Emma forced herself to laugh. “Nice try, Hook, but my world ain’t Neverland.”

He made a noise, halfway between the unamused bark-laugh and a sigh, and said: “My point, Swan, is that an orphan’s an orphan.”

Emma said nothing, but Hook pressed on. “And True Love--well, that’s the rarest magic of all, or so they say. Have you ever even been in love?”

Emma narrowed her eyes at him, took a deep breath, and lied. “No,” she said simply. “I have never been in love.” She pulled the car against the curb and turned off the ignition. “We’re here,” she said.

“Who’s the guy, Swan?” he said, and his voice was almost free of affect. She could--almost--believe he meant it.

“What guy?” Emma said, because fuck him and his open-book bullshit.

“The one,” Hook said as if it was obvious, “who left you with such a high opinion of me.”

Emma got out of the car and slammed the door shut behind her.

--

@kmomof4​ @shireness-says​ @spartanguard​ @optomisticgirl​ @eirabach​ @winterbaby89​ @stahlop​ @teamhook @iamlaxdris71 @snowbellewells​ @carpedzem​ @scientificapricot​ @ultraluckycatnd @therealstartraveller776 @wyntereyez @nikkiemms @searchingwardrobes​ @courtorderedcake​

[isa-ly]

I’M GETTING A DIVORCE

TW: eating disorders, body image, weight, mental illness, depression, anxiety

Yesterday evening was rough. Completely out of the blue, getting-hit-by-a-freight-train type of rough. Usually, when these evening or days occur, I just kind of tend to start fresh the next day and pretend they never happened. Because everyone has bad days, even if you’ve worked hard to restore your general mental health, and it’s okay to just let those days pass and work on being kinder to yourself once the sun rises again.

However, I also want to actively work on not simply ignoring them all together, because while it’s a good thing not to dwell on bad days for too long, it’s also a good thing to not just repress them. And as we all know, I’m quite guilty of doing the latter and labeling it as “fine” when, in fact, it is everything but fine. Keeping a positive spirit is admirable but shutting out everything that cracks the surface of your facade is just not gonna work in the long run. Every emotion is valid and if I can acknowledge feeling happy and comfortable, I can just as well acknowledge feeling sad and shitty.

So, I’m making a compromise. While I don’t really want to talk about how and why yesterday evening was rough, I am still going to talk about something else that sometimes feels equally as hard and difficult to me. As already mentioned in the trigger warnings, there’s going to be talk about eating disorders, specifically anorexia nervosa, as well as body image and weight again. So, if that is in any way harmful to you and you own journey, feel free to just drop this post like a hot potato. (I think this actually is a German proverb, but it sounds so funny in English, so I’m just going for it.)

Now, what I’m about to say might sound somewhat controversial or really, really fucked up but I’ve found that when it comes to eating disorders (and any other mental illness, really), the darkest parts are often the ones you have to really take a good look at, even if it hurts and sounds shocking. And calling them out, dragging them into the open to point at them with your finger, is the only thing that will make them palpable enough to get rid of them. Once again, the Harry-Potter-boggart analogy works quite well here.

Shame and fear fester comfortably in the darkest corners of your brain, like a disgusting mold that slowly takes over. And I don’t really want a moldy brain, so I once again want to use this blog openly talk about something that is nothing short of crappy and awful, in order to take some of its power away. And also just to be honest, with myself and everyone else who happens to read this.

There’s a lot of reasons why it’s incredibly hard to recover from an eating disorder. Of course nothing is impossible, least of all recovery, but I still struggle almost every single day to keep pushing forward. Sometimes that struggle is close to nothing, sometimes it’s manageable and sometimes it seems like the end of the world. And one of the many reasons why it can feel like that last one, is what I and many others who have suffered from this illness like to call “nostalgia for your eating disorder”.

I think we can all agree that regardless of whether you have one or not: Eating disorders are shit. They really suck ass, to no one’s surprise. If I had one wish and one wish only to make, I wouldn’t even have to hesitate a single second: It would be for my ED to vanish forever and never return. Easy. So, then why in the living hell would I feel nostalgic for it? Why would I be hesitant to call my ED out for the life-ruining piece of shit it is? Why do I sometimes catch myself wishing back the times where I would go to bed hungry, where I would feel so in control despite never really having it? Where I would lie and deceive and watch my life slowly fall apart? What idiot would miss something like that?

Well ... an idiot with an eating disorder. 

Alright, I’m not an idiot. And neither is anyone else who feels nostalgia towards this illness. Because even if it sounds ridiculous and outrageous: It’s in fact completely normal to have these thoughts and feelings.

I’ve mentioned before how, when I first crashed into the world of anorexia, it felt like I had completely lost myself and what I had considered to be my personality to this new, foreign entity that had taken over my life in a matter of days. Because actually, for a lot of people – myself included – that is exactly what eating disorders are: A filler for a gap that you don’t know how to close yourself. Like a plug to a tub that has been running out, or a bandaid to a wound that won’t stop bleeding. It’s an emergency solution to a problem that threatens to swallow you. And often times, emergency solutions can’t be analyzed or fact-checked for risk and danger because, well, it’s an emergency. And you’ll accept anything you can get to rescue yourself in that moment.

Back when I developed anorexia, I was completely lost in life. I didn’t know who I was or who I wanted to be and trying to answer that question overwhelmed me so much, that the only way to cope was to let someone, something else, fill the big black hole that was ripping itself through my chest. Coping comes in all shapes and forms. And mine had the form of a sneaky and cunning eating disorder. 

Often, that is why personality and eating disorders go hand in hand. Because it’s so much more than just an illness that fucks up the way you eat and live. It’s a whole new face you get to put on. It’s terrifying, but that terror is exciting and new because it’s an opportunity. It makes you miserable but at least it makes you something. It fills that void, that fear of being lost. It gives you purpose, and it gave me purpose too when I was at my very lowest. I didn’t know who I was or what to do and anorexia gave me a set of rules, a daily schedule and Do’s and Dont’s that I had to follow, as it watched over me like a hawk. 

Sometimes I see it almost like a parasite, like that weird alien from The Thing that takes on the form of a person to trick you into thinking it’s your friend. Anorexia is very, very skilled at that. And because it’s so skilled at it, it manages to completely convince you of the fact that it is now a crucial part of you that you will never, ever be able to let go again. It’s almost like a personality substitution and that’s exactly why it gets so hard to see it as something entirely foreign that you need to get rid of instead of clinging onto it.

And here’s the thing: As I started recovery and as I started fighting against everything anorexia told me to do, I realized that this fight also meant going back to my very old problem of not knowing who I was. In all the time of being sick and starving, I was at least “relieved” of the burden of having to question what I wanted from life. Not a very balanced deal, I know, but again: emergency solution. 

However, now that I was finally trying to get better and heal, that age old question came back again: What the fuck am I doing? And I could hear my eating disorder chuckling at the back of my mind:

That’s right. I might be ruining your life but who are you without me? No one. You have no idea what to do or where to go. You have no idea who you even are. That’s why I’m here. And besides: Nobody knows you like I do.

And that’s another part of the reason for nostalgia. Please forgive the poor comparison but the closest I can get to making an analogy to it, is to compare it to the principle of Stockholm Syndrom. Just so maybe the notion of it can be understood easier. Because anorexia is abusive and horrible, it literally made me starve myself, made me depressed and hate everything about life. It caged me in and held me captive to the point where I had no freedom, no choice, no joy or happiness left. It ruined everything. 

And all the while it caused me all of that horror, it’s also the only other thing, the only other “person”, voice, existence in my head that shares those memories with me. That knows exactly what I went through. Because we went through it together. It caused me all this pain and trauma – but it also shared it with me. I was never alone, not really, because even when I felt like there was no one or nothing left: Anorexia was always there. Every second of the day and every step of the way. I, it, both of us, know things that to this day, are unspeakable to me. That to this day, I haven’t told anyone because the fact that I was capable of doing such things, still scares me every time I think about them.

We share what are undoubtedly the worst and most painful memories of my entire life and as much as I fucking hate it, I cannot undo this connection. It’s a fucked up bond that I will always have with my eating disorder, even if it makes me angry and frustrated. It’s a connection I never asked for or wanted, but it’s still there and all I can do is learn how to process it in a way where it no longer holds me back and defines me.

Which is the reason for today’s blog title, by the way.

Actually, I got that analogy from a documentary about, you guessed it, eating disorders. In it, one of the counselors at an inpatient clinic compared recovery to the process of divorce. An eating disordered person might very well be aware that they’re in a bad, almost abusive relationship with themselves, or in this case: with their eating disorder. And they might very well be aware that the only way to get better is to let go and move on. But just like in so many divorce situations or break ups, this is way easier said than done. Because there is heaps of memories and emotions connected to this disorder that make you feel close to it, in a way. Feelings of accomplishment, of ambition, of thrill and yes, sometimes even feelings of happiness. False happiness, of course. But even the illusion of a false sense of joy is something that can be very powerful when you’re already beaten down. 

When you’re in such a dark place and your disorder takes over your life, it takes on almost human-like properties. It’s like a friend or a partner, it’s the only relationship you’re still able to have, the only one you are “true” to because everyone else you care about, you lie to. Anorexia isolates, just like any other mental illness tends to do, and it isolated me too. I tried my best to keep face but truthfully, when I was at my lowest, it felt like my eating disorder had managed to break into places of me that had never seen the light of day before. And it had built itself its own little nest there and gotten so comfortable and settled, that the thought of ever kicking it out, terrified my just as much as the thought of continuing to live with it.

I mentioned before that I sometimes avoid talking about anorexia like a separate entity that has its own mind, just so it doesn’t seem like it’s bigger than me. Clearly, I’m not doing that now. Because if I’m fully honest, to me, it’s kind of both and also neither. One one hand, I can feel it as something that sits at the back of my brain, at the back of my neck, at the back of my every thought. It’s something I can visualize, hear, feel with every move I make. And on the other hand, it’s not an actual person. Because it’s still just me, it’s how I think and do things, it’s an extension of my need for control. I can’t just separate it into its own realm of existence because we both live in my own brain. We share that space and sometimes anorexia and its opinions and leverage are bigger, sometimes they’re smaller – but for over a year now, they have always been there, one way or another.

So, letting go of it, bidding it goodbye and trying to claim back the space my anorexia has been taking up for so long now, is hard. Because it’s like letting go of a part of myself. A part that causes me pain and suffering, yes. But a part of me nevertheless. And anorexia is a very hot-headed tenant, let me tell you that much. It does not like to be evicted, at all. But it’s not about what my disorder wants, it’s about what I want. And what I need. And that is to live a life free of the boundaries of my eating disorder. Even if it means not fully knowing who I am.

In my last therapy session that I went to, I talked about all of this to Kerstin. About feeling nostalgic and catching myself dwelling in memories that others would probably gasp at in shock. Gladly, Kerstin didn’t gasp because, well, she’d be a crap therapist if she did. But she’s a good one, lucky me. Anyway, in that last session I had, I then tried to come to a conclusion to this whole nostalgia thing, that wasn’t as depressing as the notion of it all. And what I came to was this:

I will never be able to undo what I did. What me and my anorexia did and what it made me do will never be un-lived or forgotten. It is and always will be a part of me. So, actually, trying to “get rid” of it and “kicking it out”, is not really the solution here. Sure, I’d love to flick a switch and have it all be gone in a second. But that’s never going to happen.

What I can do, however, is learn how to live with it in a way where those memories still get their proper place – without defining me anymore. And without dictating my every move and day. I’ve compared my eating disorder to a stubborn child a few times, too. One that throws massive tantrums when you tell it “no”. Because that’s what it does, mostly. However, another thing that it has in common with a child, maybe even with the child inside of me, is that it’s so, so scared of being left behind. Of being abandoned and forgotten. In a way, it’s exactly that. My anorexia is pieced together by so many of my insecurities and just like me, it doesn’t want to be abandoned. In fact, it’s so scared of it, that it fights back with teeth and claws and with all its might, to stay safe and comfortable where it is. It throws tantrums and breaks out into screaming fits because it’s terrified that once it goes silent, it will be forgotten.

So, actually, instead of treating it like some sort of external force, like a gnarly stomach ulcer (good one, Isa) or like a parasite, I have actually started to treat it more like a scared kid or a wounded animal. With patience and gentle words. With understanding but also with a certain sternness. Literally like a parent that is trying to calm down their raging child. Reassuring it that I have no intentions of cutting it out or pushing it away, but actually to let it stay under the condition that it remains a quiet and passive part of me. Until eventually, it accepts the silence I ask of it and, indeed, fades into something that doesn’t take up most of my living hours anymore.

Don’t get me wrong, 90% of the time my anorexia and me are still in a silent screaming fight over whether or not I can have a chocolate bar. Theory and practice often lie very, very far apart from each other. But the other 10%, the ones where I actually manage to practice what I preach – those are the ones that, to me, matter the most.

Because those are the ones where I can almost feel me and my eating disorder staring each other down from across the room in silence. The ones where I can tell that both of us are scared. Both of us are hurting. Both of us are smart. Both of us are strong.

But only one of us is right.

[robinskey]

hi!! i love your fics sm! so could you do steve x fem! reader where reader is steve’s best friend/ crush and when the byers+el moves( and billy passing away) reader starts taking care of max and nancy(even if they are the same age) like they starts having girls night, hanging more and one day steve and dustin goes to reader’s house and they see them having fun and steve’s like “maybe i should ask her on a date” and dustin’s like “maybe?? no YOU should” please please please! thank you ❤️❤️❤️

Girls’ Night

A/N: Day 7 of my 12 Days of Ficmas! I really loved this request, but I hadn’t had a chance to write it until now. Thank you to the sweet (and very kind) anon who requested it. I appreciate you more than you know.

Warnings: language, fluff, slight angst

After the Byers family moved away, taking with them both Nancy’s boyfriend and Max’s best friend, you knew the girls needed a little extra love. After all, Max and El had grown inseparable over the past year or so, and Nancy spent virtually all her time with Jonathan. For days after their other halves’ departure, both Max and Nancy moped around, the ever-present spring in their steps completely vanished. After about a week of that, you couldn’t take it anymore. You half-asked, half-demanded that they come to your house for a sleepover. One fun-filled girls’ night quickly turned into a weekly ritual.

Occasionally, your best friend, Steve, would drop by. Oftentimes, he brought his sidekick, Dustin, in tow. He didn’t seem to quite understand the premise of a girls’ night. But even though you gave him a hard time about it, you didn’t mind the party crashers-as long as they gave you a little bit of forewarning. You weren’t exactly pleased the night that your doorbell rang in the middle of a skincare session, and you had to answer the door looking like an alien in your pale green face mask. You were incredibly embarrassed, but Steve and Dustin couldn’t stop laughing. You had to admit, it was cute at first; rather quickly, it got old. Eventually, Max suggested that, since they found it so funny, maybe they should get facials, too. The boys spent the next hour lying still on the couch while you smothered a sticky homemade concoction over their skin.

After that night, Steve always made sure to call in advance. 

At least, he usually did. This particular night, however, it wasn’t until he and Dustin had arrived on your street that he realized that he’d forgotten. Steve parked the car on the side of the road and turned to his curly-haired little friend for advice. 

“On a scale of 1 to 10, how mad do you think Y/N will be if we show up unannounced?”

“I’d estimate around a -6,” Dustin answered, “on account of the fact that she’s in love with you.”

A small huff escaped Steve’s lips. “She is not,” he protested. “We’re just friends, Henderson. You know that.”

The smaller of the two boys rolled his eyes. “Yeah, just friends. But you both wish you were more.”

“God, Dustin, you get trick one girl into dating you, and suddenly you’re the love expert.”

“Yeah, you’re right, Steve. Suzie and I are coming up on our four-month anniversary soon, but you’re clearly the expert on relationships, since you’re practically married to the idea of being single and sad about it forever.”

“For god’s sake, Dustin, we’re just friends. Which is why I know she won’t murder me for crashing her sleepover again,” Steve said, popping open his car door and hopping out. Dustin followed suit. 

“I know for certain that at least one of those statements is incorrect,” Dustin stated as the pair made their way across the lawn. Their shoes squished over the soft mud on the ground. The younger boy noticed his friend begin to slow down as they neared the front porch and gave him a gentle shove to encourage him onward. 

As they neared the house, a faint humming grew louder and louder. Eventually, it evolved into a baseline and the voice of Cindy Lauper crooning “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” A thin set of curtains obscured the view into the living room, but Steve could still make out one three silhouettes. One, a slight figure that must have belonged to Nancy, sat on the floor, watching the other two spin in circles around the room. The taller of the two dancing shadows had something feathery draped across her shoulders-a boa, perhaps?-and the other wore some sort of fancy little tophat. All three girls’ giggles were loud enough to overpower the blaring music. Steve stood there, absolutely entranced, as your unmistakable silhouette twirled around behind the curtain.

“Maybe I should ask her on a date,” he murmured, barely aware of his own words. 

“Maybe? No, you should, dude! That’s what I’ve been saying all along!” Dustin half-yelled. 

That snapped Steve out of his hypnotized state. Panicked, he slapped a hand over Dustin’s big mouth. But the damage had already been done.

“Did you hear something?” a muffled voice asked from inside the house. The music ceased.

“Shit, should I get my dad’s gun? I don’t know how to work it, but you do, don’t you, Nance?” the boa-ed silhouette asked the seated girl.

“Oh, come on, guys. It was probably just a dog howling or something,” she answered.

“Some kind of dog that must have been,” the third girl said. Then, there were shuffling footsteps, a shadow growing larger, a tug at the curtain-and a freckled, judgemental face appearing behind the window. Her gaze flicked up and down the pair, still too stunned to move. “No dogs. Just a couple of dickheads,” she announced. Two more faces appeared above hers in the window moments later.

“Steve? Did you tell me you were planning on dropping by tonight? I don’t remember you saying anything about it,” you said, scrunching your brows together.

“Well…uh…not exactly, no,” he stammered. “Look I’m really sorry we scared you.”

“Yeah, I am, too. It would’ve been a shame if Nancy put a bullet through that pretty little forehead of yours, Harrington.”

Steve was too focused on the heart palpitations you induced by calling him “pretty” to acknowledge the death threat. Dustin, however, was no lovesick puppy (except when it came to Suzie-Poo, of course). To be perfectly honest, as sweet as you were, you scared him a little sometimes. So he tugged on Steve’s arm and tilted his head back toward the car.

“Maybe we should go, Steve. We don’t want to interrupt their night any more than we already have.”

The surprise in your eyes quickly morphed into a spark of realization, then a glimmer of mischief.

“Don’t go yet, boys. We were just about to start doing mani-pedis,” you said. “And I’m pretty sure your cuticles could use some work, Harrington.”

Steve, completely unaware of what any of that meant but excited to spend time with you, nodded eagerly, just as Dustin slammed his palm into his face.

General Taglist: @novaddictx @rexorangecouny @morganvanilla @anolddayslover @schwankyblock @anabundance0ffand0ms

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If you want to check out more of my writing, here’s my masterlist. :)

[dreamworksconvict]

She-Ra: Racism Problem Pt. 2

Thanks to everyone who said nice things about my earlier post!!!! I like am really invested in representation and media so I’m glad it’s being received well. 

I also want to add a caveat that I’m not trying to cancel She-Ra. I just want to hold media to a high standard and think that we can critique the things we like.

Next I want to talk about some pretty heavy topics: the White Savior trope and colonialism. Again, I’ll be pretty spoiler-heavy here. I also want to warn people that there will be mention of genocide and antisemitism. I’ll be writing about Hordak in the next part.

In the fourth part I want to add an addendum about Catra being coded as Latina, which I think is a valid interpretation. I also want to talk about the ableism present in the show with both Hordak and Entrapta, which is a separate issue so I’ll label it differently. 

Imagine a story like this: 

“I am a white-coded, able-bodied, implied cisgender protagonist who has a Special Trait that makes me Stronger and/or More Unique than other characters. I also have some connection to Some Evil Colonizers from Space. Oh no! Some Evil Colonizers from Space have showed up to threaten me and my Token Diverse friends who get about half as much screentime as I do! Wait a second, “evil?” There’s no such thing! They’re only Misunderstood Colonizers Who Didn’t Mean It, and/or there was More to the Story. Maybe they came from a Dysfunctional Family or were Abused/Bullied! I think the people/places they colonized may have been Secretly Bad or Just As Bad all along, too! Wowee! Let’s all have a Heart-to-Heart and/or sacrifice one of my Token Diverse friends to save the day!”

Which story am I referring to? Well...

Voltron... or She-Ra... or Steven Universe.. and probably others...yeah.

(And for those who claim that Keith isn’t the protagonist of Voltron, well... I mean he is... but that’s an entirely different essay. But notice how Lance and Hunk are actually smaller than the other characters on the screen and are partly transparent, and that Allura gets pushed to the back row and is mostly covered? Yikes...)

(On my previous post, someone also noted that Steven is half-Jewish. I was not aware that Rebecca had confirmed this officially. As I am not Jewish myself, I don’t want to speak over this, but I do want to point out that you can be white and Jewish, as it is a Diaspora identity. There are many Jewish ethnicities, such as Ashkenazim, Sephardim, and Mizrahim. I also wish that we had seen more of that in the show--like Steven celebrating Hanukkah, or learning Hebrew, or having a Rosh Hashanah celebration... From what I can tell, Rebecca only confirmed this on a Reddit AMA post. So I don’t know specifically how Steven identifies because that was never clarified in the show, but it seems like he is coded as white. Definitely feel free to disagree, this is just how I’ve interpreted the show, especially given its treatment of colonization.)   

On top of all three of these shows recycling a very similar plotline, they all share the White Savior trope. Teen Vogue has an article talking about how this is linked to colonialism and I highly encourage checking that out. I’m going to pull a large chunk of text from there because I think it’s really important and applies to animation, not just live action films. 

“Many white people in films based on the stories of POC are often subliminally depicted as godlike saviors, heroes who are rational and judicious to the core. They are usually deified men or women — glorified and righteous — like scripture out of a Holy Book. Look at Hillary Swank in Freedom Writers. The white savior somehow always ends up usurping the narrative. And in this centering of whiteness and white characters, the POC characters end up becoming props, which only perpetuates ideas of our otherness and unimportance, which then establishes a status quo of racism. Whiteness is again normalized, and POC are decentralized. This is particularly problematic because whiteness is not only favored in Hollywood but also in society at large; white privilege is ever-present and ubiquitous.”

Look at the center poster for She-Ra: Adora is pictured in white and gold and red as an accent. She’s bathed in a golden light. This color combination is no coincidence, because we already associate that combination with religious iconography, like the Vatican. 

(I also want to make a note that this is specifically associated with Christian/Catholic iconography. A lot of these shows could be classified as antisemitic in their handling of colonialism and genocide. I would argue--and will be arguing in my thesis--that Season 6-8 of Voltron’s plot heavily relied on antisemitic tropes, especially as it related to Lotor and the Alteans. But that’s for another day.) (Also see my discussion of Steven Universe’s Jewish identity above.)

So how exactly does She-Ra follow the White Savior trope, how is it similar to other stories’ utilization of the trope, and how does this all relate back to colonialism? I would say there are two main factors: setting up Adora as a white heroine with a darker-skinned foil (Catra), and setting up a narrative where Hordak “isn’t that bad of a guy, really.” For this part I’m gonna focus on Adora.

1: Adora as the White Savior

Adora is from the Horde. Keith is half-Galra. Steven’s mom is Pink Diamond. 

All three of these protagonists have some personal tie or connection to a group of colonizing villains. The Diamonds want(ed) to take over earth and suck the life force from it, as they’d done on other planets. They also used a super-weapon to with the intent to kill all the rebel gems. The Galra created an empire and also sucked the life out of planets. They also created a super-weapon that could kill an entire planet, and had already committed genocide against the Alteans. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Big Bad of She-Ra, Horde Prime, has similar goals. Hordak certainly does.

There is an ever-so-slight separation of Adora from the other two protagonists, who, at the start of the series, do not know they are related to the villain group in some way. (Steven doesn’t know he’s a Diamond.) Adora, on the other hand, starts the series as a villain. She’s part of a group that has actively been fighting and destroying the Princesses and the planet. The first episode notes that she is particularly good at her job, with Hordak nominating her for Force Captain. Adora also notes that “this is what [she’s] been working for her entire life.” When Catra and Adora leave the Fright Zone, it is not out of goodwill. They simply want to go for a joyride on a skiff. 

When Adora gains the power of She-Ra, she acts ignorant of the Horde’s actions. The first episode, Adora is completely defensive of Hordak. She even claims that “Hordak says we’re doing what’s best for Etheria.” It is not until the second episode that Adora begins to have any remorse for her actions--but also note that Adora’s main motivation during the first half of this episode is to continue onward with Bow and Glimmer because she wants to know more about herself, not repent for her actions. It is not until the end of the episode that she begins to become a bit more self-aware, but there is a key phrase that Glimmer utters that is very key to the White Savior narrative: “I feel like maybe you’re here to help us.” This line comes after Glimmer apologizes for not trusting Adora. Adora. The Horde soldier. The soldier from the group of colonizers who were responsible for the death of Glimmer’s father. 

Ok sure. 

Consider how realistic this is. (Not that fantasy has to be realistic, but when you’re working with a narrative based on systemic violence, you need to at least be considerate of how this works in reality.) Adora has been trained to fight and kill Princesses and their allies. She’s been trained to take over Etheria and strategically destroy and/or take resources to weaken them. Yet she acts as if this is all news to her. Suddenly meeting the people she’s been trained to destroy causes her to repent, and suddenly the people who have been victimized forgive her and trust her within two episodes. 

Here’s what I think is going on here: given the current hyper-conservative political climate and rampant xenophobia in the world right now, white creators feel the need to put a white person as the hero as if they’re claiming, “See, this character--and subsequently myself--aren’t like those other bad white people!” They want a degree of separation from the reality that they have white privilege and are part of the problem. 

There is no truly “woke” white person. White people have been raised in a society where they benefit off the oppression of the chosen “other,” in this case black and brown people. Even if you do your research like I’m doing, you still will mess up. White people cannot rid themselves of privilege no matter how hard they try, because in this current society, the legacy of colonialism, imperialism, and racism have made it so that white people will ultimately be more successful and have more opportunities for success than others. (Also, there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, so even attempts to be considerate about taking advantage of laborers cannot be completely successful.) 

All of this results in a lot of White Guilt. Thus, we end up with narratives where the white colonizer character suddenly has a change of heart and fights against the system without really challenging the core mechanics that put that system in place. But fighting against oppression and violence doesn’t make a white person special--it just makes them decent. 

It also ignores the fact that white people, to be blunt, haven’t done shit to advocate for inclusion and equity compared to literally everyone else. I want to pull another quote from the Teen Vogue article:

[White saviors] perpetuate an idea that is essentially a historical banner of colonialism: People of color need white people to save them. To this day, some people still latently believe what imperialists such as Rudyard Kipling said, that colonialism was important for everyone: the conqueror and, most importantly, the conquered. That without the colonizers, the colonized had no hope of survival. And by constantly churning out movies with plots in which white people "save" people of color, Hollywood reinforces colonialist dictum.

Why does Glimmer think that they NEED Adora to be saved? Why is this white woman the only one who can do it? Sure, Adora has the power of She-Ra, but remember that giving Adora, a white woman, that power was a CHOICE made by the writers. They could have given the sword to someone else, they could have made Adora a PoC... but they didn’t. So suddenly, because Adora, ex-Horde soldier, is there, the Princess alliance can be reformed, people start working together, the rebellion is saved! etc. etc. etc.... 

So then it’s extra ironic (and honestly is pretty predictable given this White Guilt narrative) when the White Savior trope goes right along with The Colonizers Weren’t Actually Evil, Just Misunderstood.

This post is way too long so I’ll continue in the next part. 

[moonlightrichie]

ok but, you should write the second part of the reddie meeting at a museum prompt where they see the stars. it's just so cute AAAAAA

Aah, sorry this took so long. I wasn’t really planning on writing a part 2, but then it happened oops heh. Hope you like it !! ♡ I also posted the entire thing on ao3!

READ PART 1 HERE

READ ON AO3 HERE

Eddie was nervously scrolling through the pictures on his phone, fingers sliding between the three most recent ones. Gorgeous photos of Jupiter that Richie had sent, all of them wonderfully detailed and undeniably beautiful.

His phone had dinged not even five minutes after he’d left the museum with Bill that day, a frantic text reading:

From: Starboy♡

I FORGOT 2 SHOW U THE PICS OF JUPITER!!!!

To: Starboy♡

Send them to me :)

So that was what Richie had done, and now Eddie was scrolling through them to calm himself down as he sat on the bus on his way to Richie’s apartment. There was no reason to be nervous, he knew. The two of them had texted constantly since that day at the museum, absolutely hitting it off, talking about everything and nothing. At some point, Eddie had lied awake until close to 4am, giggling at his phone screen when angry knocking from Bill’s room had snapped him out of it.

“It’s 4am, guh-go to sleep!” came Bill’s muffled yelling from the other side of the thin wall, and Eddie had sheepishly texted Richie that he’d had to go.

Eddie had felt bad keeping Bill up at night, but then again, could Bill really blame him? Knowing as well as Eddie that it had been a while since Eddie had dated anyone, Bill should really be more understanding. Eddie was enough of a giggler already when it came to crushes (he was really like a 12 year old school-girl at heart sometimes), but Richie was legitimately funny as well, leaving Eddie smiling so wide his face hurt for hours after. He’d even cried laughing once.

And now, the two were finally meeting up for their stargazing date. It had really only been three days since they’d met, but it was more than long enough to Eddie.

Richie was meeting him at the bus stop so they could walk to their destination together, and Eddie felt unprepared. When the bus speakers announced that Eddie’s stop was next, he started messing with his hair in the window reflection, the lack of light making it hard. His heart was beating with anticipation, his shaking fingers struggling to get his hair to look the way he wanted.

But then the bus stopped with a sudden halt, and a couple of seconds passed before he realized, scrambling out of his seat in a stressed hurry. He was halfway out the door when he noticed his bag missing, and with an unnecessarily loud “wait!” screamed at the driver, making several passengers jump in alarm, he sprinted back. Soon enough he was stumbling out the door of the bus, the handles of his tote bag tangled. He was struggling to get it over his shoulder when he heard laughter.

Eddie stopped in his tracks, already feeling the heat spreading across his cheeks as his eyes landed on Richie. Tall and mesmerizing with the telescope over his shoulder, he was smiling widely at Eddie.

“You…” Eddie shrank. “You saw that?”

“Uh huh”, Richie laughed.

“No, you didn’t”, Eddie argued.

“Oh, but I did.” Richie stepped in front of Eddie, staring down at him for just a moment.

“Damn it”, Eddie grumbled.

Richie just laughed before bending down to plant a soft kiss on Eddie’s cheek, hand gently placed on the side of Eddie’s neck. “Well, hi then.”

“Hi”, Eddie smiled as Richie pulled away.

“There’s a hill just past there.” He pointed towards some houses. “And I brought some light snacks and hot chocolate.”

They started walking, Richie leading the way.

“Sounds nice.”

“Also some blankets, and uh”, Richie rubbed the back of his neck, “I brought wine? Just in case you wanted that, although we’ll have to drink it from plastic cups.”

“Wine sounds great”, Eddie peaked a shy glance at Richie. “Do you need a hand with anything? I can carry your backpack.”

“No, I’m okay, I do this all the time.” They smiled at each other, hands brushing as they continued walking.

It wasn’t more than a ten-minute walk until they were standing on top of a small hill, away from all the houses, secluded and surrounded by stars.

Richie dumped his backpack on the grass, already starting to set up his telescope carefully. With a small glance up towards the sky, Eddie could feel all air leave his lungs. Never had he seen so many stars, thousands of glimmering dots decorating the sky.

“Wow”, he whispered.

“Beautiful, right?” Richie stepped up next to him. “The streetlights really ruin the sky on nights like this. When you get far enough away, it’s pretty amazing how many stars you can really see.”

“Yeah”, Eddie mumbled, eyes still locked on the black cover above, unable to stop staring. He could feel his heart slowing down into a steady beat, air filling his lungs in a way he hadn’t felt in a while. It was like finally being able to breathe, and he could feel tears well up in his eyes for a second, tranquility heavy in his chest. All at once it felt like he was pulled down to earth and flying at the same time, and it was all too much.  “I…” He stopped, speechless.

“I know the feeling.”

They stood looking up for a second, silence settling over them.

“I’ve set it up, if you wanna see?” Richie’s voice was quiet, softly pulling Eddie out of his daze.

Finally Eddie looked down to meet Richie’s eyes and was met with a nervous smile, crooked teeth biting down on the bottom lip. “Yeah.”

They walked up to the telescope, Richie pointing up the sky. “Do you see those stars over there? With the four stars like a square and three stars making a tail? Kinda looks like a wagon.”

Eddie followed Richie’s finger, and soon enough, he could see it. “Big dipper, right?”

“Oh, look at you having some knowledge on stars, huh?” Richie was nodding, impressed.

“I know some.” Eddie shrugged, a small smile forming on his lips.

“Well, the stars forming the Big Dipper are the seven brightest stars in Ursa Major, which you can also see if you look closely.” He pointed to the telescope for Eddie to peak into.

As Eddie looked closer, Richie talked, mentioning all the names of the stars, guiding Eddie all across the sky and its constellations for the next half hour.

With a careful hand placed on Eddie’s back, he pointed out the brightest stars, rambling about their history, how long they’d been burning, how long until they’d fade, why they had the names they did. And at some point, it all mushed together in Eddie’s brain, just like in the museum with Bill’s art. But the way Richie was waving his arms around, eyes lighting up just like the stars above was utterly endearing. Eddie was already falling in love.

“And now!” Richie clapped his hands together. “For the main entrée.”

Eddie giggled, a hand covering his mouth.

Richie’s excited smile faded into a softer one as he looked down at Eddie. “Holy shit you’re cute.”

Feeling a blush coming, Eddie looked away. “You’re the one who’s cute”, he mumbled.

“What?” Richie leaned closer. “Couldn’t hear ya there, Eds.”      

“I said…” Eddie sighed. “You’re the one who’s cute.”

Richie’s eyes widened, apparently not expecting that. For a few moments, he opened and closed his mouth, seeming to try to come up with a response. Then he ducked his head, a quick movement, but Eddie still caught the grin he was sprouting.

“The way you talk about the stars and all that, how passionate you are and wanting to show me, it’s really cute”, Eddie continued and smiled shyly when Richie looked back up.

“I’m”, Richie shrugged. “I, uhm, I don’t really know how to respond to that.”

“That’s okay”, Eddie turned back towards the telescope. “But at least now you know.”

“I guess.”

Eddie could still feel Richie’s gaze on him, eyes burning into the side of his face.

“So what was that you said about a main entrée?”

“Oh, right!” Richie started moving the telescope around and changing its direction, going between looking into it and up at the sky. After a couple of seconds, he stepped back. “There.”

He pointed out a swirly line of stars. “If you look into the telescope you can see them more clearly, but those are the stars forming Scorpio.”

“Like the star sign?”

“Exactly.”

“Oh.”

After looking at the constellation for a few moments, Eddie felt a soft push on his bicep. He stepped away from the telescope, Richie taking over and once again moving it around, seeming to look for something specific.

“And then, if we just move it a little bit”, he mumbled to himself before pulling away with a satisfied smile. “Look now.”

Eddie peaked into the telescope again, met with a bright star in the center. It was the most prominent one he’d seen so far. Starting to get confused as to why exactly this star was more special than all the others, he almost pulled away when he realized that maybe this wasn’t even a star at all.

“Is that?”

“It is”, Richie chuckled.

“Wow.”

And with some focus and concentration, Eddie was sure he could see the brow-toned colors of Jupiter blending together. Or maybe he was just imagining things.

“You probably can’t see much right now, but hold on, I can try adjusting a bit.”

Eddie stepped away and as Richie tinkered with the telescope, he glanced up at the sky, eyes settling on the gleaming planet just above the Scorpio constellation. And with a sudden awareness that the glorious Jupiter, Richie’s favorite planet, was right there, he inhaled sharply. Massive and breathtaking yet oh so small from where they were standing, and it was right there; not just a picture anymore. It was real, and Eddie was looking right at it.

“There, you should be able to see it better now.”

Eddie took a look, and for sure there it was. And it was so obvious now; the planet beautiful even from this simple view.

“It’s right there”, Eddie whispered. “What the fuck.”

A bark of a laugh made Eddie pull away to look over at Richie.

“It’s crazy, right?”

Eddie nodded frantically, eyed wide. “Yes, holy shit, I don’t even know how to react to that.”

Richie put his hands in his pockets. “We can just lie down on the blanket and look at the stars from here? You want wine, right?”

“Yes, please.”

The two of them sat down, both turned towards the other with their knees touching. Eddie got to talk to Richie about what he did too, working as a mechanic and rambling about his love for cars with Richie chiming in whenever he could.

“Maybe you could show me how they work and all that sometime?” His smile was nervous, as if he wasn’t sure Eddie wanted to meet again.

“I’d love that”, Eddie put his arms around his knees, pulling them close to his chest. “Dunno if it’s gonna be very interesting, probably boring.”

“Eddie”, Richie interrupted, scooting closer, “you just let me ramble about stars and constellations for an hour straight. I’d love for you to show me cars and, uhm, motors and stuff.”

Eddie nodded, head tilted to the side. “Okay.”

“Yeah?” Richie was leaning in closer, eyes flickering down to look at Eddie’s lips.

“Yeah.”

Then Eddie closed the gap, their lips meeting in a soft kiss, Eddie catching Richie’s bottom lip between his. Butterflies erupted in his stomach, all of his focus on the wetness of Richie’s mouth, the two of them fitting together perfectly. A hand landed on Eddie’s waist, pulling him closer, and Eddie’s heart was beating faster and faster for each second passing.

Something wet poked at the underside of his upper lip, and Eddie opened up to meet Richie’s tongue with his own. Soon he was lying on his back, Richie hovering over him, fingers stroking at Eddie’s bare hip underneath his sweater.

Richie pulled away after a few more seconds, looking down at Eddie with warm eyes behind his glasses. Even in the dark, Eddie could spot the litter of freckles on his face, and could only imagine the freckles covering the rest of his body.

As Richie leaned down again, capturing Eddie’s lips once more, Eddie knew where the night was headed. And he couldn’t wait to get to know the stars on Richie’s body just like he’d gotten to know the stars scattered across the glittering sky they were lying underneath.

Taglist: @annoyingtozier, @spastuetheobsessedphylosopher, @constantreaderfool, @violetreddie, @rainbow-reddie, @tinyarmedtrex, @ripeddiekaspbrak, @fuzzylogik