#as healthy you can get in the narrative they’re stuck in

[gackk]

Top 10 Photos Taken Moments From Disaster

[marshmallowprotection]

I love how Saeran's sacrifice in AE has been a topic to talk about these days on your blog. I like reading how you delve into his decisions. I was always coming across comments on other sites about Saeran being singled out with toxic behavior to himself and his relationship with MC which made me cringe because I felt it wasn't a thing to look so superficially at that whole situation. I'm glad to see people who have a different view and understand his actions to the end.

Like, don't get me wrong, I understand what people mean when they claim Saeran and MC are "codependent." However, I would ask them to look deeper than surface value and understand Saeran and MC are the depiction of what working together and communicating in a way that is growing to be healthier each day, and in contrast, Jihyun and Rika are narrative foils, meant to show you what actual blatant toxic codependency looks like when you continue to further the cycle over and again again.

Not just in the RAE, but in Ray Route, too.

If you want to look at a relationship that is perpetually in a cycle of codependency, you need to look no further than Jihyun and Rika.

They know it's not healthy for either one of them, but they are stuck in a cycle, and they keep coming back to each other even though they shouldn't. It serves them no good in life but it's hard to get out of those cycles. Anybody who's been in a relationship like that knows that once you're in, it feels like you can never get out! Until you realize it's like a riptide, and you need to stop fighting it by swimming to the shore, and you need to swim to the left or right to get out.

Don't get me wrong, is MC and Saeran’s relationship perfect?

No, it's not perfect by any means, but do you know what makes them a healthy couple?

The fact that they are willing to own up to their mistakes, take accountability for them, and work to be better by listening to their heart, the people around them who care, and what they know to be right morally as they learn more about the world. They strive to be better, not just to their relationship, but to themselves, too. Saeran isn’t trying to get better just for MC. Sure, he wants to be better for them because he messed up. A lot.

God, that's another thing people often misconstrue because they don't want to understand the complexities of forgiveness. He wanted to forgive the people who hurt him so that he could learn how to forgive himself, because he built his actions on the ones that were used against him, and he knew if he could find it in his heart to forgive them for what they did to him, he could eventually learn how to forgive himself for what he did to you.

Even if you forgive him for those things, he did not forgive himself for those things, and it is not until after the RAE proper that he can even begin to work on healing. In fact, it's something that he's going to be working on for the rest of his life.

He is trying to be better for himself! That's the point I want to make clear. He wants to learn how to like himself, he wants to learn how to be happy with his decisions, and he wants to learn how to experience life the way he should have from the beginning. That means being okay with making mistakes along the way, and accepting whatever consequences come with them, alongside learning the lessons that come with it.

He wants to be healthy. Like, these routes very much Speed Run what would be the experience of months if not years, but they do a great job at showing what it's like to want to be healthy for yourself, not just for the people you love.

Listen, it wasn't healthy for him to throw himself on the line, and try to sacrifice himself for everyone. I can agree with that, but what I can't agree with is people making his actions out to be something they’re not. It's like when people think his reason for forgiveness is something that it's not.

Listen, I'm not somebody who readily forgives people either, I hold on to my grudges as hard as I can, but this after ending was all about learning how to respect other people's autonomy and what makes them feel good after they've gone through something difficult. You can't police what other people feel, but you can express your feelings just as much as they can, and it's okay if they're different.

Saeran and Saeyoung don't agree on forgiveness.

That's okay!

That's what I love about this after ending, it does what you don't get in V’s after ending. It brings home the point that forgiveness is a choice that is personal to you, and you should not be ashamed or made to feel awful for choosing what feels right to you. As long as you're not hurting yourself or anybody else, feel what you need to feel in life.

[wakeupthemembersofbylernation]

Can someone genuinely explain to me why Minivans romanticize and idolize the concept of a Melvin wedding so much? It seems to be one of the defining traits of Maelstrom shippers and I just don’t get it. Like if they were actually a healthy and flourishing power couple entering their endgame era, sure, maybe, I can see how some might find the concept cute? - it’s very HP finale coded to tie everything together with a nice epilogue where everyone’s married off with children (never mind that this wouldn’t really fit the aesthetic of Stranger Things, but oh well).

But how, for the love of Pete Davidson, do people look at the dismal state of Mesopotamia in season 4, where they were literally not on the same page even once and didn’t even have one heart-to-heart conversation, and say you know what those lovebirds need right about now? Marriage. Broski COULDN’T EVEN WRITE I love you to his girlfriend for months and couldn’t say it when she was crying to his face, El didn’t even feel comfortable telling the truth to her boyfriend about how Cali was treating her and even tried to get Angela to say she was joking after publicly humiliating her, and they have no shared interests or goals. Time to ring the wedding bells!

Not to be melodramatic or anything, but I honestly think Mike would actually cry if you told him he had to marry El right now. My man’s so confused! Someone who is madly in love with their HS soulmate and dreaming about a wedding just doesn’t do and say the things Mike did in season 4. And come on, look at this gif! Will’s not standing in the center of the frame accidentally! Think about how ridiculous the concept of a show having a boy with a bowl cut stand awkwardly in the middle of two allegedly cosmic soulmates in their endgame era reuniting if that’s really the narrative and cinematic intention. Look at this gif with a straight face, I dare you:

Love him to death, but Will is really giving this:

With the way Maple Syrups talk about their ship, you’d really believe Mike and El are in this undeniable, beautiful, magical, cosmic romance for the ages, could propose at any second like a freshman guy at a Christian college, honeymoon-like state in their relationship where anyone would be crazy to think they could ever break up and Bylers are just these crazy, delusional shippers trying to hate on such a lovey and canon couple. And then this is Milkvan:

It’s funny that they mention the Snowball, because it seems like they’re stuck there and ignore everything else after it?

Anyway, Byler endgame.

[arom-com]

hi hope this is ok but i've seen sooo many of ur posts tagged as renbrand and i am ... perhaps .... a little curious .... would u like to tell me abt them !!!! 👀👀 (its ok if not ofc)

Ofc!! I sure have been tagging them a lot huh

The short version is that they’re my unhinged lesbian ocs stuck in a murder timeloop

Longer version is this:

(I am not going to be able to explain this in any way approaching coherent) (but I will try!!) (sorry in advance for the Wall of Text)

So RenBrand stands for these two:

Ren Hayashi (23, she/they) university student studying criminal psychology, abandonment issues out the wazoo, Going Through It

Brand Reitveld (26, she/her) local gang leader, Control Issues TM, definitely the cat in whatever cat-and-mouse thing they have going on

They’re in love — it’s not even remotely healthy.

Basically, through no fault of their own, they got stuck in a long-form time loop (days/months rather than strict 24h) that resets whenever one of them dies, which wouldn’t be too much of an issue? Except a) they’ve never met and don’t know they’re stuck together, and b) Ren keeps getting fucking murdered

Bc!! Ren’s psychology prof is running a secret cult (trying to turn his crim psy students into serial killers, it’s a whole thing, very cringe of him) so she gets killed for accidentally getting in the way a couple times (she doesn’t know about the cult), and then ofc starts investigating, which only makes it worse (I feel so bad for her but it’s also really funny, saddest most pathetic sopping wet oc I’ve ever created)

(Some of Ren’s deaths are also caused by Brand who’s like listen I don’t have a grudge against you or anything but you do keep getting my people killed so I have to eliminate the threat, no hard feelings! And Ren is like I am in abject misery)

(strangers to enemies to lovers except the strangers to enemies is a speedrun and the enemies to lovers is a slow burn)

The story they’re from is sort of a dark mystery-slash-romance (think nbc hannibal meets groundhog day, which is certainly a sentence), and it’s mainly centred around Ren and her corruption arc as she goes from “tired student just trying to finish her dissertation if it kills her” to “codependent mob-wife who kills first and asks questions later”

I’m obsessed with time as a narrative device, and especially time loops, because it can be used in such interesting ways!! And the interesting part about time loops to me is that they’re like,,,,, rube goldberg machines for character development? You only stick a character in a time loop when you need them to undergo a pretty drastic change without a proper catalyst, and it forces them to wear themselves down to their bones, to find the very essence of what they are, and then build themselves back up again into their ideal and purest form of self. (Of course, some people just use them as a tool for romance, but that’s boring!! Boo)

Usually time loops exist to make a character better, because they’re given some kind of epiphany that makes them the best and kindest version of themselves. (Alternatively, they can be used as the cosmic equivalent of a washing machine spin cycle if you’re writing horror) But what interests Me is the idea of using a time loop to make a character worse, which is what I’m doing to Ren (and to a lesser extent, Brand)

And it’s not just corruption for corruption’s sake, either! Ren, as she is, is miserable — she’s completely isolated, unable to achieve any of her goals, and ultimately ends up getting killed in an impersonal way for impersonal reasons — but once the loop begins and she gets her second chance, she starts to wear away at all her self-imposed barriers and boundaries until she can start making her own decisions and being an active agent in her own life. Of course, she’s not choosing to do good, but the best version of herself is not necessarily Good or Kind, it’s just Authentic.

Brand, on the other hand — because she has more support and isn’t as repressed — is experiencing the time loop less as a vehicle for character development, and more as a perpetual time travel fix-it (which is SO fun, having two characters get wildly different outcomes from the same experience). Her problems are more interpersonal rather than internal, so where Ren is using the extra time to understand herself, Brand uses it to understand the world around her (and is thus doing a much better job at actually solving the plot, we love a girlboss).

Brand’s conflicts are with her brother (who I can’t even Begin to explain without adding another thousand words to this post), and (as the leader of the local gang) with the police & the murder cult, which means that a lot of her loops are spent information-gathering (and murdering, dw abt it)

Personality-wise Ren is pretty quiet, she doesn’t like to ask for things which means she gets into miscommunications a lot (people not helping when she wishes they would, people helping when she doesn’t need it bc they think she just doesn’t want to ask), she’s a very “the only one you can rely on is yourself” kind of person, which isn’t exactly ideal for someone you’re stuck in a time loop with but at least it means she never gives up? She also doesn’t really care what people think of her — or rather, she does care, but she doesn’t let it stop her

Brand is suffering from a lethal combination of being the youngest sibling and simultaneously the eldest daughter, so she’s great at asking for help and using her resources but it means that she a) is a little entitled about it, and b) needs to feel like she has perfect control over everything or she’ll die. She’s very possessive and protective over things that she considers hers (hence murdering Ren for getting her people killed, it’s fine they get over it)

Renbrand also come equipped with two sets of narrative foils (Brand’s disabled ex-ballet dancer brother and his bodyguard/love interest, and the cult leader professor and his prized pupil who both hates and loves him for what he’s become) but the word count on this is already obscenely, embarrassingly long so I’ll talk abt them another day maybe

[each-uisge]

there’s something really engaging about the story of season 1 sao but so much of it wasn’t fleshed out enough or given enough attention

asuna and kirito’s dynamic and their dedication to each other is really nice to see but the impact of it is hurt by the fact that every female character(+the one guy in s3) who interacts with kirito becomes a simp. either it’s a harem, or kirito and asuna have healthy, unshakeable romance. pick one man

the way the players in sao created their own governments and armies and charities and a whole economy is cool! it’s genuinely a super cool concept! but you don’t really see the extent of it, or get to see the players create it. there’s a little bit of development you can see in what, episode 2? but then it’s a big timeskip after and watchers don’t get to see the creation of the massive guilds, or whoever made their uniforms or banners. you go from an unorganized mmo to everyone struggling and then bam, its like, a whole unique nation now

or the way no matter how old players were when they put on the nervgear, they were all forced into basically adulthood. kirito and asuna are what, 15? but after that timeskip they dont feel 15 at all, they feel like generic ambiguously aged anime characters anywhere from 15-25. that wouldve been a cool sideplot to add in, the forced maturing of these kids who love video games forced to mature because one misstep with a random animal could kill them. like yellowjackets or lord of the flies or fullmetal alchemist.

instead we get...nothing. no one ever really acknowledges that kirito and asuna are high schoolers who are just very, very good at playing video games. agil and klein are obviously 21+ but treat both of them like they’re complete equals, never batting an eye at these teens being major players in every floor clear. it really has that anime thing where the age of the main character is completely meaningless because theyre just going to be treated as adults by the narrative (15 yr old ichigo kurosaki, looking at you....)

there’s even an orphanage later on in the season!! where players have dedicated their lives to taking care of literal children who have been trapped in this death game. 6-10 year olds who were given the cool new game to play by their parents but are now stuck there. even this detail is only mentioned in one episode.

AND the end is stupid. they meet up with the crazy guy who locked everyone in the game and kirito asks him point blank hey man why’d you do it and the guy looks out at the sunset, smiles, and says idk dude i totally forgot but these two years have been crazy tho right lmao i can’t believe we all lived here and then promptly kills himself

[anonymous-prince]

it’s really fucking difficult finally coming to terms with the fact that your parents will never love you, accept you, support you, or even listen to you. i’ve tried. i’ve tried so many times to talk to them to try to fix things. because i want a relationship with them. and it’s really fucking hard to accept the fact that that’s just not a possibility for me. that’s never going to happen. because they don’t care. they don’t want to try. they think they’re right and feel like they could never, ever do anything wrong. they don’t actually care about me. they only care when it’s convenient for them. when i do something to be proud of. when it’s easy for them. when they don’t have to put in any effort. the second it’s anything less than perfect, they stop caring. they say they love my unconditionally but continue to prove time and time again that they don’t. you don’t treat someone you love the way they’ve treated and continue to treat me. i cannot wait to finally get out of this house and no longer have to put up with their abuse. because that is what it is. it’s abuse. the awful things they say to me, the way they manipulate me and try to control every aspect of my life, the way they completely neglect my feelings, the way they always act like i’m less than them. it’s abuse. i got away from the parents that physically abused me, only to realize that these parents emotionally abused me. which i honestly think has been even more traumatizing to me. because the physical abuse was obvious. everyone knows that it’s wrong to hit other people. and there was obvious proof of their wrongdoings. red marks and bruises that anyone could easily see and identify. but it took me so many years to finally realize that this is abuse too. that it’s not normal or healthy or okay for parents to treat their child like this. but this time no one believes me. because there aren’t any visible scars. because it’s much easier for them to be discreet about it. because people don’t seem to care as much about emotional abuse as they do physical. they started creating this story when i was still just a toddler, that they’re amazing parents and i’m a problem child who is out to get them. at four years old. and everyone believed them. because i was too young to be taken seriously, because i was too young and stupid and innocent to realize what was happening. because even if i had realized what was happening, i wouldn’t have had the words to express it. because even if i could express it, no one would have taken me seriously. because i was a kid, and that’s how people think about kids. by the time i was finally old enough to understand what was happening, had the words to express myself, and the courage to actually do so.. it was far too late. they had spent all those years creating the perfect narrative of being perfect parents, and making me out to be some monster that had one goal in life: to make their life a living hell. so that’s what everyone believed. it’s what everyone continues to believe. and now when i try to talk about it and reach out for help and support and just try to get the truth of it out there... i just end up proving their point even more. because they’ve convinced everyone of their story. so when i try to tell the truth, everyone thinks i’m lying in an attempt to ruin their life, just like they said. i’m completely alone, no one believes me. my entire family believes them. they all believe this fucked up fake story that my parents have spent my entire life telling. and there is nothing i can do to change that. it’s way too late. i can’t wait to get out of this house... and cut them out of my life. because i know that’s what i need to do. but it’s so difficult to accept that. but i can’t even get out of this house, because they refuse to help me. they keep telling me to get house of their house because they don’t like me, but they refuse to help me in any way. and i don’t know anyone else. and i can’t do this alone. so i’m stuck here. wasting my life away, being miserable and useless the entire time. i’m not asking for much. just that they help me learn to drive, so i can get a job and then move out. like they say they want me to. they claim to want me out so badly, but they’re not willing to put in any effort to help me do that. they’d rather just sit around and talk shit about me and yell at me and make my life even worse. i hate this house, and i hate them. and it makes me fucking sick to know that i also still love and care about them, because i know they don’t feel the same. i don’t want to love them. i don’t want to care about them. they don’t deserve it.

[alexsfictionaddiction]

Review: Before I Do by Sophie Cousens

I really enjoyed both of Sophie Cousens’ previous books, so I was really excited to get stuck into her new one. I’ve had it for a while but I’ve had so many other books to prioritise recently. However, Before I Do has never strayed far from my mind and I’m delighted to say I’ve finally read it!

Audrey is about to marry her polar opposite Josh but she is having doubts as to whether he’s the one for her. Then Josh’s sister turns up to the wedding with none other than Fred, a guy that Audrey had a wonderful date with six years before, and then never saw again. As several wedding things start to go wrong, Audrey starts to wonder whether Fred’s surprise appearance is the biggest possible omen that she shouldn’t be saying ‘I do’ to Josh.

Audrey has trauma in her past that she never really dealt with in a healthy way. We learn about this and get some understanding of why Audrey is the way she is. She is flaky, indecisive and incredibly anxious for the majority of the book but it’s all explained, giving the reader a full 360 degree view of her character.

Josh is a complete sweetheart and I wanted nothing but the best for him. However, if you like your heroes complex, brooding and ‘interesting’, you probably won’t be as into him as I was. There were times in the narrative when I didn’t know how things would end for him and I was nervous he wouldn’t get his happy ending. I kept my fingers tightly crossed throughout the rocky patches!

While I enjoyed Audrey and Fred’s meet-cute, there was something about Fred that put me off. I knew he wasn’t right for a woman ready to settle down, which Audrey clearly is. Perhaps if they had continued dating years before, they would have been at the same stage of life by the time of the wedding and it would have worked. However, their separation has caused them to walk different paths and they’re now in different places. I really didn’t know which guy Audrey would choose but I had a great time rooting for the one I wanted!

I loved the amount of eccentric hilarious characters in this book. Josh has so many quirky women in his family and Audrey has her loveable ‘nactor’ (nanny who is also an actor) Hillary. They are where a lot of the subtle humour comes from and they were so well realised. I fully believed that all of the characters were real people, so they were so easy to laugh and cry with.

Fearing commitment is a central theme of the book. It’s what Audrey battles with for the entirety of the plot, even before Fred turns up. It’s a classic trope in wedding-based rom-coms but I loved how Cousens explored it from all angles within Audrey. I also adored how it was done with a degree of humour too, which is quite a rare occurrence, because it’s not ultimately a funny topic.

Audrey’s mum Vivien is an interesting character too. She is on her fifth husband but clearly has some unfinished business with men from her past. Her mother’s casual approach to marriage and bad luck with men is undoubtedly a big trigger for Audrey’s insecurity and anxiety. She also has an air of the overbearing mother about her, meaning Audrey often expresses frustration with her. I really loved that this eased over time though and that I got to see Vivien in a warmer, more vulnerable light.

Before I Do is a funny, heartwarming rom-com with themes of fate, commitment and true love. Sophie Cousens is great at writing authentic characters, ship-worthy romances and stories that you can relate to. I can’t wait to see what she writes next! 

[greensaplinggrace]

do you have any darklina fic recs?

I certainly have a few! But first I want to clarify that I don’t really read fic when I’m writing it, and since I have so many fics in the works right now, I haven’t really been reading a lot of fanfiction. So this list probably won’t be as extensive as it could be.

Here are some other great fic recommendation posts, however:

DARKLINA FIC RECS by @vicioux

DARKLINA FIC RECS // part ii by @vicioux

Darklina Ruling the World Together Fic Recs by @clubofthestarlesssaint

Tumblr Ficlets

Aleksander’s First Memory by @kestrafagnor

Fivan Talk About Darklina by @jomiddlemarch

a little light in the great, big dark by @valkyrhys

Alina tells Mal she’s with Aleksander by @lorsanbitch

Darklina week day 5: intimacy & touch by @starlesscne

AO3 Fanfiction

if it ain’t me by larry_hystereks (Incomplete - 10/13 Chapters)

alina’s in her second year at Yale when she meets aleksander at one of his frat parties.

a hookup with the potential for more, only if alina wasn’t still struggling to piece herself together from last year’s breakup.

or: alina, zoya, their trust issues, and the men that fall for them

---

I’m only at about chapter 6 of this fic currently, but so far it’s one of my all time favorite Modern AUs. The characterization for Alina and Aleksander is incredibly well done, and the entire fic itself is so feminist and queer in such a refreshing way. Aleksander and Alina are bisexual as fuck, both with their own separate complex lives, and much of Alina’s own traumas and relationships are explored outside of Aleksander.

There’s some Zoyalina, with Nikolina friendship and endgame Zoyalai. There’s some mystery and some tension, but nothing too extreme, and a lot of the fic is merely an exploration in growth and overcoming one’s history and learning how to move on in healthy ways. I love it.

She Wears a Collar (With My Name) by Ceris_Malfoy (Complete)

She is immortal, and whatever lingering hints of humanity she may have once had have long been bleached from her heart.

I will grant you one wish, boy, if it is in my power to do so. What does a Shadow Smith most want?

"You," he answers.

Written for Darklina Week 2021 - Day 2: Role Reversal

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This piece is just exquisite. This author’s writing style is one that I particularly enjoy. Their stuff is always so uniquely composed and crafted, and this one especially is a work of art. The way Darklina as a relationship is portrayed in particular is fascinating to me because it’s a role reversal but it’s still so complex. Aleksander’s character is nailed.

the bright sun was extinguish’d by athousandwinds (Complete)

Somewhere, deep in the dark forests of Ravka, a boy grows up on stories of Sankta Alina of the Wastes, the Sun-Scorched Saint.

---

This fic is just straight up magnificent. It’s so engaging and I love love love the way a role reversed Aleksander who joins the army is portrayed. He reminds me so much of Demon in the Woods Aleksander, as if he’s exactly what a grown version of that young boy would be. When I say I adore his characterization in this I’m not lying.

If I wanted any completed fic I’ve read to have a second chapter, it would be this one.

Winter in the Little Palace by redisxwing (Complete)

Written for Yuletide 2020.

Baghra and Alina's wildly different perspectives on the Darkling, and how things could have gone if nobody listened to Baghra.

Warning: Baghra is written as a harsh and arguably abusive parent, and this is darkfic about that relationship, with a side of shipping. Everything is terrible (except the parts that are pretty much okay).

Canon divergence pretty much as soon as Alina gets lessons in summoning.

This fic is likely not compatible with King of Scars (or any subsequent work).

---

As is said in the summary, this one makes Baghra a bit more extreme. If you’re a fan of Baghra, this fic probably isn’t for you. But since I’m not a fan of Baghra, I had no problems with it.

My biggest praise for this fic is in regards to the character interactions and the POVs. There’s a brilliant grasp of unique perspective and how to convey it, and that talent is carried over into the way character interactions are brought to life in the text. Also, there’s a scene where Alina gets kind of protective of the Darkling, which is one of my biggest weaknesses when it comes to Darklina.

Good Ideas by FelixRivers (Complete)

Alina Starkov had a very good idea. Aleksander Morozova would definitely agree. (or: Alina wants to go camping and Aleksander won't complain)

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This fic is just straight up adorable and hilarious. They’re such a cute couple and Alina’s POV is great. It’s just pure fluff and humor 💕

I’m not a bad girl, but I do bad things with you by SanktaJenya - @sankta-arya (Complete)

Winter had been hard on Old Baghra and Ana Kuya was worried about her, so she decided that Alina should make the trip to her cottage on the other side of the woods to bring her some food and kvas. On her way there, Alina meets a stranger...

Darklina Red Riding Hood/Company of Wolves AU

Darklina Week, Day 4, Fairytales

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This fic has a splendid grasp of tension and atmosphere. It’s very enchanting and dark and intriguing, and it nails those aspects with absolute precision. I love the style and the way the fairytale is incorporated into the narrative. It’s truly a masterpiece.

The Wretched by @aceofnowhere (Complete)

“We are strangers, but I want to help.” He growls at her, mocking and mistrustful. “I understand,” she said. “You think I am one of them. I certainly look like one of them. But I want to help you. Will you let me?” Prompt: fairytale. Alina saves a dragon.

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Okay so I’ve mentioned this one before as one of my Top 5 fics of all time and I still stand by that. I can’t even describe why I love this fic so much except that the pacing is amazing and the prose is stunning and the story is beautiful. Aleksander is a dragon and Alina is a witch, and their relationship is just so...interesting and fascinating and lovely. I would literally kill for this fic. There’s such a softness to it as well. Such a tenderness. Idk, I just really love it.

Show Me Who You Are (I Want To Know) by Ceris_Malfoy (Incomplete - 12/?)

Alina takes her future in her own hands and makes her own decisions.

---

This is a great “what if Alina had stuck around after the reveal” rewrite. It doesn’t have Mal bashing and in fact still writes them as close friends, which is something I’m fond of in Darklina fics. Aleksander is allowed to be soft and Alina is allowed to be powerful, and I really enjoyed the take on their dynamics as a power couple wherein Alina is given a lot of control.

There’s something to be said for the way Aleksander is written in the scenes where he must be honest and earnest with Alina. I really enjoy the way they both come to equal ground, and I’m even more fond of the way Alina is allowed to grow darker without losing her light. She also engages a lot with quite a few other characters, developing tons of friendships and alliances on her own that help strengthen her as an individual character.

on this bridge between starshine and clay by @rhea-imagined (Complete)

"His breath narrows for a moment, his fist clenched tight before he forces himself to loosen it. She is his only opportunity for salvation, but vulnerability is not a cape he wears easily. “In those days, there was less prejudice against Shadow Summoners. But everyone fears the dark, in one way or another.” He does not look at her as he waits for the penny to drop, half-hoping it stays suspended in the air."

In which Alexander comes clean to Alina and tells her about his true identity in hopes that this will help convince her to take down the Fold.

A rewrite of the fountain scene in episode four, with a good!Darkling that is trying to make amends.

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This is my all-time favorite good!Aleksander AU. He’s kept in character despite the major changes made to his motivations, and Alina is given a lot more agency in her own story. It’s the first fic in what might become a series, but it can stand alone beautifully.

I love how Aleksander and Alina’s relationship is allowed to grow tense without breaking, and how it’s a clear sign of change but not abandonment. I love how both characters are able to think for themselves and become self-aware and are given the chance to think critically. I love the character interaction so much because it’s honest and fresh and engaging. Everything from the smallest action to the most off-hand thought is in character and meaningful and incorporated with an amazing style of writing. It’s a very refreshing piece, and the writing only makes it that much better.

Bunnies of a Feather Stitch Together by Ill_Ratte (Complete)

"Just as Alina called to the light, gathering and twisting it into a ball in her hands, the door swung open.

Kirigan blacked out the door frame. His appearance enough would have surprised Alina, but there was something clutched in his arm, something dark and floppy. It almost looked like the stuffed toys that had been passed around to the younger Orphans." - Alina and The Darkling bond over a love of soft things

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Soft stuffed animal shenanigans. Bits of trans!Aleksander, which I’m very fond of, as well as just a lot of fluff with a bit of something bittersweet and sad in a good way.

Half Lie by Ill_Ratte (Complete)

"Baghra always talked of the demon that had stolen her daughter." Or, Alina learns the hard way that the Darkling isn't the only one who deals in half-truths

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This one is trans!Aleksander, and it handles it in a very interesting way. It’s quite sad, and deals a lot with Baghra & Aleksander’s relationship through Alina’s POV. I want to give a warning for transphobia, because it does center around that a lot as the premise, but it really is worth the read if that isn’t a trigger for you. This is one of my favorite trans!Aleksander fics, and the way it handles emotion and grief and pain is quite extraordinary.

The CEO and Helioseismologist by mrthology (Complete)

Aleksander Morozova doesn't get sick. He's the CEO of one of the most successful companies in the world, one that he had built from the ground up with blood, sweat, and tears. He exercised daily (usually), maintained a healthy diet, and kept himself fit.

He wasn’t sick.

Too bad no one believed him. And too bad Genya decided to call Ivan to take him home before also calling Alina to take care of him.

Maybe, just maybe, being sick wasn't so bad. Especially not when he has such a wonderful girlfriend.

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Both of the fics in this series are great, but I love this one in particular because I’m an absolute sucker for hurt/comfort. Anyone who’s been on my blog for a while knows that it’s my all time favorite trope to read, and this fic fits the hurt/comfort trope to a T in the best of ways. It’s very tender and in character, and Aleksander and Alina are so soft with each other. It’s adorable and really makes you feel for Aleksander, and the caretaking is done perfectly.

All the different layers of dark (thousand little suns) by Anuna (Complete)

One month after the Winter Fete, Aleksander returns to the Little Palace, and Alina has been missing him.

Or

Episode five canon divergence in which Alina had never left Os Alta.

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This one is soft emotional hurt/comfort smut. They’re both so open and vulnerable with each other, and it’s so beautiful to read. I love the writing style and the emotion in this one. It makes my heart ache in the best way.

An Honourable Man by liviy695 (Complete)

A reimagining of the scene after the winter fete. Alina catches a glimpse of a caring Darkling after he returns from integrating the Conductor. Plus, no Baghra interference.

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This one is what it says on the tin, in that Baghra doesn’t interfere and they’re allowed to talk after the Darkling interrogates the Conductor. But more than that, it’s a great imagining of how a scene where Aleksander reveals Marie’s death would have gone. There’s a sort of quiet to it that I appreciate, with grief and solemnity weighed against care and vulnerability.

I see the real you (even if you don’t, I do) by Anonymous (Incomplete - 8/?)

A series of questionable decisions lead Alina to meet the Black General a bit earlier. Butterfly effect ensues.

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I’ve only read half so far (I hadn’t realized it had updated!! 👀👀) but I’m already in love with this fic. Alina’s dialogue and perspective is perfect, her relationship with Mal and the other cartographers is great, and I really enjoy how much personality she has. Aleksander is so smitten, but more than that, his characterization is soft but not weak. It feels almost as if he’s swept up by Alina, instead of the other way around, and I quite like that.

Of parenting by Anuna (Complete)

Alina finds out how her husband handled yet another parenting situation.

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This is pure adorable Darklina parenting fluff and I live for it. Yet it doesn’t lack depth and in fact explored Alina and Aleksander’s relationship with parenting quite well.

i have a longing by LRCee - @ladylyannastark (Complete)

“So, Alina Starkov, risk-taker, how did you end up being editing’s newest wunderkind?”

Alina Starkov is rising in the publishing world. Singlehandedly responsible for editing (see: rewriting) the hottest book of the year, she lands a coveted spot at Morovoz Publishers. It's the position she's always wanted, at the biggest publishing house in the country. Life is perfect. That crush on her boss though, that's gotta go.

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OKAY! I LOVE THIS ONE SO MUCH!! Let me tell you, as someone who is not too fond of Boss/Employee dynamics, I was very wary going into this fic. But boy did it deliver in a way that was perfect for me.

The relationship that develops between Aleksander and Alina is complex but healthy, and it never feels as if there’s too much of a power imbalance or anything that would make Alina feel forced or unhappy. The tension lies purely in how she fears others will perceive her, and not in how unhealthy her relationship with Aleksander is. For somebody who’s often attracted to unhealthy ships, I have to say that my favorite fics are usually ones that don’t have that type of dynamic between the characters. This fic delivers on that.

Also, Aleksander’s POV surrounding his struggle with his Russian heritage and his feelings for Alina is amazing, and has some of the best writing and characterization I’ve seen.

You receive: an evil demon; I receive: human souls by @aceofnowhere (Complete)

The next morning while she tried to tell herself it was a dream, that of course there wasn’t a fucking demon in her house, she found a note taped to her fridge.

“You might eat this shit,” it had written, “but I would like some fucking souls please.”

Darkling Week Prompt 7: free choice. Alina has a demon in her house.

This is absolute crack, and I have no idea what the fuck is wrong with me.

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May I just say that this is the most fun I’ve ever had when reading a fic. It’s interesting with a bit of mystery, and Aleksander as a little shit of a demon is hilarious. Alina in this fic is great too. It’s such a unique take on her POV, especially when you reread it after knowing the ending. 10000/10, this fic is brilliant in every way and I love it.

I had been lost to you, Sunlight by BrytteMystere (Complete)

A Girl became a Woman, became a Sankta, became a Goddess.

Or: An Immortal Alina calls upon merzost to reunite with the Prince of Shadows she lost long ago. She may have lost herself in the process.

But then again, maybe time and endless wars did that instead.

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You really just have to read this one to get it. It is utterly haunting and fascinating in the best of ways. The writing style is strange and novel and fits so well with the story being told. The composition of the fic as a whole is genius.

I Look Inside Myself (And See My Heart Is Black) by Ceris_Malfoy (Complete)

"When is a monster not a monster? Why, when you love it, of course."

Written for Darklina Week 2021 - Day 6: Favorite Quote • King & Queen • Monster

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Once more, this author comes through with an absolutely breathtaking writing style and story. The imagery is elegant yet brutal, simultaneously horrifying and glorious. There’s a certain way these stories are written, like fairytales, where the beautiful becomes the macabre and becomes ever more stunning because of it. It’s very dark but in a good way - an almost bewitching way.

Afterlife by @aceofnowhere (Complete)

“You are asking me to leave?”

“Not asking, shadow,” she said. “Telling. Time to get unlost, loser.”

Day 3 Darklina Week prompt: Modern AU (I mean, barely)

Alina expels ghosts from purgatory.

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@aceofnowhere once again bringing the best of the paranormal to the Grishaverse. Literally everything you write is amazing idk why I’m even pointing out individual fics when I could just rec your whole page. But anyways!! This is fun and interesting and Alina is a badass. Aleksander is, of course, compelling and dark and kind of a little shit, and it’s all incorporated seamlessly into an existential paranormal narrative.

Once Upon a Shooting Star by Ceris_Malfoy (Complete)

"But most of all, she was drawn to a vast darkness that reached out above all of them, a void so hungry for companionship that she knew she could fulfill."

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Let. Alina. Be. Feral!! Anyways, I clearly have a type when it comes to storytelling, and it’s whatever the fuck this person has got going on. Feral!Star!Alina is literally the light of my life. Her interactions with not only other people but the world in general are so well done, but my favorite parts about this fic are the numerous ways her relationship with Aleksander is described and depicted.

I love the dark and light imagery, especially with how it’s portrayed as them filling in the gaps of each other’s lives and supporting each other instead of trying to block each other out. There’s such clear passion and joy and love and devotion between them. The central focus of this fic is on her and Aleksander’s relationship, the interplay between them and their powers and the way her light fills his loneliness, the passing of adoration and trust and reliance between them. It’s very beautiful and I love it.

A Blaze of Light by Keira_63 (Complete)

They discover the Sun Summoner in the burnt-out remains of the Shu laboratory in which she has spent the last seven years of her life.

Or, the Darkling finds himself with a Sun Summoner whose greatest wish is to burn Shu Han to the ground. He is happy to oblige her.

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👀👀 Badass Alina and Badass Aleksander. The ultimate power couple, and Alina burning a path through Shu Han before they both burn a path through the world together. The darkness and rage in this one are handled very well, and the way that rage turns to coldness and then resolve is done so well. This fic is very cathartic and also very furious, and reading it is certainly a trip down emotion lane.

One more for the Road by Rist (Complete)

He returns to the war room shaken, and finds an Alina that cannot leave without at least having tried.

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This one hurts so much but its soooo gooood!!! Very smutty but also very tender and very bittersweet. Sad and soft all at once. I just... love the way Alina and Aleksander are written so much, and Alina’s complicated feelings for him are explored in such detail and depth. This one is truly worth the read.

[littlesmartart]

lots of people responded to my 3zun enneagram post saying they’d be interested in seeing more, so I made a sort of masterpost of the main characters! I am working on a post with a bunch of ships so watch this space for them. all future posts on this will be tagged #untamedenneagram. I stuck with the main adult characters because it’s pointless to try and type a character if you don’t know enough about them, and I have specifically avoided the Juniors, because enneagram is not recommended for anyone that young; kids and teenagers are still growing up and figuring out who they are, which means that naturally their personalities are likely to change as they mature. if people are really desperate to see the Juniors then I could maybe do a post where I make reeeeaal vague estimations on what their adult selves might be typed as.

disclaimer: these are just my opinions based on my interpretations of the characters - if you disagree, feel free to make your own post discussing your personal thoughts, but I am not in ANY way interested in getting into “ “ discourse ” ” about any of this :) also please remember, if you’re applying any of this to yourself, that whilst enneagram can be used as a fun tool for healthy self-reflection, every person is unique and we don’t always perfectly fit in boxes; take from this what is helpful and try not to get too hung up on it.

all type descriptions are taken from here. under the cut you can find the characters arranged by type with my thoughts on how they differ, as well as what I think their wings would be. MAYBE one day I’ll make something about subtypes, but I’ll need to do waaay more research 😵 if you have any thoughts/questions about my choices here, feel free to drop me an ask!

Wangji was a really clear and obvious choice as a 1 for me, as was Song Lan, as they both have a fiercely strong sense of morality and their duty within the moral structure to fix what is ‘wrong’, but they are also somewhat distant and reserved. Jin Zixuan is a choice some may disagree with, as many people’s sole impression of him is how he treated Yanli as a teen, however I argue that if you look at what we see of him over his short life as a whole, and look at his actions outside of those relationships (defending Mianmian against his own sect brothers, coming back to rescue Wangji and WWX with Jiang Cheng, leading a force in the Sunshot Campaign despite his father’s reluctance to get involved, defending a servant girl when he believed Yanli - a gentry woman - had stolen credit from her, personally going to de-escalate WWX’s fight with Jin Zixun) we do see a man who, whist being arrogant and somewhat stand-offish, does clearly have a strong moral code which he does consistently act in accordance to.

In terms of wings, I would say that Wangji and Song Lan are both 1wing2 - the empathetic 2 wing brings a need to be personally involved in righting wrongs and helping people, which is where you get the Distant Snow And Cold Frost, famous saviour of the common folk, and Hanguang-jun, who goes where the chaos is. I would say that Jin Zixuan is a 1wing9, who are more distant and measured than 2 wings, and are less uncompromising in their application of morality - which is how you get Jin Zixuan who is unabashedly giving his opinion about correct behaviour in Gusu and during the war, but in Koi Tower is far more reserved and clearly concerned about rocking the boat with his father.

Yanli and Xingchen were very very obvious as type 2 for me - it’s that consistent altruism and self-sacrifice, as well as the genuine desire to serve others whilst neglecting their own needs. I honestly think it’s a shame that they’re both presented so angelically within the narrative because it would be very interesting to see some of the darker side of the type 2, with that sense of needing to be needed, and even possessiveness. Also very interesting that both these 2s have strong significant relationships with type 1s (Zixuan and Song Lan) - a healthy combination of 1&2 can often be something of a “power couple”, with their combined genuine desires to bring justice and love and positive change to their community, and it perhaps says something about the narrative of the untamed in a meta way that both of these couples are tragically divided before they can reach their powerful potential.

I would say that Xingchen is a 2wing1 - his desire to help people is part of a moral duty for him, and the 1 wing gives him a strong drive to not only look after individuals but also to alleviate suffering in society as a whole. Yanli I think is a 2wing3 - they have the social and charismatic aspect of the 3, and care for people through building relationships and connections with the people around them in a more personal way.

Wow, JGY could not be any more obviously a 3! He is status-conscious, charming, ambitious, strives to be competent at everything he does, and obviously his core fear is to do with what he is worth - either that he will never have his worth acknowledged, or, later in the narrative, that everything he has done will be exposed and he will return to being worthless and hated. He is also very good at adapting himself to whatever - or whoever - he needs to be in order to survive, and a classic issue for unhealthy type 3s is getting so absorbed in their personas that they lose track of who they really are and what they really feel, at their core, which I think is something we see with JGY as he begins to break down.

I would say that JGY is a 3wing2 - a lot of his fear of failure is focused on his relationships (the obsession with his mother’s wish for him to be acknowledged, the years of striving for his father’s love, how terribly horribly personal getting kicked out of the Unclean Realm was for him, how much he hid from Xichen - someone who genuinely would have helped him - out of a fear that he would be unwanted and unloved if he told the truth) but also he has a huge capacity for love and loyalty and a real drive to take care of the people he loves that feels very 2. 

So I only wanted to type main characters, because you can’t type someone if you can’t get a really good hold on their personality and motivations (SORRY QIN SU ;_;) which may make my choice of including Mo Xuanyu strange, but a. his actions LITERALLY create most of the plot and really give a strong sense of who he was, and b. I am a type 4 myself and I looked at him like “oh shit, I know this kid”. Sadly we only hear about Xuanyu when he’s at his worst - deep in depression, feeling trapped and vengeful enough to resurrect a serial killer to murder his entire family - but there seems to be a huge depth and weight to his emotions that is very archetypal of a 4, he seems to have a strong tendency to make decisions based on his emotional reactions, and his notorious fashion choices (mask, ghost makeup) are him expressing his inward emotional state and bold individuality in an outward way - again, very 4. 

I don’t know if we see enough of his personality to really fully know what wing he would have, but I would take a guess that he’s a 4wing3, given that he seems to have a flair for the outwardly dramatic more than you would expect from a more introspective and reserved 4wing5.

Again, it may seem odd to have such a minor character included when I was focusing on the main cast, but I really wanted to do a full set of the types so I was really searching for a 5, and as SOON as I thought of Su She, it was so OBVIOUS that was him. Regardless of how the fandom feels about him, it is impossible to deny that he is a very intelligent and innovative man who consistently strives to learn and grapple with complex new ideas (my dude can teleport!!! TELEPORT!!! can ~ HANGUANG-JUN ~ teleport hmm???? DIDN’T THINK SO.) and whose overarching motivation seems to be a desire to gain more magical knowledge so that he can never be left vulnerable and humiliated again.

Like Mo Xuanyu, I’m not certain we see enough of him to fully know what wing he would be, but I would guess at 5wing6, given his intense work ethic, how strongly he rejects the authority of the Lans once they (in his mind) abandon him, and how desperately loyal he is to JGY right up until his death. 

I felt pretty strongly about Wen Qing being a 6 from the start, but I spent quite a while debating over whether Wei Wuxian should actually be a 7. I eventually settled on 6 because those traits - hard-working, loyal, problem-solving, defiant and rebellious to champion justice and protect the vulnerable, though defensive, evasive and anxious when under stress - seemed more at the core of his character. If you remove them, you remove who he really is. I think the reason Wei Wuxian and Wen Qing are able to bond so strongly is because they both recognise their own essential traits in each other.

The real difference you see between these two however is, I think, strongly influenced by their wings - Wei Wuxian is a 6wing7, so when things are good he is optimistic and fun-loving and looking for new and fresh experiences. Wen Qing on the other hand is a 6wing5, with that 5 motivation to seek out knowledge and learn all she can in order to protect herself and those around her. They both share the core 6 fear of not having a place where they can belong and feel safe.

Both Huaisang and Xue Yang were clear and easy to type as 7s - Xue Yang actually says a line that I think could possibly be the motto for type 7, “I don’t fear death, I fear boredom”. Huaisang definitely plays up the “scattered and undisciplined” aspect for his Headshaker persona, and the spontaneous and playful 7 traits that he and Wei Wuxian share are where they are able to bond at Cloud Recesses. A classic 7 coping mechanism is to deal with - or rather, not deal with - unpleasant situations and emotions by simply avoiding or ignoring them, which you see with Huaisang being the Headshaker (“I don’t know! Don’t ask me!” is a pretty good buffer for anything he doesn’t want to deal with) and with Xue Yang, when he seems to genuinely believe that he can just live in perpetual domestic bliss in Yi City with no consequences so long as XXC never finds out his name.

The core differences between Huaisang and Xue Yang as type 7s (setting aside the larger influences of class and privilege and purely examining their personalities) I think come from their wings, which you can mainly see when things go wrong for both of them; I would say Xue Yang is a 7wing8, as when shit hits the fan for him, he becomes furious and destructive to hide his weakness, like a very unhealthy 8. Huaisang I think is more a 7wing6, as when things go bad for him he uses his Headshaker persona as a shield but underneath he is anxious, suspicious, and emotionally isolated, secretly testing everyone around him for true loyalty, much like an unhealthy 6.

I try to avoid the stereotype of “anyone with Big Anger Issues is type 8″ but, uh, with Mingjue and Jiang Cheng the shoe really does fit. They both really rise to the occasion when forced to take on the mantle of leader by being assertive, decisive and resourceful, but they both hide behind their violent and destructive tempers to avoid addressing issues and what they are at fault for in the breakdown of their relationships.

As with a lot of these characters, I think their essential differences come out when you look at their wing-influenced traits. Mingjue is a type 8wing7, which may seem like a strange choice, but I think his 7 aspects come out in his very avoidant approach to morality - Good is Good and Bad is Bad and if you’re Bad then you should be Punished and if anything contradicts with that and makes me uncomfortable well I Simply Do Not See It. Jiang Cheng is a type 8wing9; unlike Mingjue, who thrives on confrontation and is unafraid to wear his emotions on his sleeve, Jiang Cheng clearly has greater insecurities due to his trauma and social position as a young sect leader, so tends towards whichever reaction will best hide his vulnerability, be that an explosion of temper or quietly keeping his head down and ceding political ground. The basic desire of a 9 is peace of mind and harmony, and we see that influence in Jiang Cheng when he dreams of his family being happy at Lotus Pier.  

I think both Xichen and Wen Ning and fairly typical 9s; calm, affable and peaceable, preferring to avoid conflict and being far more concerned with hearing the opinions of the people around them than voicing their own. Xichen’s hatred of conflict is pretty clear in his position within 3zun, as he tries to mediate and bring his sworn brothers back together, though whilst it is initially noble, his intentions regarding conflict do lean more towards avoidance than resolution, so ultimately they are long-term unsuccessful. 

I think there’s something interesting and kind of sad about a conflict-avoidant type 9 becoming the Yiling Patriarch’s attack dog, but I do think that is reflected in him being a 9wing8 - the Ghost General is so powerful because he’s SO FULL OF ANGER, and Wen Ning also has a strong drive for personal justice, as well as acting as a leader in during the war (he tells WWX that he has people who will help him smuggle the Jiang parent bodies out of Lotus Pier, and that would require a HUGE amount of loyalty, so presumably he’s a pretty good leader!) In comparison, the (slightly) more detached and objective Xichen I see as a 9wing1; the 1 attitude is where he bonds with Wangji, both having that very Lan attitude of “if you see a moral problem it is your duty to fix it”, and the times we actually see Xichen choose conflict are when he is standing up for justice, his morals, and people he perceives as wronged. 

[mbti-notes]

INFJ. Processing past Fe failures. Want to get better at socializing / having deeper relationships/friendships. Muddling through Ti development - desiring to get better at self-awareness + communication. A lot in my brain and it'd be a lot to share the entirety of recent exchanges that have ended up in failed relationships, so I'll try asking this and hope it's enough to get critical thinking help from you, thank you much in advance. (1/2)

[con't: I notice a pattern of me trying to communicate and express myself to be understand by, or be emotionally met by Fi users, and them responding by saying things like "I don't know what you want from me", "I don't know how to help you," "I'm sorry you feel that way" or them even saying variations of "Maybe you're not used to my communication style" (ENTJ) if I express that I feel dismissed, uncomfortable, or disrespected.

This isn't ALL Fi users thank God & I'm in therapy now to address my downplaying of my emotional needs, being willing to work through anything even though the romantic relationships I'm attracting are woefully incompatible or unhealthy. But I want to get better at doing my part to increase the chance of relationships building. What am I doing/expecting/judging in my communication with Fi users so they respond that way or has me feeling being unseen/misunderstood? Is it the basic INFJ recs?]

You point to Fi specifically. Fi doesn't require outside validation, so perhaps what you're encountering is their lack of concept of outside validation, in the manner that you're seeking it with Fe.

All of those example statements sound like they could be taken sincerely. "I don't know what you want from me" could be an opportunity for you to better explain what you need/want. "I don't know how to help you" could be an opportunity for you to provide better instructions. "I'm sorry you feel that way" could be a helpless admission that the two of you don't see things the same way. "Maybe you're not used to my communication style" could be an indication that there is a need to investigate the big gap between what was perceived and what was actually intended.

Not everyone is going to see eye-to-eye with you, not everyone is going to agree with your version of events, not everyone is going to care about your needs and feelings enough to address them kindly and patiently. This should all be okay with you unless you were walking around expecting everyone out there to have the capacity to meet you emotionally or validate your emotions (unhealthy Fe)? That's simply not gonna happen, so it's an unreasonable expectation. That's why it's so important that YOU be the first to take care of yourself and own your emotions, set proper personal boundaries, and navigate interpersonal boundaries more gracefully.

If you feel someone has violated your boundary (i.e. you feel hurt by them), the answer isn't to violate theirs in return. You're trying to fix a problem in the relationship, so further damaging the relationship isn't going to help. Whether you are right to feel hurt is not the main issue. Feelings themselves are always true and tell you something true about you. However, what you DO about the feelings isn't always right. There are two main ways people deal with negative feelings: 1) bottle them up, which amounts to self-harm, or 2) express them, which opens up the possibility of doing harm to others, if they don't have the means to process your feelings. Neither way is ideal.

If your main approach is to expect people to change (when they can't or don't want to), expect them to give you more than they are capable of giving (due to not having the means or resources), expect them to understand something that they are not really capable of understanding (when they just don't think in the same way as you), etc, your expectations are easily perceived as "demands". You're essentially pressuring people to be what you want them to be, which amounts to dishonoring them and violating their boundary. This approach is usually met with submission or resistance. If they submit to you (because they care for you), they will be unhappy for having allowed you to violate their boundary, and the problem will recur because it was only swept under the rug. If they resist you, conflict ensues, and the relationship bond will be tested and possibly threatened, especially if the conflict recurs without resolution.

There is a way to honor your feelings while also honoring others' feelings. It requires you to have good emotional intelligence and be a good communicator. Good emotional intelligence means respecting your feelings and taking full responsibility for them. Instead of seeing yourself as the victim (i.e. "you made me feel this way"), you see yourself as an agent with the power to decide what is best (i.e. "I feel this way and this is what I should do about it"). Positioning yourself as a passive or helpless victim means that you cast blame and eventually demand reparations. Positioning yourself as an active and influential agent means that you survey the situation objectively and then try to act in the best interests of everyone involved. This is what healthy and confident Fe should look like.

For example, when you feel dismissed, maybe you bottle it up for awhile, until you can't take it anymore (because the problem remains unaddressed). Then you confront people and say, "I feel dismissed". This implies that the other person has done something bad to you. You are the victim, which puts them on the spot, feeling like the bad guy, and then they can't hear you, due to becoming too preoccupied with not wanting to be the bad guy. Communication is likely to stall there, unless they have the wherewithal (emotional intelligence) to keep their focus on you and your concerns.

Instead, you could say to yourself, "I feel dismissed". You take full responsibility for your feelings and validate them for yourself. When you are good at validating your own feelings and emotions (something you admit you really struggle with), you'll eventually find that you won't need to rely on others to do it for you.

What does it mean to feel dismissed? It means that you believe you're not being taken seriously, or something to that effect. Not very difficult to understand. What to do about it? The feeling of disharmony is a message to you that you have to do more to advocate for yourself and make space for yourself within the relationship/group (it is good Fe advice). There are many ways to advocate for yourself without stepping on others. If you choose the right way, in terms of honoring everyone involved, the feeling of being dismissed will dissipate naturally. If you choose the wrong way, in terms of honoring yourself but dishonoring others, you'll encounter the problem again, because you haven't addressed the underlying problem of you positioning yourself as the victim in every relationship conflict. Chronic victim mentality is often an indication that you depend too much on outside validation of your self-worth.

Unless you are stuck in a very toxic social environment, the majority of people are not malicious for no reason. Before accusing or blaming, are you absolutely certain that they INTENDED to dismiss you? If not, wouldn't it be wise to gather more info? For instance, you could ask something like, "Have you had the time to give my idea serious consideration?" No blaming, no battling, no victim-victimizer dynamic. Do you understand how communicating without blame, through genuine inquiry, avoids trapping the both of you in a vicious cycle of seeking emotional reparations? You give people the benefit of the doubt. You give people the chance to clarify or explain. You give yourself the chance to grasp the FULL picture so that you can make a more informed decision about what to do (based on their response to your question). But this presence of mind isn't possible when you can't accept your feelings/emotions and they run wild as a result.

One common misapplication of Ti is the tendency to jump to illogical conclusions or make up illogical stories about what is motivating people's negative behavior, all the while believing that you're being completely logical. It's a destructive way to deal with negative or disharmonious feelings. Once the false narrative infects your mind, you can't help but perceive the person as attacking you, even when they're not. This misuse of Ti is a major impediment to relationship building.

The problem with victim mentality is that you are hyperfocused on your perspective only, so you only have half the picture, which means making ill-informed decisions. If you are prone to Ti loop, you need to get to the bottom of why you're so quick to position yourself in the passive position of victim. A healthy relationship should be an equal partnership based on trust, which means that you should always try to 1) give people the benefit of the doubt, and 2) gather the facts of the situation before drawing a conclusion about what they intended or what kind of character they are.

If the fact of the matter is that the person really doesn't care about your feelings, then you know not to seek validation from them, and perhaps distance from them for your own good. Don't play around in toxic or abusive relationships. If the fact of the matter is that your perception of the situation doesn't match up with what they intended to say/do, then it's up to you to straighten out the situation in your mind before proceeding.

Trust your feelings, validate your feelings, but don't act blindly on them (i.e. without fully grasping what's happening with the other person). Figure out why exactly you're feeling what you're feeling, then take it up with the person in a way that addresses the root of the problem and in a way that doesn't immediately put them on the defensive. Conflict is sometimes unavoidable, but being more skilled at communicating your concerns will certainly reduce the amount of pain required to reach a resolution.

[starkjoy]

Let's talk Episode 5x02.

Buck and Eddie's heart-to-heart confirmed two of our suspicions: first, Ana caused his panic attacks, not the shooting.

Second, Eddie's definitely not in love with Ana.

On its own, that sounds innocent enough—they've dated for months, yes, but Eddie's suffered tremendously in love and life, so progressing slowly is understandable. That's enough to warrant a breakup itself, so why would the writers add fuel to the fire with panic attacks?

Mom, wife, or both, the mere mention of Ana becoming a permanent fixture in Eddie's family induces a life-threatening visceral response. This isn't just a case of incompatibility, or not being ready to move on. It's a physical, mental, and emotional crisis.

More analysis under the cut:

As many have speculated, there may be more to unpack beyond Eddie's excuse that he's "not ready" for a "ready-made family." So playing house with Ana causes him to panic, but co-parenting with Buck doesn't? Literally choosing Buck to be Christopher's legal guardian in the event of his own death didn't? Not even a little bit? The juxtaposition between Eddie's uncomfortable interactions with Ana and joy when seeing Buck with Chris or talking about Buck and Chris at the zoo makes us wonder: is Eddie not ready for a "ready-made family"...or has he already made one with someone else?

If he's aware of the latter, whether consciously or not, the implications of Buck being the person he wants in his life permanently is enough to warrant panic given Eddie's background.

In that same vein, the "stick with it" line felt particularly telling—I can't help but wonder if he stuck with Shannon, too. He was so young when they met, then their relationship became complicated so quickly...and ultimately cut too short. Perhaps he "stuck with" her despite the chaos because it was easier than confronting his own feelings or sexuality. As others have mentioned, "stick with it" implicitly evokes subtext around compulsory heterosexuality, being in the closet, repression, etc. Whether the writers intended for anything beyond Eddie's textual answer remains to be seen, however.

Now let's move on to Buck.

Maybe we can chalk this up to Oliver's acting choices, but Buck's frustrated—angry, even—emotional response to Eddie's admission surprised me. He's genuinely upset that Eddie would force feelings instead of breaking things off now, even directly comparing himself to Ana because he too has loved someone who didn't reciprocate his feelings (presumably he's referencing Abby, questionably Ali as well). The writers' choice in having Buck compare his own love struggles to Eddie's here naturally drums up questions about his current relationship.

I find it ...interesting that Taylor and Buck's one scene (so far) has already implied there's trouble in paradise. Yet again, Buck seems more invested in his relationship than his partner does. No shade to Taylor or those who ship her with Buck, but why would the writers want the pair's first scene post-canonization to be Taylor choosing work over Buck? Even in a lighthearted scene? If the writers' intent wasn't getting the audience to question whether Buck's latest romantic endeavor will work out, then I'm not sure what they were doing in that scene.

Now, let's remember how the show reintroduced Ana and Taylor as love interests last season. Ana was first, then Taylor after a time jump in the latter half of the season, during which Ana and Eddie were already seeing each other. I remember fans speculating that Buck dipped his feet back in the dating pool not only because he was healing but also because Eddie had made the first step toward moving on. However you want to interpret Buck's choices, shipper goggles on or off, by the end of last season both Eddie and Buck entered two separate, seemingly healthy relationships. Two happily ever afters, two happy families.

Four months later and the fairytale's already fallen apart.

Perhaps Buck's knee-jerk frustration not only stems from his past wounds with Abby, but also because he's sensing he's veering down a familiar path with Taylor. He's angry less so because Eddie said he'd "stick it out" with Ana, but more so because he's always the person people "stick it out" with. Shipper goggles on, maybe he's angry at himself for jumping into another relationship that isn't working when he only reentered the dating pool because of Eddie...whether that be out of jealousy, fear of being left behind, or repressing his confusing feelings.

Eddie's on a clear path to renewed singlehood, and Buck's storyline already leaves room for a similar journey. It's too early to tell, especially with how the writers have dealt with Buddie in the past, but if the show really wanted to quash the ship...why all of this? Will the beginnings of their respective relationships mirror their ends, with Eddie breaking up with Ana in the first half of the season, then Buck in the latter?

The question of the night remains: why break up the couples they just built and write off the characters they just reintroduced if they have no intention of pursuing Buddie romantically?

Maybe they'll push a platonic soulmate narrative where Buck and Eddie raise Chris together and are a family unit, but as bros—but that seems a bit ridiculous after knocking out both of their girlfriends, especially if they're trying to avoid claims of queerbaiting. You never know when there's a general audience to appease as well, though.

Based on what I've seen tonight, however, we may have a genuine chance. At least more of a chance then I thought last season.

[linkspooky]

White Wolf, Black Wolf:  Yuji and Geto

Dualism, is a common theme in Jujutsu Kaisen. There’s a difference between binary opposites and a completementary pair. Binary opposites supposes that two ideas are complete opposites of eachother, they are enemies and therefore cannot coexist. Death is the opposite of life. However, ideas like the concept of yin and yang suggest that these pairs are not opposites, or even enemies, they just exist alongside one another. The feminine yin contains a single dot of the masculine yang energy inside of it and vice versa. 

This pattern repeats itself with both Geto and Yuji. Two characters who seem like they are complete opposites, enemies, hero and villain and yet have far more in common with one another than one might thing. Each of them represented by a wolf, Yuji the white wolf, and Geto the black. 

Dualism - describing how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another.

1. You and the Worst Person You Know Have More in Common than You Thought

Both Yuji and Geto are sharing their body with another existence. Not only that but a sorcerer from the previous era. Sukuna started out as a sorcerer, and one from the golden age of sorcerers. We don’t know who is in Geto yet, but they’ve made it clear several times that they’re not a sorcerer from this era, mockingly referring to the sorcerers of this era as beneath them. The difference is, Yuji is the dominant personality and Geto is the subordinate one. They even fight for control of their body in the same way, by grabbing their neck. 

Both Yuji and Geto have died, and then been improbably brought back to life one time already and had their body healed by the same person who seeks to steal their body. They also both died in front of their other half, their friend, Yuji dies heroically in front of Megumi sacrificing himself so Megumi doesn’t have to call Mahoraga, and Geto dies as a villain after his plan has failed executed by Gojo. Even the days they die are opposites, Geto dies in a clear sky and Yuji dies in the rain. 

They both eat curses. Geto eats them physically in order to store them and use them later. Yuji consumes Sukuna’s fingers in order to grow stronger. Geto’s Jujutsu is themed around his stomach, Sukuna’s is cooking themed. 

Yuji and Geto are both have savior / martyr imagery attached to them. They’re both people who have died, and come back from the dead at least once, and the jesus imagery with Geto is clear and explicitly referenced in hidden inventory. 

Yuji wants to be strong like Gojo, but it’s clear he follows Geto’s philosophy of wanting to save as many people as possible. What motivates him isn’t a clear and strong sense of individualism, but rather the idea that the strong are duty bound to help the weak. Even when Geto’s completely out of his mind he’s still guided by that principle, if he has the strength to do it, then he’s duty bound to try to change the world in the way he sees fit. The thing with Geto is his ideals are warped, but they’re still ideals, he has principles guiding him. These ideals also shockingly sound similiar to what Yuji says, and the burdens he wants to carry. 

It’s something that doesn’t change about Geto from the start to the end of Hidden Invenotry, the strong are obligated to help the weak, it’s just Geto flipped. he sees the sorcerers as the weak and oppressed people, and the masses as the strong ones. 

Geto and Yuji are both people heavily preoccupied with doing the right thing, whereas Gojo and Megumi kind of don’t care (Gojo) / have already accepted the fact (Megumi) that they’re not really saving people with their actions. Geto and Yuji are reckless saviors, they kind of just want to save everybody they see suffering in front of them immediately without thinking through the consequences of their actions. It’s never been seriously analyzed why Yuji feels so deadset on saving others, but from early on he seems to like the idea that it’s a burden that only he can take on himself. It’s something he must duty. The same way that Geto binds himself by the idea of duty. 

Geto and Yuji are just people who will take the whole world on their shoulders, and this isn’t just a parallel I’m making it’s one directly made by the narrative. When worrying about Yuji’s future, Yaga thinks directly of Geto someone who became overwhelmed by everything on is shoulders.

Geto wasn’t able to carry on as he once did, because he couldn’t carry the regret with him. That’s the parallel that the story is making with Yuji, that’s the danger Yuji is in. 

2. Worst Person You Know Makes a Good Point

Chapter 132 there’s a definite change in Yuji’s demeanor. While we haven’t seen the full results of his change yet, not only has he been phsically scarred on his face, but it’s clear the deaths of Nanami, the people killed by Sukuna, all have served to harden him. Nanami wanted Yuji to remain a child a little bit longer, but Yuji has now become a jujutsu sorcerer. However, the words he declares to Mahito have two clear connections to Geto. One, it’s what Geto said to Gojo to stop him from slaughtering the star plasma vessel cult in the moment. 

Gojo has feelings of course, but he’s not moved by them the same way that Geto and Yuji are. Gojo was in need of a tether in that moment and Geto’s words became his tether. Remember Gojo became so powerful as the strongest one he felt like he was capable of anything without feeling it, even slaughtering people on mass, but in that moment Geto became the link that held him back and reminded him he was human. 

What’s ironic is that Gojo was moved by Geto’s words and held himself back, whereas Geto wasn’t. It was Gojo who stuck to those words a year after the fact. He was the strongest, but he doesn’t ever act unless he carefully considers it. He doesn’t just throw power around or slaughter people the way that Geto does. 

What Yuji is vowing to do right now, following his duty as a jujutsu sorcerer without even thinking about it, is exactly what drove Geto apeshit bananas (you see because he loves monkeys so much. It’s a, ‘yknow, it’s one of them jokes). 

Yuji thinks he can just keep going on without thinking and being nothing more than a cog, but it’s exactly that kind of mechanical subservience that completely wore out Geto. Simply going through the motions without questioning it is given to us as the exact reason for Geto’s downfall, it’s one of the most chilling sequences in the manga. 

People aren’t machines, and they aren’t gears, they break down when they try to conform that way. So while it’s understandable Yuji would want to push away all his thoughts in the moment, it’s also not healthy.

The reason Geto became the way he is, is because he realized the laws he was obeying weren’t as fair as he thought they were. He thought it was his duty, and obligation to help the masses, until he looked at his actions with closer scrutiny and realized that wasn’t really what motivated him. Geto thought what he was doing was good, that he would save people, but then Riko’s death was a reality check to him that no one was getting saved by the current system. Yuji seems to have done the opposite of Geto so far. Perhaps I won’t save people. Perhaps I’m just a cog in the machine and my actions truly don’t matter as long as I can keep fighting with my comrades as a jujutsu sorcerer. However, that’s probably not going to work for him.

Yuji’s current comfort in his moment of crisis is that he’s fighting together with all of his comrades, that he carries the wishes of people like Nanami and that’s why he has to keep going, but Yuji also might not have comrades in the jujutsu world after this. We already see people like Kusakabe beginning to turn against him because of Sukuna’s rampage in Shibuya. 

So my intention in all of this is to say it’s not black and white. (Because, get it?? black wolf, white wolf??? Okay, I’m sorry I’ll shut up). Geto wasn’t an entirely bad person, there was good in him too. There was still good in him. This is what Getwo says when he’s beating on Yuji, that if Geto had used his forces more like disposable pawns instead of family telling them to fall back and making sure they all lived he would have won. 

The worst person you know, was still a human being who loved his family with all of is heart. Ideas like this challenge Yuji’s simplified reasons for fighting, and his naive view of the world. 

At the end of the day Yuji and Geto have lots of similarities. They’re opposite colors, Geto black, Yuji white, but they are both still wolves. They’re both moved by deep emotions they feel at the pit of their stomachs. They’re both people who sympathize with others and want to save them, and at the same time get angry and want to kill their enemies. None of this is bad about Yuji in fact it’s what makes him unique among shonen protagonist, he’s not a wholly good person, but just as flawed as anyone else in the story. Nobara’s crazy, Megumi’s crazy, Gojo’s crazy, and then there’s Yuji who should have been the normal one who grew up with a normal life and who is just as crazy as all the rest. 

If anything the parallels between Yuji and Geto show that Yuji is someone who has the chance to grow stronger than Geto by learning from Geto’s fault. Geto tried to carry too much, until the burden of saving the world broke him and he decided he could only save a few people the rest were just monkeys. It’s up to Yuji now to figure out what saving people means, and how he can help others without getting destroyed by the sense of responsibility or just killing himself and dying before he’s helped a single person. However, for Yuji to learn to be better he actually has to think about these things.

That’s also the second parallel to the “I don’t need to think about it’ Scene. (Besides, Sukuna who also declares that he’ll kill for no reason.) In the original Geto fight in the prequel manga Yuta declares this. He doesn’t know whether Geto is right or not, he doesn’t know anything about the world of Jujutsu he just wants to protect his friends. 

Geto calls him egotistical. In the sense that just like a child, he’s only really thinking about himself and his own emotions. Of course Yuta thinks that way because he is a child, a traumatized teenager at that. However, one important detail about this fight is defeating Geto did not cause him to go away. Killing him didn’t actually fix the problem. Geto just came back a year later with somebody else in his body. 

I think this is all leading up to a point for Yuji where he gives some serious self examination as a protagonist. It’s not enough for Yuji to just defeat his enemies. We even see that when after is triumphant moment with Mahito, Geto just wipes the floor with him.

Jujutsu Kaisen presents a very complex world, that’s not  just black and white, not just winning and losing. The next big step in Yuji’s character development is probably going to be realizing this. That he needs to seriously think about his reason. That he needs to think about what he wants to do in the future. It’s not enough for him to sacrifice his life to save someone else, he’s not a hero, or some martryr to a cause. I think the most important thing Yuji has to learn at the end of all of this is to actually live, and find out why he’s alive instead of resigning himself to the fact that he’ll get executed one day. It’s only then Yuji will be able to reach his full potential as both a jujutsu sorcerer and a person. 

He’s just a kid you know? The theme of the manga is kids should get to be kids. Yuji should get to grow up just like everybody else, instead of dying before he’s even old because he ate Sukuna’s finger to help someone else. 

[itsclydebitches]

About Bakugo, I actually think his original characterization is partly why his arc doesn't work for me: it seems like his contempt for others and desire to hurt them is innate, because he was already insulting and humiliating Deku for fun when they were in kindergarden, and at this age I'm not sure it makes sense to blame the adults around him for this behavior. This is also why I don't buy the "childhood friends" narrative, even before the infamous river scene Bakugo was toxic to Deku.

Hard agree, anon. I'm willing to give some wiggle room to the "Bakugo had a messy childhood and that's why he's like this" argument just because I'm not caught up (and thus might be missing some flashbacks/revelations), no one's life is ever perfect, and there's a subjective line between what we read as innocuous tropes vs. realistic traumas (example: is his mom hitting him something we take seriously, or just classic anime "comedy"?), but honestly I'm... not persuaded by that stance. Largely due to what you've said about this contempt being around since the very beginning. Bakugo's cruelty is the introduction to the entire series, the very first thing we see:

First, they're young here. Maybe not kindergarten young, but as we see in the above narration, it's at age four that Bakugo acquired his "I'm the best" thinking (more on that in a second). They're kids. This is not something that developed slowly over the years until Bakugo crossed some kind of line, he's been like this since the very start. Since a kid is capable of forming thoughts, opinions, and making decisions: like attacking another. In what way does this establish them as friends? Izuku literally shaking as he tries to protect another kid Bakugo is has hurt? Bakugo calling him worthless? Gleefully attacking and punching Izuku in the face? They were never friends! Izuku followed Bakugo around because he was paid some kind of attention by him and Bakugo poisoned the well — no one else in class will befriend Izuku. We see this both by the two willing to help beat him up here and, later, when Izuku says he wants to got to U.A. the entire class laughs at both the idea and Bakugo blowing up his desk in response. The bullying is the only kind of "friendship" Izuku has, so he embraces it with a smile and a nickname. Meanwhile, Bakugo allows Izuku to tag along because he makes him feel good in comparison. All Bakugo needs for an ego boost is to look at Izuku. He's the useless, quirkless nobody whose name can be read as "Deku." What's not to like? Izuku makes Bakugo feel good because Bakugo will always come out on top — always win — when pit against him. Did they have a few good moments gushing over All Might? Yeah, but anyone who has been bullied knows that it's not a clear cut "They were consistently awful every second of every day." Sometimes, those moments of pretend or conditional friendship make everything worse.

(As a side note, I keep hearing the more intense fans of Bakugo saying that those who criticize him identify with Izuku "too much" and it's like... yes? He's the protagonist. You're supposed to identify with him. To say nothing of the question of why you'd include such an explicit bullying subplot — arguably at the heart of the narrative in regards to characterization — if you didn't want readers who had experienced bullying to relate to this story. So it's all about victims like Izuku, you're allowed to care, just don't care in a way that holds Bakugo responsible?)

"But Izuku cares about Bakugo. He tried to help him out of the river." Yeah, because Izuku cares about everyone. Overlooking his warped idea of what friendship is due to having no one but Bakugo, Izuku is the kind of person who is going to extend his hand to anyone who needs it, just like All Might would. His extreme compassion and lack of other friends is not good proof that he cares for Bakugo in any true, healthy fashion, let alone that Bakugo cares for him.

As for when this all started, yeah, it was when they were even younger than in the scene above. Toddlers when Bakugo realized he had a strong quirk and Izuku was told he had none. Bakugo's reaction to these events — deciding he's better than everyone else and that justifies harming those "lesser" than him — is instantaneous. That desire was there all along. He just needed an excuse to act on it. After the conversations about the adults' influence on him, I went back to the anime scenes of Bakugo showing his quirk to his class and it's... pretty normal? I mean yes, there's praise, but in what world wouldn't there be praise? A bunch of other kids are going to ooh and ahh over mini explosions and the two teachers, unless they're entirely heartless, are going to tell this kid that he'll indeed make a wonderful hero someday. Those are standard responses for very young kids who aren't going to understand something like, "That is a powerful quirk and you could be a great hero... just don't let that potential go to your head!" There's nothing in those scenes that imply an excess of praise, at least so much that it would totally warp a kid's perspective of others to the extent Bakugo has going on. If I recall correctly, Bakugo's parents are quite disappointed in his behavior, but that never had an impact on him. And as I mentioned previously, we have incredibly talented characters like Momo (getting into U.A. on recommendation), people like Ida who come from families with other heroes they want to impress, Todoroki dealing with a crazy legacy to live up to, tied up in his abuse... yet none of them turned out like Bakugo. All of that didn't kill their compassion, but adults telling Bakugo he has a strong quirk made him into this person? Bakugo wanted to be that person, right from the start.

Honestly, I think a lot of fans latched onto Bakugo — which is awesome! — but didn't want to admit how horrible he actually is. So they took moments largely out of context and repeated them enough until they became fandom staples. Bakugo and Izuku were close childhood friends who just had a falling out they need to come back from. Bakugo was only like this because the adults in his life drove him to that behavior. Izuku loves Bakugo because he can see how good he is, deep down inside, and definitely not because he's been stuck with him since they were toddlers, unable to escape him even at U.A. It's a very sanitized look at their relationship, embraced because fans want them to be friends or lovers. Which is fine! God knows I'm into a ton of "problematic" ships, I just like acknowledging that they're problematic, not trying to sweeten the situation because fandoms have made others feel guilty for liking anything that's not squeaky clean and pure. Bakugo tormented Izuku for their entire childhood. He encouraged him to commit suicide. He tried to keep him from achieving his dream, both by undermining his confidence and outright threatening him (remember burning his shoulder?). He then reworked that obsession when they both got into U.A., trying to prove Izuku's uselessness, failing, and continually struggling with the thought that he's actually a great hero. And it's like... why do I care? This guy is a horrible person, he's been a horrible person since he was a kid, and his greatest challenge for more than half the story is acknowledging that other people aren't worthless trash. His improvement still hasn't gotten him to the standard of an average person, let alone a hero. If Bakugo were a villain, great, or if the story was going to really highlight the corruption of the hero career as a whole (we take anyone with powerful quirks, no matter how awful they are), great, but as a main character hero whose behavior is supposedly just a cover for a fantastic guy, please overlook everything he does and assume he's worthy of your respect anyway? Ehhh. Why do I care about him as a good guy when there are characters like Ida and Uraraka I could stan? To be clear, I'm not saying other fans can't enjoy whatever characters they enjoy, just that from a storytelling perspective I think it's a failure to introduce Bakugo as such an extreme, make him one of the heroes, give him such a selfish struggle, and then expect a lot of the audience to care. Bakugo either needed to be more balanced from the start — regular flaws instead of such an intense adoration for cruelty from the age of four — or the story needed to unpack his behavior in a way it never bothered to.

[comfortmarvelimagines]

You are Home, and Home is Safe

heyhey ! deciding to just get it over with and post this tonight (for those of you who don’t know what i’m talking about, a post explaining can be found here. side note, please be nice in my inbox, its been rough getting some of those comments). i am, however, going to continue to tag autistic!reader fics with #whenyoucantfindthequiet and #wycftq, so they’re easier to find. hope it’s what you’re after, nonnie, and i’m so so sorry it took so long !!

features : autistic!reader x mama!nat, lowkey asshole Tony Stark (it’s okay i didn’t make him really mean, just kinda well-meaning but misplaced/ mistimed) 

warnings : uhhh i guess meltdowns, some self-injurious behaviour

Words are hard. Always have been, always will be. 

You haven't always had a family. For years you were passed from foster home to foster home, with a consistent message: you were too much. Your needs were too high, your behaviour too confusing, your struggles too much to deal with. It got to a point where you began to question yourself, your diagnoses and trauma, wondering if it was all in your head or for attention like you were told over and over. 

That changed when you met Nat. 

It wasn’t immediate of course. There was the initial period of complete and total distrust, of another stranger whose life you were thrust into the middle of, floundering and drowning with no support. There was shutdown after shutdown. The trauma of being ignored and punished for meltdowns meant that you’d learned to internalise. You barely ate, and didn’t speak. But Nat met you where you were, unwaveringly. Was always calm, composed, voice level. Kept food out on the kitchen bench at all times, figuring out your safe foods and keeping them stocked. Realised you liked small enclosed spaces and stocked your bedroom with beanbags, pillows, stuffies and blankets, a permanent blanket fort taking up residence in the living space. Perhaps the most wonderful was her commitment to listening to you, with or without words. The superspy was quick to recognise your shutdown states from body language alone and responded quickly, with two option questions and the request to tap the hand of the answer you wanted. 

You almost wanted to feel embarrassed, humiliated, of the accommodations she made so immediately. But she always spoke to you conversationally and never in an infantilizing tone, like so many before her, and the trust you held for her grew. It didn’t always grow in a way that you felt was positive, though. As weeks passed you felt your shutdowns turn into meltdowns and silence into frustrated screams. You didn’t want to hurt her. You didn’t want to feel ungrateful or angry or like any of this was on purpose but somehow she knew. As she held you close after each one she reminded you that your body was unlearning trauma, that you were safe, that you were loved so fully and unconditionally and nothing, including meltdowns, would change that. The way she held you felt like home. 

But no one else was like Nat. Social workers were condescending, school was overwhelming, nowhere was safe. So you stuck to Nat. It wasn’t long after you were placed with her that she pulled you out of school, realising that they were doing more harm than good, and she was always there for homeschool. Not looking over your shoulder, but present. You could hear her humming through the walls, or swearing as she dropped a spoon into a pot of soup on the stove again, and it was comforting. It wasn’t the apartment that was home, per say, but having a parent made it feel like one. If she went to the grocery store or a walk in the park you came with, ear defenders on, clinging to her sleeve for safety. She told you that she loved you a million times a day, until one day you said it back. 

Words came easier after that. Simple things, like asking what’s for breakfast, became routine. It wasn’t just Nat softly illuminating the cramped space with hummed melodies and occasionally vulgar language but you as well, asking for help with homework or explaining a meme. It felt normal, comfortable, okay. The outside world was too much, but inside your home, the anxiety all but melted from your throat. 

You never wanted to leave safety. You wanted to feel it all the time. It was warm and sweet and heavy but in a calm way, like a weighted blanket sinking into your joints. It started as a one-time-thing, after a particularly rough meltdown, but you started sleeping in Nat’s bed. It just felt… right. The panic that set in when Nat left the room and you didn’t know where she was going or what she was doing or if she was ever going to come back was so all-consuming and nauseating that going to sleep alone, in another room, unable to hear her was torturous. What if she abandoned you, gone in the night, social worker beckoning you on to the next uncaring couple, crowded foster family or group home? This way, when you woke at 2am from a nightmare, the first thing you heard was her even breathing. Home. Safe. 

***

Tony Stark was something else. Nat eventually started to transition back to work, and, as being homeschooled permitted, brought you with her. Even in classified meetings where you weren’t allowed in you sat in corridors and made sure you could see her red braid through the frosted glass, glancing up from your laptop every few seconds to make sure she didn’t disappear while you wrote your English critique. The rest of Nat’s colleagues (it felt too weird to just casually refer to them as the Avengers and co) didn’t mention your presence, at least in front of you; it was as if they didn’t know what to say or how to say it. Not that you’d say anything back. Outside of the safety of home it was like the anxiety disconnected your brain from your throat, anything you wanted to say cut off before it reached your tongue. It was frustrating. The first few days ended in meltdowns when you reached the apartment and it felt weird and strange and almost like you were two different people but an all-round embarrassment of a child. It was weeks before things settled into a routine and a pattern of acknowledged non-acknowledgement. A pattern Stark ignored. 

You were sitting at the island bench in the communal kitchen, drinking chocolate milk and typing out an assignment, when you heard both Nat and Tony heading down the hall towards you. They’d just come out of a meeting, you sitting watch outside the whole time, and Nat had sent you to the kitchen to wait for her while she headed upstairs with Tony to drop off some paperwork to an intern. You hadn’t thought much of it. Sure, you didn’t like being away from Nat at all, but if she was clear in where she was going and how long she was going for (provided it was only a short period), you did okay. It was okay, until you heard the discussion from down the hall. 

“Damn, Nat, is that the longest you’ve been away from the kid?” 

“No.” 

“C’mon, Nat. I know the kid’s been through some shit, but this isn’t healthy. For either of you. What happens if you can’t get out of the mission next time? They’re gonna have to be away from you at some point. You can’t be in this line of work with a barnacle of a kid.” 

You’d heard enough. As the topic changed and they entered the kitchen, you didn’t look up from your laptop in greeting.  

*** 

Too much. Too clingy. Too anxious, too needy, too autistic, too much. You needed separation. Give Nat space. Of course she needed to work. The world needed her, and they didn’t need you tagging along. When you got home that night, you headed straight to your room. Buried yourself in the mountain of blankets and stuffies and waited until Nat came to check on you, facing the wall, feigning sleep. You doubt you fooled the former spy but nonetheless, she left you be, a whispered “I love you” hanging in the air as she creaked the door close behind her. 

It was seconds before you broke. It felt like choking. All of the fear that was slowly reduced to an ebbing tide through months of living in a caring environment crashed on you like the mother of all tsunamis, saltwater running down your cheeks and into your mouth as if smothering all the words you wished you could scream. It lasted for hours and hours and it was relentless, painful, as if your heart was being ripped out and an empty throbbing numbness was expanding in its place. You were too much. Too much. Too much. 

Nat stood outside your door at the time when she’d usually be gently waking you up, watching you unfurl and stretch yourself out of the cocoon of blankets you slept in every night. She knew something was wrong from lunch yesterday, and your isolation from her was concerning. She figured you needed space, but the sleep she knew was an act sat at the back of her mind and bugged her all night long. Even with that nagging suspicion that something was up, nothing prepared her for the way her heart sank when she came in and saw your body curled up, eyes red and barely open from exhaustion, pillow and face damp from tears. 

She was at your side in seconds. Your resolve to cut yourself off melted at the sight of her open arms, safe, warm, home. And immediately your body melted. Hands running through your hair, the promise that you were safe, loved, worthy of support, the request to “tell me next time, please, you don’t need to deal with this on your own.” 

For some reason, those were the words that broke out the first sounding sob in the 12 hours of silent crying. It was so loud and gut-wrenching and it almost didn’t feel like it came from you at all and it was such a weird feeling, and all of a sudden you were scratching at your arms to try and re-embody yourself and Nat was breathing calmly and deeply and gently rubbing your shoulders until you found yourself easing back into your physicality.  

“Did you hear what Stark said yesterday?” 

And just like that she figured it out, of course she did, because she’s a trained spy and that’s her job, to put the pieces together and slot the narrative into place. And god, were you grateful, because you couldn’t see yourself stringing sentences together to accuse none other than Iron Man himself of triggering waves of hurt just by stating what you’d convinced yourself was the truth. She was quick to reassure. You are loved, you are wanted, you are always welcome and will always be her child and what you need will always come first. The warm safety settled itself in your belly and you let the tiredness wash over you, drifting on a life raft of whispered Russian lullabies and Nat’s hand rubbing circles on your back. At peace.

Of course, you’d never tell Nat, but hearing her whisper-yell at Tony over the phone for being an insensitive dick was possibly one of the best moments of your life.

[fvrxdrm]

Ｆ Ｅ Ｖ  Ǝ  Ｒ

𝚊𝚌𝚝 𝚒𝚒

Warning: NSFW

It's so unfair how there are people out there who can manipulate your brain into becoming a whole new psyche with just their looks, smell, touch, and you wouldn't even know whether they're doing it intentionally or not. They can just look you in the eyes and it's only a matter of time before you're wobbling in place and turning into a mess of a puddle.

Sometimes we question: what goes on in the psychology of sex? What is it in humans that gives us the ability to titillate others and be titillated ourselves with just simple gestures? For you that's something you don't think you can find the answer to as people see things in their own abstract way. Yes, we may think similarly but nevertheless we don't think the same. We've all established a base, substantially, but just go in different ways from that.

With that in mind, you never saw it as a bad thing. In fact, you'd let your partner do that to you anytime as long as he doesn't take advantage of it and take you to the point where it's too much and is painful.

And boy, oh boy, Leon was not one to disappoint.

*****

There are a million ways to say "I love you", and there are a million ways to express love in a non-verbal method. But either way, you never had the guts to confess how you felt as possibilities were always the main factor of your anxieties. Well, maybe you sprinkled a little bit of the latter but that was it. You just did them to hopefully throw away some hints, though, you knew they weren't enough to profess your undying love for your friend (and fuck buddy). So, you just stuck to being friends with benefits with Leon just to experience what it felt like being closer to him than how friends usually are. You just stuck to fantasizing what it would be like to be his now and forever, even in the afterlife. You might sound like an obsessed bitch but to be honest, you were lost. You didn't know how to deal with everything at this point; from your lifestyle, to your love life, to your job that you never even intended to be recruited in anyway. Everything was a nightmare. You felt like you had an excuse but you didn't at the same time. You wanted to get some help from somebody but you knew it would be useless if this was going to be your experience of a lifetime. And so, you never knew how to deal with catching feelings, especially since Leon was the first true love that ever had a very special place in your heart, and you didn't know what was healthy and what was not. It was painful, that's for sure. But until fate's decided to either tear you apart or piece you together, your relationship was going to remain like that, even with a heavy heart and bloodshot eyes.

Those who didn't know the narrative of what was actually happening between you and Leon would confused you two of being a romantic couple. It was something you often laughed at and made fun of behind their backs but deep inside, you wanted that. You wanted every abiding kiss on your lips to be reasoned with the fact that you both cared about each other in a way you never had, you wanted every bite on your neck and what was left of it to be a symbol of what went beyond that, you wanted every bliss to be the result of genuine love and temporarily worn out lust. It was a veracity smothered by foolery. A grain of truth in every joke.

And so, instead of experiencing the pleasant tingle his touch was supposed to tickle on your ever beating heart, you felt heaviness weigh down from your chest to your stomach; a poisoned density that made your insides churn in an obnoxious way and almost made you physically vomit. It made your head pound in an ill way but as time and years went by, you got used to it. You wondered if it was because you became numb or if it was because you've succumbed to the fantasy of being engulfed in those arms of his. Maybe both. Come what may, you never wanted to find out.

You were suddenly pulled out of the perplexing dwam of your mind when you felt Leon's slightly chapped lips kiss and lick the purpled spot just below your ear. It was one of the many hickeys on your skin that he'd painted with his mouth, one of the very few he'd paid attention to due to the fact that you seemed to enjoy him sucking on it judging by the way you writhed underneath him and panted intensely like a dog. Reliving that moment from earlier that night was such a good idea, he thought, as he got you to cling onto him just by taking advantage of the delicate skin over there.

You began to breathe heavily at his contact on your neck, at the feeling of him retouching what appeared fainted on the surface. Your hand slid down from where its dainty fingers were toying with the shortened strands by the nape of his neck to where his pectorals flexed and relaxed under your caress. He chuckled with a jolt at the sensation of you tickling him, squeezing your side a little bit as an involuntary reflex. This caused you to giggle yourself.

Instances like this invariably made the atmosphere lighter every time sex was heavy on both of you, outrageously hilarious or not. They took your mind off of the darkest thoughts and possibilities and they made everything all the more delicious afterwards. Sudden witless "commercial breaks", as you liked to call it, were a reminder that not every intimate thing had to be perfectly romantic and passionate to be enjoyable like those cliche erotic movies you watched to feel horny, that not every fuck had to be solely about sex. They also helped you take out the toxins in your soul like the once I've mentioned earlier even for just a certain amount of time. Sex is supposed to help you relax, to make you feel good. So, why not spritz in a bit of goofiness to add a little bit of rainbows and unicorns?

Air blew out of you when you felt Leon's cock nudge your clit as it twitched against your cunt, a shuddering rush of heat trickling through you. As for your partner, he hissed through his teeth and might've bitten on your collarbone a bit too much that you jerked in surprise.

"Leon," you mumbled with a gasp. He apologized for the sudden discomfort he'd cause before gently kissing the reddening spot. It soothed the pain somehow, but you know what would make it all the more better? If he would just kiss you a few spots higher than your neck.

You let the tips of your fingers creep up against the visible bristles poking at the bottom of Leon's chin,  curled your index as it came to a stop, and pulled his face up where you could kiss him once again. The kiss didn't feel as desperate as it was before, if anything it felt like it was just a tickle on your lips and if you didn't know any better, you might've mistaken it to have something unspoken from his side and yours. But you were smarter than that, you thought.

As he came to claim your bottom lip with his own pair in a shy lip-lock, his hands ghosted up your sides and crept towards your chest where he curved them on your breasts. There he began playing with them. He softly squeezed them, rounded them, and tweaked your nipples, causing you to gasp against his face and to pull away shortly before he placed his lips back on yours.

Leon was so good at this. He knew how to make you weak just by his touch. How dare he make you fall on your knees before him?

It wasn't so long when he pulled away with a soft smack, your lips stretching and then parting at the dampness of your almost dried saliva. His arms supported him whilst he raised himself up as to not crush you and to get a better look at you.

You looked so beautiful.

There was just something in the darkness that made you look so alluring but he wasn't sure what it was. Maybe it was the way he could still very much see how your pillow was bestrewn by the messiness of your sweat-dampened hair, maybe it was the way he could feel your plump breasts rising and falling against his chest, maybe it was how your half-lidded eyes stared into his own, finding and looking into something of the unknown, maybe it was the way the cunning moonlight had snuck in through the curtain gaps and illuminated the brightness of your eyes and defined the pronounced parts of your skin, or maybe it's the little bit of everything that made him fall into your hypnotizing trap. You were goddess at heart, even more so when he's made a mess of you; sweaty bod, hoarse throat, and all that.

Leon felt himself being dragged out of his thoughts when your warm and clammy palm rested on his right cheek. Then, he heard your raspy voice - a result of what transpired earlier - speak softly to him, "Leon, you okay?" Leon had to bite his lip to stop himself from snickering after hearing what he did to your voice before replying.

"Yeah," he said, "but I want to ask, is it okay if we try something new? I promise it's not going to be painful." He kissed your cheek as reassurance, though, he didn't really need to as you knew Leon wouldn't harm you in any way, given that he never was one to make someone suffer the way he never wanted to himself.

Your bottom lip found its way in between your teeth as anticipation flooded in your head and in your heat. "Well, there's nothing wrong with trying something new, right?" You said, snaking your arms around his neck and pulling him closer. Leon smirked at your response before giving your lips one last peck.

*****

My, oh my.

Who knew tying someone up and blindfolding them would look this hot?

As he promised to himself, he started off small and avoided skipping to the wilder parts of BDSM as he didn't want to scare you off and shock himself. Also, considering a tie and a bandanna was all he had, they were the only things he could make use of. The belt could wait. Right now he'll just take in the sight of his sweet but fierce girl tied up on a hotel bed, blindfolded, and with no clothes on to protect yourself from the sneer of the moonlight.

Leon watched as you moved your legs in anticipation for what might happen next. From the way you drew in some air, he could tell you were feeling a concoction of different emotions, most probably nervousness and excitement. Nervousness? He didn't know why. But excitement? He felt like he could understand how not seeing what your partner might do can arouse you in a whole other level.

What was taking him so long?  You thought, sniffling with impatience. You heard the shuffling of feet on the floor and felt the dipping of the mattress on either side of you as Leon hovered above your hips, but you hadn't sensed him doing anything after that. Your brows furrowed.

Was he going to touch you or what?

Even with a blindfold on, there was no mistaking that Leon was staring down at you intently, you could discern it. You felt like a prey ready to be devoured by a predator, wrists all bound and visual perception covered as to keep yourself from escaping the wilderness and take a grasp of any idea of where to go. This caused you to squirm because quite frankly, you felt rather uncomfortable being in a situation like this. All you wanted to do was to run and hide under the sheets.

You were beginning to feel agitated at what he was doing unseen by you and was about to ask what was wrong but as if Leon could read your mind, he slowly let his hand touch the smoothness of your mound and dragged one of his fingers against your cunt. Man, he almost couldn't control himself once he felt your heat smoothly slide against his middle finger, it just felt so perfect and delicious. He guessed it was because his brain was making him think of what he would do to you with all your juices readying you up for what was to come, and maybe it was also the fact that you were so easily stimulated by the mere touch of his hands. He caused this. He caused you to stir up the wild vixen in you, and no doubt was Leon proud of himself.

At the feeling of Leon's sudden touch on your pussy, you jolted and gasped in surprise, your fists clenching on the tie that was keeping you from pushing him away. You were startled so badly that you felt like the bed jumped along with you. "Fuck, Leon!" You exclaimed under your breath. Promptly, your ears were blessed with Leon's deep chuckle at your reaction as he lowered himself to you.

Though your sight was blocked away by the vaguely rough fabric of his handkerchief, you felt a light puff of Leon's breath just by your left tit. You were certain that he was going to suck the life out of it, and sure enough, you were right. Leon had formed his lips into a small "o" against the the contrasting bud on your chest, pulling it with his teeth; enough to get a moan out of you, but not enough to hurt you. You tugged on the tie for the first time and arched your back, pushing your breast to him in the process as you cursed under your breath. By then Leon had put in more pressure on your sex and paid the most attention to your clit, a skill he was definitely pleased to brag about in bed. If he were to be compared with all of the men you've been with, you would, without a doubt, pick him because of it (along with all the other "talents" he had, too). He could make you come in a matter of minutes just by the use of his fingers! What's not to love? Shit, you couldn't even do what he does yourself and you knew your body way more than he did.

Leon's middle digit began to gain speed as it circled the erectile part of your sex, all the while he continued to play with your hardened bud with the same amount of motion as his hand. It felt like the power of the air-conditioner was dying out what with the rush of heat that was surrounding you. But if you were to observe intently, the AC was functioning properly. It was just getting hot because of the adrenaline inundating inside of you and the hormones beginning to reach their peak. Degree by degree, the fever fighting through the cold commenced in filling the room as your high was setting in to punch out of you. You felt yourself shake against Leon's touch and he felt you, too. But before he could let you release what was built inside of you, he removed his finger and pulled away from your bosom, very much intent on edging you. You whined at the lost of contact and at the ebbing of your closely-released orgasm. This didn't go unnoticed by Leon and he tittered again - which you noted he did so frequently tonight, you thought it was going to be another addition to his sexy personality - while he simultaneously rubbed your side.

It was so hard calming your frantic heart, you realized you were holding in most of your breaths and forgot how to breathe properly when he touched you using his finger and mouth. That's how much power Leon had over you. With just one touch air would banish from your mind and you wouldn't register that oxygen was a thing until much later when the blizzard has been tranquilized. But despite that, you knew this was just the calm before the storm and there was more to come your way.

*****

As everything was steadying to a slow and synchronized beat your mind came to wander against the silence; were you just somebody Leon could toy with occasionally or was there something hidden beneath the surface of his lust? Were you just like his coffee cups - tempting and disposable? Something he could play his games with until he found someone better to beguile using his charm? What if you misled yourself into coming in for the glamour and then eventually leave with a twisted story? You couldn't lie, you were scared of that. You were scared that one day Leon would get tired of you and find beer and skittles from someone else.

But why even bother, anyway? You weren't his; you never were, you never are, and you probably never will be. There were just some silly and stupid unresolved feelings from your side.

You've grown limp from your thoughts. You hadn't noticed just how much everything has taken a toll on you until now. Your feelings, your views, your demons. You wondered if things would get better as the clock ticked and luck remained by your side. It was only a matter of time before you break and you feared what came along with it.

"You okay?" You heard Leon speak as he stroked your hair. He never saw it nor noticed anything in particular, but tears had begun brimming your eyes. They seeped through the fabric of the bandanna but lucky for you, the folded material was thick enough to not let the wetness leak through, and even if it did, the room was too dark for him see.

You bit your lip, preventing it from trembling right in front of him. Then, you replied, "yeah, y-you can proceed now." Leon smiled softly at you - though, he knew you couldn't see it - and placed a delicate kiss on your forehead before crawling back to where his face met your hips.

"Good. I'll make you feel really good, I promise."

Behind the blindfold you closed your eyes when the tip of Leon's nose lightly touched the tender skin of your inner thigh. He teased it with care, rubbing his nose from side to side as to tickle it. If the blindfold wasn't in the way, you would've stared at the ceiling and waited in expectancy at what was next, counted imaginary stars and connected them to form into illusory shapes until Leon would break the barrier and make you close your eyes. For now though, you would have to make do with what was in front of you.

By now Leon had placed wet kisses on your skin, nibbling it from time to time and even sucking on it for a bit. He was surprisingly being moderate with his touches, you thought. You inhaled a small amount of air at the ticklish sensation of his growing stubble and his bites and your leg jerked along away from his face.

You weren't sure what Leon was up to at this point. One second he's all rough and playful with you and your body, and then the next second he's saying that he'll make you feel good and being gentle all of a sudden. One side of you, the optimistic side, believed it was because he was trying to make love to you in the most confusing way. But then the other side of you, the irresolute side, screamed that he was just feeling like shifting the tides and that was it. The answer never really occurred to you even as years have passed since you've started this arrangement, but regardless of that, both soft and hard made you feel good in the best possible ways, even raising hills on your skin using his calloused one.

All the gasping you did since you've started was making your lips feel drier than what you felt was your limit. So, you stuck your tongue out and slid it against the chapped area to moisten it. But as you were doing so, Leon suddenly motioned his broad tongue up against your pussy, resulting in you biting your tongue and clamping your thighs beside his head. A whimper of both pleasure and pain slipped in between pursed lips.

You hadn't meant to almost crush his head in between your legs, but you were caught off guard by the sudden contact of his wet muscle that you involuntarily moved them in defense. He grunted in return and carefully parted your thighs once again. "Sorry," you apologized. Leon just hummed in response before telling you that it was okay and that he was sorry for startling you.

Before he proceeded with continuing where he left of though, he raised his head and took a glance at you in worry. "Are you okay, though? I saw you accidentally bite your tongue," he said as he stroked the smoothness of your skin as a way of comfort.

"Yeah, I'm good. Just surprised."

"Is it too painful? Do I need to stop?"

"No, no, you're good. Just continue what you're doing."

"Okay, if you say so." Leon took one last look at you, searching for any indication that you were in some way harmed before carrying on with going down on you. The soft sigh that left your lips was enough to ease him from his worries and fears and he instead smirked against your sex.

To him, your pussy felt like the most perfect strand of silk; soft to the touch and so easy to slither against, he wouldn't mind touching it all day if given the permission to. Leon loved how his cock would always feel so good sliding on and inside you, greeting your walls without so much strain and them hugging him in return oh so delightfully. As for the taste, he couldn't have found a dessert or even a whole meal that could come close to your juices, not even an inch in comparison. They just bring out the best in you, giving his eager tongue the tanginess he wouldn't find anywhere and from anyone else, especially. He could even tell you were taking great care of your insides just by the taste of them. And so, every time he was given the chance to relish in the sweetness of your liquids, he would always turn into this madman, hungry and thirsty for what was in front of him.

Leon, with both of your thighs tightly gripped by his hands, ate the life out of your vagina. He teased your entrance with the tip of his tongue, collecting what came out of your cunt as it clenched and unclenched to the rhythm of his mouth. Sporadically, he would open and close his lips against the entirety of your sex as if he was making out with it without care. He was a hungry man after all, and a hungry man is never one to waste the blessings he was given, not even a single grain.

The series of licks he was presenting your body with was making you all the more hot and bothered and you've been tugging on the tie so frequently that you were afraid the headboard was going to be yanked too hard and would cause it to break and crash into your face. Though, to be frank, that was the least of your worries, especially since Leon was giving you more of a reason to forget things as he lapped up your arousal.

At one particular moment, when Leon had licked a bold stripe from your entrance to the very top end of your cunt, he enclosed his mouth around your clit and sucked so hard you felt like your soul was pulled out of you along with the stretching of the flesh around your pearl. This caused a loud whine to be coerced out of you as one of your hands clambered to get a hold of one of the headboard posts. Your back bent to a certain extent and your brows furrowed up, tears flooding the gates once again in a more pleasurable way. Along with them, curses exuded through clenched teeth and Leon had to apply some force on your abdomen to keep you from moving around to much. You almost closed your thighs on his again, but lucky for you and lucky for him, he was strong enough to multitask and stretch your legs apart, too. Just how much talent did that mouth of his have?

"Fuck, Leon!"

That one bold move was enough of a silent booster to your first orgasm, the one that he neglected earlier. He noticed how your body began to shake as the floodgates were ready to burst open. So, he devoured as much of you as he can until he felt the sudden rush of your come slide towards his tongue.

*****

Damn that man! Just how much power did he have to make you come that strongly every time?

Your heart beat in a more frantic manner than before now that your awaited release had come. It was getting really hard to breathe, you had to admit, but Leon had let you take a few sips of water to help in calming down your heart and lungs.

You closed your eyes for a moment, just taking in the strength of your climax caused by that wonderful mouth of his. It's amazing how a certain body part of his could bring you to another ethereal world just by the use of that. He didn't need a second one to combine with his first as one could already reign so many kingdoms. He held so much supremacy that if he were a literal king, you would've bowed down so many times in his honor.

"You good?" You heard him ask. He'd licked the excess mess that was spread throughout his mouth and chin and wiped his saliva off of them with the back of his hand.

"Yeah, I've calmed down a bit at least."

"Good, 'cause I've got one last gift for you." You thought the blindfold he tied behind your head was there to stay, but apparently not because he pulled the fabric up away from your face and threw it at the side where the forgotten sheet of blanket laid untouched. You looked up at him in confusion.

"I thought you wanted that blindfold on me the whole time?" You questioned.

The man answered with no uncertainty but with desperation, "no, I changed my mind. I want to see your face while I fuck you," before he pushed his lips to yours, his fringes tickling your face as he moved his head with yours. As he was busying your mind with the contradicting but surprisingly well-blended roughness and gentleness of his kiss, he stroked his shaft with the hand that wasn't supporting his weight a few times before slowly pushing into your heat with very little haste as to not hurt you. Leon groaned from deep within his throat while you on the other hand mewled high into the night.

And with the door closed every pretence fell. The facade you showed the world melted away and all you wanted was to fuck each other's brains out.

The stretch between your thighs sent electricity through your nerves and the velvety walls that surrounded Leon's cock sent white noises to his brain. He laid on top of you for a moment, staring into your eyes as deeply and as intently as he could take, to steady his breath intake before his hips started moving in a steady pace. There you saw the bluest skies turn to black clouds, the smoke that continued to rise beyond his eyes as everything burned around you, like a fever.

It felt like fever was beginning to turn into a running gag between you and him, you thought. Every huge and small being was consumed by the flames of your past, present, and future, annihilating what was left unnoticed by you in certain moments. And in a way, you felt like fever was the perfect description for everything that had come your way. If we go back to science class, we remember that fever occurs when the body is trying to battle an infection, just like how the intimate moments you share battle what doesn't matter around you. Coincidence? You thought not.

You felt unsatisfied with how he was too slow with his pacing so, you spoke his name softly with a sigh and smiled when he hummed in response. "Fuck me." Leon ceased all of his movements and just stared at you like a deer caught in bright headlights.

Never in the years of your arrangement had you spoken with such filth and vulgarity until now. You were such a fierce but sweet little vixen, too shy to even tell him to fuck you in bed. But he'd heard it and in his mind, he thought that his sweet little vixen was growing up into a bigger and a more confident one, a thought that made his cock twitch inside of you; and that was enough for Leon to slam into you as you screamed his name at such intense pleasure and pain. Leon pulled back again, leaving his tip to be inside you and slammed inside again and continued on in a savage pace which caused your eyes to roll at the back of your head.

You bit your swollen lip once again (you wondered if you woke up the next morning your lips would be bloodied and wounded from how much you were biting it) as you held onto either Leon's tie or the bedpost, listening to the bed creak underneath you at the frenetic energy Leon was providing with each thrust. You screamed again and again, thanking the gods that very little people were renting the hotel rooms because of how expensive they were.

You couldn't take it anymore. With how fierce Leon's movements were, it was impossible not to come right away and so you did. Just after a few more thrusts, you writhed underneath him, tugging on his tie for the umpteenth time as you came rushing much stronger than before. You see what I mean by how one can reign so many kingdoms? He didn't even have to play with your clit.

Leon felt the warmth of your orgasm coat the entirety of his dick, a feeling he never grew tired of throughout the years. He was always weak when a woman came before him, a fact he still held on to this day and was still proven by how quick he was to climax. His thrusts became sloppier once he felt the climb of his salty semen, and not long after he began grinding against you, the sensitivity on your clit making your hips jolt up a bit, before he released rope after rope inside of you.

*****

Jet lag along with the exhaustion you gained from the sex came over you, the bolt of which beginning to overwhelm you both. Leon had removed the binding on your wrists and even rubbed them for you. "You okay? No pain?" He asked.

"No pain. Just tired is all," you replied with an exhausted smile.

You didn't want to admit it but the rush of emotions began to weigh down on you again just like how everything was before it started. They felt like heavy sand on your eyelids, something that was causing you to grow more tired than how you should've been. But in the rare luxury of a bed, you'd chosen to forget about your troubles for the night and deal with them tomorrow when your mind's on the right track.

Leon held you close against him with your back pressing to his chest and the blanket comforting you both to a dreamless sleep. He could sense something was wrong, he'd noticed way before you and him were all over each other, and he wanted to say something but decided against it as he thought that maybe you had fallen asleep. He could ask you tomorrow, he thought. Instead, he pulled you closer to him with his hand clasped around your own, before pressing a light kiss to your hair.

We hide when we are afraid, when our perception of the environment informs us that caution is required. You'd think that was an obvious thing to figure out.

[reidscanehand]

hello! im trying to find more writers to follow and read their works, do you have any you could possibly recommend? thank you!❤️

I’ve previously made a fic recs post, but I am happy to sort of write you a new one. I read before I wrote and my favorite writers (both here and with books, journalism, anything) are people who can create a good story. 

@spacedikut - I could write a novel about my love for Spacey’s master list, and I’ve said it before and I’ve mentioned it to her privately, but she can take an extremely tiny, seemingly insignificant moment (like doing the dishes) and make it into the most romantic, beautiful thing you’ve ever read. 

@homoose - Another novel could be written about my love for Moose’s work, but OH MY GOD. Moose writes, I think, the healthiest relationships I’ve ever read...ever? Like, she advocates for therapy for all, even if you don’t think you need it, she makes sure her characters have really excellent, healthy communication all the time, not just in intimate moments. It’s just really lovely to read and aspire to such healthy relationships. Also, all of her stuff is really romantic and lovely. 

@idmakeitbehave - Sara has an absolutely epic master list and I love all of it. I really think that she creates the most fascinating little universes with her work. They’re all beautiful and wonderful and deeply moving, really. 

@zhuzhubii - Their master list is absolutely massive, but every. single. one. is incredible. They also play with different styles and different narrative structures which, as someone who really depends on specific structures and has trouble breaking away from it, I really admire that intelligence and deftness, and bravery. 

@literaila - I cannot even begin to comprehend how incredibly poetic every single thing Verity writes is. Like, I think I’ve reread her stuff over and over again, not just because it’s romantic, but because it’s almost like music? It’s just songs you want to listen to over and over again because they are just so beautiful and get stuck in your head in the best way possible.

@criminalmindzjunkie - Tess’s writing is some of the first I read, actually, and I just loved it! Like, this is going to sound really dumb of me, but I don’t think I realized that fanfiction could be good. All of the writers I have listed here have proven that some fanfiction isn't just good, but actually it’s amazing, but I think I read one chapter of her The Reward for Suffering series and I was like, ‘Holy shit. This is just incredible.’ I was hooked from there because all of her writing is marvelous. 

@goldentournesol - Steph was one of the first people I ever interacted with on this site and, just as she was over messenger, her writing is welcoming and warm, and lovely. Everything she writes is charming and delightful and I cannot recommend it enough. 

@moon-light-jukebox - Her stuff is just brilliant. Truly. I'm not even a big Aaron Hotchner gal, but her ongoing series "A Truth Universally Acknowledged" was updated recently and the amount that I squealed was enough to really freak out my flatmate. I'm kind of jealous of her ability to write such soulful dialogue. Just really, really great work.

I’m sure there are more, but these are the first that came to mind! xx