#be Normal and that’s okay– in fact that’s great in its own way because he doesn’t have to fit into a mold and can explore whatever

[euthymiya]

“What’s got you so grumpy?”

Sukuna dodges your finger. It fails to meet its destination of his cheek as he tilts his head to the side, earning a frown from you before you huff and try again.

He looks up from his phone with an irritated glance when your fingertip digs into his face.

“What are you talking about?” He grunts.

He knows exactly what you’re talking about. Normal Sukuna is irritable enough—grumpy Sukuna is about as bad tempered as a hornet who’s had its nest kicked. (Which is to say: he’s pretty fucking unfriendly at the moment.)

“You’re sulking,” you point out—and that statement earns a sharp glare from him as you seat yourself on his lap. (Still, he makes room easily for you, leaning back on the couch and putting his phone down to the side so his hands can rest on your hips. Grumpy Sukuna is never grumpy enough to push your body away—if anything, it’s the one way to get him less agitated).

“I’m not fucking sulking,” he says. It’s almost petulant, but you have enough grace to spare his dignity and not point it out. “I don’t sulk.”

“Are you sure?” You raise a disbelieving brow—he clicks his teeth at the way you choose to question him, but it softens considerably when your lips peck his jaw delicately. “You look pretty sulky to me.”

“Get your eyes checked.”

“Can’t. Then I might see you for all your ugliness. We wouldn’t want to throw years down the drain once I come to my senses do we?”

It’s his turn to raise a brow, sarcastically snorting as you give him a cheeky wink. “If you wanna try ‘n be a smart ass, at least be realistic about it. Saw you checking me out just this morning through the mirror.”

“Maybe you need your eyes checked,” you huff, “I was not checking you out.”

“Pretty sure you were,” he smirks, lips pulling into a haughty grin. Getting under your skin with his smugness is about the only way to cheer him up, it seems, because he looks rather pleased when he adds, “it’s okay. Don’t blame ya for bein’ possessed by my impressive physique.”

“Too bad your personality isn’t as dazzling,” you quip back easily.

It’s meant to be lighthearted, of course—but it seems to be the wrong thing to say. Quite wrong, in fact, because as soon as the words escape you, he tenses before locking his jaw.

There’s a flash of something in his eyes. Something you don’t think you’ve ever seen in Sukuna’s face—doubt. It’s a little odd, in all realness. Sukuna is not a doubtful person. He’s confident, and he’s confident enough that it’s almost to a fault. He’s cocky and smug and sometimes a little too self-assured for it to be considered good for his health.

It’s a bit unsettling to see his face almost fall at something you say, especially when you just say it for the sake of light banter.

“Yeah?” He chuckles dryly. It sounds dangerously self-deprecating—enough that it makes you frown. “Good thing I have my abs to keep you glued to my side then, huh?”

“Well, it’s not just your abs,” you hum, one hand smoothing over his shirt to feel the ridges of his muscles through the shirt. “Your boobs are pretty great, too.”

To prove your point, you give his left pectoral a gentle squeeze. He scowls before shoving your hand away as blush creeps along the back of his neck.

“You fucking freak,” he mutters.

Something is bothering him. You know you can’t directly ask it out of him, otherwise he’ll deny it left and right, but something is bothering him. Sukuna is not good with words or emotions. In fact, he’s pretty awful at anything that has to do with anyone’s feelings. (He’s better about yours more than other’s, but he’s pretty far from good.)

You don’t mind. There’s something oddly charming about witnessing the way he navigates softening up for you—it’s like watching a baby take their first steps. Wobbly. Slow. Unsure. Pretty badly executed, but endearingly rewarding all at the same.

Except, this time, it’s not your emotions he’s navigating. For some reason, yours are easy than his own. Navigating yours means he doesn’t have to try. He knows you better than he knows himself. Knows when your feelings are hurt by the twitch of your brows alone. Knows you’re sad by the dimness in your eyes. Knows you’re pretending joy when your laugh is quieter than usual. Knows you’re faking it when your smile is a much more tight lipped and a less bright version.

But his own feelings are complicated. A lot more than he cares to try and understand them for. In true Sukuna fashion, he always aims to ignore his problems until they seemingly disappear.

But you’re too difficult to let that slide. He brushes things under the rug, and you pull the rug from under his feet and make him fall face first into his problems.

“Hey,” you nudge him, cupping his face with your hand gently, “what’s gotten into you? It’s weird when you’re not pissing me off a couple of times every hour.”

“And that’s supposed to be a good thing?” He challenges, like your words seem to tick him off more, “what are you sittin’ here for if I’m always pissing you off?”

Oh, you think. So that’s what it is.

You smile, humming before you gently tilt his face up. Something vulnerable is attached to that frown of his. Like he’s waiting for your answer because he needs something to hold onto. Some metaphorical lifeline where your feelings are attached to his own, just to keep you chained together. Where you’re always somewhere that he also is. Where he doesn’t have to care about his emotions because what you feel is what he feels, too, and as long as you’re okay, so is he.

But you care. You seem to care a pretty great deal because you lean in and brush your nose against his as you kiss his lips softly.

“Who cares if you piss me off?” You snort, “I piss you off better. I’m pretty good at it.”

“You are,” he agrees instantly.

You give him a fleeting huff against his mouth as you mumble, “you don’t have to agree so fast.”

It pulls a small laugh from him, making his arms snake around your waist and tug your body closer. Chest to chest, heartbeat thumping in two, synchronized rhythms.

“What happens when I’m all old and expiring and my abs are gone?” He raises a brow. You hum, stroking a thumb along his cheek as you smile and admire him.

“We’ll still be pissing each other off, I bet.”

“That’s supposed to be good?” He repeats, this time much more unsure. Anyone else could hardly catch the air of hesitance in his words, but you catch it instantly.

“Why not?” You shrug, “it always worked for us, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” he scoffs, “that’s until it doesn’t.” He spits the words out, not meeting your eyes. It’s like they taste acrid is mouth and he can’t bring himself swallow them down.

You don’t say anything. Instead, you lean in and just press a line of kisses from his chin to the corner of his lips, purposely dodging his mouth and littering small, delicate pecks along his cheek. And then his forehead. And then the bridge of his nose.

Never his lips, though. And he gets increasingly frustrated by it.

“What are you waiting for?” He grumbles, eyeing you with a look that screams: quit fucking around.

You fight back an amused smile. “Does it piss you off?”

“Course it does. Kiss me properly or back off my face—”

“Cause you love me right?” You ask cheekily. He pauses, thinking on it for a moment before slumping wearily.

“And if I do?”

“You piss me off too. Because I love you too,” you whisper, forehead against his as your hands cradle his cheeks. Because you do.

When he texts late, and makes your blood boil, it’s only because you love him. When he’s brutally honest and doesn’t say what you want to hear, you’re only mad because you care what he thinks so much. When he’s stubborn and refuses to meet you halfway, you’re only angry because there’s no one else you’d rather cross the bridge with than him.

He pisses you off. You care enough to be pissed because it’s him. And when you piss him off too, he cares enough to deal with it because it’s you.

It’s a funny, twisted little way to love and be loved, but it works. For some odd reason, it does. It’s a seamless, smooth, crackless road.

You don’t ever fix something that’s not broken.

“That doesn’t make sense,” he sighs, resigning himself to your weird, roundabout explanation. You laugh, pinching his cheek as you grin brightly.

“That’s because you’re a bit dim.”

“Yeah,” he rolls his eyes, “okay. Anything else?”

“Yeah, actually. I love you.”

He pauses. Swallows for a moment before his arms tighten their grip on your hips just a smidge before burying his face into your neck and mumbling, “me too. Love you so much, it pisses me off.”

“I like to get under your skin like that,” you stroke his hair, beaming as you add, “guess you’ll just have to deal with it.”

His lips stretch into a small grin before a low, rumbling chuckle breathes itself against your skin. “Guess so.”

————————

a/n: insecure modern! au sukuna who doesn’t admit it and refuses to acknowledge that he’s aware he’s difficult to love and can’t understand why you love him but he also doesn’t want to question it for fear of scaring you away is very near and dear to me and i’ll be talking about it from my grave still. you’ll just hear my ghostly voice spooking you through the night talking about how he’s a softie deep down under all the layers. like an ogre okay? ogres have LAYERS.

[yanderenightmare]

Gojo Satoru

TW: yandere awakening

part two

gn reader

Thinking of having a nullifying cursed technique without knowing it…

Curses, attacks, and techniques have no effect on you—once cursed energy comes into contact within your range, it ceases to exist. You're a human erasure for all things paranormal.

And it’s beyond strange for a certain six-eyed limitless sorcerer...

Gojo sees on a molecular level—it's like converging x-ray and thermal and night-vision into one lens that's both microscopic and telescopic at the same time—he sees energy and atoms—he sees everything, he sees through everything. Nothing escapes. The tiniest shift in someone’s expression indicates exactly what they’re thinking, and he can tell—as if he can read minds even though he can’t. Everything is just so obvious. Everything. Even though he is blindfolded, he can see. All things energy, light, heat, movement, what someone had for lunch, the tiniest vibration in the ground and buildings around him, the slight shift in the wind when a butterfly flaps its wings a mile away. It’s all there for him, laid bare before his many eyes. Everything, and then he bumps straight into you.

It's by no means any powerful encounter—his body is much taller and bigger. It’s rather you who’s dealt an impact, bouncing off and staggering back until falling hard on your ass.

But he’s no less shocked because of it. Something just passed through both limitless and six eyes. An attack from a curse? A technique from a sorcerer? Here? Now? On the open street on his way to buy mochi? No… what’s going on? What on earth was that?

“Ouch—what the? Watch where you’re going! And what’s up with the blindfold, you lunatic!?”

Watch where you’re going, huh… He’s never heard that before. Even stranger, who is speaking? He peels his blindfold up and… wow.

He can see you. No, not like he can see the others around you—passing bodies full of flesh and blood and bones and food. You’re none of that, you’re just a face and body. You have a rumpled expression—sour. He can tell you’re upset, but it’s harder than it’s supposed to be. He has to think about it all on his own. Yes, you’re mad. At him? Yes. You’re mad at him.

You’re mad at him, and yet he doesn’t care. There are more important matters. Like, who the hell or what the hell are you?

“Well?” you state snappily, and yes, it was you who had spoken earlier. “Are you gonna help me up or what?”

He doesn’t know if he should. You’d only touched him indirectly before, through two layers of both of your clothing. What if your skin burns his? What if everything ceases to exist?

He does it anyway.

Reaching down his hand, he holds his breath and recites seconds within his head as if he’s counting down towards the end of the world—one, two, three, and…

It burns. But not in a bad way. But it burns—everywhere all at once—igniting him like a matchstick ripped across the red. It burns, but it feels good. And he realizes he’s felt cold his entire life.

“Uhm, you can let go now,” you drag him out of his discoveries.

He looks away from his grip on your hand and at you, now standing, and wow, really wow… It’s like he’s seeing for the first time. There’s so much he's blind to, and yet, nothing's ever been clearer—the smoothness of skin, the soft differences in its pigment, the vividness of eyes—your eyes. He knows they aren’t, but they’re the biggest he’s ever seen.

“Hey, buddy, are you alright?” you ask now, leaning towards him—a hand on his shoulder, its burning warmth seeping in through his jacket, as the other remains in his. “Is there someone I should call?”

Oh right. He must be acting like an asylum escapee.

“I’m fine. Better than fine, actually. I’m great. I’m Gojo. Satoru Gojo,” one after the other, words leave him as if he’s forgotten how to act normal.

“Okay then—that’s good, uhm, Mr. Gojo.” 

How strange. He can’t tell what you’re thinking at all—in fact, he hasn’t the slightest clue—it’s all a guessing game. It’s as if before, all he needed to do was look at a book to know what was written within, but with you, he actually needs to read. And he's never learned how to.

“Uhm, alright, so I’ll be on my way then—”

“No!” his grip tightens, and you gasp with a jolt, looking at him even wider than before. Shit. “I mean… I’m sorry. I should… I should apologize for walking straight into you. Are you hurt anywhere?”

“No, I’m good. It’s really alright. No need to worry. I should really go, though—”

You look positively freaked-out now—if he were to make a purely uneducated guess. You tried pulling your hand to yourself again, and it became more clear—he was making you uncomfortable. But still, he didn’t want to let go. Even with limitless off, nothing had ever felt as good as the contact he was feeling right now. He doesn’t think he can let go. But shit—people are beginning to stare…

“Okay, I’m sorry—” he lets go, and you instantly hurry along with quick steps, shuffling through the crowded street as if you’d just encountered a madman.

Maybe he is. He sure follows after you like one.

♡ GOJO SATORU masterlist ♡ JUJUTSU KAISEN masterlist

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - Thailand is back in charge

Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top.

June 2024 Week 2

Ongoing Series - Thai

Wandee Goodday (Sat YT) ep 7 of 12 - There is so much to love about this pair. But one of the things I truly adore is what great communicators they are about what they want & need as friends & as lovers. As boyfriends? Not so much. But the way they can (and do and did) communicate speaks well to their ability to communicate in the future, once they have resolved the inevitable doom the BL gods will reign down upon us over the next 3-4 eps. I guess what I am say is... these two are gonna be awesome husbands.

The break up was sad but inevitable.

Yay for a crying kiss. I do so love a crying kiss! 

Can we talk about the fact that all that tension was worth it?

Excellent kiss all round from GreatInn. Possibly one of the best of the year. Their only issue in winning this category in 2024 is that they're up against OffGun, TayNew, and JimmySea, not to mention BillyBabe... and MosBank coming soon. But I gotta say, for a new pair? Fantastic work boys.

My Stand-In (Fri iQIYI) ep 8 of 12 - I literally spent this whole show saying “Oh, Poor Joe!” Which is now the actual name of his character: Poor Joe. He's like the country music sad sack. How much is this narrative gonna keep kicking him while he's down?  

Sunset X Vibes (Sat iQIYI) ep 1 of 12 - Star Hunter + MosBank + a beloved familiar face? You ready? Let's go. I got a lot to say.

Unexpected supernatural historical paranormal mythological Sign-esk elements happening in our dream sequence opening. I’m not mad about it. But I do think it’s going to be mishandled in the dubious hands of Star Hunter. My BLabies, no matter what else, with Star Hunter we can rest assured there will be chaos and narrative mess. And now, lucky us, there will be a supernatural mess. But at least it will be sexy and high heat.

Honestly, I'm not worried about MosBank and I know what to expect from Star Hunter,. So we're all on the same page.

Meanwhile, enter a cute side couple (normal for this studio). WAIT a second I know that face! That's Tenon of PitchBank fame (side couple, and only good thing about, Golden Blood). I’m sad to see his pair busted, but delighted to see him pop up again in a BL.

Tenon appreciation time: He kisses beautifully everyone, and he is a killer eye-emoter. We are in for a real treat with this actor. (Especially if we get to a place in the narrative where he pines. OH PLEASE MAKE HIM PINE.)

Okay back to the show. I love Tenon but I also LOVE his infiltrating, wicked smart, younger brother character. This role is great for him. I adore an industrial spy. I enjoy a rich boy pretending to be an intern in his family's company (yes it's a trope, just not common in BL). Excellent work Thailand. No notes.

In conclusion?

It’s a cheesy silly office BL and I am enjoying it immensely because I have no expectations. So don't burst my bubble. Star Hunter is bound to do that on its own without tumblr's help.

We Are Cute (Weds iQIYI) ep 11 of 16 - Oh my God they are all so cute! I love the beginning bit when Peem was feeling down and Phum tried to cheer him up. Ridiculously charming. All the sides were super adorbs too. The actual name of this show is "We Are Cute". Meanwhile, Kluen = the only boy in a BL ever to take his unfinished drink with him? I like him even more now. 

My Love Mix-Up Th (Fri YT) ep 2 of 12 - New take on the umbrella trope to be trapped under a parasol together. NO SINGING. Honestly? I am not loving this as much as I really wanted to love it. It's the middle of the rankings for good reason. I do like the idea of historical Cinderfella BL though. Why isn't that what I'm watching? The play with in a play is a dangerous trope to deploy, it only distracts my with attractive possibilities. 

Love Sea (Sun iQIYI) ep 2 of 10 - I'm gonna try to cycle back to ending this rap-up week on Saturdays, which means the recap for this episode will be in next week's weekly (so to speak). Meanwhile, I am doing a Trash watch on this show. Hopefully that will get updated tomorrow.

Knock Knock Boys (Thurs Gaga) ep 4 of 12 - It’s fun enough. Kind of a pulpy lark. Best + Seng = a surprisingly good match.

Only Boo! (Sun YT) ep 10 of 12 - Good kiss from the sides. No surprises there. The main’s kissing was fine too, I guess. I like that they had a genuine struggle with being an idol and not being able to date. It’s nice to see that depicted on screen in a BL. I wish we had a bit more of a montage around the rise & success of Moo's boy group. But I understand the money in play for this kind of show prohibits that. All in all? It’s fine. 

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

At 25:00 in Akasaka AKA 25 Ji Akasaka de (Japan Thurs Gaga) ep 9 of 10 - Oof. This ep was painful. So much awkward desperation and confusion. Oh Japan, must you?

Crazy to be in a place and time where there is no other noted non-Thai BLs airing. Not even from Korea. What is going on? Are we in 2020 all over again? Please no.

It's airing but...

The Last Time (Thai Fri YT?) - Convoluted story of loss and possible reincarnation or something. Can't find it.

OMG Vampire (Thai Sun ???) 10 eps - I can't find it. Comments from last week suggest this is not my thing anyway, but Lee Long Shi very much IS my thing. I've put the search on hold for a bit and y'all can let me know if it's worth tracking down. Also, who knew Frank & Big could kiss like that? Not me.

ARGH could Monster Next Door please just start airing. I am SO tired of waiting for Big to lead out a BL. It should have happened years ago. *grumbles in chronic second lead syndrome*

In case you missed it

Let's Eat Together Aki and Haru 2 AKA Aki wa Haru to Gohan wo Tabetai 2 Haime! (Japan movie) - Continues the (frankly) lackadaisical story from part 1 ans was meant to drop yesterday. We thought maybe Gaga, but nothing so far.

The Time of Fever AKA Unintentional Love Story 2 (Korea movie) trailer released to Korean theaters 5/25. HoTae & DongHee, side couple from Unintentional Love Story are back! Same actors, same character names. I love them. Devastated this hasn't had international distribution.

As others see us: NuNew's 'Awful' Performance in BABYMONSTER's 'SHEESH' Goes Viral - I don't like BL being noticed by Kpop stans. I flipping LOATHE this song and I'm not wild about Babym. This is all 'round uncomfortable making and I want it to stop.

Next Week Looks Like This:

Upcoming BLs for 2024 are listed here. This list is not kept updated, so please leave a comment if you know something new or RP with additions.

June Releases Still Coming

6/26 The Rebound (Thai Weds Gaga) - MeenPing are back in their 3rd BL together, a basketball based romance (Meen was a national basketball player, so yay for that). I like this pair better than most (I still do miss Meen with Est but Est has a fantastic looking new BL coming from GMMTV so yeah...) Anyway I'm up for a sports romance starring a man who, yah know, actually played that sport so... I'm game (pun intended).

6/26 I Hear the Sunspot AKA Hidamari ga Kikoeru (Japan Weds Gaga) 10 eps - A new series adaptation of beloved yaoi I Hear the Sunspot (first adaptation was feature film Silhouette of Your Voice 2017).

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

Forget "boyfriends but they don't realize it." These two are married but they don't realize it.

Praise be, he didn't leave his full drink behind. BEST BOY.

It was a great make out sesh.

THAT LIP BITE.

All round excellent ep this week, We Are Cuties.

Top tier flirting banker from the fuck buddies though. Man, their innuendo is on point. And I do mean that point. (Wandee Goodday)

(Last week)

Streaming services are listed by how I (usually) watch, which is with a USA based IP, and often offset by a day because time zones are a pain.

The tag BLigade: @doorajar @solitaryandwandering @my-rose-tinted-glasses @babymbbatinygirl @babymbbatinygirl @isisanna-blog @mmastertheone @pickletrip @aliceisathome @urikawa-miyuki @tokillamonger @sunflower-positiiivity

@rocketturtle4 @blglplus @anythinggoesintheshire @everlightly @renafire @mestizashinrin @bl-bam-beyond @small-dark-and-delicious @saezurumurmurs

Sigh, Tumblr in it's infinite wisdom doesn't like too many tags.

There's these tricks, remember.

[tkpuke]

To be Loved is to be Known

Pairing - Powder x Ekko

Word count: 1,689

In which Ekko starts to feel stressed out while working on the time machine to bring him back to his own universe he belongs in. Powder knows a great method to help relieve his stress, one unbeknownst to him.

This is a tickle fic. Please do not read if that’s not your thing.

Papers were scattered around Ekko, some crumpled up and torn out of frustration. A small beam of light started to make its way into the room, signaling the sun coming up. That didn’t matter to Ekko, however, because what mattered most is why he just can’t seem to brush over this damn minor problem he’s having on the machine.

Footsteps were being heard, getting closer until Powder was revealed. “Thought I’d might find you here. Vander made everyone a delicious breakfast, come down an— have you been up all night?” She stopped in her tracks once getting a full good look at his state, his eyes meeting hers. Visible heavy eye-bags forming and looking fatigued and irritated. Ekko looks over to a window to see the sun, swearing it was only 9 pm two seconds ago.

“No…?” He starts, but Powder gives him one raised eyebrow and he sighs. “Okay, fine, I have been.” He rubs his temple as he leans against the table, Powder joining him as she rests a gentle hand on his shoulder. “But it’s because I’ve come across an issue that just won’t seem to go away, no matter what I do.”

She lets out an airy laugh. “Hey, nothing we can’t fix, right?” A determined smile takes over her features, but doesn’t last long when Ekko didn’t return the smile and just stared at the floor deep in thought.

Powder can read the ins and outs of Ekko. It is one’s job of being a girlfriend, isn’t it? That being said, she can definitely tell how mentally tiring working on this machine is starting to take a toll on Ekko. He’s only ever out to go get food, not wanting to waste any unnecessary time on anything else that’s not working on getting him back home to his people. Powder practically has to drag him out sometimes to get fresh air and hangout with the others that are asking where he’s been.

Powder is smart, no doubt about that. She picked up after a few days that Ekko wasn’t her Ekko, but regardless they are still the same person, hence feeling confident on doing a personal favorite activity of hers that she knows will help Ekko ease up and get his mind off things that are stressing him to the core.

“Want me to tickle you?”

Ekko blinked. “What?”

He slowly looked over to her, an innocent smile she’s wearing. Powder takes a step forward, Ekko takes a step back. “Y’know, what I do to help you relax whenever you get like this.” She says ever so casually as if Ekko is probably thinking ‘oh yeah, that thing!’

But Ekko wasn’t thinking that. Quite frankly, his heart started to beat faster every step Powder attempted to get closer to him, noticing her flexing her fingers a bit. “W…what are you talking ab—“

“Oh, don’t act like you don’t like it.” She cuts him off, grinning slyly when he takes a moment to put the pieces together. In this universe, somewhere along their relationship, Powder made the beautiful discovery that Ekko doesn’t hate being tickled as much as the normal person does. If anything, he absolutely enjoys the playful action and like how Powder stated earlier, drowns any stress out of him.

Only though the Ekko from the original timeline that’s in this Ekko’s body hasn’t quite made that discovery of himself just yet. Hence the confusion, his thought process that Powder has gone mad, and believing that fact of him is simply not true.

He must have been too caught up on his thoughts racing, because he felt himself suddenly backed up into a wall. Trapped, but only momentarily. He looks at an opening to escape on Powder’s left side. Powder reads his stance, knowing exactly his next move.

Ekko makes one last look at Powder. She does the same.

He books it.

You can’t outrun Powder in a place that she knows the ins and outs of. All the shortcuts, exits, and obstacles that would slow down a chase. Which further explains why Powder catches up to Ekko so quickly, pouncing on him as they go down together on the floor. He catches one of her wrists, the other high up out of his reach on purpose.

“Powder! Please.” Ekko nervously giggles out, but feeling a sense of thrill inside that he never felt before. A lively one at that, almost as if he’s excited to see what will happen next.

“Alright alright, your pleas have been heard.” Without any form of build-up, she immediately sticks her hands under his arms and starts wiggling away. “No need to beg for me to tickle you.”

She can’t help but break out into a cheeky smile when her ears pick up that sweet melodic tune: his laughter.

Ekko cannot remember the last time he has been properly tickled ever since Benzo died in his original timeline. He didn’t even know if he still was ticklish, thinking that sort of stuff just kind of vanishes overtime while growing up. Although, clearly the Ekko in this perfect timeline he was stuck in has definitely had people make a habit of tickling him whenever the opportunity arises, especially Powder. She went straight for the kill, having her fingers get trapped in his underarms as he squirms for freedom all the while cackling for the whole world to hear.

“PohohoWDEHEHER!” Is all he can say, struggling to form any coherent sentence without his laughter interrupting the process. She relents a little, scratching a bit lighter. “That’s me!” Powder watches him flail a bit less, noticing how he’s grabbing her wrists but not making any attempts to move them.

“sohomewhere ehehelse. Give me a sehehecond..” he managed to say, already sounding out of breath in the thirty seconds she’s tickled him. He’s never experienced anything like this, all so new. So it might look like Ekko is more ticklish than Powder is use to, finding it a bit cute how he tapped out so fast.

“I would love to, but I’m kind of trapped here mister.” She wiggles her stuck fingers to state the obvious, him giggling hard. Ekko mentally prepares himself a little, slowly raising his arms a bit for her to bring her hands back. He’s a fool to ever think there’s not another spot far worse, because Powder instantly latched onto his knees from behind and started squeezing like there was no tomorrow.

Completely caught off guard by how deadly of a spot his knees were, Ekko snorted out a deep belly laugh and it all continuously spilled out from there. It’s surprising that nobody came in from the start to check out who kept screaming as if they’re getting murdered, but it’s just Ekko who cannot handle a few wiggles here and a few squeezes there.

“Did you just snort?” Powder chuckled, but not expecting any answer from him as he was too busy trying to buck her off. She managed to lock her legs around his in a way where she didn’t budge in the slightest from his hysterical movement, smugly looking down at him.

“Toohoho MUHUCH! NOHOT THERE PLE-“ a sharp hiccup cut him off, feeling absolutely embarrassed and mortified from all these unknown noises he didn’t even know he could make come out of him so freely. Hands started to trail upwards from his knees, a sense of a small break but it wasn’t much of a difference for poor Ekko. “You told me to go somewhere else, remember!?”

Powder almost felt guilty for having way too much fun, but she knew she wasn’t alone with that feeling. Ekko was too, don’t let his reactions ever fool anybody. Noting his hands tightly around her wrists but never moving them, knowing damn well he’s strong enough to easily do so. Saying ‘please!’ but never a ‘stop!’ and suggesting for new spots for her to attack. You’d have to be blind to come to an assumption that he wasn’t enjoying himself.

His laughter was starting to be overtaken by sharp hiccups, which has always been a cue for Powder to stop soon. Soon.

Showing mercy on his knees, her hands find their way to his neck to start lightly skittering. Ekko grabs onto one of them, fingers interlocking with hers. “Ohohokay, stop! I’m nohot stressed, I’m nohohot!”

Powder softly smiles at the sight in front of her, heart feeling warm. The smell of the breakfast Vander made downstairs caused her to stop, realizing she and Ekko both had a plate of untouched food still waiting for them.

She got off of him with ease, sticking out a hand for him to take to help him up. Catching his breath, Ekko took the offering hand and stood up fully, brushing off some dust from his pants. He looks over at Powder, shooting her a cold but jokingly glare. “That was horrible. I’m not that bad to you to deserve that, am I?”

Chuckling, she gives his arm a little push. “If it was so horrible, I would’ve heard you say stop a lot sooner than you did.”

Silence was his response, feeling his face heating up. She’s right, Powder is always right. It’d be pointless for him to argue with her and deny, because even he knows the truth. Ekko enjoyed every second of it, because when was the last time him and Powder ever played around like this? In his timeline, not since they were twelve.

He misses the good times so much, and him needing to relive those memories and emotions were long overdue, but at least he experienced it one last time with someone he so dearly loves before heading back home.

Powder knows he’d never admit it, so she broke the silence first. “How does eggs and french toast sound?” They both share the same smile, Ekko walking right beside Powder as they head on downstairs where everyone else is.

These are the moments he wished he could stay in forever, never having to leave or give up something behind. Ekko will never forget this, forget her, and he’ll promise Powder that.

[witch-hazels-musings]

Hey Hazel, 🎱 Anon Here, again.

Wanted to make a second request, hope that's okay.

May I have a Ritual of Protection for Kazuma? Using Jasmine, Lepidolite, Frankincense, and Dalmatian Stone.

Jasmine (love, sensuality), Lepidolite (regulation, stress relief), Frakincense (confidence), Dalmation (loyalty, family) Kazuha x gn reader | Protection Ritual warning: alcohol and drunkenness, reader drinks, drunk Beidou and Kazuha

The laughter around the campfire called to you. How long had it been since you spent an evening resting, relaxing, and recharging? It seemed like there was no end to the constant movement of your life these days but sprinkled in like drying leaves, moments like these managed to find their way.

You slipped into the conversation and took up space next to friendly faces and jovial voices. It was easy. It was always easy with them.

"Waa, you should have seen em!" Beidou boomed, her drink spilling over the rim as she bumped her arm into a nearby shipmate. "Damn near took the whole crew on by themselves. Ain't that right," she added with a wink in your direction.

Ah, it was this story. How was she already this drunk?

"You always conflate this story, Beidou. It was like three people."

"Ho! Selling yourself short again. I don't think any of us could have walked out of that tussle without a few bangs and bruises. And you managed to drop em' all."

"Again, misremembering. I'm pretty sure the only reason I managed to get us out of these with all our faces intact was because I, kindly, explained to them it was more in their favor to leave."

"And then what happened," she said, smirking.

"They didn't listen so I showed them-"

"Aha!"

"BUT, they were way more plastered than you are, so it was hardly a fight. You love bringing this up." You chuckled and took a swig of your own liquor. It was sharp, heavy, and made your nose tickle.

If there was anything a pirate was good at, it was drinking - good, strong wine.

The group picked back up and you let Beidou fade back into her favorite stories. She went around the group as if to live through each of her crewmate's old tales with a fondness only she could bring. You didn't mind, no one really did. It was the opposite in fact. It seemed to boost the morale of the crew, each person getting their own spotlight. Though some enjoyed it most.

Something bumped into your back, jostled your drink. You reacted just in time to catch a stumbling Kazuha who looked more like a wet tunic than a person.

"What happened to you?"

He swallowed, caught his breath before beaming up at you. His cheeks were as rich as the kimono half-draped around his body. "As the sake warms, I am rich in its flavor. Bitter regret forms."

You burst into laughter. "You're so drunk!"

"I am," he agreed with a nod that twisted his face. You adjusted so you could prop his head up with your leg. He smiled and rubbed his face against it.

"How did this happen?"

He thought for a moment. "I remember being over there."

"Uhuh, and then what happened?"

"I am ... now I am here."

"Great. Good job," you teased. It was a rare sight to see Kazuha this intoxicated. Normally he could hold his liquor well, far better than you. Someone really must have worked hard to get him to this level. But you were happy for him. He needed to relax, let go for a time. And you'd be here to help him in the morning.

He grinned, wide and pleasing. You turned to the fire but Kazuha drew you back by sliding his arm over your lap. He adjusted so his head was on your thigh and his arms could wrap comfortably around you. And he stared. Stared up at you in a way that made your heart flutter.

"Firelight flickers. Dancing caresses on skin. I am jealous of its touch."

You counted in your head. "Wait, does that count as a haiku?" you asked.

"Perhaps not, yet the sentiment remains." Kazuha reached up to your face and let the back of his fingers caress your skin. "You're pretty."

Heat bloomed in your cheeks so you tried to hide them by cupping his palm to you. His skin was warm, hot, perfect. "You're pretty, too," you told him.

"Be mine?"

An endearing smile tugged at your lips. You leaned down toward him and he stretched to meet you. You could smell the alcohol on his breath.

"What if I told you I already was?" you asked as you held his chin.

"Then seal my lips so I may know it true."

You kissed him beside the crackling fire, surrounded by bonds tighter than family, and shared in each other's love to the backdrop of ruckus and revelry.

Thaumaturgy Anthology (October 11-13, 2024)

This event is based on spells and rituals. Inspiration does not equal understanding; liberties have been taken. All content is owned by Witch Hazels Musings, theft of these images and stories will result in immediate action.

[sturniolo04]

Quiet- All

Brother!Chris x Brother!Matt x Brother!Nick x Sls!Fem!Reader

Summary: in which Ayla is super quiet all day and your brothers start to worry about you.

A/N: If you don't like the preadded name in my stories, you can either add your own name or not read it; it's up to you :)

Today was a very normal day. Well, almost normal, you woke up feeling just completely empty. Empty in the sense that you felt like you had no worth. the emptiness that was past even being considered a feeling because in the end, you feel nothing at all. you felt numb. Felt nothing. Unfortnately for you when you get in this kind of head space from time to time you had no other options than to be quiet which most of the time goes noticed by your parents and even your brothers but that was back when you were in Boston. Now that you have moved to LA to live with your triplet brothers it was different.

"you ready to go"

matt asks walking into the living room where you were sitting

"hm"

you respond almost unadubily

"he said are you ready to go to lunch ayla"

chris chuckles out as he makes his way into the living room with nick following

"oh mhm yeah"

you mumble out. you become drained from even trying to act like you weren't feeling this weighted pressure on your body of just feeling nothing.

"okay then where do you want to eat bub"

nick asks shiftly his normally loud volume as he sits right next to you on the L shaped couch

"its up to you guys i really don't care'

you sigh out stilling trying to fight off this feeling before your brothers could ask you if you were okay which would lead to a conversation you wont be able to have without breaking down into a blubbering mess.

"okay let's just get going we still have to meet up with Madison since she is back in town"

matt shakes off the fact you are definitely not in the headspace today because he knows you well because he is your brother after all and you and him share a bond that was on a different level than your bond with nick and chris separately.

"heyy its the trips long time no see"

madison squeals as she comes up and hugs all three in a group hug. She lets out a small gasp as her eyes lands on you. Did I mention this was my first time meeting madison, likewhat great timing my bpd decides to act up.

"oh my gosh is this-"

she exaclaims looking at your brothers to confirm

"yeah this is our little sister Ayla"

matt states rubbing ayla's shoulder comfortingly

"oh my goodness hi"

she exclaims finally coming up to you and wrapping you in a tight hug. You knew once this feeling past you and her were going to be inseperable.

"hi it nice to meet you too"

you reply shyly but also quietly given your mental state at the moment, pulling out of the hug

"your brothers talk so much about you when they came to my Boston show"

she states excitedly as she looks at you and takes in your features that could definitely relate you to your brothers.

You guys get to your destination for lunch and the whole time you kept zoning out, completely detaching yourself from not only the conversation the triplets and madison was holding but also from reality. You guys were sitting at a booth seat, so you were sitting next to nick across from the other three. You continue to sit there zoned out wishing this feeling would just leave your body.

"so whats it like living in LA Ayla is it going good"

madison asks you which snaps you out of your trance as all of their eyes shift to you.

"uh mhm its good"

you respond lifting your fork playing with your food

"thats good well you guys have to invite me over soon just so I can hang out with you"

she replies smiling at you as chris interjects in the conversation

"well you would be the first friend she would have ever had since we are practically her only friends; it annoying honestly"

chris sighs out as madison just looks back at you to see your reaction.

"CHRIS"

nick exclaims out shocked his brother even said that about

"whatt its true im just kidding im not annoyed by it"

he defends himself

"not cool chris come on"

matt huffs out looking over at chris

"its fine i dont care honestly its okay if you feel annoyed by it chris I get it"

you state nochalantly, taking a bite of your broccoli on your plate.

After a long day you and the triplets went back home and decided to watch a movie together in the living room before we wrapped up our day. Which did result in us not actually fully watching the movie but rather them getting caught up on their phones and me doodling in my notebook I had on the coffee table from earlier today because go forbid I open social media and get sucked into a deeper state of emotions I don't need to be in. Although it would affect me as much because like I said today I just feel nothing. Sighing at the thought and feeling it caught chris' attention.

"why are you being so quiet today"

chris asks nudging your shoulder slightly seeing he was sitting next to you with matt on the other side of you on the gray couch.

"im not being quiet"

"yes you are you have been quiet all day Ayla"

nick chimes in all the way at the other end of the couch

"whats going on"

chris asks again as all the triplets attention fixates on you. You begin the bring your knees to your chest on the couch lowering your head on top of your knees. Resulting in the triplets all exchanged looks of confusion. You began to sob wrapping your arms to hug your knees and yourself as your shoulder shake from the aggressive sobbing.

"hey hey aylaaa"

matt exclaims dragging out the 'a' getting off of the couch kneeling in front of you pulling your arms out of there hugging grip, placing his ringed palms on either side of your calves, as nick hurriedly shuffles over next to you on the couch to provide comfort.

"whats going on talk to us kiddo"

chris states worriedly from the other side of you on the couch rubbing his palm gently up and down your hoodie-covered arm.

"i just feel-"

you stutter out through sobs

"feel what"

nick asks trying to get an answer out of you.

"i feel numb"

you huff out honestly as you tip your head back to lean against the head rest cushion on the couch as your chest rises and falls from the heavy breathing from your sobbing.

"i just feel nothing"

you continue to sob out lifting your head up to maintain eye contact with your lap not even feeling at ease to look your brothers in the eye.

"and its scaring me- it has been a really bad day mentally"

you shakily breath out as you feel matts hands run up and down the sides of your calves and nick rests his head on your shoulder.

"hey and thats okay we all have bad days okay"

matt reassures you catching your tear stained eyes for the first time really all day.

"im glad you told us, im sorry it was a rough day"

nick sighs out the response as you lean your head to rest on top of his on your shoulder.

" here i will get you your water"

chris states getting up from the couch to get your waterbottle from the kitchen counter, leaving matt and nick to continue comforting you as matt keeps mumbling sweet nothings to keep you from spiraling again.

" at first i thought you were mad still about what chris said today at lunch"

nick chuckles out as he sits up removing his head from your shoulder as chris hands you your waterbottle you always carry around.

"i mean that was fucked up"

you giggle out taking a sip.

"hey"

chris exclaims out cuckling plopping back on the couch next to you wrapping his arms around you.

"i said i was sorry"

he states squeezing you in his tight embrace. You eventually calmed down with the company of your brothers ultimately grateful and lucky to have them when you need them and even when you dont.

Taglist

@mintsturniolo @adirtylittleheart @wh0resstuff @spicymuffins03

[somepsychopomp]

More Hybrid AU thoughts ft. puppy Ody

Okay so let's just say that Odysseus, having been born from a long line of cunning tricksters from his mother's side, was quite the surprise when he was born w/ his wolf ears, legs, & tail. Laertes looks at Anticlea & her lack of wolf features and asks if this is normal. Well, the child's great-grandfather is Hermes...

Meanwhile Hermes himself catches wind that one his of family lines is up to mischief again and goes to check it out. He finds puppy Ody in his cradle and is ecstatic that one of his distant relatives is such a cute little freak. Come morning, Odysseus' nurse will find him cuddling with a toy tortoise that she's never seen before.

For context: hybrids aren't common in the world of this AU, but Odysseus isn't the only one around

(Ex. As a result of Leda & swan Zeus getting freaky, Helen is also a hybrid with flawless dark skin, piercing eyes, and pure white hair to match her splendid white wings. It's no wonder that she's regarded the most beautiful woman in the world. She doesn't often fly, but uses her wings to captivate audiences as she dances)

Laertes & Anticlea are also aware of the rumors that a king of Crete had his own hybrid son, a cross between a man and a bull. King Minos apparently devised a terrible underground maze to trap the poor hybrid in for the rest of its life.

Personally, they both think that's a terrible idea. How in the world could they condemn their own son, who's never wronged them in any way, to a lifetime of darkness? Or an otherwise equally cruel fate?

So they just... raise Odysseus. As if nothing's unusual or wrong about him. They have to admit though, he's such a cute baby. He's got the softest fur and the cutest little toe beans, and he whines in his sleep as if he's already dreaming of chasing prey.

Interestingly, hybrid Odysseus never had a phase where he leaned to crawl. His parents supposed that made sense. His legs are those of a wolf, and their shape isn't conducive to crawling. That means, to their chagrin, that toddler Odysseus was either wobbling on his two wolf legs or full-on sprinting through the house on all fours.

When his younger sister comes around, the king & queen think they're well prepared for another pup. They have a nice low-set cradle made with a heavy woolen canopy to mimic a wolf den, and had Odysseus roll around and play in the nursery so that it would smell of the new pup's kin. But when Ctimene pops out, Laertes and Anticlea gawk at her in befuddlement because she's completely normal. Where is her tail? Her ears? Her paws and fur? Why does she look like that?

At least Ody gets along well with his new sister. More than once, a nurse or Anticlea went to check on young Ctimene in the middle of the night, only to see a set of amber eyes in the moonlight holding vigil over her cradle.

As time goes on, it's quite difficult to organize safe play time between the siblings. Odysseus' instincts are to roughhouse with fangs and claws (which he's slowly starting to develop) & he indirectly teaches Ctimene to act like a wolf pup. She bites him back and yips like a dog when he treads on her toes. That does make their parents worry that Odysseus might end up as more wolf than man, but they'll have to wait and see. There's still hope for Odysseus, seeing that he's acquiring language at a rate comparable to most other children.

The two parents end up quite relieved as the years go by and Odysseus seems to growing up like any other boy. He speaks fluently without issue, had no difficulties learning to read, and in fact, is quite intelligent and curious. Since Ithaca is on the smaller side in terms of city-states, it'd be nigh impossible to keep his condition a secret from the public. So Ody is dressed in regular clothes and fitted with specially-made sandals to accommodate his wolf feet. The only adjustment needed in his clothing is a slit for his tail, otherwise when it wags or raises, Ody basically pulls up his entire chiton.

There are few wolves on Ithaca or the surrounding islands so Odysseus grows up as quite the novelty (I mean, more so than he already is). Most of his people have never seen a wolf and often mistake him for a dog, thinking he resembles the earth-colored farm dogs that are more common on the island, or perhaps the smaller swift-footed dogs that assist the fishermen. Laertes, having hunted big game before, including wolves from the mainland, is adamant that his child is a wolf. Odysseus' pointed triangular ears, stunning amber eyes, and his tawny-brown hair/coat are more similar to that of a wolf than a dog (I'm taking my inspo from the irl Eurasian Wolf btw)

As I mentioned in my first post here, hybrid Ody does have a ton of energy as a child. He loves to swim, run, and hunt with his father.

Laertes certainly takes Odysseus out hunting with him earlier than most would consider safe for a child. It turns out, not only does Odysseus love it, but he's also an exceptionally gifted tracker. His sharp nose and hearing mean that his father has no need for a hunting dog. And when they catch fresh meat, even though Anticlea insists that Odysseus must learn to eat and behave like a proper person, Laertes can't help but carve out a few strips of meat from the flank and let his son eat them raw. It's their little secret, he says with a wink.

One day, when Odysseus is perhaps seven or eight years old and on a hunting trip with his father + a few other men, he's hot on the trail of a herd of deer when he suddenly stops dead. Laertes is confused and asks Odysseus if there's something wrong. All of a sudden, Odysseus is trembling from head to toe and crying softly about wanting to go home.

"It must be a bear," a friend of Laertes says. It's about the only animal that could possibly spook Odysseus. The only issue is that, while wolves are rare on Ithaca, bears are even more elusive.

Laertes tries to coax his son to keep moving, but Odysseus can only cower with his tail between his legs and his ears flat against his skull. He starts to cry and insist that he wants to go home, even clinging to Laertes' thigh out of fear.

Having no idea what's wrong and never having seen his son like this before, the king decides to call off the hunting party and return home. As soon as they escape the mountainous forest, a sudden storm rolls in from the sea and pounds Ithaca with fierce winds and heavy rain. Laertes thinks that, had they stayed, they surely would've lost a man or two in their attempts to escape the storm.

A year later, Laertes is attempting to teach Odysseus how to tend to the land. A good king doesn't just lead his people, but feeds them as well. As the prince and heir, Odysseus should know useful skills such as farming, animal husbandry, and how to raise olive trees. Odysseus follows along with only a mild interest, finding it not nearly as exciting as hunting, when he sneezes and covers his nose with his hands.

"Papa!" he says, "The ground here smells bad."

Not having forgotten Odysseus' instincts on the mountain, Laertes tries to find out exactly what his son means, but Ody is still too young to fully explain himself. So Laertes conducts a test. He organizes for all the usual farmlands to be tended to as usual, but only puts half as much man power into the patch of land that Odysseus insists "smells bad".

Come harvest time, and that particular patch of ground failed to produce anything useful due to a blight hidden deep underground. It's an unfortunate loss, but it was only a few acre's worth of land. Laertes is glad that he spared the poisoned land his people's efforts.

By the time Odysseus is like 10-11, he's out hunting and exploring the woods on his own. He hears tale of a massive boar terrorizing the mainland, some beast so huge that spears and clubs have no effect on it. He thinks little of the stories, assuming such a huge creature wouldn't be able to swim. That is, until stories from the costal villages reach the palace of an unkillable boar ravaging their farmlands.

The boar might have a great deal of stamina, but so does Odysseus. Without his father or anyone else, he tracks the boar all over the island for days at a time, never losing his way home since he paws at the trees and leaves a scent trail to follow. Odysseus hunts small game like birds and rabbits to keep him sated and sleeps in tree boughs so as to not be caught by surprise.

It's a game of attrition, to see who can outlast who. At last, muddy and disheveled but no less excited by his greatest hunt yet, Odysseus finds the boar. It's been driven mad by the scent of wolves wherever it goes and is looking for a fight. Odysseus had been carrying a bow and quiver with him, but had been saving all his arrows for the boar. He spots a gash in the creature's hide, a few inches deep, from where a spearhead might've pierced it but failed to deliver a lethal blow.

Odysseus narrowly dodges the boar's first few charges until he can get a safe distance away. With the proper footing and stance that his father showed him, he raises his bow and fires just as the boar turns to face him. The arrow hits true and fresh blood spurts from the old wound.

An empty quiver later, and Odysseus is attempting to gnaw off one of the fallen boar's legs with just his teeth. He's so hungry and surely, his mother and father wouldn't reprimand him for enjoying the fruit of his labor even in such a messy fashion. If only he had a long knife to carve out the truly valuable meat like the organs...

Odysseus freezes as he catches a new scent on the wind. It's like nothing he's ever smelled before. It's like an oncoming storm, but hotter? It's electric, kind of like the tang of metal, and makes all his hairs stand on end. What is that?

"Show yourself!" he says, leaping to his feet with blood in his teeth, "I know you're watching me!"

Despite not hearing or seeing anything, he knows that someone else is with him.

"I can smell you!"

And a woman, taller and more grand than any being Odysseus has ever seen before, appears out of thin air. Somehow, Odysseus doesn't yelp in surprise when she appears.

She doesn't necessarily smell hostile, despite her towering presence.

She smells... like a friend.

[malwaredykes]

ive said it before i think but the fo4 prologue being what it is and what it says about your player character i find honestly kind of repulsive... it's not that i couldn't technically make it work for me in SOME way, i mean i would be inclined to make it a "woman with a really really shady past pulls a breaking bad vacuum store new identity thing and spends years living with a Normal Husband in a Normal Home secretly yearning for something to happen so she can break free of this bleak existence without the feds finding her. hang on whats that bright flash on the horizon" type thing. i do find that compelling i could make it work for me. it's just that there's only this one route i could possibly take that would work for me. very little wiggle room in terms of morals and personality.

because, like, there are just some choices and implications here there is no way for you to avoid that inevitably say so much about your character. and i'm actually mainly talking about codsworth, i feel like many overlook this but its the part that rly makes the whole thing Be What It Is to me--and hes a major enough character that if i ignore it and ignore his existence then i might as well just ignore the whole backstory and the main quest and a lot of dialogue later on, which like, Yes, i could do that, but that just kind of highlights the problem doesnt it. i have to Think The Whole Thing Away to engage with the game on remotely satisfying terms unless i accept what im given here.

because with codsworth being there, no matter what kind of person my player character may be internally, they had a house servant. a slave, i'm sorry to say. in fo4 mr handies are not just alexas with arms, they aren't task-specialized chat-gpt inside a chassis, they are people, clearly self-aware and sapient, with a free will and feelings and opinions about things, reacting emotionally to the events around them, and in fact codsworth is the first most stark example of it when you meet him again after escaping the vault.

so, like. my character owned this person. had to be okay with the idea of owning this person. and you can say what you want about the notion being culturally normalized, but there are limits to that, and it feels strange to even have to say this but no amount of social conventions are going to make Owning A Person As Property acceptable to a compassionate, reasonable person. soon-to-be sole survivor and their spouse had to go out of their way to purchase a mr handy, nobody forced them to. there's being part of a class whose existence relies on the exploitation of others to live in comfort and luxury, there's being the sort of person who gets to have a spot in an exclusive vault, but then there's going out of your way to buy a sentient being to be your servant.

like, damn man. and i'm not saying the default state of the main character should be Goody Two Shoes, not at all, not my point. i'm saying that this is, like, a significant thing that SAYS something about the sole survivor, and you have to reckon with it if you accept the terms the game gives you. and it just severely limits what kind of character you want to play as. oh you're super not okay with the subjugation of synths? that's great, but you had a house servant though. and so on and so forth

[naivegh0st]

So this was originally going to be on my random Jean headcanons post but it really did not fit the tone, so it gets its own post ig.

One of my very first proper headcanons about Jean was that she sees herself as someone who's incapable of properly giving or receiving love. Like she reads all these romance novels and enjoys them and sometimes even allows herself to fantasise and imagine it happening to her, but that's kinda all it is - fantasy, like it's not something she views as a possibility for herself.

I just think she feels this way for so many reasons because like, we have Seamus (who I headcanon as the more outwardly showing of love out of their parents) and Barbara leaving when she was (at least in my headcanon) around 12 or so, which is really young to lose the two most prominent sources of love in your life, and kinda starts her on the "oh I can't have this" mindset, especially as I think Frederica's love was SO conditional (or at least her showing it was), so she learns that love isn't something that she just gets.

Also with losing Barbara she loses the person who she gives the most love to (not that I think she was that great at giving it in the first place) and they grow really estranged so she's kinda like "huh okay that didn't work. at least I have Kaeya and Diluc and nothing will go wrong there!!". (also along with losing giving love to Barbara, I think she also lost giving it to Frederica as their relationship became more mentor and trainee than mother and daughter).

But yeah so she lost all that but at least she has Kaeya and Diluc who she can love and will love her in return and then well Crepus dies and Diluc and Kaeya have that massive fight and Diluc leaves so that's another source of love lost and yeah Kaeya's still here but everything is different and weird now and every interaction feels like there's some underlying tension that neither of them really understand and it's so hard to go from being a group of 3 to being a group of 2 so abruptly especially when things ended so bad.

And I think as a reaction to the rejection he got from Diluc Kaeya distances himself from Jean, at least in the immediate aftermath, and it's kinda worse that he's still here and that he didn't just up and leave because he's here so why can't Jean be normal and give and receive that love from him like they used to. Why can't she do and say the right things and make it all good again and give this love to her friend that needs it. Again, this would be especially made worse if she does try to give this love and Kaeya just rejects it. They just can't properly talk to each other about things anymore, everything is either just ignored or talked around with a 10 metre berth.

And then it's a similar thing when Diluc comes back 3 years later because yeah he's here now but how do they make things normal and they've all changed so much in that time apart like they've all become so closed off in their own ways how are they ever meant to have that free giving and receiving of love again. It just feels so impossible, like something Jean just isn't meant to have.

And then if we factor Klee into the equation of this child who is left partially in her care that she just does not know how to look after or talk to at all. Like she tries but she only really knows how to take on the role of discipliner or teacher, not caregiver. This is made worse by the fact that as Acting Grand Master she has to constantly be disciplining Klee as to ensure she is not a danger to Mondstadt. And what stings is that she really wants to show that care to Klee, to give this child what she didn't get from her own mother, but she just doesn't know how. And I think it gets to the point where she's like "the most loving thing I can do for this child is ensure she spends more time around people like Kaeya or Albedo who can give her what I can't". And just kind of gives up on herself in that regard.

At the same time we have Barbara becoming deaconess and idol, a beloved healer and public figure and the whole time Jean is aware this is happening and wants to show her support as her sister but feels she isn't entitled to that role anymore and is too busy to currently fill it, and even if she had the time where would she start. And there's probably a part of her that is like "Well Barbara's doing better without me, she probably doesn't want me intruding on her life." And tells herself she's content from watching from afar, again viewing this as something that she just cannot have.

And also because she is just working so much and makes little time for personal relationships outside of work it does just leave her more isolated which probably heightens this whole "I'm just not able to properly give or receive love" like it's a luxury that she can't afford, it's just something she can't have for so many reasons.

And that's why I think ships with Jean are so interesting because we've got this whole I no longer know how to give/receive love, something will go wrong if I do, I'll just be imposing on the other person's life, I don't have time for it and I probably don't deserve it anyway barrier to get through which requires so much patience from the other person, because no matter how much Jean wants it (if she even realises she does) she will find a reason to say no to herself.

[hardly-an-escape]

Hope, Actually | Buck/Tommy | 2100 words | rated T

on the last day of Christmas, this writer gave to you... some BuckTommy holiday fluff! Buck watches Love Actually and gets an idea. tags: makeup fic, christmas, love actually, tooth rotting fluff, egregious overuse of italics

Buck gets the idea three days before Christmas.

He and Tommy have been talking again, is the thing. Trying to be friends. It's tentative and a little stilted sometimes and it's… fine. Talking only makes Buck want to jump Tommy's bones about 20% of the time, and peel his own skin off an additional 30% of the time. So that leaves 50% normal conversation, which is fine.

The fact that he's still painfully in love with Tommy is maybe a little less fine, but whatever. Can you even still be in love with a person if you never said you love them in the first place? Can you love them more? Because that's what it feels like. Every time he grabs a beer with Tommy and Chim and laughs for an evening over their latest ridiculous call, he loves him a little more. Every time they text, every time they end up at the same scene or the same bar, he falls a little harder.

But they're trying to be friends, trying to be cool; so Buck takes all that love and puts it away, smashes it down and swallows it and pushes it deep into his belly, and when he feels like it's going to overflow and turn into words he takes the excess and puts it in an imaginary box and shoves it deep inside an imaginary closet. There's probably some kind of irony there, a man taking these feelings he has for another man and putting them in a closet. Buck doesn't want to think too closely about it, to be honest.

And then three days before Christmas he's over at Maddie and Chimney's house. Jee-Yun has finally gone to bed, and they're flipping back and forth between random Christmas movies and drinking wine. Well, Buck and Chim are drinking wine, and Maddie is drinking sparkling grape juice and making a face after every other sip.

"Ooh, Love Actually!" she says excitedly as Chimney channel surfs. "Buck, have you ever seen this one?"

"No… Tommy and I were going to watch it together. I guess it doesn't matter now. He said he wanted to wait until after Thanksgiving, that's why we didn't. Before," Buck says heavily.

"I remember he told me once that it was his favorite movie," Chimney says neutrally. "That was a long time ago, though."

"Yeah, he said… he said it comes across as pretty dated. He said he probably wouldn't see it the same way if he watched for the first time now," Buck says, the words suddenly tripping over themselves to get out of his mouth. He can feel the glance his sister and her husband exchange over his head. "It's like junk food, you know, like… you don't eat a Big Mac because it's a good burger, you eat it because it's what you want, because it's the same every time and there's something comforting in that, even if it's objectively not great. Tommy said… he said he thought there are better Christmas movies, and way better rom coms, but there'll always be something kind of perfect and comforting about this one…" he trails off.

"Do you wanna skip it tonight?" Chimney asks, surprisingly gently.

"No. No, it's okay, we can watch it. I don't mind," Buck says. "But I'm going to open another bottle of wine."

"God, now that you mention it, I could kinda go for a Big Mac right now," Maddie says reflectively.

Later, a little too drunk to drive home, Buck curls up in the middle of the guest bed and lets the movie swirl aimlessly through his thoughts. Tommy was right, he thinks, about it being pretty dated – he can see how some of the stories, which might have hit romantic beats in the mid-2000s, just come off as clunky, or even creepy, 20 years later.

But Buck can also see how it got under people's skin – can guess how it got under Tommy's skin. Even in the clunky stories there's a thread running through, a bigger idea about the diversity of love, about all its imperfections, about the way it can grab hold of you and surprise you whether you're at the beginning, the middle, or the end of your own story.

There's an idea there, tipsy and unformed, about him and Tommy and about what he can do with all the love he's been packing up and hiding away like the hoodie buried at the back of his drawer that only barely smells like Tommy's sweat now. By the time he wakes up and finishes making everybody breakfast, the idea has solidified into a plan.

He has to visit two different office supply stores to get what he needs, and it takes him most of that afternoon to figure out what he wants to write, saving draft after draft in the notes app of his phone before he ever puts marker to paper. At some point he remembers to text Lucy to ask whether Tommy's on duty Christmas Eve or whether he'll be at home.

He's not on the duty roster but I don't know if he has plans, she texts back. Want I should find out?

yes please, he sends. I'm gonna do sthg stupid and i need him to be home for it.

Thank God, one of you idiots needs to figure your shit out before I'm subjected to his sad breakup playlist one more time.

he has a breakup playlist???

An hour later Lucy texts again to let Buck know that she told Tommy she had some stuff to drop off for him, and he said he wasn't planning to leave the house. So the plan is a go.

On Christmas Eve, Buck waits until after dark to drive over to Tommy's house. He's got three dozen thumbprint cookies in tins, a carefully ordered stack of poster board, and about a thousand butterflies in his stomach. This is either going to go really well, or really poorly, and he's honestly not sure which outcome to expect. But he has to do something – he has to try.

He wishes it were snowing. It's barely cool enough to need a jacket. But that's Los Angeles in the winter for you.

Tommy has this particular smile. Buck saw it pretty often when they were first together. It's not his favorite of Tommy's smiles; it's too restrained, starts out wide and then gets reined in, tamped down, as if he suddenly remembered that he's not supposed to be that happy, or not allowed to show it if he is. Buck is pretty sure it's the smile of someone who'd spent a long time being more or less punished for joy, and whatever else happens between them, he's glad that he saw it less and less over their months together.

But Buck sees that smile again when the front door swings open, when Tommy reflexively smiles big, the one that reaches his eyes, when he sees Buck on the porch – and immediately schools his face into something more reserved, more professional. Friendly, but not too friendly.

"Hey. What's up? What –" he trails off as Buck hits play on his phone and Christmas music comes from the Bluetooth speaker at his feet. He picks up his stack of poster board cards and shows Tommy the first one.

Say it's carol singers, it reads in Buck's uneven chicken scratch handwriting.

"Buck, nobody else is here," Tommy says.

Buck frowns and brandishes the sign again. Tommy's smile softens into something wistful, almost sad. "It's carol singers," he calls exaggeratedly over his shoulder to the empty house and turns back to Buck with an expectant look.

Buck flips to the next sign. I watched this movie the other day, it says. I didn't think it was that good TBH.

Sign number three: But I think I understand why people still like it so much.

Tommy crosses his arms over his chest and raises an eyebrow.

Buck flips to the fourth sign. I think it's a movie about hope. That no matter how much you fuck up there will still be a way for love to find you.

He had to write pretty small to fit all that on one sign, so he holds it up a little longer and watches something flash across Tommy's face as he reads. He waits until Tommy looks up again to go to the next card.

And now it's Christmas, it says. And at Christmas you tell the truth.

The playlist is on a rendition of "Joy to the World" that couldn't possibly be performed by anything less than a professional eight-part a cappella group. Buck flips to the next card.

You're not perfect, it reads in big letters. The "not" is underlined multiple times. Tommy laughs a little bit, and Buck doesn't think he's imagining the fact that it sounds a little wet, like maybe Tommy is choking up a little.

The next sign: (And neither am I.) We've both fucked up + I'm sure we will again. He's not happy with how this one looks. He'd tried about seventeen times on various pieces of scrap paper to get the damn ampersand right and eventually had to settle for the stupid little plus sign like a middle schooler.

But I still have hope. I have hope for love. I have hope for us. Almost to the end now.

The second-to-last card is a simple one. And… I'm hoping you have hope too. Merry Christmas Tommy.

Buck bends down and takes his time stopping the music and turning off the Bluetooth speaker; straightens up slowly, poster board clutched to his chest. He can't quite meet Tommy's eyes, too afraid of what he might see there, so he looks down at his own shoes until the toes of Tommy's house slippers shuffle into view.

Two gentle fingers tip his chin up. It's so familiar, Buck almost expects a kiss, but instead Tommy just looks at him, soft and tender and achingly open.

"Thank you, Evan," he says, and it doesn't escape Buck's notice that he was Buck when Tommy first opened the door, and he's back to being Evan now.

"It's really not a great movie, Tommy," he says, a little helplessly. "I liked the story about the dad and the kid, and the one with the naked people was pretty good, but this guy?" He shakes a sheet of poster board and it makes that little wooby wooby sound. "Total creeper. And the prime minister is an HR violation waiting to happen, and I don't know if they even have HR in England…"

He trails off, because Tommy is chuckling. Tommy is laughing at him, and his smile is big again, spreading over his face from the corners of his eyes all the way down to the cleft in his chin, and it's one of the more beautiful things Buck has ever seen.

"You're not wrong, Evan," he's saying. "I think I told you, you know, it's like junk food, you don't eat it because it's good, you eat it because it's –"

"It's what you want." They're standing close together, now. Almost close enough that Buck can feel Tommy's breath against his cheek. He can still feel the ghost of his fingertips under his chin.

He's really not sure what to do now. His plan hadn't developed this far, beyond a kind of half-baked daydream of Tommy immediately falling into his arms and passionately declaring his love, although actually neither of them is quite that kind of guy. But luckily, Tommy seems to have an idea where to go.

"Do you want to stay for a bit?" he asks. "Maybe watch a better Christmas movie? Maybe… maybe talk some things over?"

"Yes," Buck is saying before the last sentence finishes emerging from Tommy's mouth. "Yes, please. I brought you cookies. They're in the car, I couldn't – I couldn't carry them and hold the signs at the same time."

"How about I take these," Tommy says, taking the stack of posters from Buck's suddenly nerveless fingers, "and you go get the cookies, and you come inside for a while?"

"Okay," Buck says, and does that.

Just under a year later, when they're decorating for their second Christmas together, Tommy unearths the signs from a plastic tub of fake garland. Evan laughs at himself while they hang ornaments on the tree, still a little embarrassed. I can't believe I thought that would work, he says. I can't believe it did work.

I can, Tommy says, and holds up a plastic sprig of mistletoe, and reels him in for a kiss.

read on AO3 >>>

[monstersinthecosmos]

First, you write a lengthy post claiming that Marius treats Armand like an animal, and then you wonder why Armand and Marius shippers are seen as outcasts in the fandom. You present humiliation, disrespect and devaluation as something sexual and normal in their relationship. There is a difference between not seeing Armand as an adult and independent person and not seeing him as a person at all. Like, you're literally doing ALL the work for the antis, LMAO.

If Marius sees Armand as a cat, then maybe he shouldn't be left alone with animals

just saying.

Like, 'Armand, Marius picked up a shepherd dog from the street today. You both share the same level of love, respect, and significance! 😍 But don’t be upset; being someone's dog can be great! And remember, you actually like it! 🥺'

BEST GASLIGHTING EVER

Maybe he’s okay with this situation because he doesn’t remember what real kindness feels like? Roleplay in bed for the sake of temporary humiliation is one thing, but to see someone you’re in a romantic relationship with as nothing more than an animal is just messed up. What are you even talking about? 😭

Yknow what.

I’ve been marinating on this all day and thinking about ways to respond kindly, because I think leveraging literacy at people in fandom arguments is really fucked up and that isn’t the person I want to be. I've even had my own journey in VC fandom because when I first joined Tumblr, the big meta writers were condescending as fuck and used to make me feel really stupid for liking Marius, and that's such a destructive and unwelcoming attitude. It took me a really long time to feel brave enough to even share meta, because of those folks, and now I have to worry about you chodes. And it's just a never ending Sisyphean task to cultivate a space where Marius fans feel safe. And that's for EVERY Marius fan, not just the ones you deign pure & good enough to exist. In fact, it even goes for all the book fans in general. I don't give a fuck if someone likes Marius--everyone is allowed to participate if they're not going out of their way to hurt people. You're an adult. Block people and curate your space, it's not my job to do that for you.

Everyone, at every reading level, is allowed to participate in fandom, and I think we can’t be true leftists if we don’t acknowledge the education problem in the US. (Assuming you’re American because Americans Feelings Yakuza tend to behave like this but if you’re not American, good job blending in, it's really embarrassing for you.) I don’t think I can ethically condemn the degradation of our education system and I don’t think I can condemn this sect of fandom’s violent anti-intellectualism if I don’t also show sympathy for its victims. I'm really sorry that your parents/teachers/whoever failed you this badly and I hope things get better for you, because I don't wish this on anybody.

So when I turn into a cunt in thirty seconds, I want you to know it’s not because I think you’re stupid. It’s because I think you’re a fucking asshole. <3  And I don’t care what the fuck your problem is, it’s YOUR problem, and we don’t have to tolerate this type of thought policing and fascism in a fandom space. You don’t get to talk to me like this just because you don’t like stuff that I write.

Having said that, I also am just, particularly fucking baffled by how incoherent and ideologically unsound this ask is, not to mention how blindingly, willfully ignorant it is. Like, I hate to say this, but it’s SO stupid that I almost can’t believe someone would actually say this to me, and it makes me wonder if you’re like, an outside agitator pretending to be one of these Mariusblr morons to bait me. So I wondered if I shouldn’t validate it with a response, but then I thought,

Fandom deserves to see this lol

You actually did a good job of imitating this attitude that I DO see, for real, in this fandom, so like maybe it’s a public service to bait me to get me to talk about it. So I guess I will.

Now, I did talk about this topic here and I said what I need to say. I already said everything I needed to say on the topic of doting upon the cute little mortal, and to send me this anon after reading that post, the reading comprehension is either ABYSMAL or you’re just pulling an OH SO YOU HATE WAFFLES on me which is like. Why. Lol.

And I can’t help someone who’s determined to misinterpret everything I will ever say, no matter what. But again, I’m kinda posting this as a fandom PSA because this is a great example of the braindead nonsense that goes on in Mariusblr and I think the people deserve to laugh at you lol, so if you want to misinterpret me some more, I can’t help you.

We’re not gonna discuss Marius in this post. What we’re going to discuss is the idea that “””THE ANTIS””” are out to get us, and the irony of couching anti hysteria in this exact message.

So let’s go back to basics and refresh on what the fuck a fandom anti is.

So when you talk about FANDOM ANTIS, I actually have to ask: Babe are you seeing yourself right now? Are these antis in the fucking room? Is the call coming from inside the house?

You don’t get to have a little bit of censorship, or a little bit of harassment.  If someone outside of our fandom saw this post, without the existing context of who Marius and Armand are, they’d think YOU were the anti for telling me how to interpret this ship, not to mention whatever the fuck is this weird kinkshaming. Censorship is bad, full stop. It's not, censorship is only bad when it's the thing I like. Same for leaving people twatty anons. Bullying people is still bad, and you don't get decide who deserves it.

You don’t get to cry about antis and then pop into people’s inboxes to ridicule them because they didn’t read the book the same way you did. You don’t get to lecture me about kink and ship dynamics. YOU ARE NOT FIGHTING ON THE SIDE YOU THINK YOU’RE FIGHTING ON.

And isn’t it ironic that I’ve been Mariusing on tumblr for like, unfortunately, eight fucking years now lmao RIP, and I’ve been harassed about Marius MORE by you fuckin dweebs than I have by the actual antis.

Now, again.

I never want to tease anyone for their reading comprehension. I’m not making fun of you. I’m gonna spell this out because I want to help you, because I can see that reading isn’t your strong suit.

The fight about antis & proshippers & censorship is not a crusade about character apologism and defending ships as being moral, it’s about distinguishing fiction from reality and allowing people to enjoy fucked up art.

You aren’t accomplishing what you think you’re accomplishing here. Like, first of all. I don’t give a single flying fuck about “”the antis””. Let them masturbate in abject shame in the privacy of their pitch black bedrooms. It’s not my business. What horrifies me here is that you yourself are the anti in this situation.

You are in my inbox scolding me for my amoral shipping.

You are in my inbox upset with me because I celebrated that a ship I like is fucked up.

A proshipper would’ve read my post and gone “Eh. I disagree but that’s okay.” And kept scrolling. Maybe they even block me! That’s fine too!

But how the fuck are you gonna sit there crying about antis when you’re the one harassing everybody lol.

And let’s not jerk off here; the sincerity with which you are complaining about antis in my inbox is SO fucking lame. Like can we please go outside?

I’m no stranger to fandom drama (like I said, I’ve been Marius Tumbling for like 8 years and I’ve done my time in Sheith Hell) and I understand when these terms are useful shorthand for a fandom-specific problem. But I also think, what if we grow up and speak honestly about what antis are? It really blunts the harm of the entire ideology, especially when you're misusing it this egregiously, and I think there are times when we deserve to take censorship and fascism seriously, because it's not a coincidence that it's spreading inside fandom at the same speed it's spreading outside in the real world, and I want you to think really hard about which side you're on.

Like, what if we use the term “conservative” or “Frollo” or “fandom police” or “FANDOM MAGA” ?? You come to me upset that I’m somehow giving some boogeyman ammunition when like. THEY ALREADY HATE MARIUS, WHO THE FUCK CARES. When you change the topic from “Fiction is allowed to be fucked up” to “It’s okay to like Marius because he actually didn’t do anything wrong” you’re COMPLETELY missing the point, and in the same motion you are upset with ME for implying that Marius did something wrong.

And it’s so fucking hypocritical? Like this is the same as when the fandom conservatives have ACAB in their bio while also harassing people--you are adopting language to fit into an identity when you don't actually understand what you're saying. I would've thought VC fans--especially Marius fans--would be more aware of cult behavior & groupthink and see the red flags more easily. (Again, having sympathy for you: Please escape this cult.)

How often do we see arguments break out in fandom where we go “If you’re upset with Marius, why aren’t you upset with everyone else?” Or like, I CAN ACCEPT THE MURDERING AND RAPE BUT DRAW THE LINE AT WHIPPING THE 17 YEAR OLD. Like. Where do YOU draw the line?

Is it okay to talk about Marius as a murderer? But we’re not allowed to say that he has some emotional problems? Also didn't one of you chucklefucks accuse me of being ablest lmao the irony.

It’s also fascinating that this camp in fandom is constantly crying about how like, antis DON’T UNDERSTAND ANNE RICE and how MARIUS/ARMAND IS CANON and yet …………………. Was anything I said not also canon? And where do you get the balls to use Anne Rice as a shield when she also said the same things that I said. She wrote the fucking book.

You know what.

I feel really strongly that like, in a fandom, people need to have better etiquette when they complain about THE THING vs THE FANS OF THE THING. For example, I have zero problem with someone coming out of TVA disgusted and triggered and writing analysis of Marius being a disgusting creep. We don’t have the right to tell someone not to feel that way.

What I DO have a problem with is when people say “Marius is a disgusting creep and his fans are gross for enjoying it.”

And what YOURE saying, essentially, is that I’m gross for enjoying Marius in the way I read him.

Not to be like, a fucking, egomaniac, but. I have to say this lol. Do you know who I am?

Are you new here?

Have I not worked hard enough to establish that he’s my favorite literary character of all time and I adore him to death?

But I have different headcanons than you so I’m a bad person?

Anyway.

This has gone on long enough, I think I’ve made my point.

I genuinely can’t tell if someone like ChatGPT’d this anon to me just to rile me up and get me mad at that side of Mariusblr, but the truth is that like. I’ve seen them say these things. I’ve been blocked by these folks. Every time I write meta where I acknowledge that Marius isn’t perfect, they vague me to fuck. So honestly like. It’s not out of the range of possibility and I’m going to take this opportunity to talk about it because some of us are fucking normal about a book and we just want to have fun and post meta and write fics and like. If you don’t like my meta and fics you can simply move along.

And you know what else!!

WE ALL SEE THIS. You make fandom uncomfortable for everybody. Every time I do acknowledge this, I get people in my inbox talking about how uncomfortable you’ve made them and how they became hurt and decided not to share in fandom anymore. That’s you doing that. It isn’t ~ the antis ~. It’s you, because you don’t let anybody enjoy the books the way they want to enjoy the books. And I think it’s really interesting that I’ve noticed that half of fandom sort of cannibalizing itself lately. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that  this whole group of clowns blocked me around the same time, when their jackass ringleader originally got mad at me for flagrantly misunderstanding something I said. This is that same abysmal reading comprehension and violent anti-intellectualism coming back to bite you in the ass. And so like, I have to also ask, if you have some issue with me, maybe consider the source, and if this person is perhaps a complete douchebag who will cannibalize their own friends the second they step out of line. And I wonder if there are any receipts for my alleged atrocious behavior, or if I was always just minding my own business and writing fanfic and sharing meta and being nice to people, and encouraging people to ship whatever they want, and allowing people to read the book differently than I did.

You don’t get to tell people what type of content they’re allowed to create. If you’re very concerned about how people read Marius, maybe write your own meta. This is MY space, not yours, and you’re not going to kinkshame and censor me, and you’re not going to bully me.

This is ridiculous and you’re a joke.

[peri-helia]

Spotted: Buck, Bothered

Outsider POV on Pining BuckTommy Gym fluff inspired by tumblr Also on AO3

So Matt’s not 100% sure what this guy’s deal is, and to be honest, he’ll probably regret asking but – well, he’s intrigued okay. In a very, well mark me down as scared and horny kind of way. Because the guy – he’s a first responder, Matt knows that much - like a lot of the people who use this gym when they’re off shift and need to work through something.

And this guy must have several somethings because he is going to fucking town on that punching bag. Matt’s half expecting the thing to ricochet off the hook and hit the back wall, sides splitting.  He’s not sure what the guy’s deal exactly is though, because he’s not usually like this. Or well, he hasn’t been in a while.

He thinks the last time he’d seen the firefighter like this he’d picked up the phone to someone called Chimney – now there’s a name Matt would like to know the reason behind – and told him he didn’t want to talk to his sister. Yeah, he’d been at the gym a lot that week.

It’s not that Matt’s like, especially watching this guy mind you. He’s pretty sure his name is Buck if he’s remembering right from the time ages ago when he’d caught Matt staring. Those arms are fucking huge and look, Matt is only one man. Anyway. He’d fucking beamed at Matt across the floor, smile so eager and open in a way that had reminded Matt strongly of a golden retriever and introduced himself. Add in those baby blues, the Channel 8 news coverage of multiple last minute heroics and the fact that he’s either here or leaving on a pretty similar schedule to Matt’s own and yeah, Buck’s pretty memorable alright?

But the way he’s pummeling the punching bag has a fair few other patrons staring too. He’s completely focused on the bag, no finesse to it really just either imagining someone’s face real hard or just trying to burn through whatever it is that’s got him here in the first place.

That’s the first time.

*

He’s not expecting to see Buck again so soon, but then again he’s never normally at the gym this much either. He is not hiding from Rick’s parents, Rick is hiding him from Rick’s parents. When are you getting married? Debbie needs some cousins, don’t you want to do some travelling?  If anyone asks, he’s getting a root canal right now. He could’ve gone to the movies or gone up Runyon or something but he needed to get his gym bag out of the apartment in case anyone finds the ring while he’s out or something. So he figured he might as well.

But there’s Buck again, on one of the benches this time. There’s another guy with him – Eddie, Matt remembers after a second spent on it – all big dark eyes and great hair – who judging from the way he’s swiping at the screen of his phone, is here more to keep Buck company than actually work out. Buck picks up his own phone, unlocks it and immediately turns an interesting shade of flame. He drops his phone on the floor with a huff and when Eddie glances over, he just about grits out. “Don’t ask. Should not have looked”

Eddie holds up his hands as he doesn’t hold back a snicker and goes back to scrolling. “Told you before. Don’t recommend this as an alternative” Matt wonders if maybe Buck’s hiding out from someone too.

Buck huffs a pissy sigh and heaves himself up. He lifts the hem of his shirt to mop his forehead – Jesus – and stalks over to the punching bags. Eddie dutifully rolls off his own bench and ambles over, positioning himself to hold the bag steady, like they’ve done this a thousand times before.

That’s the second time.

--

By the sixth time, Matt’s starting to wonder if like, maybe Buck just needs to tell whoever it is that’s got him doing squats like its going out of style to go fuck themselves. He’s going to pull something.

He’s been working out for a little while, moving from squats to the punching bag and excellent form but again, he’s pummeling the living shit out of the thing. Eventually though he must feel Matt’s eyes on him because Buck turns round, wiping at his face.

Their eyes catch and fuck, fuck Matt needs to look at the red haired chick on Channel 8 or the floor or the mirror- shit not the mirrors because Buck outlined there, too. Obviously.

God, Ric always says Matt’s too honest. How the proposal hasn’t been rumbled is beyond him.

“Hey, uh”

“Hey” Buck grunts a little, leaning over to snag his water bottle, taking a long swig.

“Hey,” what the fuck, Mattie, abort, abort – “you alright, man? That punching bag looks like its about to tap out”

There are posters for mental health and talking about it all over the gym but again, its not like he knows Buck but the guy’s obviously preoccupied with something.

Buck throws a glance over his shoulder at the punching bag. He bites his lower lip for a second.

“Yeah. I know,” he ducks his head, “It’s just, well my – my boyfriend’s away and I fucking miss him, you know?”

Oh. Oh that’s – fucking adorable, really. The bent of Buck’s ire takes on new light.

“Is that why you’ve-“ Matt just about manages to bite his tongue in time, but a crooked smile flits knowingly across Buck’s face, a twinkle in his eye.

“-been working myself to the bone? Yeah, uh” he scrubs a hand across the back of his neck, ears turning a sweet pink “My captain – I’m a firefighter – said something similar. Trying to focus on other things. Work out my-“

“Frustration?”

Buck’s baby blues shoot up and yup he’s definitely gone pink now. It’s fucking endearing.

“Man, I’m the same when my fiancé – uh, well my boyfriend too, really I uh, haven’t asked him yet – is away. Ric went to a meditation retreat with our friend Annie, God I was ridiculous for like, a week”

Buck smiles, and sticks out a hand to him. They shake and Buck takes one last look at the bag. “He’s – Tommy – he’s back in a few days.”

“I hope he knows how much he’s been missed”

“Oh trust me, he will” Buck replies, and then his brain seems to catch up with his mouth and he goes practically scarlet, the blush spreading down his neck and shoulders this time.

It has Matt laughing to himself all the way home.

+

He walks into the gym to see Buck, on the mats. He’s circling a guy who – fucking hell, is he exclusively friends with models?! Are the LAFD on some kind of public service recruitment gig? The guy’s a match for Buck in bulk and height but you could cut yourself on those cheekbones.  Matt can’t help himself, he can’t look away. They’re clearly meant to be sparring but Buck must so riled up from his boyfriend’s absence that he’s not doing much but dodging. The other guy’s laughing it up, teasing, even playfully swats at Buck’s ass. His smile scrunches up his whole face as Buck jumps and then, forgoing finesse just launches himself at his friend.

They tumble to the mats, but he sees how Buck’s hand shoots out to cradle the back of his friend’s skull, lessen the impact against the tired padding.

“That’s just playing dirty” the new guy laughs again, and even from this angle, Matt can see the way he’s grinning up at Buck.

“I haven’t even begun to play” Buck smirks as his friend puts his massive hands on Buck’s hips to steady him as Buck -

Oh. Oh.

Buck shifts his hips again.

“Evan” those hands flex, Buck’s boyfriend’s voice straining in a really interesting way. His fingers have slipped under the hem of Buck’s t-shirt as the boyfriend lets his head drop, resting back against the mat, eyes glittering as he look up at Buck. Buck’s hands are pressing on his chest and they haven’t noticed, holy shit, Matt is going to leave. Matt is going to turn around and leave and find a new gym – Annie’s is really good, they do yoga and everything on a Thursday morning.

Evan?!

“Baby, I am not having welcome home sex in the gym. Chimney comes here.”

He’s nearly at the door, when he hears Buck sigh, theatrical and put upon, then “You’re no fun”

Another laugh, deep and throaty “Let me take you home and I’ll show you exactly how much fun I am”

Yeah, Matt’s done with the gym for a while. Ric should be getting home soon. There’s better ways to exercise after all.

[ecargmura]

Pokemon Horizons Episode 64 Review - Explorers Bring In The Heat

I always love it whenever the Explorers show up. I feel like they spice things up. I’m always on the edge of my seat whenever they show up because they always progress with the story in some way. The events that transpired in this episode certainly got me feeling that intense feeling—it’s not because Spinel shows up, okay?

What makes the Explorers compelling villains is that the kids are never aware that they’re being played right into their hands at times. It’s because they move around so secretively. Liko wasn’t aware that she was separated from Roy and Dot on purpose. I was surprised that Roy and Dot were shocked about Sandwich and Onigiri’s identities. I thought they already knew back in Episode 46. I guess seeing their sillier sides throughout the course had them adjusted to them not being too much harm.

There’s also discord amongst the members themselves. While Amethio and Liko are still enemies, Amethio’s true purpose was to see what Spinel is up to. He had more of an anti-hero role just for this episode in a way. The battle between Amethio and Liko was actually great! Even Amethio was surprised with how much she has improved since their last battle. Liko knows how to strategize! The only bad thing is that the battle got interrupted as Terastalized Ceruledge got interrupted by Spinel’s Umbreon and eventually got knocked out by it.

Spinel’s such a compelling villain in the sense that he’s truly menacing. Not only did he make Liko and Amethio meet each other, he also shows off what the Rakurium can do. Apparently, it makes Pokemon aggressive. His Umbreon became aggressive and got an enhance in strength. It’s like a mix between the R drug that was the main conflict in Detective Pikachu and Shadow Pokemon in Pokemon Colosseum. The fact that he’s willing to experiment on his Umbreon makes Spinel a bit of a psychopath. He has a Pokemon who evolves via friendship yet uses it for experimental purposes. Yet, it’s still loyal to him. Spinel wants to get rid of Amethio and the way he said it makes me wonder if he’s going to overthrow Gibeon and become the true final villain of the story. Just what are you plotting with Chalce?

Terapagos wasn’t a source of burden this time, surprisingly! Instead, Terapagos keeps showing off its angry side as it gets angry whenever it sees Amethio and got furious when it saw Rakurium. I wonder if Rakurium is something bad which is why it ignited its fury. Honestly, the way it’s normally sweet but is seen perpetually angry really got me invested. I wonder what its deal with Rakurium is.

I do like that Roy and Dot called Friede about Liko being missing. I guess Friede’s coming back into the story now. Also, I guess he’s calling Grusha and that’s why he shows up in the preview for next episode. I love it that the kids go straight to Friede for help. It shows that they know that can’t solve problems on their own. They’re a team, after all.

I think the best thing about the ending of Liko and Amethio being trapped in a cave is that we can finally see how they’ll get out. I swear, if they escape the cave off-screen, I’m going to riot. Horizons, you have to make up for the travesty that was Episode 23. I got my eye on you. What are your thoughts on the episode?

[thee-horny-thicky]

Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime/manga, books, movies or tv series)? And why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....Thanks...

Okay, so, technically, Satoru and Suguru are two different characters, but they're canon parallels to each other, two halves of a duo. When that stopped being the case, a chasm was created and their worlds shifted. Their relationship is a major part of both characters stories, so separating them is difficult.

It isn't hard to guess that I love them. They're complex characters, and both serve as a cornerstone of JJK. It's impossible to imagine the series without either one of them, and their respective ideologies and the reasons behind them can be essay material. (I know because I've written one for school)

Bella Goth is an iconic Sims character. She's a baddie, and has some of the most intriguing lore of the game. I think it's a shame the Sims 4 slacked up on the storylines of the townies, because even though I've never owned the original game or Sims 2, the lore of the first two games is compelling. I have fond memories of her, often revolving me breaking up her marriage, and protecting her from those mean, scary aliens.

I was six when this movie came out, and my mother took my sisters and I to see it in the theater. That first watch is something I'd never forget, and even though I was upset that my older sister stole my snacks, the magic of the movie overrode it all. To see a princess movie set in New Orleans endeared it to my entire family, and the fact that she's the first and only Black princess gives Tiana a special place in my heart. She's hardworking, ambitious, and persistent. Not to mention, she's a baddie.

Her and Naveen's love story is one of my favorites, and I adore the fact she showed you can have a loving husband and a prosperous career. She's an independent woman, but can still accept love.

Speaking of....

The original Disney baddie, (argue with your mama), and the first to spark my interest in martial arts. I thought she was so cool, and seeing her growth always puts a smile on my face. When she sat on the top of that pole, I was so proud of her. She started out headstrong and determined, and more honorable than most of the men around her. The crowd bowing to her was exactly what she deserved, and her Father giving her her props was such a sweet moment to me.

As a side note, she deserved better than Li Shang. I fully subscribe to the theory that Li is bisexual and developed an attraction towards Ping. I love the hypothetical queer representation, even if he ends up in a straight relationship. What I don't love is how he left her to die. He tried to pose it as an act of mercy, showing his gratitude for her heroic actions, but he still left her on a freezing mountainside in barely anything. Then, when she escaped and tried to warn him, he refused to give her the time of day. Put short, he was raggedy.

Saiki is one of my favorite anime protagonists. The way the anime pokes fun at tropes is so funny, and Saiki being done with the world around him is a mood, as is his fear of bugs. Anime is riddled with all powerful characters, and a lot of the time, they have a copy and paste personality. Seeing Saiki longing to be normal, (to the point of stalking someone who's scarily average), whilst also being over reliant on his powers and being comedically apathetic is a nice change of pace. It also makes him surprisingly complex. Though this is a theory and not canon, he's great ace representation. He's content with having no romantic partner, and I like how he grows to deal with having friends without having a sudden interest in romance.

Another good example of Ace representation, in my humble bisexual opinion, is Barbie. She shows that friendship and sisterhood can be fulfilling on its own, without any need for a romantic relationship.

Now, I don't think the Barbie movie is as revolutionary as people made it out to be. It was feminism 101, with the core message being the patriarchy oppresses women, and grossly limits men. A message that's still controversial in 2024, but not one we haven't heard before.

Still, it was an incredibly fun movie, and Barbie was a great heroine. The moment she chose the high heel over the Birkenstock, I knew I'd love her, and I was right.

I love Avatar: The Last Airbender. It was so ahead of its time, and is an example of how complex 'kid' shows can be. It's pretty hard for me to pick a favorite character, but if I was forced to choose, I'd say Uncle Iroh.

Long ago, I saw a comment about how if there was a character that embodied the pleasant warmth of a fire place or cackling campfire, it'd be Uncle Iroh. I completely agree. He's the perfect mentor, standing in Zuko's corner no matter what he wanted to do, while subtly guiding him down the right path. He also wasn't blind to his nephew's flaws, but never addressed them in a way that made Zuko feel unwanted. Even after being backstabbed, he was simply sad that Zuko lost his way.

We don't see his character arc on screen, but we know he underwent an incredible transformation, going from a fearsome Fire Nation general, to a humble old man reflective about life, though he can still kick ass if needed.

Leaves From The Vine still makes me feel mushy and teary-eyed. It's bittersweet knowing that losing his son was the catalyst for him to become the character we see, and the reason he's so dedicated to Zuko. He's trying to prevent him from suffering the same fate, and right a wrong that's haunted him for so long. Learning that the tears in Iroh's voice was genuine, because that was one of the final things Mako Iwamatsu recorded before passing, made me want to curl up in bed. He brought the character to life, and is one reason he's so iconic.

Finally, Mr. Shouta Aizawa's fine ass. Now, besides just being fine, I love him for many of the reasons I love Iroh. He's nowhere as cheerful and warm as Uncle Iroh, but he takes his role as a teacher and mentor seriously. He stands in his students corner no matter what, and has shown time and time again that he'd give his life for them. Furthermore, he isn't a hero for fame or recognition, but because he believes it's the right thing to do. He knows the society he lives in is flawed, and tries to right U.A's quirk prejudice system by mentoring Hitoshi.

One might not peg him as it, but he's a very parental character. It's shown with his students, with Hitoshi, and most especially Eri. He's dedicated to guiding the next generation to achieve their fullest potential. Plus, his quirk is cool as hell, and he can throw hands.

Bonus:

Anya Forger and Nezuko, because they make me reconsider my stance on children. They're so cute, and highlights of their respective shows. And I love how Anya is shown to be childishly intelligent. It's due to her powers, but still.

TF141 also gains an honorable mention, especially my baby girl Ghost. Despite being the most secretive character of the task force, we have the most information on his background, and I love his fruity friendship with Johnny. Likewise, I love the mentor relationship Gaz and Price have. On a hornier note, I wish there were more threesome fics with Gaz and Price taking a lucky lady to Pound Town. All and all, these four awful people are my favorite pieces of military propaganda.

[honest-moth-of-silver-grove]

Hi. I don’t know if requests are still open or not, but I was wondering if you could do some headcannons of Hector, Isaac, Alucard and Trevor helping their S/O through a panic attack??

If you feel uncomfortable writing this or if requests are closed please feel free to ignore this request. I hope you are well and staying safe 💞

Ask: Hi. I don’t know if requests are still open or not, but I was wondering if you could do some headcanons of Hector, Isaac, Alucard, and Trevor helping their S/O through a panic attack??

If you feel uncomfortable writing this or if requests are closed please feel free to ignore this request. I hope you are well and staying safe 💞

A/N: Requests are still closed as of right now, but this one made it in before that- I’m just a super slow tortoise when it comes to getting things done. (I think I’ve had like a year of writer’s block. That or it was just a major depressive episode… Who’s to say?) Anyways, onwards and upwards! Here is how I think Hector, Isaac, Alucard, and Trevor would help their S/O through a panic attack. I hope they're good, normally when I'm panicking I just let myself freak tf out lol

☮ ☮ ☮

Hector: 

Hector knows exactly what a panic attack is. Okay, well maybe he doesn’t know all the psychology behind it, but he’s had plenty himself, so he understands how overwhelming they can feel. 

He may not pick up on the fact that you’re having one right away if he’s preoccupied with making night creatures at the moment. But he’s also one to worry about you- he’s lost almost everyone he’s loved in some way or another, so he makes a point of checking in between every couple of creations. 

He’ll see your labored breathing, the fear in your eyes, or the way you bend your body in half and know immediately that something is wrong. He’s learned from observing your behavior: which words and movements mean you’re happy and which ones mean you need help. 

He’ll physically come over to you, and place a reassuring hand on your shoulder. If you’re in his workshop, or somewhere else that isn’t exactly an ideal calm spot, he’ll usher you- carry you even- if he has to, to a safer place where the two of you can sit quietly. 

If you’re okay with being touched, he’ll hold you close to him, placing one of his hands on the small of your back. Using the other, he’ll grasp one of your hands and bring it to his chest so you can focus on the rhythm of his heartbeat. 

He takes deep calming breaths and urges you to match yours to his. 

Once you're past the worst of it, he’ll leave you alone momentarily to go and make the two of you tea. The two of you can sip your tea and enjoy the company of your many adorable undead pets together. It may be unnerving to some, but to you, when you’re all together, it helps make the world look less intimidating. 

Isaac: 

Isaac doesn't panic often, or, well, ever to be quite honest. He used to be terrified as a kid, but now that he’s a man in charge of his own destiny, that’s all behind him. That doesn’t mean he’s unaware of your feelings or anything. As a matter of fact, he prefers the focus to be on your feelings so he doesn’t have to share his. 

The first thing he has you do is drink some ice-cold water, to help your brain shift its focus from your overwhelming feelings to the shocking and quite refreshing feeling of the cool liquid going down your throat. 

The second thing he does is rub soothing circles into the pulse points on both your wrists. He learned from an acupuncturist in one of his many travels, that these points, called the Great Abyss and the Spirit Gate respectively, are good pressure points to use in alleviating feelings of anxiety. 

Thirdly, he makes sure those in and around the palace respect your privacy. He ushers any passersby away and uses his night creatures to reroute people to ensure no one other than him sees you in this state. He doesn’t want you to feel negatively judged for having feelings, because he lived his life like that for so long and he knows how awful it is. 

Once you’ve reached the peak of your panic attack and begin to come down, he’ll ask if you want to talk about what triggered you in the first place. After all, he is the King of Styria now. If it’s something he can change in the palace, or in the way people work, you can bet he’s going to fix it for your benefit. 

If it isn’t something he or you can change, but rather something you have no other choice but to live with, he mentally makes peace with it and urges you to do the same. Yes, feelings of panic are scary and they mess up your entire day, but if this is a part of who you are, he doesn’t want you to feel in any way angry at yourself or at fault. People carry all different burdens, this one just happens to be yours. And Isaac is more than happy, to let you know, you don’t carry this one alone. 

Alucard: 

Alucard is pretty stoic most of the time, at least, he tries to be. He’s not used to vocalizing or expressing how he feels. Hell, he doesn’t even really know how to process all that he feels, much less share it. So it’s safe to say, being a knowledgeable and comforting presence is foreign to him. 

Greta and Sypha do end up teaching him a little bit, but you’re gonna have to be very honest and open with him going forward if you want him to anticipate your needs beyond eating and sleeping every once in a while.

You’d most likely come to him and tell him. Either with an “Alucard, I need you,” or even a whispered, “Help.” And he’d come running, like superspeed running, over to you. 

Are you hurt? Are you bleeding? He’s checking for blood. No blood! Okay, any bruises? No bruises! He’s going through the physical list when he notices the way you’re trembling, the way you keep grasping at your chest, and the way you keep shaking your head ‘no’. He soon realizes it's not that kind of injury. 

He takes you to your room and sets you gently on the bed. He asks you directly: what can he do, and what do you need? Whatever it is he’ll get it, or he’ll ask for someone else to get it, so he can stay there in the meantime and hold you. 

He lets you play with his hair, something he rarely does, to keep your mind occupied on something else. He’ll even shift into his wolf form if you’d prefer a big fluffy doggie to cuddle with. 

Stemming off of what he’s learned from Sypha and Greta, he reminds you how much he loves you, and how much you mean to him. He thinks you’re a wonderful person- brave and strong. Panic attacks don’t change that. And he’s not upset or even shocked- life is scary, and your guys’ life has been very scary. 

Basically Alucard just wants you to know that even though he isn’t an expert at emotions, he’ll stay by your side, throughout it all. 

Trevor: 

Trevor actually used to have panic attacks a lot as a kid, but back then he had his family to help him through it. After they were taken from him, he shut down emotionally- something he needed to do to survive. So now, his emotional IQ isn’t the greatest. That doesn’t mean he’s not observant though. 

Being a trained monster hunter, he’s good at reading people. He can spot fear or aggression from a distance, and he’d definitely be able to sense panic in you. 

He would want to make sure the two of you are in a place and position for you to freak out freely, preferably away from prying strangers’ eyes. It’s not that he’s embarrassed, he just wants the two of you to feel safe enough to calm down, and it’s hard to do that with a bunch of judgemental eyes on you. 

Trevor’s priority is safety: so once the two of you are clear of people (or night creatures), he turns his attention to you. He instructs you to take deep breaths: in through your nose and out through your mouth- he remembers reading something about that in one of his family’s books a long time ago. 

If you’re not too hot, or in the middle of an anxiety-driven hot flash, he’ll offer you his coat/cloak to grip on or to cocoon yourself in. If you choose the former, he’ll place a reassuring hand on your shoulder, and practice his breathing with you. If you prefer the latter, he’ll pick your wrapped-up form and cradle you in his lap. And he’ll tell you stories from a happier time in his life- something he doesn’t share with anyone other than you- to distract your mind. It’s his way of being vulnerable with you. 

Trevor knows he comes off as stony, bitter, and just completely over-it in general, but he never wants you to think he feels that way about you. He loves you, and he prides himself on his ability to protect you and keep you safe. You’re his family now. He’s going to stick through it all with you- thick and thin. 

He might even softly sing some of the old Romanian lullabies his mother used to sing to him. But that’s only if you’re really, really panicked. Once you start teasing him about how he’s really just a big softie, he knows you’re going to be just fine.

[lassieposting]

Serpine in therapy for the asks :)

Okay so my headcanon is actually that Nef doesn't get a choice about going to therapy. It's part of the parole agreement he makes with the Sanctuary when he immigrates to Roarhaven. Whether or not he is answerable for our Serpine's war crimes, and whether the Sanctuary here can try him for his war crimes back in Leibniz, is still up for debate by legal professionals and he'd rather not risk it, so in exchange for his freedom he agrees to comply with weekly check-ins with a parole officer (which ends up being Skug, because China is spiteful), regular therapy, and location monitoring.

And like. Honestly, he thinks the whole thing is a massive waste of time - the Sanctuary flexing its power over him to make a point. He shows up, he's charming and personable, he flirts with the therapist and the girl on reception and anyone else he happens to bump into - but he thinks that before long, he'll have them convinced that he's psychologically normal and doesn't need their services, and they'll discharge him.

But like. The thing about Nef, aside from having a sadistic streak a mile wide and Chronic Backstabbing Bitch Disease, is that he's spent the vast majority of (at least) his adult life surrounded by people who would turn on him in a heartbeat if it suited them to do so. He comes from a world where abuse, manipulation and betrayal are not only common, they're the norm. That's the only way to relate to the world and to others that he understands. The Faceless worshippers are a nasty bunch who all encourage each other's worst impulses and learn to care only for themselves, and on the rare occasion that they break those habits, they tend to get hurt by those who haven't. So like, Nef's normal meter is completely and utterly broken. In his Handbook backstory, his childhood was unstable and emotionally damaging. As an adult, he has nothing to do with his family - all he had was Mevolent and the Church. His relationship history is littered with violent psychopaths like Christophe Nocturnal and Jaron Gallow, people who approved of and supported Serpine's own sadistic tendencies, but also tended to vent theirs on him when it suited them. This. Man. Is. A mess.

The therapist suspects complex trauma - although, that's not as unusual a diagnosis as it is for mortals: it's a given for millions of sorcerers who survived the 500 Year War - narcissistic tendencies, though not to the point of a full blown personality disorder, and an obsessive focus on/one-sided rivalry with Skulduggery.

Honestly, I think Nef would mostly use it as an opportunity to annoy Skug. He pays attention, but mostly so he can take what the therapist tells him and put it to use while Skulduggery is stuck in the car with him for an eight hour stakeout. Psychoanalyse him. Armchair-diagnose him. Treat him to a three hour monologue of "My therapist said..."

But like. You know that thing where you start saying hewwo to mock other people who say hewwo, and it's kind of a mean-spirited joke at first, but suddenly you've unironically adopted hewwo into your daily vocabulary and can't stop saying it? Yeah.

Some of it starts to get in via osmosis and sheer habit. He spends so long mockingly telling Skug about all the problems that he (Nef) thinks he (Skug) has, that he actually starts to notice things for real. He can tell when Skug is dissociating. He can point out to Val that she has a tendency to pull away from and lash out at the people who want to help her, because she's terrified to be seen as anything other than competent and capable, and then he'll think, hold on, I do that too.

A lot of therapy goes in one ear and out the other because it doesn't work for him - complex trauma is just Like That. The standard practices - like CBT - seem like platitudinous drivel to you, and the fact that everyone else seems to think they work often feels like a great big joke everyone is playing on you. But he takes in enough to start making some small changes to how he interacts with others and how he behaves. He starts learning how to react appropriately to distress signals in the people who are becoming his friends, rather than seeing those signals as something to take advantage of, a soft spot to sink a knife into and twist. He's developing basic empathy, which actually helps him, because for once in his life he's in a situation where bonding with others is The Way To Get Ahead, rather than something that would get him killed.

And he's getting a better grade in therapy than Skug, by virtue of actually agreeing to go, so he gets to be smug about that.