#because i am just intrinsically BAD and i have never known how to do anything good

[sanemisstalker]

As much as I sexualize and objectify him, I just know Sanemi would be so incredibly difficult to get into bed with. For good reason.

CW/ SEVERE Angst/ am.... am i depressed? Maybe, lol/ Discussion of CA / DV / Men's Mental Health / Sanemi is afraid of his dead dad / MANGA SPOILERS/ Panic Attack / ANXIETY / SH - Just general no good times as a result of Sanemi intentionally isolating.

This isn't headcanons or anything, I've just had my fair share of Sanemi run ins in my life, and I know He'd be afraid of you.

Afraid of himself and being just like his dad. He looks just like the bastard. If he didn't have the white hair, it'd be identical. He has those thousand yard stare eyes, and that big, imposing frame. After his mothers death, I just know he starred at that thing for days. Watching it fester and scar... it was easier before that one came in, to separate his face from his fathers- What an ugly gash.

And he was just like his dad, to Genya, at least. He wanted more than anything for Genya to just be happy, and he knew the stupid boy was doing it all for him. To earn his big brother's love that Sanemi had been intentionally depriving him of. And it sickened Sanemi.

He had to make it painfully clear to Genya every step of the way that nothing he did, no matter the triumph, no matter how proud Sanemi was- was ever going to make Sanemi snap and just say it.

Genya was too good to be good enough. Sanemi thanked his father, briefly, for that trait about himself. Sanemi turned everything off the day his mother died. Everything except for his dad.

Genya did not deserve a tie to the woeful underbelly of the world. Those silly things Genya said after Sanemi killed their mother were Sanemi's saving grace. He never would've been brave enough to start removing himself from Genya's life if Genya hadn't believed he opened the door.

It's why he tried to take his eyes when he found out Genya had been eating demons- Genya was a man he just couldn't protect anymore, because Sanemi kept tabs and he hadn't known that about Genya for a while, now.

It was all so... scary, Sanemi struggled to even think about it sometimes. Anytime he would a pit would grow in his stomach. Anytime he thought about snapping and reconciling with his brother, telling him how proud he was- that pit would be right back. It was like he was starving.

And God, when he meets someone he loves it stings. It stings because Sanemi was always the one walking the others out of the house when dad got bad. It stings because he knows exactly what that bastard did to his mom- he knew the movements intrinsically, and that's all he knew how to do to those fly away demons he'd been slaughtering for months as a teenager.

Back when he could still resceitate a smidge of his empathy for the things. He just started imagining them as his dad.

Because the pathetic piece of shit died before Sanemi could get penance. Kyogo should've been alive for Sanemi to kill, to get big and strong, and beat his father down into submission like Kyogo had been beating him, his mother, and his siblings down for years...

He should've been alive to do the bare minimum and protect his wife- to have fallen to slaughter in her stead. Because there should've been a bigger man in the house- To not only protect Shizu, but to protect Sanemi... but there just wasn't.

The love stings because every time he's reminded of how weak he is.

He loved Kumeno. With everything in his body, he knew he loved Kumeno. He wouldn't dare say a word. He had such a soft smile, Sanemi felt yet another drop of color fade from his vision as he watched Kumeno's smile fade away.

God, he loved Kanae more than he hated the world. He knew it radiated off of him when she entered a room- Because she treated him so softly. The news had shaken him for weeks. He doesn't even quite recall where he went or what he did.

He was greedy to want anything when he wore that uniform and wielded that blade. The first time in a long time he bothered to try and love, the world reminded Sanemi of his place.

And good for it, too, He'd figure. He would've beat Kanae, he bet. Would've reduced such a kind and caring woman to a sniveling dog beneath his fists.

It was better, that God took her away. She was safer from him dead.

His thoughts are never this formulated. They're thicker with self-bashing and the like. He can't bare to look at his face, only his torso- He crafted that himself, his dad was never this strong.

I know if he likes you, you'd just never know. It'd be like pulling teeth, but somehow worse. He doesn't sleep with anyone because that's disrespectful. No woman is an object to be used once, maybe seven times, and then cast off to deal with the brunt of it.

I'm sure beating up the Kakushi that made Mitsuri's uniform was more than cathartic for him.

I'm sure, if you manage to get through to him inspite all of this, he'd be afraid to touch you. He yanks his hand away, and never initiates kissing, even though it's all he wants to do.

He cries when he loses his virginity because fuck, god is going to yank you away. and he knows he can't do anything about it because he messed up and weak. He got so close to you, and god is going to smite you for it.

He's never the one that bares the runt of his sins.

He can't finish. He has a panic attack, it's visceral, and terrifying, he cant even manage to cry. It takes every bone in his body not to lash out screaming, breaking, and destroying while you cradle him against your chest, because God, fuck, he's a mess.

It would take him months to even consider it again. He begs you to leave him and find a man that can treat you better, because it just isn't him-

And it hurts because you see how strong he is to just be alive everyday. Sanemi has never been strong, though. And he doubts he will ever be strong enough to love you correctly-

It's not like him to quit, though.

God I might part 2 this, he's such a little fucker lmao.

[starlit-mansion]

Now that you've caught up on a bunch of ego videos, what do you think of it all? :3

I don't want to pit two queens (mark and seán) against each other but it's hard not to a little bit because youtuber alterego sketches are kind of a very... niche genre and frankly i'm not a big enough fan of other people who i've seen do it (like thomas sanders or... contrapoints??? i guess????) to compare off the top of my head.

Seán is just like......... startlingly good at dramatic acting? He is, i think, passible to decent at comedic acting, but not that remarkable among his peers, but weirdly anything he plays straight REALLY sticks with me? Like... a while ago, i saw the opening sketch from some horror series or smth that i didn't even watch clipped to twitter, and it was like. This completely wordless short film of him getting a package and opening it up and finding his own severed head, and i STILL think about it from time to time because it was just made really well. It was EXTREMELY uncomfortable, but not in a way that grossed me out or felt traumatizing (i sometimes have problems with filmed horror because it's too visceral), but because it felt so mundane and convincing while still being skincrawling. Less is more. (I might have some details wrong here, idk.)

Come to think about it, his acting in the tie dye ten minute power hour with the game grumps was also really fucking good for what it was. Like. There was no need to go that hard but he carried it.

I was... maybe more tense than was merited when i watched "say goodbye" (insert zalgo text), because it really just genuinely felt like his content from the time (i was somewhat casual fan and regular viewer for a year or so back in the beginning of the green hair era, so like, 2015?), but the breaks in character were so subtle that it felt.......... extra wrong. Like weirdly in 2022, the nostagia factor made it work better.

I also like how the need for a punchline has been peeled away more and more from the ego content. It's not that there's no humor... the dialogue was funny in the most video, there were bits, but it all served characterization and emotional connection rather than Jokes For Audience To Laugh At. You could watch that video with no idea who Chase is and be 100% drawn in to the core of the character (case in point, that's what happened to corv, they were doing watercolors when i put it on our tv and had never seen any of seán's ego content, and they groked that chase was super divorced before it was said lol). A lot of mark's stuff still feels like *sketches* with occasional emotional connective tissue, which isn't a bad thing by any means, but it's notable how different of a sensibility seán has... and in a weird way, they play in the same twinned truth: the audience is an intrinsic part of this, the eyes of 10, 20, 30 million people are inescapable. Seán plays into the horror aspect of it, which could easily become corny or trite, but doesn't, because he's got the restraint to pull it off.

As for the egos themselves, i don't have any deep cuts of faves (and not... a *great* sense of most of them) but also. Unfortunately Chase and Anti are two of my Known Types: pathetic divorced man who's extremely performative but losing his ability to cope or convince others, and grinning, chaotic supernatural being who has to possess or manipulate other people to enact his will (some of the girlies like vampires or werewolves but this bitch here has a sleeper fixation on poltergeists and trickster figures...) So needless to say, i am INVESTED now that i actually put in the time to get current.

[sillygooseun]

okay so since i haven’t posted much recently, i have a lot to share bc i’m. Like That™️ :D

anyway so i work at a small newspaper stand and occasionally they’ll let me edit or write pieces for the article! anyway, the other day, i was talking to one of my coworkers (omg i sound so adult) about hair dye/styles, and how different hairstyle/hair color means you’re often treated differently. (basically this post here) and our editor happened to walk by and here some of what i was saying, and he goes “Hey, you’re really passionate about that. I like it! Write this down, because even if it doesn’t make it into the paper, I want it in my office.” so of course i was all like “Okay! I’ll get right to it then!” so anyway i just thought that since i shared that post i wanted to also share what i wrote (it didn’t end up in the paper, but he actually pinned it on his wall!!! i’m so so proud!)

WARNING IT IS REALLY LONG SO DO NOT READ IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO READ THROUGH A LONG ARTICLE!!!

Hair dye. One of the many wonders of our world. You can look the way you want, because you have the power to choose. I’ve always loved the idea of dyeing my hair, and I’ve been dyeing it since i was 13 years old. Something that I’ve learned along the way is that people tend to treat you differently based on your hair color. A lot of people like to say the phrase “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” Except for the fact that a lot of the time, the people saying this are only saying it for their benefit. It is an intrinsically human behaviour to judge and feel judged. Now, you may be reading this going “Well, that’s only some people, because I would never judge anyone!” But thats where you’re wrong, and you know it. When we see other people, oftentimes our first thought is something bad. For example; “She should get a nose job,” or “That color does not look good on her.” We all judge people, even if we don’t realise it, because we live in a society where it’s normal to do so. But if you don’t think judging people is a horrible thing to do, I’m sure you’re going to be convinced by the end of this article.

I’ve been pushed around all my life. By bigger, older people, by boys, by girls, by adults. And I’ve never felt as though it was a bad thing, because I was told that every kid my age goes through it. But when I found out this wasn’t true, I was furious. Rage can feel different sometimes, and this time it felt like betrayal. It also felt sad, and cruel. I couldn’t help but think, “Why didn’t they just tell me? Why didn’t they do anything?” I know now that they couldn’t. Or, perhaps “wouldn’t” is a better choice of word. When I found out that I was being pushed around more than others, I felt out of place, and unnatural. A month after I had turned 13, I decided to dye my hair a bright purple color. I was treated 10 times worse than I had been with my natural, brunette hair. So I continued to dye my hair every color under the sun, when I realised that it was useless. At 14, I dyed my hair platinum blonde. I was treated better than I was before. My hair grew out, and I kept it blonde until I was 16. I felt more confident, less unsure of who I am, or where my place was. But everyone seemed to put me in this box. My male teachers started dumbing down subjects for me when I asked a question. Boys at school (whom I’ve known for years) started telling me I couldn’t play football with them. I was told that I “dont even know who that is” when wearing a sports jersey. I got tired of being talked to as if I’m stupid and worthless.

My mom is someone who I’ve always been close to, always looked up to. My mom has red hair, and when I was 16, I dyed my hair the same shade as hers. As you should know, girls are a little more matured at 16. Well, a 16 year old with red hair is apparently a target for older men. I was stared at by men twice my age at the gas station, the grocery store, and I was suddenly more liked by boys at school. At the time I had thought it was a normal thing, that all girls go through this. When I was talking to my friend about it I realised this was something that wasn’t happening to her. I was confused, and angry with myself for not realising. I let the red fade out of my hair, and gave it some time to go back to its natural color.

My hair healed from the chemicals in the hair dye. I was not treated as bad as I was with colored hair, not talked to as dumb as I was with blonde hair, and not sexualised the way I was with red hair. I could simply be, and that was enough for a while. Until I got bored of being normal, and dyed it again. I was called “an attention seeker” by classmates, friends, and even family. I’ve learned now to ignore them, because even though my hair is different, I’m not. I want anyone with dyed hair to know that you are still you. Unless you’re not. Some people are changing and some aren’t, and that’s okay! I’m 17 now, with green hair, and suddenly I’m “cool” and “edgy.” I don’t care what people think I am, because I know who I am. And I hope that you, dear reader, can also someday know what it’s like to know who you are.

[emeraldsandamethyst]

obsessions (danny phantom)

i had a comment asking about obsessions on ao3 and am sharing it here, since i thought I'd made it obvious but obviously that is in my brain and y'all aren't in my brain

for reference this is the fic [on ao3 here] and the bits specific about ghosts having 'things' I'll put at the end under a cut

Q: In your ‘verse is the Box Ghost really strong, or just a masochist? Same with Technus? Because some ghosts seem really intrinsically tied to their thing and express it super openly.

A: So in this AU ghosts have a lot of choice in how to fulfill their obsessions.

Boxie doesn't have a box obsession specifically. I'm using the HC he died in a warehouse accident so his obsession is more related to protection and he satisfies it by keeping boxes away from everyone else.

Ghosts being deliberately vague with their language about 'things' both helps other ghosts by well, being vague, because they could say something like "oh yeah that's box Ghost, boxes are his thing" and ghosts all understand that's not literally his obsession because you just don't do that. And most Ghosts that didn't know him would understand that being known for boxes is what he wants. Both from his name and how the ghost talking about him said it was his thing.

Like "being a hero is Phantom's thing" no ghost would think his obsession is heroism (it isn't in this au anyways) if a ghost said that. If a human said that they'd be pissed but only because they know humans don't respect obsessions and it's possible that they are actually sharing it.

Does that make sense?

[...]

“Oh! Yeah, sure. Like I said, if you read any of [Jack and Maddie's] conclusions from before about last year just try and toss that out. They’ve learned a lot more about ghosts since then that really changes the entire field of ectobiology. And I dunno if they’ve published anything about ghost forms since then, actually but, yeah, ghosts only sort of control their forms unless it's like, their thing-”

“Their Obsession, you mean?” Valerie asked. Danny paused a little too long and looked at her a little too sharply to convince Valerie of his full humanity.

“You could say it like that. But it’s rude,” Danny finally said, succeeding in looking and sounding fully human at least. As Phantom she’d seen just how pissed being asked about any ghosts obsession made him. She’d only asked him about his own once. That had been… probably the only time Danny had legitimately tried to hurt her, now that she thought about it.

[...]

“So,” Valerie said, not commenting on the sudden awkward tension, “Ghosts can’t change their bodies at will, usually, unless it’s their special thing.”

“Right!” Danny said with a happy nod of agreement.[...]

“And if a ghost suddenly does change their form, then there has been a huge change with them on a deeply personal level,” Valerie stated, [...]

“Yeah, pretty much!” Danny agreed.

“I’ve told you this isn’t safe,” she reminded him, exasperated. It was… it wasn’t nice actually. It was frustrating in a bad way. That electric place behind her heart that was usually so light felt heavy, almost like something was grinding against it.

“What do you care?” Danny hissed, leaving his tongue sticking out and slinking deeper into his coiled tail.

Valerie felt something actually painful in her chest and embarrassingly felt herself chirp for no reason she understood. Danny floated up towards her immediately, looking alarmed and contrite.

“I didn’t know. I’m sorry,” Danny said, distressed. “I never thought about what your thing might be, honest!”

“... Whatever,” Valerie said. She swallowed and remembered their conversation the other day. About ghosts having ‘things’ that under no circumstances should ever be mentioned and definitely not called Obsessions. Valerie hadn’t died. She couldn’t be a ghost. “I’m not…”

“Of course! Of course,” Danny said, fidgeting with the tip of his tail anxiously. Was this really that serious of a deal? Did… did ghosts feel even worse when someone brought up their Obsessions? Even indirectly? Maybe it was a bigger deal than she’d ever realized.

[lilacandladybugs]

I personally am not religious at all but I've always tried my best to respect those who are and I think it's pretty lovely that you have something like that to help you feel safe and comfortable!

I hope this doesn't come across as demeaning but, I kinda find it interesting?? to have that sort of blind faith and belief is just interesting and kind of neat to me I suppose

I don't understand but I'm happy that you have something like that to keep you up in trying times :]

I'm glad that you feel that way! Also I'm not offended lmao you guys are all really friendly and I don't think you want to offend me so I will always take it that way. I am going to clarify something but I'm pretty sure this isn't what you mean so just for passersby~

Blind faith in anon's words i think means like belief in something that I can't see, which is valid, but some people use it to mean faith beyond reason so I'm going to briefly walk you through some thought process so you know that I didn’t just randomly choose this lol

I think the real reason I believe in God is this realization that we all to some extent believe in something, have faith in something. Even if you are agnostic, people still have to choose how they actively live their lives. Agnostics usually end up functioning as atheists, they don't know who God is, and so they function like he doesn't exist.

So we all at some point end up betting our lives on some belief system. We bet our present life, and any potential future life, on what we think we can understand right now. We bet our lives that God doesn't exist, or we bet our lives that he does. And even if someone chooses not to think about it, they're betting their lives that it isn't important.

We also all have to have a level of blind faith (imo), we believe that we can think, we believe that goodness or badness exists. We believe that reason exists, we believe in logic, in science, in our senses. Faith is just an assumption that something is true, and you can’t use logic to prove that logic is valid, so at some point you have to take it on faith. All premises are at some level an act of faith.

So then the question becomes, since I can’t know anything 100% certainly but I literally have to choose something, what do I choose? What seems most likely?

To me, it seems more likely that God aligned the stars and placed the Earth precisely where it is than that it happened by chance. It seems more likely that information came from an informant than that it came from no where, and it seems more likely that life came from a source than that life came from death. 

It seems more likely to me that Jesus was who he said he was than that he was just a good person, because good people don’t lie, they don’t mislead entire populations to bet their lives on a lie. But Jesus claimed to be God and he seemed like a good man. It seems more likely to me that the Bible was the word of God than that it was able to be constructed over thousands of years by people who never knew each other in three different languages and still survived thousands of years.

And the one that hits the most is that I think it is more likely that people matter than that they don’t. It’s more likely in my mind that morality exists than that it doesn’t, and if it does exist it must have been defined by someone outside of ourselves, thus making it more likely to be God.

Here is an excerpt I wrote from this post, that explains a little bit more:

Nietzsche, Kant, and Epictetus are all similar in that i have the same issue with all of them. They all want to put the anchor of meaning within the individual human. But i swear to god when i say that i want to hug my brother again i dont just mean i want to hug a person, i mean that i miss that person, that there was something that was valuable about him not just to me but that was valuable to the entire universe, and that when he died that piece of the universe was lost. epictetus’ argument was that human beings are simply mortal beings, and so grieving them is an unreasonable reaction to that fact of reality - we are all going to die, so why get attached to people like they’re immortal?

Which raises the question for me, why do we grieve like we’re meant to be immortal? Why is it that the world trembles under the crushing weight of death? That even birds miss their mates when they die, that elephants linger by the graves of their ancestors, that dogs continue to look for their masters once they’ve passed? Are we, like epictetus nietzsche and kant too, are we the only possible anchor for meaning? Do things in and of themselves mean nothing except in relation to us, so we can’t say, “death is bad,” but only, “death is bad to me”? it just doesn’t seem true

That’s who I’ve come to understand God to be. Things are complex and full of logic and information and cohesion, because when God spoke the universes into existence he planned it out carefully and tenderly. Things want to be loved and cared for and valued because God is triune, he exists as one God with three persons, loving one another for all of existence, and creating life to share in that eternal love with them. Human beings grieve one another’s deaths like we aren’t meant to die because we weren’t meant to die, death was a natural result of our decision to part ways with the giver of life, and leaving him meant that we die, and it isn’t how it’s meant to be, it’s one of the greatest tragedies to ever occur. When my brother died it felt like the universe lost something that was intrinsically valuable, not just to me, because my brother was created for a purpose by our creator, and his meaning is anchored not in my human flesh that will pass away but in the very foundation of our known universe, in the character of who God is.

--

Anyway if you’re interested I can send you some philosophy and history behind why I believe what I believe, it for sure wasn’t developed out of no where I’ve spent years questioning it and thinking about it. But most people don’t want to read that much so if you want more you can hmu in messages or send another ask idk XD 

Thanks anon! Sorry for hijacking your ask I know you aren’t that interested lol

[kadhis-stuff]

You can’t keep a secret forever

Summary: How is a woman supposed to tell her husband, who has been married to her for almost 7 years now, that she can read minds? That she has been able to since the first moment they met?

This is a gift for @nonokoko13​! (AO3 link). I hope you enjoy it! Here’s my little contribution to the Damianya part of the fandom :)

Anya’s unstoppable right foot shook so hard that the dining table moved to her tune, causing a metallic sound from the table legs hitting the floor. Her hands joined forming a fist that was holding her chin. She was staring at the ceiling of her house, looking for some inspiration on what to do. As if the ceiling tiles were an almighty god with all the answers willing to share with mere mortals.

Anya was concerned. A concerned 26-year-old woman. A concern police officer in these peaceful times. She never told anyone about this. Not even her parents. It was an intrinsic part of herself. It grew to be normal on her. Part of what defines what Anya Forger-Desmond is.

How is a woman supposed to tell her husband, who has been married to her for almost 7 years now, that she can read minds? That she has been able to since the first moment they met?

What people has always said about her is that she is a very perceptive person. And as the years went by, she got better at hiding it. No one has been able to hide a secret from her for long. And that is something that, today, was making Damian miserable.

Damian decided that this year was going to be the year. He will blow her mind with the most astonishing surprise ever. He will prove to her that he still has it, after all these years of marriage. For her to remember the feeling of being on the lookout and not knowing what to expect. The knowledge of something coming her way without a clue of what might that be.

Two things were wrong with Damian’s assumptions. First, he has never, ever, surprised her. Not on purpose at least, not by planning something out. He shouldn’t need to prove that he still has anything in that regard. And secondly, she doesn’t know how it feels to be non-puzzled because people usually think about the surprises while they are being planned or revealed. She hasn’t figure it out a way to put a spoiler alert tag on people, so she just deals with it.  

Why was Damian getting so frustrated about this lately?

The worst part is that his poker face is too good. There are times in which she knows what Damian is truly thinking just because she can read his mind. Instead, she is an open book.

Faking surprise? Yeah, that has never worked out for her before.

After faking a face, she is always hit by the thoughts “Oh, she saw it coming” “She knew about it” “Surely Becky told her” “Surely Damian told her” “Am I this bad at lying?”

His husband was feeling insecure and he did not tell her, she knows it because she is able to read. His. Mind.

What to do? What to do?

She growled at the ceiling tiles.

She truly thought she was going to be able to take this secret to her tomb. She never told Mama and Papa, and the only one that -probably- knew it, was Bond.

She took a sip of the hot chocolate she prepared to help herself think. Why did she decide to keep it a secret from them all these years?

Right. That night. When she was just an 8-year-old.

~V~V~V~V~V~V~V~V~V~V~V~V

She had the popcorn’s bowl in her lap. Mama was on her right, watching the movie. Papa was on her left, reading a book. Bond was lying in front of her, eyes closed, unfazed by the fighting sounds coming from the TV. It was the latest Spy Wars movie. One of the bad guys had the ability to read minds with a machine.

Loid and Yor already knew about each other secret lives and after a bit dramatic fight, they accepted each other identities and decided to live together after all.  Which made possible for Anya to live a real life with them. And she was pondering the possibility to tell them. To also come clean of secrets. For them to be the first people in her life to know. So, she gathered courage, her hands forming fists and asked with the most casual tone she could gathered “Isn’t that cool?”

“What, Anya?” Asked Yor cocking her head with closed eyes and her always gentle smile, who was paying attention to the movie.

“Being able to read minds”. No, she cannot do it. Oh shit, she was already doing it. Panic. She ate a handful of popcorn at once. Swallowed it quickly to continue. “What do you think about that?”

Loid was the first to reply, in his detached matter-of-fact way of speaking, so serious and yet so smooth “Well, even if it is certainly an advantage it might be dangerous. It seems that the machine could blow out at any minute now”

Not the answer she was hoping. Anya wanted to divert the attention from the movie. Was Papa even paying attention to it? He was supposed to be reading. “But think about it in real life” she took her mother’s hand. She wanted to ask ‘what if I was the one reading minds’ but she was too scared to hear the answer, so she said the next thing she thought about. “What if mama were able to read our minds all the time?”

“M-Me?” A soft pink colored her cheeks, and she gave it a thought. “It could be a little tiring I guess, not being able to focus on my own mind because everybody is thinking around me”

That was an accurate way to describe it. Although Anya was getting better at handling it.

“It will probably be weird for the people around her.” Her father got her attention in a second, now we were talking. “I wouldn’t be able to look Yor in the eyes the same way again.”

“Why?” And her voice was probably a pitch higher than before.

“If a person can read your mind, they will know you better than anyone else. They will know what you think even if it is not what you chose to say, so they will not only know the person you want to be or the one you are trying to become, but they will know the true you. And that is something terrifying somehow. Not all people will be able to handle that.”

“Will you get away from mama if she was able to read minds?”

“No, I don’t have secrets from Mama anyway”

But Anya could read minds. And she knew what Loid’s real answer was. She still tried one more time.

“And you Mama, will you stay with Papa even if he was able to read your mind?”

“Of course, sweetheart”

But the devasting truth was that both were terrified of the idea. And although they didn’t directly think “yes, I will leave”, they both imagined multiple situations in which they would rather die from shame than letting the counterpart know their deepest secrets.

“I see” was all that Anya was able to say, while shrinking more into the couch.

“Why are you making that face Anya?” Yor asked, hugging her shoulders with one hand. “Nobody is able to read minds, so you don’t need to worry about it”.

But she did worry about it. Because at the short age of eight, she swore to herself to never reveal her deepest secret to anyone. It was something bad. It was something to be ashamed of. Anya would rather die than letting anybody know about it and let them treat her differently because of it.

~V~V~V~V~V~V~V~V~V~V~V~V

But here she was. Pondering her options. Because maybe the truth was what Damian needed right now. Maybe he could be the first. Maybe she could trust him to not destroy her feelings with utter rejection.

Two weeks ago, Becky invited her for lunch and, as usual, she was telling her about the latest sweetheart she was dating. The conversation ended up shifting to Damian and Anya’s long-term relationship. This year they were going to celebrate the 7 years anniversary.  

“There’s a saying, you know?” said Becky casually, taking the dessert spoon when the waiter brought her ‘Golden Opulence’ sundae. “If a marriage remains together after seven years, they will be together forever.”

“Non-sense, there wouldn’t be divorces after 10 years then.”

“I mean it, Anya. It’s called The Seven Year Itch”

Anya rolled her eyes and started to eat her own dessert. “And what’s supposed to happen on the 7th year?”

“Monotony. Love ends. People get bored. They feel like the compatibility is no longer there. That the other person just ‘don’t get it’ anymore.”

The last part caught Anya’s attention. Why was that ringing a bell on her head?

And then she remembered all the times along the year that Damian tried to do different things for her, which all ended up in a frustrated husband.

Could Damian fear they were not compatible anymore?

Anya face twisted like an open book to Becky.

“How is it going with Damian, Anya?” She had concern in her eyes. And Anya knew it was real concern. Becky took her hand over the table “Everything ok at home?”

“Yeah,” she tried to dismiss it with a smile “everything is fine”

But hey, she was friends with Becky for over 20 years now. And Anya did not really know how to lie to save her life.

Becky insisted.

“Okay, well, there might be something” twirling her fingers in rounds, looking to the ground pouting, Anya mumbled indescribable words to Becky before finally saying it: “I think Damian is a bit concern about the fact that he can’t surprise me”

“Nobody can surprise you. You are too good at reading people. And a terrible liar.”

“And he has known about it for years now!” Yes Becky, agree with her. It was not her fault. It was not her fault. “It shouldn’t be that big of a deal, right?”

“Then why do you think he is concerned about that?” Becky was confused.

Because she knew.

A couple days back, Damian got up earlier to cook her favorite breakfast and took it to her bed. But Anya knew that it was going to happen before hand because he bought and hid the ingredients the day before, so she did her best sleepy surprised expression and started to eat.

Damian’s thoughts were loud in his head “Loser. I cannot even surprise her when she is half asleep. Nothing works”

But he did not tell her that, instead, he kissed her forehead and walk out of the room with the excuse of meeting his brother early that day. Lie. He just wanted to be out of there. Away from her.

Anya replied: “He told me he feels bad because he can’t surprise me, I just want him to know that it is not his fault”

“Well, there’s a limit on how perceptive a person can be. I had surprise you before. It’s hard, yes, but possible. It might be kind of his fault” Actually, Becky surprised her on a moonless night.

“It is not” Anya hit her head into the table with a defeated expression on her face “I need him to understand that”.

She can only get surprised on moonless days. But how to explain it without telling the truth?

And here she was.

Thinking.

Considering.

Pondering.

Did it worth the risk?

She was so deeply scared about how hard she wanted to tell him. How hard she wanted to trust him. To believe he will love her no matter what. She has known Damian since he was 6 years old. She knows how good or bad he can be. The deepest secrets of his heart. What makes him happy even if he has never openly said so. There is no human being that she knows better than him.

Damian was certainly going to panic.

But will he overcome it? Accept it?

She was so scared that she picked today, a moonless day, to do so. She wasn’t strong enough to hear the rejection coming from him. Her heart wouldn’t handle it. No matter if he later thinks twice about it and accept it. She couldn’t stand the idea of hearing him fear her.

She heard the doorknob opening and her mind went blank, her back ran cold and her hands got sweaty. Was it right? Would it help him to know? Would it make it worst? She doesn’t know.

“I’m home”

He immediately noticed the distressed on his wife. “Is everything alright?”

“No” elbows on the table, she just holds her forehead with her fists. Eyes closed “Can you please take a sit? We need to talk”.

Damian did as requested, showing a hint of concern in his face.

Although a part of Anya appreciated the silence for her to gather her thoughts in order, the other part wanted to peek into Damian’s head and see what he was thinking.

“I know you have been mad a lot lately”.

She looked at him right in the eyes. It seemed to take him aback.

“Me? Mad? About what?” He deviated his gaze quickly, as if looking for a better answer. He was also a terrible liar, somehow.

“About the fact that you can’t surprise me”

Damian’s eyes turned sad, avoiding her gaze he just stared at the table. “Am I that much of an open book to you?”

“No- Yes. Err, something like that”

Still avoiding her gaze, he moved his eyes to the window next to them. “I’m sorry for not being able to do the same for you”

She took his hand over the table; he was still refusing to look at her.

“Damian, please look at me”

She squeezed his hand. He finally did.

“There’s something important I need to tell you. It might sound crazy, but it is the truth. And I’m terrified of telling you. Nobody” and she repeated the word with all the emphasis she could gathered in her voice “Nobody, knows about this. It is my most guarded secret and I swore to myself that I will take it to my tomb”

That got Damian’s attention. Momentarily forgetting how shitty of a husband he was feeling lately.

“I love you, Damian. And I trust you” she was scared. So scared that Damian’s hand was wet with her sweat now. “And I will tell you”

This is it. She will say it. Her heart was beating faster than ever. She was going to reveal her deepest secret.

“The reason why neither you nor anyone can’t surprise me is because…”

Silence. She bits her lip. She cannot face him. She stops to stare at his eyes and lowers her gaze.

“Because…”

Damian squeezes her hand softly this time, encouraging her to talk.

She sighs. Shuts her eyes harder. Takes a big breath and hold it for a couple seconds, until finally releasing it, talking as fast as she could “BecauseICanReadMinds”

Damian asks her to repeat herself, slowly this time.

“Because I can… read minds”

Of course, Damian doesn’t believe it. He drops her hand and stand up from the table. So much mystery and expectation for a joke. He was truly feeling bad about it and Anya wanted to do one of the weird jokes in an honestly bad time.

Damian was feeling insecure. He heard about the Seven Year Itch at work early that year. And he realized that without space for doubts Anya was the person that knew the most about him. But did he know about her the same way? Did he pay enough attention? And what about the relationship? Was he getting monotonous? Will Anya look for other men that can provide her the excitement she so dearly appreciates in her life? How much can she stand his own inaptitude?

So yeah, Damian is pretty pissed off. He gives her his back and walks towards the bedroom for some cooling off time.

“I’m telling the truth!” he hears her say.

He stops on his track and looks at her sideways. “Yeah? What am I thinking right now?”

She feels like stabbed. She didn’t think he was going to assume it was a lie. She was worried about a bunch of other scenarios. “I don’t know! It doesn’t work on days without moon!”

“How convenient. Should I assume today is a New Moon day?”

Damian was already reaching the shared bedroom when Anya took his hand to stop him. Once he entered the room, he was going to shut the door and keep her out for a couple hours until to cool down. He always did it when he was truly pissed off. She knows it and doesn’t want to let him do it. Because once he cools off, she could get cold feet and now that she has resolved to tell him, she did not want to brush it off as a joke or something like that.

“Damian, look at my eyes”

He ignored her.

She took his head with one hand and made him face her. “Look at me”

He finally did.

“I’m telling you the truth. I am adopted. People did things to me when I was a kid, in a lab. I can read minds since I am 3 years old. I had read your mind since the first time I met you. Every day. Except on days when there’s no moon in the sky”

And Damian does know something about his wife. She cannot lie to him to save his life. That is why even if she has tried to act surprised for years, he has always known when she was faking it. He thought it was because she pitied him. He was bad at surprises, and because he couldn’t properly catch her off guard, she fakes it. What Anya was just saying…? Could it be true?

“Why are you telling me this on the day you can’t prove it?”

“Because I’m terrified on what you might be thinking about me.” After saying that, she broke the eye contact with him “I do not want to hear your rejection.” She lets his hand loose “I might still hear it tomorrow, because you can’t trick your own thoughts. I will know the truth. But I couldn’t do it today.”

Damian knows with certainty; he does love his wife. He has loved her for many years now and undoubted he will do it for many years to come. He could not stand watching her like this. It broke his heart. He holds her in a tight hug.

The moment he hugged her Anya started to cry. He spoke softly into her ear “What you are telling me right now is so nonsensical, absurd. Crazy. But I want you to know that no matter what, I love you. And I won’t reject you even if you were an alien from another planet”

Her shuddering sobs started to calm down “Even if I came from Pluto? It is not a planet.”

“Even then, Anya”

She holds him tight “I am sorry”

“About what”

“Being unable to fake my surprise face and making you sad about it”

He removed a tear from her cheek before placing a small kiss on her lips “I preferred it that way. That makes me enjoy more when I see you genuinely surprised. Maybe that’s why I try so hard.”

They stood there for a while, in a comfortable silent hug.

“So how does it work?” He asked.

“Well, I can hear what you think in front of me. If I concentrate enough, I can hear a specific person several feet away”

“Can you know something about a person that is not actively thinking it in that moment?”

“Like look into a person’s memories?”

“Yeah”

“No, I can’t. Just what they are thinking at that time.”

“I see”

Silence again.

Damian broke it, again. Flustered this time “So you have been able to read my mind all this time?”

“Yes”

“W-were you able to read it when I was thinking of kissing you for the first time?”

“Every time until you finally did it” She laughs.

Damian was full red-faced at this point “Did you also read it on Becky’s 18th birthday party?”

Anya’s cheeks dyed pink at the memory “Y-Yeah”

This time Damian covered his face with both of his hands. “Did you read it on our wedding?”

“No” That got him out of the ashamed-zone for a second.

“Why?”

“I ensure it was on a moonless day. I didn’t want to get myself overwhelmed by all the guest’s thoughts on such special day”

Silence.

“That makes sense”

“Yeah”

More silence.

“So, you can’t read them today even if you try hard?”

“Not a single word”

He nods with his head.

“I think I get it”

“Are you not like… feeling weird?”

“Yes, I am”

“… Would you have preferred for me to not tell you never about this?”

He denied with his head “Thank you for telling me, it must have been hard”

“Not even my parents know”

“Really?”

“Really”

Anya didn’t need to read his head to know that he was feeling pretty cocky about it. It was painted all over his face.

More silence.

Out of the blue, Damian started to laugh. He brushed his hair with his fingers and looked at her with sparkles in his eyes.

“I swear I will surprise you this Christmas”

She laughs.

“And how are you going to do that?”

“Now that I know how you do it, I will train myself from here to December. I will need your help, though”

“I will gladly help”

She smiled.

“I love you”

He smiled.

“I love you too”

She figured it out it was okay to tell him the other secret not even her parents knew. If we are coming clean, we are coming clean about everything.

“You know… I am also two years younger. I lied about my age for my papa to adopt me.”

Damian thought about it for several minutes. Face full red again once he talked.

“Y-You were sixteen on Becky’s party!?”

~V~V~V~V~V~V~V~V~V~V~V~V

After that day back in August, they set up a calendar on the fridge door marking the moonless days. The day after “the talk”, Damian spent all morning having a talk to her. Or more like, keeping his mouth shut while she was keeping the conversation out loud with Damian playing with the fact that he can hold a conversation with her without pronouncing a single word.

It had been fun, somehow, watching Damian adapt to his new life over the months.

He soon realized Anya probably knew about all the people he had wanted to kill at some point. She also knew when he thinks about another woman being pretty. She totally knew when he lied to her about enjoying some new food she cooked. She knew when he was being mean with people in his head without reason.

He sometimes forgets and still lies to her. Then, he gets self-conscious about the fact she already knows the truth and apologize for lying.

He has also caught her off guard and surprised her already a couple times. The trick is to think about literally anything else near her and plan the surprises when she is not close by. A bit more difficult, but definitely more gratifying.

She knew all the good and all the bad that was in his mind, and after seeing everything she still loved him. She has always known, since he was a child, and after all this time she was not only still his friend but accept him as a partner to spend her life with.

How can he ever have doubts about her feelings again? How if she already knew everything about him and accepted him as he is?

Is it fair to be blessed in this life with the sincere and absolute love of a person that truly knows you?

For Anya, the feeling was mutual. The first weeks she cried of happiness almost every day. Damian didn’t leave her. He accepted it. Looked for ways to make it work. Embraced it as a challenge to surpass together. As a team.

~V~V~V~V~V~V~V~V~V~V~V~V

On the Christmas day Anya woke up with an alarm’s sound coming from Damian’s side of the bed. She tried to move him to shut it off, but she just found an empty space next to her. A note left in his pillow. She opened her eyes and started to read it with a sleepy face, after shutting the damn thing off.

“Anya,

I’m sorry I was not there to kiss you a good morning today. I needed the alarm so you could eat your breakfast while it was still hot. Please get out of the bed and go to the kitchen. There’s a surprise waiting for you there”

Anya’s smile was big in her face. What? She was enjoying the fact that she had zero clues about this.

She didn’t put shoes on and went out of the bedroom in a second, to the kitchen. The first thing she noticed in the hallway was the strong smell of roses.

The image that welcomed her left her speechless. There were fresh flowers everywhere and in her seat of the dining table there was a full set of plates and another note.

“There is fruit, fresh baked croissants, fried eggs and bacon. Plenty of orange juice and a big peanut can. You can either finish the peanuts after breakfast or carry them with you along the day for a snack. And because I didn’t want you to eat in silence, please go to take the TV remote and turn it on.”

She took a bite of one of the croissants and did as commanded. A video of recaps of their wedding day played with Bryan Adams’ “I do it for you” acoustic version playing in the background. After certain pictures there was a message.  

The first photo in the video was one of Anya entering the church. “The moment I saw you step into the hallway, I cried”. The next one, was a photo of Damian crying in his suit. “Because the only thing that was crossing my mind was that I was the luckiest man in the world. You looked like an angel. The most stunning woman was walking in my direction, to declare to myself and the world that she willingly will spend all her life next to me. You continuously make me the best version of myself, Anya”. A third photo: Anya signing the official documents. “Or that’s what I would probably have been thinking if my brain hasn’t done shortcut at that moment”. The next photo that flashes across the screen was one of both exiting the church holding each other hand. “I swear to you I couldn’t think of anything. My mind was a loop of ‘wow’ until the priest started talking and I then I was forced to focus to remember my vows”.

Anya was shaking. A couple tears were rolling down her cheeks. She got pretty emotional watching the video. Several pictures of the party followed without any more messages until the end of the video. She finished the breakfast and took the peanuts can. A message showed up on the TV: “I know the bed is tempting on a Christmas day without responsibilities. But please go and get yourself ready. It is a sunny beautiful day, what about a walk in the park? Make sure to wear comfortable shoes.”

She went back to the bedroom, took a quick shower and got a pair of jeans, a white t-shirt and her favorite sneakers. On top of them, another note.

“I knew you would pick these ones. They are old Anya, let me give you new ones with the same color and style. Your refusal is non-negotiable this time around.”

Anya laughed, no. She will keep them until they are torn, and her toes shows at the front. What is a little worn shoe sole and colorless sections? She loves those shoes. He gave them to her a few years back, when she broke a heel in a night outgoing and the only opened store only sold sneakers. The note continuous

“A boy selling newspapers will be waiting for you in the park. He’s wearing a red t-shirt”

So, to the park it is.

It was a sunny day indeed. A lot of people with the day off were having a blast with their families, kids playing with dogs, old people playing chest, fathers and mothers teaching her kids how to use a bicycle for the first time. She wanted to be reunited with her family too.

It was easy to find the boy. He was so nervous that his thoughts were louder than the people around him “Pink haired woman, give it only to a pink haired woman that uses old shoes. Pink haired woman.”

“Hello there, are you the newspaper boy I’m looking for?”

He took a quick glance at her shoes and then cleared his throat looking for a newspaper in his bag. “They told me the job-hunting section was filled with important information, agent Peanut.”

Anya smiled. So that is what this is about. “Thank you, have a good day.”

While she was getting away to search for a free bench to sit on, she heard the thoughts of the boy running in the opposite direction “I need to tell the man I already did it”

She opened the newspaper, there was a pen marking the start of the section the boy mentioned. She read over the lines carefully until she noticed the pattern. The same they used in episode 703 of “Spy Wars”. The secret code was easy to decipher. Each line had two dots marking each one a letter. The letter that was in the middle of the two marked ones was the one she needs to mark in a circle. And reading it from bottom to top, she will get the message.

“Train station. 53. Seat 9A.”

Anya closed the newspaper and run towards the train station. Laughing her heart out. Such a fun morning. What was Damian planning to do?! She opened the peanuts can that brought with her and eat a few “Crazy man.”

She found out the train she was supposed to take was going to the city borders. In the seat 9A there was an envelope. She opened it.

“Agent Peanut, we have captured your husband. We will torture him until he reveals your deepest secrets. Do not even try to come to the old peanut’s abandoned factory outside the city where we have our secret liar. Coordinates: 51.08342, 10.423447”

The envelope also had the ticket for the ride. Anya rolled her eyes. Damian loved to make fun of the fact that the villain always gave its secret liar address to the good guys as if screaming “go and get me if you dare”. It was never this painfully obvious in the show. Except on episode 113, the one about ‘Bad-Man and the pâtissier heist’.

The train was already in movement when she heard a voice. “Ticket, please?”

She stared at the man and could hear his thoughts “Pink hair, green eyes”. “Are you Miss Peanut?”

A light blushed enlighten her face. It was ok for the newspaper boy to say it but having a fellow adult calling her that was a bit shameful “Yes”

The man took a backpack from the compartments above her seat. “This is for you”

The man left after marking her ticket, leaving her alone to explore the inside of the backpack. She covered her mouth with her hands. “Oh my god”

There were a couple toy guns with 30 bullets each. A belt to hold them. A water bottle, a black t-shirt, cap and sunglasses. There was also another envelope.

“Hey, don’t you dare abandon me.”

A quick sketch of a Damian tied to a chair saying ‘help’ was on the upper right corner of the paper.

Anya bit her lower lip and whispered the answer to herself: “Never”

She was able to change her clothes before reaching the destination. From the station, it was just a 15 minutes’ walk.  

Her heart was beating fast. This was exciting. Damian was giving her surprise after surprise and she was loving it. It wasn’t even a moonless day. How come he did not think about this the previous days? He (his mind) usually won’t shut up whenever there’s a big surprise coming. Now that he knows she can read minds; did he take extra precautions? He on purpose force himself to think about everything but this? He was literally thinking about the Christmas lunch and where to go. Planning dinner with her parents. Was it a trick? Or will they go after this? What is it? She took some things for granted today and thought about the surprise being a gift in a box that she’ll open in the family dinner. This was a thousand times better.

She finally reached her destination. A bunch of voices caught her attention.

“Mister Damian is too sweet” Was one of the female voices.

“At least I’m getting paid twice for working on Christmas” another voice.

“I hope Anya doesn’t get hurt” A third one.

“I should have gotten a bigger breakfast this morning” A fourth one.

How much people did Damian had there?

But suddenly, a voice shut out: “Enemy on sight, enemy on sight!”

An alarm started to ring, and Anya’s heart felt like to explode from the adrenaline.

“Don’t let her go to the second floor!”

So that is where she was supposed to go.

Anya entered through an open window and suddenly a lot of gas started to fill the warehouse. Anya saw that the people inside was armed with the same guns she had in the backpack. She took one from the belt and started to shoot. The people she was shooting started to fall and ‘die’. She ran across the people in the middle of the smoke to the stairs when a big guy was waiting for her like a wall.

Anya was a 26-year-old police officer. She was mildly offended that there was only one guy. She easily passed through him and reached the second floor.

Fifteen-armed (with toys) people were waiting for her. Damian was tied in a chair with a smirk in his beautiful face, thinking for her mind only: “Are you going to rescue me or what?”

But the biggest surprise of all was the villain.

“Uncle Yuri?”

“Oh! You have finally find my liar, Agent Peanut!” he ignored her question, getting full in character “But you are late, your husband refused to give us information, so he is useless now. I have decided that he is going to die in 5 minutes!” A bomb with a clock was chained to Damian’s chest.

“I won’t let you!” She was full on combat mode now. Following the game. “Leave my husband alone! This is between you and me!”

“Soldiers, kill her!”

But Anya was too good. She didn’t stop laughing while fighting with the people they hired for this. When she was finally done with the ‘guards’ she faced her uncle: “Now it is your turn!”

“You think you can take me down in 4 minutes and a half? Keep dreaming! You’ll face your end at the hands of – he sighed and though “I can believe I’m going to say this but agh, whatever” - Bad-Man!” She was 100% sure they stopped the clock for dramatic purposes. Also Uncle Yuri performance, top notch!

Anya run to her uncle and kick him with all her might. He easily blocked it with his hand.

A bunch of kicks and fist fighting followed. Yuri was enjoying it as much as Anya. They trained together many years ago, but after Anya grew up and become a member of the police department, they stopped to have the sessions. There was no particular reason for it, they just didn’t have the time anymore.

So being here fighting each other was like a jump back in time. And Yuri’s eyes get a little bit to shiny and his smile was a bit too big while defending up from her attacks.

Finally, Yuri fell with a dramatic scream when Anya shot him in the chest with the toy gun. (it probably hurt, though. She was mere inches away from him).

There is no way in hell that the fight took less than 10 minutes. But when she run towards Damian the clock has a minute left before the explosion.

She took the tape out of his mouth and dramatically kissed him. “Are you alright?”

“Hurry Anya! The bomb is going to explode any second now!”

“What is the key?”

There was a circular padlock holding the timer. Anya looked around her and run to Yuri’s pockets. Empty.

“Have you seen something that circular today?” Damian asked her.

She tried to read his mind, but all she found was “I won’t tell you. I won’t tell you. I won’t tell you” repeated as a mantra.

35 seconds.

Think Anya, think.

And then it hit her. She opened the backpack and took the peanut can. Could it be?

She pushed the can against the padlock and the timer stopped.

She beamed at Damian with a smile in her face “Take that!”

He was, however, staring at her with a loving gaze “You did it wonderfully”.

She then released him from the chains and hugged him. “I love you so much”

He replied to her with a thought in his head: “No more than how much I love you, Anya. Merry Christmas”

“You, big dork” was all she could say in a voice faltering with love.

“That hurts, Peanut” Yuri’s voice was behind her “No hugs for the boxing bag you just defeat and keep ignoring?”

She turned around and hugged her uncle without saying a word. She then removed a couple traitor tears that escape her eyes. “So, what’s next?”

“The helicopter is waiting for us behind the building.”

“Helicopter?”

“I just wanted you to live the full experience” was her husband reply.

She intertwined his fingers on hers “Thank you for today”

But there was a final surprise.

Damian’s sweet smile was not showing all the embarrassingly intense passionate thoughts he suddenly sent her way about the plans for the rest of the day and night. Anya’s face grew red in an instant. One of the downsides of the new discovered power was that Damian enjoyed making her blush on public. His smile shift to a cocky one once he saw his wife reaction.

“Did you really though my plans ended up after lunch? It is as if you don’t know me at all”

“Well… I do have the rest of my life to do that”

------------------

Hope you like it! Happy holidays!

[theshoesofatiredman]

A Defense of Gay Pride: From A Gay Man Who Ain't "Proud" to be Gay

I was raised that these colors 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈 were a promise from God. Not pride of living in sin.

I want you to imagine for just a few paragraphs that you were the only person you knew with your hair color. Growing up, adults would remark at how odd your hair was. Children would bully you, making your hair a subject of gossip, of ridicule, and a reason for physical altercation. You were left feeling intrinsically other. You wore hats all the time to try to hide your hair color but your eyebrows, your body hair, all gave it away eventually.

In church, your pastor would preach out about how people with your hair color were obscene. He would say that people like you must never procreate, lest they pass on the gene. Your hair was an abomination that would not be tolerated by God. He and counselors you would later interact with would advise all people with your hair color to dye your hair so as to hide your obscenity. You dye it. It always comes back in the wrong color for the world.

As you grow, your world gets bigger. You watch a movie where a historical figure saves countless lives, but no one knows they were the hero that prevented catastrophe. They share your hair color. They were bullied mercilessly for it and weren't allowed even the hope of building the family they longed for. Back then, it was illegal for people with your hair color to marry lest the marriage produce offspring who carry the bad hair genes. The historical hero kills themselves at the end of the film. You wonder if that will be your fate, too.

Eventually, you meet people with your hair color who wear their hair like a badge of honor. They push the boundaries of what is accepted and call attention to the bullying, to the unjust laws that discriminate against people with your hair color. They are unashamed of their hair. They are unashamed and unwavering in their fight to make sure no one else with your hair color has to live the ridicule you had to endure, that they had to endure.

All of this and more applies to being gay. I know because I lived it and this experience is not exclusive to just me. Gay pride is a response to the fact that society only ever wanted gay people to feel badly about their sexuality. In contrast, daring to feel anything else is a way to restore the dignity that was stripped away. Also known as, pride.

I am not proud of my hair color. I feel pretty neutral about it. I didn't choose it. I did nothing to achieve it. It's just a part of who I am. I feel similarly about my sexuality. I didn't choose it and did nothing to achieve it. However, I have never lived in a world that stripped away my dignity over my hair color. If I did, I think I'd have spent a lot of time feeling differently than I do about my hair. I do live in a world that has and will likely continue to strip away my dignity for being gay. Choosing to feel neutrally about my sexuality is still an act of pride (restoring dignity).

However, it's only made possible by the space making efforts of the more radical acts of pride taken by members of the gay community who go beyond neutrality. If you and so many other people weren't piling on the homophobia, I think sexuality would be a lot more like hair color and a lot less parade worthy.

[bestillmyslashyheart]

Propmt: Century has passed and the team reunites with Booker... I need some angst and more fics about Booker.

Booker knows there’s someone in his apartment the second he opens the door. There are no obvious signs, no evidence to point to someone having broken in despite the fact that Booker had the only key, but Booker knew. He knew it in his gut, in the way his skin hummed at the other man’s presence. You couldn’t spend hundreds of years in someone’s pocket without gaining some intrinsic awareness of them. So Booker knew there was someone there and he knew who it was before he even got the door closed.

He dropped his keys on the table and put his bags down, kicked off his shoes and hung up his coat and scarf. When he got to the kitchen the other man was exactly where he expected him to be, in the most comfortable chair, drinking Booker’s very expensive coffee.

“Joe,” Booker greeted.

“Booker.”

It had been ten years since they last saw each other, ten years since the situation with Quynh was resolved, ten years since Joe looked him in the eye and said, “Ninety-nine more.”

“You’re early.” Booker fussed with the coffee maker as he made himself a cup. If he was staring at the coffee maker he didn’t have to look at Joe.

“So I am,” Joe remarked idly. He sounded like a stranger. Booker had had decades to familiarize himself with Joe’s behavior and he thought he’d known him as well as anyone other than Nicky could know the man but the person sitting at his table was an unknown.

Joe was silent until Booker sat down. “I have questions.”

Booker exhaled roughly and nodded. “Ask them.” He braced himself for an outburst.

It didn’t come. Joe sipped his coffee calmly and stared him down across the table. “Why did you not say anything?” Booker cocked his head in confusion, caught off guard by the question. “You made a deal with Copley, with Merrick, to turn us over to science. Why didn’t you tell us? Why the scheming and theatrics?”

Booker rubbed at his forehead, his eyes searching the counter tops for the alcohol he’d left there this morning. But the counter was bare and Joe was waiting for an answer. He sipped his coffee. “I didn’t know what the three of you would say,” he confessed. It was a terrible answer, he knew, but it was the truth.

“Something you could have found out by talking to us,” Joe pointed out. “Instead you sold us out, set up and ambush, arranged for Nicky and I to be kidnapped, and for Andy and yourself to be locked up with us.” He tilted his head slightly, like he was trying to view Booker in a different light to see if it revealed any more answers. “Why go to all that trouble if you were planning to reveal yourself as the traitor anyway?”

Booker laughed harshly. “I’m a coward, Joe. I was a coward in my first life and I’ve been a coward in every life since. I wanted to die, I want to die, and that was the first real shot I thought I could have and I didn’t want to bring it to you and have you shut me down.”

Joe shrugged. “You could have gone yourself, handed yourself over to Merrick and his scientists. You didn’t need us. If you wanted to be a lab rat so bad, they would have taken you.”

Booker stared at the table. “They wanted all of us.”

“Only because you told them about us.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Copley already knew?” Booker shrugged. “He got Merrick on board by mentioning a team of unkillable soldiers so Merrick wanted all of us.”

“So it was Copley, not you.” It wasn’t a question and Booker hated Joe for it. He wanted Booker to cast the blame on someone else, to prove that he was still a coward.

“I told Copley,” Booker admitted quietly. “He found me and I told him it was all of us.”

Joe hummed and took a long sip of his coffee. It was apparently the last of it because he stood up and started making another. “Why did you work with Copley in the first place?”

“I told you. I wanted to die.”

“But how could help you? Merrick’s involvement, I understand. He had the resources to perform the science necessary to maybe find answers. But Copley doesn’t. So why Copley?” He leaned against the counter, arms crossed, as his coffee brewed. Booker ached to fidget under his careful but held himself still. 

“He came to me,” Booker told him. “Said he wanted to help people and he thought I could help him do it.” He paused to take a sip of his coffee. It had cooled a little, no longer hot enough to burn his mouth, and he briefly considered heating it up again. “That’s what we do right? Try to help people?”

Joe made a considering noise as he sat back down with his full cup. “So Copley reaches out to you, tells you he wants your help helping people, and you sign on without a word to any of us. Then he teams up with a man with too much money and too many scientists and tells you that he could try to find the secret to our immortality and therefore a way to rid us of it and you don’t say a word to any of us. You take this information and you agree to do it but they won’t take you alone so you arrange for us to walk into a trap that Copley records for proof of our gifts, you sell out the location of our safe house and permit them to attack us and kidnap me and Nicky, and you walk Andy straight into the hands of Merrick. All without talking to us.” Joe pauses, giving Booker a chance to contradict him but there was nothing to argue so Booker stayed quiet. “All because you wanted to die.”

“Yes.” Joe shook his head, a breath of a scoff on his lips, and Booker started to get angry. “I made a mistake!” He yelled. “I screwed up. I know this, Joe, I know I did, alright? And I can’t fix it, it’s done and in the past. Now, you had questions so I answered them. I’m sorry they weren’t the answers you were looking for but they’re the only ones I have.” 

Joe watched him evenly as he spoke, not reacting in any way. Booker wanted to rage against it, wanted to scream and lash out until Joe responded in kind, but the longer they sat there the more he felt himself calming. When his breaths were even again, when his heart rate had settled, Joe stood up, drained his coffee and placed the cup in the sink. He rinsed it out and set it aside to dry, failing to actually clean it like he always did. Booker almost smiled at the familiarity. But when Nicky failed to appear beside him to wash the cup for him with a huff of annoyed fondness, his heart fell. 

Lost in his thoughts, he missed Joe crossing the room. Two hands grabbed the sides of his face and tilted him up to meet Joe’s eyes. “We are not made to be alone,” he said softly but firmly. “You especially.” Booker’s eyes burned. Joe pressed his forehead to Booker’s for a brief moment before pulling back to press a quick kiss to his hairline and stepping back. “We are at the monastery.” 

The monastery was Nicky’s favorite safe house, half an hour outside of Genoa. Booker had never asked if it had once been Nicky’s home, before he went to war, but he thought it might be. Even if it wasn’t, it was the closest thing any of them had left of their homes before.

“It hasn’t been 100 years.”

“No,” Joe laughed. “It hasn’t.” He slipped on his jacket and wrapped a handmade scarf around his neck. Booker had never seen the scarf before but he recognized the craftsmanship easily; Andy had never really gotten the hang of knitting not matter how hard she tried. “But you are missed. So it’s time to come home.”

Booker lost the battle against his tears and felt them spill over onto his cheeks. Joe waited a moment to let him wipe them away then came back over. He said nothing until Booker looked up and met his eyes. 

“If you ever betray us again, if Nicky ever spends a single second under someone’s knife or in chains because of you, I will make you wish for Quynh’s fate.” Joe spoke slowly and calmly, but there was a fire and a steel in his eyes that told Booker he was serious. More than that, if it ever came to it, Joe wouldn’t hesitate, not for a second.

“Understood.”

“Good.” Joe nodded once. “Take your time. We are not planning to leave any time soon.” 

Booker didn’t manage to say anything else before Joe was gone. 

---

Booker took three days to gather his things and shutter his life in Paris before heading to Genoa. 

He hadn’t had a home in a long time but the familiar steps from the airport to the gates of the rundown monastery settled an inch inside him that he’d grown accustomed to over the last decade. If he had a place to call home in this day and age, it was here, with the people that were inside.

Booker hesitated outside the door. He knew Joe had been the primary factor in his hundred year sentence, knew that Nile had forgiven him that day, knew that Nicky couldn’t stay mad for long, knew that Andy was more forgiving in her mortality, knew that Quynh probably didn’t care one way or another, and yet he hesitated. 

He sucked in a shuddering breath and let out a steady exhale, letting his anxiety leave him, his shoulders and back releasing their tension, and opened the door. The steps from the entrance to the rooms they’d converted for their own use was familiar, the walkway worn under his feet.

Halfway there he started to hear voices. First, it was Nile’s laugh, crisp and ringing through the air. It was followed by shouts in three different languages and then more laughter. Booker followed the sound like he was being summoned, his feet no longer fully under his control.

The door was open but he stopped just outside and looked in. Nicky was the only one facing him and he caught sight of him immediately. There was a brief look of surprise before a genuine smile pulled at his lips. He nodded to Booker in greeting. Joe was sitting next to him, arguing something with Nile, and Nicky took his hand and pressed a kiss to his knuckles without interrupting the conversation. A moment later, Andy stopped talking to Quynh mid-word and stood, spinning to face the door, her hand on her gun. She froze and lowered the gun. “Book?”

The other conversations ceased immediately, the sudden silence ringing in the air. 

“Joe said you were here,” Booker explained. Andy and Nile turned on Joe, disbelief on their faces. Joe shrugged but didn’t offer any explanation. Nicky hadn’t yet let of his hand and squeezed it gently. “I can g-”

“No,” Andy cut him off. “You’re here. Stay.” She started towards him and Booker met her in the middle, their arms going around each other for a hug. “Welcome home, Booker.”

[savrenim]

i am running thru ur tumblr to find ONE POST to cite for tvtropes, and i agree so hard with the soulmate stuff. what if my soulmate is an awful abuser, i want the choice to NOT be with them without some painful physical consequence or loss of perception if i don't date them just because the universe said we were "meant to be"... plus if it's just a magic thing it "feels" more justified in-universe that soulmates exist and less like an ass pull so you could justify getting 2 characters together

oH gods this is something that I have SO many feelings about that probably is slightly informed by my own orientation and preferences, but. feelings. this got long so it's going under the cut

so there are three and a half major things that I have a problem with in terms of general soulmate tropes that are "there is one person who is your perfect romantic partner" (which to be fair I've seen a number of soulmate AUs do that trope with the addendum "although it only applies to a certain percentage of the population / not everyone has soulmates / everyone has soulmates but not everyone has SUPER PERFECT ROMANTIC soulmates" which at least somewhat avoids the statistic inevitability of abusive soulmates if combined with Fate Can See The Future And So Your Fated Soulmate Just Won't Be) and these complaints aren't even from the "I'm poly where's my poly rep" kind of place which is a whole 'nother bag of worms, but let's go:

1. I aggressively believe that love is a choice. Love is something that is built, not predetermined before you meet someone. There might be initial compatibility aspects going down when you first meet someone, but, like. statistically there are more than seven and a half billion people on this planet. If there is only a single person perfectly meant for you, again, statistically, you are not going to meet them, I've seen the figure thrown that on average a person will meet on the order 10,000 people in their lifetime but let's even go 100,000, you will meet 0.001% of the world's population. Unless you think some sort of divine coincidence or fate is guiding you to a soulmate which throws free will out the window and then I can't help you but, like. discarding the math, I think it is actively harmful to a relationship to believe that it can be sustained on chemistry or predetermined 'but we're perfect for each other' alone. It requires work. You choose who is in your life, you choose who stays in your life, you choose who you want to be important to you based on what they contribute to your life and what you contribute to theirs.

(I am assuming this ask is at least partially in reaction to my soulmate post, which actually the fic in question, a buried and a burning flame, has since gone up. I highly recommend reading Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard first, but besides the setup for arson wizards that alas is never used because the fire mage with a soulmate in question is Responsible, I decided to both tackle 'okay soulmarks trope too let's throw it in', which leads to the not-really-a-spoiler passage that appears fairly early on about actually the full layout (albeit with less detail on the 'yeah for mages it just helps ground their magic, nothing romantic about it' part) of my Soulmate Rules:

Soulmates existed, both in the Empire of Astandalas and across the Wide Seas. They just worked slightly differently in Vangavaye-ve than the rest of the worlds.

The rest of the Empire seemed to view soulmates as a monolith. From what Cliopher had been able to glean, the tradition was grounded in their magic. Magi had soulmates, or rather, magic-workers would each have a soulmate. Cliopher wasn't clear if all magic-workers had a soulmate, or if magic-workers simply could have one, but there was always a mage in soulmate pairs, and it was always a pair. There were no marks, no visible signs involved, as soulmates were something that were sensed with magic. They were permanent, intrinsic, and to be recognized immediately.

To Wide Sea Islanders, soulmates were a choice.

The soul-marks, lana and lani-voa, would appear the first time you touched someone that you had chosen to love, with the full knowledge that you loved them. Cliopher had the marks of his mother and father, his sisters, Basil and Dimiter, Bertie and Ghilly. His skin was covered lovingly with the colors of his love, marks that he had gotten used to concealing with long sleeves in Astandalas when he had gotten tired of the constant staring at his 'primitive tattoos'.

Buru Tovo had been the only one to give him lani-voa, a greater mark of the soul. The pattern, with its thick lines and twisting design in a deep blue, extended over the entirety of his left arm and shoulder. They were the dances of his family pressed onto his skin, and he had traced them over with reverent and feather-light touch for months after he had received them. A lani-voa marked someone who had changed your life for the better in a deep and irrevocable way. It was a great honor to have even one.

And now, with the gold stretching up his right arm, new patterns that he didn't recognize stretching up from a handprint of pure gold that was expanding the longer he held that first contact with Tor—

now he had two.

(Buru Tovo is Cliopher's great uncle, for context. In fact, everyone listed there is either a familial or platonic relationship, with a single relationship that used to be romantic but settled into platonic.))

so. yeah. Love is a choice! The Biggest Of Moods! any soulmate lore that undermines that is a Bad Message, in my opinion.

The emphasis also on platonic soulmates leads into my second point:

2. I have found in my life that platonic relationships that I have are and have always been as important if not moreso than the romantic relationships. the emphasis of a single romantic relationship as the most important relationship that you can be in maybe fits for some people, but as a generalization to absolutely everyone I think is toxic and harmful. and not just for aro people! I'm not aro, but I would be miserable to write off my friends as Less Important And Meaningful to me than my parter, whom I love with all my heart! (I've actually ended up in my life settling into what I call the red/blue/gold system for 'relationships that I treat with the importance that society treats romantic relationships', but that's a personal thing). The standard soulmate trope tends to really solidly deliver the thesis of "there is a single romantic relationship that is the single most important relationship in your life" and I just think that's a very bad thesis.

3. Finally, I think the emphasis on permanent/forever is a harmful one for relationships in general. People change. you drift closer to people or further away from them. you move, they move, your schedules change, your interests change, your life changes. if you are living with a romantic partner you're going to keep seeing each other every day, but that doesn't stop you from changing as a person, which means see Point 1 Love Is A Choice; but even if you choose to remain together, you are probably eventually going to Ship Of Theseus your entire relationship. I think it is an important message that if that happens and it is no longer a relationship that is as deeply positive as it once was in your life, you don't...have to keep it out of loyalty to what it once was.

It's okay for people to drift out of your life that were once the most important person in your life. It doesn't invalidate how important and meaningful that relationship used to be, and it isn't a betrayal to let yourself and them and your relationships change and evolve. The idea that something has to be forever for it to matter I think is the idea about soulmates that I disagree with the most. Probably because that was the hardest lesson for me to learn as a kid and a teenager, and the life lesson that I am proudest for learning.

3.5 your point 'plus if it's just a magic thing it "feels" more justified in-universe that soulmates exist' is exactly on the nose, literally I am unable to write anything without attempting to write down a universal theory of everything for How The World Works. if something soulmate-wise is going down even if it never appears on the page you bet your ass I have either figured out the general cosmology and theology of "are there gods or divine forces who have instituted this policy? if so, why? what purpose does it serve", or in the case of abaabf which already has such interesting magic rules in the original canon of "is there an evolutionary reason for soulmates to exist" which I don't go tracing out full evolutionary biology for a fic necessarily mostly because I would want the full evolutionary biology in canon to make sure mine is compliant enough but that sure as hell does translate to "if soulmates exist and it's not for the reason of Because Godlike Beings Said So, there better be a practical purpose". I find at least long-form soulmate fics (ie things With Plot and a Developed Setting that aren't just "let's do a ficlet with this well-known trope") that Do Not Feel Like They've At Least Thought About Why Soulmates Happen To Exist hurt my soul. which I think slightly intersects with my "I hate it when the rules of the universe/ laws of physics are human-centric" instead of "the base rules which were not designed for humans came first, and how the human world works arose in reaction to them" and. yeah. consistent desire to know at least for myself why things are set up the way that they're set up which gods ifmlam is wild and completely bullshit and pulls from quantum multiverse philosophy I started writing that thing when I was like. eighteen? nineteen? but at least it's there so I can be consistent.

as a caveat for everything above: I don't actually think that fiction, fanfiction in particular, needs to perfectly reflect what A Good Relationship or A Good Message About Relationships should be. it is a very human desire in a chaotic and confusing world to want a simple, absolute, binary thing to hold onto. fiction is a place for escapism or wish fulfillment or even exploring things that you wouldn't actually want in real life, I think that the movement in fandom/fiction that all of the messaging in your story should match the advice you'd give for a real-life setup is a bad and harmful one. mostly my opinions on soulmates and hence desire to do inversions of the soulmate trope in my fic and things like the red/blue/gold system and heavy emphasis on platonic relationships in original work that I'm writing is about a desire to see representation for me and the things I love and find important and my sort of relationships in the stories that are a big part of my life. but I am really glad that in doing so I seem to have struck a chord in other people, who maybe want to see the same thing!

[thegeminisage]

hi, sorry for answering you both so late, i am putting your answers together since they are sort of related!

the short answer is, i can’t write a “real” sequel to broken road but the third part of the triptych would be the indirect dean/cas spiritual sequel, except with way more porn. the long answer is:

i just don't think i could write a true direct sequel to broken road set in that same continuity because i don't have anything left to say about john and how he gets along in the real with his family world now that he’s stuck there and they’re all stuck with each other. my main three points of interest that i felt were left unresolved would be the continuation of dean and cas's relationship (more on this in a sec), sam and eileen (ditto), and figuring out if john and mary ever made it work or called it quits for good. so if i wrote a sequel to broken road it would just be a bunch of john/mary stuff that i feel underqualified for because it WOULD involve their sex life and i DO NOT want to write john having sex. them fucking offscreen in broken road was as close as i'm ever getting and even that was weird. and then somehow i’d also have to work sam and eileen into that and it’s not at all related. it would take two fics and i don’t even want to write one. also, i really kind of want to leave the question of john and mary open anyway - i have my own thoughts about how things ultimately end up but i prefer to let the reader imagine what ending they like best, since people have such strong feelings about it. i know that's a little bit of a cop-out and i'm sorry! but it feels beyond the scope of that fic and also a little beyond my scope and area of interest as a writer.

if it helps you any, i imagine going forward their dynamic is a lot like it is in the epilogue, which is part of why i made the epilogue so long, was to give you a good idea of what life is like for them now. but here’s what i imagine might go down after the final curtain call (this is LONG, skip to the section labeled “dean” for the triptych answer):

john & mary: 

john continues to suffer and bite his tongue and probably do a lot of complaining and DEFINITELY do a lot of avoiding being alone with dean or cas or dean-and-cas. john was expecting to retire after yellow eyes died so he really wouldn't know what to do with a family that still hunts for "no reason" and i imagine he'd be pretty pissed that they still hunt at all. i expect he and sam would butt heads over that

mary would probably keep attempting to be supportive and keep being bad at it, and spend a lot of time trying to put a brave face on it while secretly dying inside, because she's constantly at war with herself. here she has john back, but not the john she remembers, and spending time with him is difficult because she wants to let herself have him and take comfort in him and also she doesn't want to be anywhere near him because he abused their kids

eventually mary or john or both would have to leave, though mary would come back - in canon she's in and out a lot anyway, she stays for awhile and visits regularly for game nights. i think john would miss the first game night, get one "seriously?" text from mary, and then show back up every week that he possibly could but also not visit unless it would make things worse if he didn't. i don't think he particularly enjoys spending time with his family for a long time, if ever, because much like season 12 mary he came back to a family he barely knew or recognized (and because of what he knows now spending time with dean would be particularly awkward). HIS sons would be getting married to women and retiring and having biological children. this gay adoptive whatever the fuck makes them feel like they are not his sons. 

anyway, i imagine john and mary would do much better when running into one another outside of the bunker, on their own separate hunts. they might even take one or two together. there’s probably some very guilty sex in their future at some point because mary is real fucked up. john post broken road does a lot of shutting up but i think around mary he would be the most like his old self. they do this will they/won't they dance for the next decade at least before finally making up their minds one way or the other. i do think they all still go on hunts together sometimes, maybe even with the apocalypse world hunters, and since that's sam's deal john is probably kind of quiet and falls in line and does what's needed without chatting much to anyone. i bet the first few times people don't even realize he's sam's father because he's so quiet. it's his way of trying to apologize to sam and also if he steps out of line when sam is in charge sam would <3 deck him. yes. but yeah i see it being very brisk and professional and awkward, until they all get used to each other again

sam: 

as i said earlier the only thing i didn't fix in broken road was eileen, so at some point sam would figure out a way to get her back - since in this verse jack never becomes soulless and chuck never returns and we never get season 15 it's possible she shows back up because she didn't go with her reaper, or because someone fucked up a summoning spell, or sam realized she was in hell and decided to spring her, or she just crawled out on her own like a badass. i think it would be kind of funny if john was involved with her resurrection but maybe accidentally somehow, so it's not like oh sam learns to forgive his dad because john did this really nice thing for him it's more like UGH why did it have to be YOU why are YOU involved in this important thing that has nothing to do with you slkdjfghl but also if you hadn't done it she'd still be down there or something, so, it cancels out. or idk maybe john had to work hard at it or give something up to make it happen. he has to genuinely shut up and be selfless and not fucking complain and feel sorry for himself the entire time, that might be fun too. either way sam would not thank him

(though i do think sam deserves space to explore the fact that he loves john even still, even despite the fact that he also hates him/is very angry with him and always will be. i don’t imagine sam and john ever fully reconcile but i imagine john behaving BECAUSE OF SAM SPECIFICALLY offers sam more catharsis than he thought possible.) 

anyway, john would be so relieved to see sam with a woman even if she is a deaf hunter but then it turns out she hates him like sam does so like. sucks to be him! meanwhile sam and eileen get to catch up and he finally has a willing ear (so to speak) that isn’t cas or mary to talk to about this stuff and of course SHE has someone who very much understands what it’s like to come back from hell. part of what i really love about sam and eileen is the way they sort of instantly and intrinsically recognized and understood one another, even across something that resembles a language barrier, and this hypothetical future would be no exception. there’s no way they don’t get engaged inside a year, and much like in the 15.18 fixit they’d sometimes hang at the bunker and sometimes not. i imagine with the apocalypse world hunters going in and out though it’s never exactly empty or lonely there. 

whether or not their family unit ever retires and/or moves out of the bunker in this verse is sort of beyond me because my feelings on it change daily but you can imagine whatever you like! however i am adamant that the furthest away from each other sam and dean will ever get permanent-living-situation-wise is next door/across-the-street neighbors. their weird little codependency is part of what i like about them and i have a Whole Thing about not ���gentrifying” dean. but for the most part sam would be very much doing his own thing which involves john very little, and healing from his own damage with people OUTSIDE of his blood relatives which he very much deserves. and he has moved so completely past the need to care about john that like john is a backdrop in his life, albeit one with baggage. but mostly he becomes someone to keep an eye on in case he makes trouble, no different than a hundred other surly hunters sam’s known. and he can still be there for dean without his life revolving around dean because now dean has other people there for him too. (i ALSO have a whole thing about sam being in the life for dean specifically, that he’s giving up some or all of adulthood for dean because dean gave up childhood for him - kind of the way someone takes care of their kickass single mom in old age. it’s a guilt/love/debt/devotion sort of thing.) 

and speaking of the Eventual future, if babies ever come into this picture (sam and eileen’s, to be clear, dean and cas are probably satisfied with jack, NOT THAT JACK ISN’T ALSO SAM’S CHILD) john is allowed to see them but never unsupervised. i’m picturing like sam and eileen both on their third day of no sleep and sam lets john change a diaper because he’s exhausted and john considers that the best their relationship has been since sam was 6. mary always wanted to raise babies and sam likes her better so she’d get to pitch in with much more enthusiasm (and aw they’d finally get to bond a little more), and dean has raised a baby already so he’d probably try to like help and get waved away a lot like no no raising other peoples babies is no longer your job it’s ok. there is eventually a fight about this

cas & jack: 

castiel lives a great life caring for his newly re-graced son and staring at john when he enters or leaves rooms, and i imagine eventually jack gives him his wings back, since he can do whatever the fuck he wants (i'm not giving jack his own section but he also probably keeps acknowledging dean and cas are a couple like out loud which would be fine except for dean is still half in the closet like a skittish traumatized cat so eventually cas would have to explain very gently that nobody was supposed to know that yet and jack should cool it to give dean time to adjust)

anyway i DON’T believe in human cas, i believe he likes being an angel, so he just gets to stay an angel forever and now he has wings too <3 and he can teleport which spooks john in the exact same manner it used to spook dean in s4 <3 except this time cas is being <3 malicious on purpose <3

cas fully won here because like john does NOT want to speak to or acknowledge him much less be in the same room as him so they tend to have a dynamic where like all 6 of them are in the room and cas dean sam mary and jack all talk to each other and john dean sam mary and jack all talk to each other but cas and john do not talk to each other. cas doesn’t have to threaten him or glare at him constantly anymore like all he has to do is look at him. and john is like. man what’s he gonna do. that guy is having sex with your son and there’s nothing you can do about it! so dean doesnt have to be like ok cool it cas anymore because cas has literally won in every possible way. i think at most it’s very much cas being like “if i were trying to kill you, you’d know it <3″ and john can’t return those vibes to sender because then dean would be like ok cool it at his DAD instead. it used to be cas don’t piss off dad and now it’s dad don’t piss off cas. anyway i think that since cas has let dean lean on him so much it would be nice if he could lean on dean a little. again more on that in a minute

dean: 

and finally, as for dean...i think he needs a year minimum to dean with people acknowledging he and cas are a couple and another 3 for it not to be weird to say cas’s name in front of his dad. absolutely zero pda in front of john ever but he might like eventually get to the place where he and cas can lounge around together on the couch while they watch movies with the rest of fam and it’s not a big deal. sneak an arm around him at a movie theater. kind of the same vibes as the 15.18 fixit but with less anxiety. because like the worst possible thing (getting outed to everyone) has already happened and aside from the outing itself being completely horrible nothing that terrible even came to pass as a result, so he’s just Adjusting. i think he sort of has to unlearn and relearn his habits - his mediator thing, his defending dad thing. i think there’s a lot of times where he just walks out of a room when shit is too much for him to deal with because he has let go of some of the need to constantly micromanage his family’s interactions to make sure they don’t boil over. michael already took that scenario to the max and mary already dumped john so there’s really not much left to be afraid of. i think he gets told “that’s not your job” a lot and maybe listens more than he used to. and to bring us around to the second question...

i also think dean would get weirdly hung up on the fact that he and cas’s sex life is Not Normal - as in, they fooled around a little and that was it. i think dean would have a huge problem with that. like, obviously he has A Few Hangups About Gay Sex given his history but if you’re a couple you’re supposed to bang on the regular and it’s totally homophobic if he doesn’t bang cas as much as he’d bang a lady he was committed to, right? he’s not gonna give cas less than he gave cassie or lisa, that’s not fair to his best buddy and number one pal! 

meanwhile castiel, known asexual, is utterly and wildly neutral to the whole idea except that it’s a way to be close to dean. cas would be just as happy fucking like champions for a six-hour marathon or spending that same six hours curled up in bed together while he plays with dean’s hair. like, same diff. you know that thing about like “cas thinks everything is important he gives the same gravitas to the apocalypse and a nine year old’s birthday party”? like it’s exactly like that with sex and cuddling and sharing a meal together and driving together and watching dumb movies like it’s all time spent With Dean so it all matters just as much.

so we have this conflict where dean is tearing himself apart over the fact that he’s taking a normal human amount of time to “work up” to the whole thing and cas is like. but it’s fine. it’s literally fine. and dean’s reaction to this would be something very offended like hello excuse me i am super hot and fuckable and you don’t WANT me?

if this all sounds familiar that’s because i’ve written similar stuff to it before! if you go to the fic page for broken road, you'll see it's part of a series now (the "triptych"), with my dumb little 15.18 fixit as the prequel. even though continuity-wise these are two totally separate fics i feel very strongly that that fic is the spiritual prequel to broken road, and eventually, a long time from now, after the next @cambionverse​ fic is done or at the very least well underway, i'd like to write a spiritual sequel. a triptych is three works that stand on their own but also make a more complete whole, so even though these three stories would not be related at all in continuity of where they take place in canon, they each set the stage at a different part of the dean/cas relationship. so fic #1, the get-together, had no sex at all, and it was very short. fic #2, pre-established but just barely, had a little sex in it and it was very long. fic #3 then would be pre-established but like VERY pre-established and have a fuckton of sex in it, and be medium length. i’m ha ha basically writing my own nc-17 porn coda since SOMEBODY won’t do it for me (if you got that joke you’re entitled to financial compensation). 

except i actually really do want to tackle this subject myself, it’s stuff i only got to touch on in the other fics because it felt off topic, so in this fic it WOULD be the topic! i really found a groove i like with cas who has almost no trauma around sex but doesn’t care whether or not he has it vs dean who really really wants to have sex but has a minefield of past bad experiences he has to watch out for. and i like writing porn anyway and i didn’t get to write very much these past two fics. i’ve always said that i think dean would snowball (not like that, gross) - it’d take him FOREVER (literally a decade plus) to work up to kissing cas but a fraction of that time to start fooling around with him and a fraction of THAT time to blow him etc etc. the more he does the easier it gets. i feel like it’d be a lot of fun to write. 

so, this third fic would not be an official broken road sequel, because there’s almost no plot outside of the porn to speak of anyway, but if what you wanted was to see how the dean/cas went from where it left off, hopefully that will be satisfying in that regard.

i should say, while the third fic would be almost exclusively porn there is one plot element involving ********** that i am not going to talk about on tumblr because it would ruin the surprise. i have told a few people privately and i will tell you if we know each other pretty well but if you know (or guess) don’t tell anyone! 

see, the other thing i would want to tackle in that fic is how cas has his own traumas and baggage, even if they’re a little different from dean’s, and i think dean sometimes gets so deep in his own stuff he kind of...not forgets that exactly but forgets how profoundly it still affects cas, because by and large cas deals with that sort of thing a lot more quietly and in much healthier ways than dean does. not that his self-sacrificing ass is the poster child for mental health, but for example cas recognized suicidal ideation in himself and actively worked to keep himself away from situations that would make it worse. he translates his bad feelings into meaningful action (well, he attempts to, even if it usually goes wrong). so he hurts kind of quietly and in late season especially most of the worst moments of his life are behind him (barring jack’s death, which doesn’t happen in this verse). so he’s also further along in his healing process which mean dean kind of forgets how fucked in the head he can be. and in the uh...unusual situation...they find themselves in because of this minor plot, it becomes something that he can’t not notice, that they can’t just not talk about, and cas gets to lean on dean a little, they sort of get to know each other better. so that’s part of the point of that one little plot element. but the rest of it really is porn.

i haven’t started work on the third fic yet - i don’t have a title and my outline is just a bunch of choppy ideas and i have about 2000 words of the middle of the fic jotted down out of context. (it was originally going to be a shorter unrelated thing before i realized how well it tied to what i already had.) i have another obligation to see to before i can get started on it (again, @cambionverse​, you should read it if you havent, the concept might sound unappealing but almost everyone who tries it likes it and it’s way better than broken road). so it’ll probably happen a very VERY long time from now! but it IS happening. >:) i just hope after the first two fics in the triptych were so well received that it doesn’t disappoint 🥺

[neonlights92]

CHANGE: Chapter V

When the feud between EXO and Bangtan escalates beyond control Bangtan’s leader Kim Taehyung sees only one solution: a marriage of convenience between a member of Bangtan and a member of EXO. Park Jimin was not born into Bangtan but has slowly become an intrinsic part of Taehyung’s trusted inner circle.

And that is how Jimin finds himself married to you; EXO leader Xiumin’s little sister.  You’re not like any other woman he’s ever met before; fierce, angry and talented with a switchblade. When you first meet Jimin you’re left angry and disappointed.

Except slowly, things change. And despite yourself, you find your heart warming to the idea of falling in love.

A/N: ENJOY!

WARNINGS: Language and themes of death

You felt numb. 

How had Jimin found that stupid fucking file? Had he gone looking through your things? Your heart felt like it was being ripped right down the middle. 

Hadn’t you locked it away in the top drawer of your desk? Except… Rose.

She was the only other person in the house who had access to something like that.  Could she have been keeping an eye on you?

You picked yourself up off the bed quickly, scrambling to your bedroom door.  You had to speak to him… You had to make things right. 

“Jimin… Please!” You felt tears brim behind your eyelashes, and something angry crawled up your spine.

You were terrified of losing him.

How had things turned so ugly, so quickly? Wasn’t it just last night that you’d finally realised how much you cared for him? 

Why did he have to find that stupid, fucking file? 

You turned the corner quickly, and were surprised to find Jimin standing at the end of the hallway, back facing you, stock still.  You started to move towards him when something caught your eye.  The mouth of a gun.  Somebody was pointing a gun at Jimin.

Wordlessly, you slid into the open doorway behind you, into the study, eyes focused on your husband’s back.

“Where is she?”

Baekhyun. Byun Baekhyun was pointing a gun at the love of your life.  Your pulse quickened.  You had to fix this.

“Who?” 

You wished you could see his face, but Jimin’s body was like stone.  He didn’t move a muscle.   “Your wife.”

“I don’t know.” Your heart turned uncomfortably.  Even when he thought you’d betrayed him, he still protected you. 

“I don’t want to have to kill you Jimin,” Baekhyun’s voice was calm, slow.  This was the way he usually spoke to his victims, “It would be a shame to stain such an expensive carpet.” “You’re going to kill us all anyway, aren’t you?  Make it quick.”  He spat out angrily.  Fear washed over you.

Baekhyun cocked his gun, “I’m going to give you until the count of three.  One...Two…”

You didn’t even think.  You knew he was probably bluffing - that he’d probably just shoot his hand or foot.  But you couldn’t imagine Jimin… Your Jimin in any amount of pain.  Not if it could be helped.

You stepped out of the study sharply and cleared your throat.

“Baekhyun.”

Your eyes met. 

“Y/N.”  He smirked,  “Me and your husband were just getting acquainted.”

Jimin’s glare burned into your cheek but you refused to look at him.  You kept your gaze steady, counting the eyelashes framing Baekhyun’s dark brown eyes. 

“I thought we were waiting till the end of the week.” 

He shook his head, “Plan’s changed.  Boss wants me to bring you both in.” 

You crossed your arms and raised a brow, “Am I coming as a friend, or as a prisoner?” 

“That depends.”  His gaze flickered between you and Jimin slowly, “On where your allegiance lies.” 

You felt your heart threatening to beat out of your chest.  You swallowed thickly. 

“I was born into EXO, Baekhyun.  You’ve known me since I was born.  I think it’s obvious where my loyalty is.” You heard Jimin’s sharp inhale, and hated that he thought you were betraying him.  You hated that even though this was the only way you could help him right now, he thought you’d turned your back on him.

Still, you forced your expression into one of icy indifference. 

“There are rumours.” 

You scoffed, “What rumours?” 

“Your brother thinks you care about him.  Love changes things.” 

This wasn’t the  Baekhyun you’d grown up with.  This wasn’t the best friend who’d helped teach you how to ride a bike.  The Baekhyun who would’ve taken a bullet for you.

This was the Baekhyun of EXO.  And you finally understood why that meant he could no longer be a part of your life.  Because you had changed too.

You were Y/N of Bangtan, now. 

“My brother’s a paranoid bastard,” You snorted, “Put the gun down, Baek and we can talk.” 

Baekhyun raised an eyebrow, “You know I can’t do that, Y/N.” Your heart dropped, “What?” 

Baekhyun’s eyes flicked behind you for a split second, and before you could even turn around, you felt cold metal digging into your back. 

“Sehun’s just going to make sure you don’t do anything rash.”

Your chest tightened.  Sehun had been your friend too.  You felt tears threaten to spill, but pushed them back. 

“What the fuck is this, Baekhyun?” You spat angrily. 

“On your brother’s orders.” 

“It hasn’t even been twenty four hours since he gave me the file!” 

Suddenly, your chest was filled with a sinking feeling.  The file had been a decoy meant to distract you from the actual plan.  Xiumin had never planned on including you in anything.

He’d never trusted you enough to follow anything through.  It was the way things between the two of you had always been.

EXO first.  Everything else could wait.  

“From the look on your face, I reckon you’ve figured it out,” Baekhyun’s expression held a note of sadness.  Somewhere, deep down inside you knew he felt bad.  But not bad enough to help you, “Alright, Rose.  You can come out now.” 

Jimin’s sharp inhale of breath matched your own gasp, as Rose appeared beside Baekhyun.  Her eyes avoided your own, and suddenly everything made sense. 

Xiumin had given you the file to distract you from what was actually going on - and Rose had planted it within Jimin’s grasp, hoping to tear at any trust between the two of you.  And it had worked.  Now Jimin thought you’d betrayed him, and your brother wanted you… What?  Dead?

“So what?” You asked angrily, brows furrowing into a deep scowl, “You’re going to kill us both?” 

Baekhyun’s eyes were harder than stone.  He shook his head. 

“Stop asking questions Y/N.” 

Without another word, you felt a bag being pulled over your head, as Sehun shoved you outside.  You struggled against your restraints as best you could, but you knew it was futile.  Sehun was one of the strongest of your brother’s henchmen, and even if you could escape, where would you go?

You knew what your brother was capable of.  And despite wanting to believe he’d let you live, something inside you told you he might not.

Xiumin had never truly valued you as anything other than another chess piece in this twisted game he played with Bangtan.  Your throat felt raw and dry, and you wanted to cry again. 

Suddenly you were being pushed into what you assumed was the back of a van, and before the door slammed closed, somebody handcuffed you.  Now you were completely useless. 

There was a long, drawn out moment of silence, before the van started moving.  

“Jimin?” 

Your voice was meek and quiet, but you didn’t care.  If he was here, you had to talk to him. 

“What?” 

He didn’t sound scared, but what else had you expected, really? 

“Are you okay?” 

He scoffed and you cringed at the sound.  He was so angry with you. 

“What kind of question is that to ask, Y/N?” 

You took a deep breath and tried to steady yourself.  Despite what Jimin may or may not have thought about you, you couldn’t let him go on thinking you had betrayed him.  Not when you were now so sure you loved him. 

“I want you to know that I wasn’t ever going to go through with that plan,” You said quietly, feeling tears scratch the back of your throat, “I was going to tell you everything the moment we woke up this morning, I just didn’t know how to.  You have to understand - telling you about that plan… Taking your side… It means turning my back on everything I’ve ever known.  And even though that’s exactly what I want to do - because Jimin I can’t imagine a life without you - it was still hard.  I was going to tell you...But Xiumin played me for a fool.  He must’ve known I wouldn’t go through with it. He even warned me about how I felt about you the other night.  He told me you were a weakness… You heard Baekhyun.  Xiumin thinks I love you.  And when I saw that Baekhyun was pointing a gun at you earlier… I thought maybe if I played along, I could help the both of us.  You have to believe me, Jimin.  I would never hurt you.” 

There was a beat of silence.  

“Okay,” He whispered after a moment, “I believe you.” 

You nodded to yourself.  It wasn’t exactly what you were expecting; not after you’d laid everything out on the table for him.  But it was enough for now. 

“So what are we going to do?” 

You felt hopeless.  Your brother would probably kill Jimin - and even if he let you live, what kind of existence would it be without your husband? Jimin meant so much to you now and you had to protect him at all costs. 

“Have you got any weapons?”  He asked, even though he probably knew the answer.  You didn’t even have shoes on. 

“No.” 

“I’ve got a tracker in my cell phone.  I switched it on when Baekhyun cornered me.” 

“Is the cell phone on you?” 

“Strapped to my thigh.  Taehyung insisted on it as an extra precaution after things with your brother got worse.”  He cleared his throat, “Provided they haven’t kidnapped the rest of them, Yoongi can probably track us-” 

Before he could finish his sentence, the truck you were in came to a screeching halt.  

“Just take my lead,” You whispered, as you heard the sound of the backdoors unlocking.  

And then in a much louder voice, you shouted, “You’re fucking pathetic, Park.  I’m glad Xiumin will finally have a reason to get rid of you and your stupid brothers.” You heard him inhale sharply, and for a moment you wondered if he’d understood what you were trying to do.  Maybe you should’ve warned him-

“You’re a fucking bitch, Y/N.  Fuck you and fuck EXO.” 

Thank God.  You heard the sound of the backdoors swinging open and fixed your face into a scowl. 

“Fuck you.” 

“Alright princess,” That was Sehun, and you grunted at the nickname, “Leave him alone.  Things are only about to get a whole lot worse for him.”

Your heart sunk, but you refused to give up.  Jimin had his tracker, hopefully, and you prayed that neither Sehun nor Baekhyun would notice it. 

“Get me out of these fucking cuffs,” You growled, “Baekhyun, this is fucking ridiculous.”

You felt somebody grab at your elbow, and hissed against the touch, “I can walk by my fucking self.”

“Stop being so difficult, Y/N.”  Baekhyun sighed, “Once we’re indoors we’ll take off your cuffs and the bag, okay?” 

You climbed out of the back of the truck, and listened carefully for the sound of Jimin’s feet crunching on the gravel behind you.  When you heard his landing, your chest relaxed a little, but you forced your composure to stay as rigid as it had been. 

Baekhyun was a master of reading people; everybody in the mafia was.

You couldn’t let him see any changes in your demeanor. 

“Do you really think this was all necessary?” 

“If your brother’s right about how you feel, then yes.”  It was Baekhyun leading you this time, “You know we’re not going to hurt you-” 

“That’s not the point,” You felt a knot forming in the pit of your stomach, “Xiumin has never trusted me with anything.”

You heard him sigh heavily.  He was used to the fights between you and your brother.  Baekhyun had seen them unravel his entire life. 

And despite the fact you had decided to leave this life behind - to leave Exo behind - you had to admit your words still stung.  Xiumin had treated you as a liability your entire life.  You’d spent years trying to convince him that you were smart enough, and strong enough, and capable enough.

And in some ways, you were sure you were better equipped to lead than he was. 

But he’d never trusted you with anything.  He’d always treated you like you were just waiting to screw up.

Xiumin had never really loved you. 

You felt tears prick your eyes, but you bit them back.  Despite everything that was happening, you had to remain calm.  Exo’s Y/N would never cry, no matter the circumstances.  Nobody could know the ice around your heart had finally melted. 

“It’ll be over soon, okay?” 

And then suddenly, the bag was ripped off of your head, and you blinked harshly into the dim light you were swathed in.  You were in a warehouse - the one on the outskirts of the city, if you had to guess - and you tried not to roll your eyes at the dramatics. 

Xiumin always did have a flair for those kinds of things. 

“Y/N.” Your brother’s voice caught your attention, and you turned, watching as he walked towards you.  The ceiling was high - and the room you were in was huge.  His words bounced off the walls. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you, you prick?”  You hissed, hands still bound behind your back.  You struggled against your restraints and gave Baekhyun a look.

Baekhyun only shrugged, “Not until Xiumin gives me the go ahead.” 

You glared at your brother with everything you had inside of you. 

“Will you tell this fucking idiot to get these handcuffs off me.” 

Your brother’s eyes darkened, but he nodded at Baekhyun.  After a moment, you felt the handcuffs fall from around your wrists.  You forced yourself to stay stoic - completely still.  You couldn’t let Xiumin see how restless you were.  Couldn’t let him catch you looking for Jimin.

But the truth was, all you could think about was where your husband was. 

Why hadn’t he followed you into this room? Were they going to kill him already? Your heart thudded angrily against your chest. 

“What the fuck was all this about?” You spat, refusing to move from your position.  Refusing to give your brother an ounce of power. 

Xiumin stayed where he was too - a good few metres away from you - eyes dark and calculating. 

“You love him.” It wasn’t a question.  

It was a statement. 

You felt your insides curl.  

“What?” 

“Park Jimin,” He sighed as though you were acting like a disobedient child, “You love him.”

You scoffed, “You’re crazy, Xiumin.” 

“No I’m not.”  He seemed sad, “You love him, Y/N.  I know you do.  You were never going to follow through with killing Taehyung’s wife, were you?” 

“I just don’t understand why we had to kill innocent people.” Your brother raised a brow, “That’s who we are Y/N.  We’re the mob.  Or did you forget?” 

“We have some honour,” You replied stubbornly, “I’ve never killed somebody who didn’t already have blood on their hands.” 

“She’s married to Kim Taehyung,” He snorted, “Her hands are soaked in blood.” 

There was a long drawn out silence.  Xiumin’s eyes studied you whilst you decided what to say next.  

Eventually, you sighed heavily. 

“What are you going to do with me, Xiumin?” 

Your heart was still skipping a mile a minute, but you refused to look away from your brother’s angry face.  You barely recognised him.

“I’m not sure.”  He answered bluntly, “Some of my men think I should kill you.” 

Your chest tightened, “What?” 

“You’re my sister, Y/N.  But you love the enemy.  EXO must always come first.” “I only married him in the first place because of you!” 

Xiumin didn’t seem to care.  He shrugged. 

“I told you not to fall in love.”

And that was the straw that broke your back.  Before you could even properly think through what you were doing, you spun around sharply and kneed Baekhyun between the legs, grabbing at the gun you knew was tucked away into the back pocket of his slacks.  Baekhyun bent over in pain, and you used this opportunity to shove him between you and your brother, running towards the door you’d spotted on your left.

“Shit!” 

You heard your brother swear, and felt the hot trail of a bullet somewhere above your head.

He was shooting at you.

You turned back, eyes blurry as you shot at Xiumin’s foot, hitting your aim and causing him to stumble to the ground.

“What the fuck are you doing Y/N?  This is suicide-” 

You didn’t hear the rest of what your brother was saying as you pushed the door open and skidded out into the hallway, eyes scanning the hallway.  

Fuck it. 

“Jimin!” You screeched, running as fast as you could across the linoleum floor, “Jimin!  It’s me, Y/N!” 

The door at the very end swung open, and you were greeted by Sehun - eyes wide as he saw the gun you were pointing towards him.  You skidded to a stop. 

“Sorry, Sehun.”  You grunted, pointing your gun at his foot and shooting. 

“Fuck.  What the hell Y/N?” He screamed, crumpling to the ground in pain. 

You ignored him. 

“Jimin?” You shouted again, and this time you heard his reply. 

“Y/N!  In here!” 

You shoved past Sehun on the ground, not caring when he grunted in pain, “Oh get over it.  You’ll be fine.” 

Once inside the room you saw Jimin sat on a metal chair, hands and feet bound, and his face bloodied and bruised. 

“What the fuck.”  You rushed towards him, “Are you okay?” “I’ve seen worse,” He smiled and your heart turned at the sight. 

“Fuck, we have to go, Jimin.  Xiumin and Baekhyun are going to be here any minute.”

Jimin nodded, “Help me out of these.  There’s a knife in Sehun’s back pocket.” 

You turned to Sehun, who was still struggling, and kicked him in the shin.  He groaned in pain and you shrugged. 

“That’s what you get for fucking up my husband.” 

You held him on the ground with the heel of your foot, and rooted around in his back pocket, until you finally found what you were looking for.  A swiss army knife. 

You smirked.

They didn’t call you Switchblade for nothing. 

You turned back towards your husband quickly, helping him undo his restraints, and pulling him to his feet. 

“Can you walk on your own?” You asked, eyes scanning his body for any broken bones.

He winced when he stood but nodded anyway, “I’ll be fine.  We’ve got to go.” 

“Y/N!  What the fuck!” 

Your heart froze over at the sound of your brother’s voice.  You looked up to watch him limping towards you, eyes the colour of coal.  He was so angry.  

“Is he really worth all this?” Xiumin’s voice was shaking, “Worth leaving your family behind?”

You nodded once, resolutely, “He’s the only family I’ve ever had.  The only person who’s ever made me feel like I matter.” 

Jimin’s hand slipped between your own, and he squeezed tightly.  You didn’t look away from Xiumin, afraid of what he might do when your back was turned. 

“Fuck you.”  Your brother growled, and suddenly he was pointing a gun at Jimin, “And fuck Bangtan.” 

“Boss!” 

Baekhyun’s voice shot out, before the sound of the front doors being kicked down reverberated throughout the entire warehouse.  You watched in awe, as your brother turned, almost as if in slow motion to be greeted by Kim Taehyung himself.

You never thought you’d be happy to see Bangtan and yet this time everything was different.  Taehyung was leading the pack, followed closely behind by Jungkook and Hoseok, their eyes narrowed into dark, angry slits.  

Behind them was an army of Bangtan brothers.

This wasn’t going to end well.

“You want to kill my wife, huh?”  Taehyung spat, pointing a gun at my brother’s forehead, “You want to kill Jimin?  I thought we made a fucking DEAL.  You’re a piece of shit, Xiumin.” 

Was he going to kill him?  Something coiled around your throat. 

Despite everything that happened… Xiumin was still your brother.  Could you just watch that happen?

Baekhyun tried to reach for his gun, but Jungkook shot him in the thigh before he had a chance, “Don’t fucking move.”

“Go on then,” Xiumin set his jaw - hard and glaring, “Shoot me.  What the fuck is left, anyway?  You’ve taken everything away from me.” 

Your heart twisted. 

“You’re pathetic.”  Taehyung’s face was like stone, “But I will not kill you in front of your family.”  His eyes lifted, and he nodded at Jimin.

You felt all the air in the room dissipate, almost.  

Taehyung was going to kill your brother.  That much was clear.  He’d given Xiumin one last decency - he was giving you an out.  

You knew you could handle a lot.  Had been through almost everything on God’s good green Earth.  But this… You couldn’t do it. 

So you let Jimin take you away.

And your heart thundered as your husband tugged you forwards, away from Sehun, and away from your brother.  You passed Xiumin, eyes drawn to the ground, unable to meet his gaze.  You knew he wouldn’t say anything to you.

He had always been so proud.

But just as you reached the front door of the warehouse, your eyes flitted backwards, and your stomach curled at the look on your brother’s face.  Hatred. 

He was looking at you with pure, unadulterated hatred. 

“Fuck Bangtan.”  Xiumin spat, raising his gun towards Jimin, and taking aim.  You tried to pull him out of the way, but it was too late.

The bullet hit Jimin’s stomach, and just as Taehyung shot your brother between the eyes, your world shattered into a million pieces. 

Things would never be the same again.

//

[cameforagoodtime]

One Direction and Management

Okay, to start off, I am a quarantine fan. I didn’t know anything about One Direction until a couple of months ago. I am sure that there are things that I don’t know anything about, and I can guide you to accounts of people who have been fans since the beginning (or at least pre-hiatus) because they are much more knowledgable about everything and also have seen progressions that I will never be able to understand. That being said, in my couple of months being a fan I have seen many misconceptions about the music industry that seem to be prevalent in this fandom. I also need to disclose that I do not have a perfect understanding of the music industry. I have a much better understanding than the general public, but everyone in this fandom has a better understanding of the industry than the GP so that’s not much of a distinction. What sets me apart is that I have access to someone who was formerly a part of the music industry. My dad was in a band for 11 years (from 1989-2000) and during that time he developed an understanding of how the industry works. I know that I am not completely knowledgable about the ins and outs of how the music industry works, but I talk with my dad about music all the time so I have an understanding different than the casual fan. 

Also, most of the time when I am writing about the fandom as a whole I am writing about post-hiatus fans. Most of the long-term fans that I have come across are so battle worn that they intrinsically have a great understanding of the industry. The problem comes from the people that haven’t seen the ebbs and flows of the industry over the last 10 years and tend to make incorrect assumptions.

One thing that I see all the time with the boys (especially Harry) is this inherent distrust of managers and management. I see where it comes from, Modest was absolutely terrible and did terrible things to the boys (though you have to admit even though they’re terrible they operated with incredible amounts of success). The major difference between Modest and all of the boy’s current managements is that they didn’t choose Modest. It’s widely known that the first deal that you get in the industry will take advantage of you. I have heard stories of small bands that are signed to a label that end up having to pay off their debts for decades after. The boys were pigeonholed into a deal with Syco from being on the X-factor, the contracts they had to sign to even be able to compete on the show ensured that. Because of that, Syco was able to take advantage of their naivety and get a better deal (for Syco not for the boys).

In general, management is a separate deal from the label. A label generally does not assign a management team, usually an artist already has a management (or at least a manager) before they negotiate their first deal. Because of the contracts the boys signed to get them on x-factor, they were pigeonholed into Syco and Modest, and then all the problems that we know and love started happening (though I do think that its very interesting to think about the first year and a half where Modest really didn’t exert a lot of control, but that’s a thought for a different post). I think people in this fandom tend to think of every management company as Modest and don’t understand that the first offer (which is what the boys accepted after the X-Factor) is always going to screw you over.

I think the best way to describe the normal relationship between artist, management, and label is that the management works for the artist, the artist works for the label. The reason that the management is necessary is because the label can (and does) try its best to screw people over. Artists hire a management to make sure that their interests are protected in the face of the label. I think most of what I am talking about is with Harry, so mostly I’m going to talk about the Azoffs. 

Irving Azoff is one of the best managers in the industry. He won an honorary grammy, and he is widely regarded as the most powerful person in the music industry. The way he has gained this power is by being cut throat. I am in no way defending Irving (or Jeff) Azoff, I think it is very likely that they are terrible people, but they are undoubtedly very good at their jobs. Your manager should not be your best friend, and I think all of the boys know that. Your manager should, however, be someone that you believe will fight tooth and nail for your best interests, and the Azoffs have proven time and time again that they are willing to do that. Irving Azoff is widely credited for the weakening of power that the labels have had over the last couple of decades because of his willingness to cut other people down for his clients. 

Here is where we get into my experiences. My dad’s manager was a guy named Alan (Al). Al is a super awesome guy, was a great manager for my dad, but at the end of the day he is pushy, micromanages everything, and I’m not going to lie I’ve heard stories of my dad being super annoyed with him. The reason my dad kept him around, however, was because he was really good at his job. Al would negotiate with the venue to get he highest pay, he would negotiate with the label to get more money out of a record, and sometimes he did the hard thing and told the band the things they didn’t want to hear. This was all his job. My dad still plays a show every two years or so with the band, and Al still tries to negotiate the highest amount of money he can out of a concert (even though my dad and all of his bandmates have other careers now and don’t really need the money). Al is now one of the managers for Duran Duran, is on the board for like 7 companies, and is altogether really successful, but it’s not because he was the nicest person to be around, in fact it’s mostly because of the opposite. 

I absolutely love Al, but he is such an asshole sometimes, and it’s because of that trait that he was a good manager. The same goes with the Azoffs. Yes, they probably aren’t great people, most people in positions of power like that aren’t. They are good managers because of their asshole tendencies, not in spite of. 

One of the things that makes me the most frustrated in this fandom is this inherent distrust of the Azoffs off of the belief that they manipulated Harry into signing an un-beneficial contract. This idea seems to stem from the belief that Harry isn’t smart enough to realize he’s being manipulated. I can assure everyone that after 10 years of being high level in the music industry, Harry is well aware when he’s being manipulated. I’m sure that he’s aware of his position and how people will try to take advantage of him, and I’m certain that he’s hyperaware of the fact that people are going to try to manipulate him. The major difference lies in the fact that 26 year old Harry is armed with a plethora of knowledge about the inner workings of the industry and a really good legal team that looks over and negotiates every contract he signs, 16 year old harry was not. 

In conclusion, managers suck, but that’s the whole point of their job. No one is best friends with their management. So no, Jeff Azoff is not the devil and forcing Harry to stay off of social media because of image control. It’s realistic that after 10 years in the public eye he wants the keep his life private (I absolutely do not blame him). I think that it’s likely that his label is controlling him and his image a bit (again, a post for another time) but I don’t really think Jeff is forcing Harry to do anything he doesn’t want to do. Harry isn’t a naive 16 year old anymore. He has an understanding of the industry much deeper than anyone in the fandom because his is all first person.

I also think its important to note that the image we were getting of the boys while in the band was also not authentic. I think that this is something that is too often forgotten, but even at the beginning when they seemed to be given a free for all there were clear messages that each of them were tasked with delivering. I think that the perception is often that management was less controlling of their social media during one direction, and while to some extent this is true, it’s important to note that their public persona has never been a true representation of them. We do not, nor have we ever, truly known who these boys are. We only know what they are willing to publicize.

I might make more posts about things people don’t understand if there are any requests (or if I just get bored). If anyone actually is reading this I’m sorry that you had to read through all of that, but if you have any questions (which I’m sure you do, I’m really bad at explaining things) just message me and I will be happy to explain it.

EDIT: I feel like this may come across as me saying that management disputes don’t happen in the industry. They absolutely do, it’s just that it doesn't seem likely that Harry in particular is having management disputes. All of the boys (except maybe Liam, but I don’t know enough about that particular situation) seem to be okay with their management teams. Harry seems to be totally fine with Jeff, so people really need to stop saying that he is unhappy. Jeff isn’t controlling all of his actions like people seem to think

I also think it’s important to remember that Niall is still signed to Modest, and it doesn’t seem to be forced. Modest may have been terrible management for Louis and Harry (and even though i don’t know enough about their specific situations I’ll group Liam and Zayn into this category as well) but clearly they were good managers for Niall. Every single situation is different but people need to realize that management doesn’t do all of the image control, they execute a lot from the label as well (and Syco seems pretty homophobic so...)

[foodbytesback]

The Cereal Itself is the Least Interesting Part of Dippin’ Dots Cereal

While perusing the aisles of the store I work at, I noticed a couple of “new” (we’re always really behind on getting new products) selections in the cereal aisle: Dippin’ Dots flavors.  Always a sucker for a gimmick and always desperate for something to write about here, I grabbed one of each.  Curious as to just how behind I was on getting these, I turned to my go-to source of cereal news, cerealously.net, where he had a post from April announcing their re-release.  Yes, re-release, as the cookies and cream flavor had originally come out in 2018 alongside a banana split flavor, both featuring a cookie-cluster piece reminiscent of the crunchies inside an ice cream cake.  Alas, these clusters weren’t invited back for the reunion tour, and the banana split was replaced by a flavor the cereal aisles of 2021 have come to know all too well: birthday cake.  Dan Cerealously warned that chances are, without those clusters there would be almost nothing noteworthy about these (and also that birthday cake cereals are typically pretty boring).  But since he hasn’t written anything about these specifically, I guess I will have to.    

First things first: I can smell the cereal through the box.  I haven’t even opened them yet, but these boxes smell heavily of saccharine cereal.  This is one of those things that isn’t inherently a bad thing, but like… why is it happening.  How does the outside of the box still smell this strongly.

The cookies and cream ones are a bit of a mixed bag.  The white orbs have absolutely no taste to them whatsoever, save for a vaguely sweet glaze if you eat them dry.  The chocolate ones taste close enough to Coco Puffs to get the point across. When you eat them together, they are the sum of its parts.  Both pieces are also slightly softer than a Coco Puff, but every once in a while there’s one that’s almost tooth-shatteringly hard, which makes for a confusing eating experience.  

The birthday cake ones tasted fine for the first few spoonfuls.  They had enough of that vaguely eggy flavor to distinguish its flavor as “cake” and not just “sugar.”  However, as is often the case with a flavor this… subtle, by the time I was halfway through the bowl, it was extremely bland.  On the bright side, at least it didn’t have the slightly corny flavor the other ones did, as one would expect from a “multi-grain” blend vs the other one begin just corn.  They also left behind a coarse, brown dust floating in the milk that doesn’t really correlate with any of the color of the cereal pieces themselves? So that’s fun.

There…. really isn’t anything else I can really say about these cereals.  There’s nothing intrinsically bad about them but they aren’t good either.  There’s definitely nothing explicitly Dippin’ Dots about them.  With nothing else to say about it I have no choice but to talk about…. The box.

In short: much of the box art seems like a generic cereal box you would see in the beginning of a movie about some kind of dystopian suburbia, subtly foreshadowing that things might not be quite right.  The cookies and cream box has a maze, and the birthday cake box has a word search.  These are normal, back-of-the-cereal-box things.  But both prominently feature Frozeti the Yeti, an alleged Dippin’ Dots mascot that, upon googling, does exist to the extent that they have a costume for events, yet no one I know has ever seen him on any other piece of Dippin’ Dots paraphernalia.  It may also be worth noting that the word search features words like “liberty ice,” which also not a real thing, as far as any normal person is concerned.  

Both boxes also feature recipes like Rice Krispies Treats but with cookies and cream orbs and “breakfast parfaits” consisting of birthday cake cereal and yogurt, which maybe could be less “alien trying to figure out what humans eat” and more “cereal executive knowing they have a bad product and are trying to find any way to get people to finish the box.”   

The side flap opposite the nutrition facts advertises something called “Comfort Zone Camp.”  At first glance the name made me think this would be some sort of alt-right, “welcome to the real world, snowflake” bullshit about ripping kinds from their comfort zones, but apparently it’s for children who recently experienced the death of a parent or guardian.  So… that’s kind of a bummer, and a weird thing to put on the side of a bright and colorful cereal box for children.  

But the real kicker? It’s the one thing that any eagle-eyed cereal enthusiast would notice on sight, but I saved it for last for a very good reason.  This cereal isn’t made by General Mills, or Kellogg’s, or Post, or even Malt-O-Meal or some other generic cereal manufacturer.  

It’s made by a sporting goods company.    

OK, maybe calling PLB Sports & Entertainment a “sporting goods company” is a little over the top.  They specialize in merchandising deals where they take an athlete’s face and slap it on a box of generic cereal.  Some highlights of their product line, according to their online shop, include DeAndre’s Hop Box, HerrO’s Fruit Loops, Josh’s Jaqs (go Bills? I guess? This is the only one that even hints towards what team the person plays for), and the much less creatively named Field of Dreams Corn Flakes, with some select boxes autographed by Dwier Brown.  I don’t know who any of these people are.  But if you do, you can get their cereal.   

Notably absent from their online store, however, is Dippin’ Dots. Not even the company specializing in C-List athlete-branded cereals wants to be associated with these boring, bland spheres.  And since PLBSE only sells their products in select stores (seemingly mostly in the northeast, within driving distance of its Pittsburg facility?) Kroger and Publix shoppers will never get to experience these completely innocuous cereals.  

Conveniently, Dippin’ Dots themselves has seemingly also scrubbed all signs of this cereal ever existing from their website.  In order to find it at all, you have to go to their “merchandise” shop on Amazon, scroll down past the T-shirts and gummy vitamins, and even then they’re listed as “unavailable.” All google searches for Dippin’ Dots cereal brings up either the cerealously.net post I mentioned earlier or the 2018 iteration of the cereal.  Somebody at Big Cereal is trying to gaslight me into thinking this cereal doesn’t exist.   But I know they’re real.  I am holding the boxes in one hand and typing this with the other. I know they’re real.  I wish I could scrub my memory of this, because this level of conspiracy-theorist-rambling is way more attention than this boring cereal deserves.  

Dan Cerealously, if you are reading this and want these, just to prove they are real, I will mail you some.  But you don’t want these.  You’ve known for months you don’t want these.  

[miraculousbelladonna]

The Edict, Part 3

Part 1, Part 2 - AO3

Wang Fu hadn’t realized, hadn’t stopped to think for even a moment about the power of the miraculous. The power behind it. The power of destruction. A cataclysm. What it could do to a person, to their soul.

*****

Marinette sits at her desk with the miracle box next to her. If her parents come in, it’ll look to them like she’s just working on another design project, because to everyone’s eyes but her own, the miracle box looks like a sewing machine. It’s ingenious, and Tikki promised to explain more about the magic behind it once they’ve gotten her more settled as the guardian.

First, the old tongue.

She grabs one of her many empty notebooks, ready to take notes, as one does when learning a new language, but Tikki tells her she doesn’t need it.

She’s confused at first, but then soon finds that when Tikki speaks in the old tongue, she can understand it. She knows what Tikki is saying, and is able to respond in kind if she focuses.

The old tongue feels like a rumble going through her with a tinge of magic and something timeless, something unknowable, and as she speaks it she realizes that it sounds and feels unlike any language she’s ever heard or spoken in her entire life.

Tikki smiles at Marinette’s excitement after she realizes she is able to respond in kind (and it’s so telling of what kind of person Marinette is that her first instinct was to respond back in the old tongue. Her first instinct was to try to respond to Tikki in kind, in Tikki’s native language, and she succeeded on her first try. The knowledge is intrinsic, yes, but it has taken many guardians at least 3 tries to get it right, to focus completely. It brings tears to her eyes if she thinks of it too long) and explains. “The old tongue is known by all the Kwami, and it is passed onto the guardian so they are able to communicate and connect with us. It’s intrinsic, the knowledge just appears, and disappears once guardianship is passed.”

“That’s amazing! It’s so cool that I could understand you, does it work with other languages? You guys probably know all of them already, but would I be able to know them too? Is there a way for me to have that knowledge? It would be so great to be able to talk with everyone in their native language as Ladybug, I think that’s something that’s really important to make people feel more comfortable and safe.”

Tikki sits on the desk silently as Marinette continues. The girl is rambling now, scribbling in her notebook all the languages she’s heard spoken around Paris, which ones are more common, and in what parts of the city, etc.

And the thing is, Tikki knows how good Marinette is. She created her soul. But having the evidence here in front of her is almost too much.

Here is Marinette, a physically small 15 year old girl, fresh out of the hospital after dying no less than 5 times in one night, and her first thought is of how she can help others. How she can do better. Be better. She is always striving for greatness, and she’s never satisfied, which grates on her because the world is so cruel and she is so kind.

She wouldn’t have had to be if Chat had been a true destruction soul. It would have never devolved into this. The chaos of destruction would have tempered the chaos of creation and all of this would never have happened.

The imbalance has taken a toll on Marinette’s body, in ways she never even realized or thought to disclose because she’s so used to handling everything herself, of holding the weight of the world on her shoulders, which was only exacerbated by Chat not being a true soul of destruction.

She doesn’t think she’ll ever get over this. She won’t forget that Wayzz didn’t know. That even Plagg didn’t know. That he couldn’t tell, which means that Fu had done something to either Adrien or the miraculous in order for Plagg not to be able to tell that Adrien was not a true destruction soul.

The edict has been passed and Marinette is alive and well, and it should be enough but Tikki is as old as time and life itself and she is still angry. She is still angry. She has lived thousands of years. One day is not enough time for her anger to dissipate. It may not for hundreds of years. The last time she was even close to being this furious, the humans called it the Dark Ages.

Marinette wouldn’t want her to be this angry on her behalf.

But no one else is. No one else is at Marinette’s back. Not the old master. Not her old partner. Not her parents, not her friends at school, because they can’t know. She is, effectively, alone.

She is under no delusions that interaction with Kwami can substitute for human contact. Tikki is too small to brush her hair, her arms are not big enough to envelop Marinette in a hug when she desperately needs it. She tries her best, and Marinette knows it and would never, ever, fault her for it, but sometimes it isn’t enough.

So the least she can do is be angry for her. To remind her that it’s ok to not be ok. It’s ok to be upset, angry even, about how she’s been treated. It’s ok to have negative feelings, it doesn’t make her less than. The only thing it does is makes her human.

Hawkmoth is a sick, cruel man.

*****

She doesn’t go to school for the next week, the doctors were adamant about her being on bedrest, nothing strenuous, nothing stressful, and her parents agreed immediately.

She huffs a sigh as her dad puts her down on her bed. “Papa. How many times do I have to tell you. It’s been 3 days! I can walk up the stairs by myself!”

He ruffles her hair with one huge hand and grins. “I know, I know. It’s just been so long since I got to carry you like this! Let your old papa reminisce a little, won't you?”

She rolls her eyes, trying hard to at least keep looking annoyed in the face of her father’s sunshiney grin, but he smiles wider at her, and she loses. She can’t help but smile back at him.

“Fine. Fine! But only for this week! I have two perfectly functioning legs and I plan on using them as soon as possible!”

“Of course, of course.” He kisses her on the forehead, and calls out an “I love you!” as he walks back down the stairs.

“I love you too!” She hollers back as his footsteps fade away.

Tikki flies up into her line of sight and winces, “I’m sorry Marinette. I guess I healed you too well too fast, huh.”

“It’s not your fault Tikki, it’s just a little frustrating being cooped up like this. I know everyone’s worried about me, but I’m fine! I feel fine.”

Tikki nods in agreement. “I know. But it’s ok if you aren’t. I wish you had more time, I wish I could give you more time, but a new Chat Noir has to be chosen as soon as possible. The imbalance has already taken a toll on your body, the human body can only handle so much.” Her face hardens as she remembers all the headaches and bruises Marinette brushed off. “I’m sorry I didn’t notice sooner. There’s no excuse.”

Marinette opens her mouth to respond but a rapid knocking on her door interrupts her, and Tikki rushes to hide herself before it opens abruptly, and Alya all but stumbles in.

“Mari! Girl! Oh man. Oh my god we’ve been so worried. You weren’t in school and they obviously couldn’t tell us what happened, and your parents wouldn’t tell us much because they didn’t want us to worry so as soon as they said you might be up for visitors I ran up here! Are you? Up for visitors? Because if not I can leave. I can leave like. Right now. Just say the word.”

She can’t help but grin at Alya’s word vomit. It’s something she would do, and it’s endearing to see that she’s rubbed off on Alya as much as Alya has rubbed off on her.

“Of course you don’t have to leave, Alya. I’m fine! The doctors put me on bed rest for the week, which is a little overkill if you ask me, but I’m fine.”

Alya’s face crumples, and it looks like she’s trying not to cry. She comes up and sits next to Marinette on her bed. She grabs a hold of both of her hands and looks right into her eyes. “Mari. Your parents told me - they told me what happened. You don’t have to pretend to be ok to make me feel better, to make us feel better. You’re allowed to feel however you feel and you don’t need to pretend to not be feeling it for our sake.”

Marinette blinks at her in shock. “Alya, I - I’m not … I really am fine. Nothing hurts that much anymore, and I’m only on bedrest to make sure I’m forced to give my heart a rest. I am frustrated, being cooped up like this when I feel perfectly fine, but that’s it, really. I’m not lying or faking or pretending or anything. I swear. I don’t even remember most of it. Any of it, really. I just remember I had a bad cough that didn’t go away, and then I woke up in the hospital. But I’m fine.”

Marinette squeezes Alya’s hands in hers and says, “You’re such a great friend. The best. I love you, girl.” Alya huffs out a laugh at the familiar term of endearment, and let’s go of Marinette’s hands to wipe the tears off her face.

“No girl, I love you.”

“No no no! I love you the most! You have to let me win this one, Alya!” She throws herself back onto her bed and raises her hand to her forehead dramatically. “I’ve been injured! I’m on bedrest, Alya! You must let me win!”

Alya rolls her eyes and sits cross legged on the bed across from Marinette. “Fine. Just this once! And only because you’re on bed rest!”

Marinette smiles smugly at her as she sits up, and Alya immediately shoves her back into her pillow.

“Alya! I’m injured!”

“Oh, whatever. Now sit up so we can do each other’s nails and talk about what’s been going on this week. You’ll never believe how Adrien has been acting.”

Marinette goes cold, and she uses the excuse of going to get the nail supplies to take the time to collect herself.

Tikki phases into the bag of nail supplies when Alya looks away, probably busy texting the class that Marinette is fine.

“Marinette. He can’t get you here. He doesn’t know who you are. He made his bed and now he’s lying in it, and it is not your fault. If you want to blame anyone, blame me. If he wants to blame anyone, he can blame me.” Her face is solemn as she looks into Marinette’s eyes and uses the old tongue, to remind her who she’s speaking to, to remind her what Tikki is. “It was my decision.”

Marinette nods shakily, and she closes her eyes for a moment and takes a deep breath. “I know. I know. Thank you. You’re right. It’s just - still a bit of a shock. Ok, a big shock. Knowing that Chat is … was him. It’s just. It makes me kind of sick, to be honest. Now I know what kind of person he really is. I’ve seen his true face. The person he is when his actions don’t have consequences. I hate it. I hate it.”

“Marinette! Do you need help grabbing the stuff? You’re still technically on bed rest! Girl! Let me grab those!” Alya is suddenly next to her, all but snatching the bag of supplies out of her hands, and notices that Marinette’s complexion is kind of pale, her eyes a little distant.

“Mari? Do you need to sit down? Do you need me to get your parents?”

She blinks back at her, and smiles sheepishly. “No, but you’re right, the bag was a little much for me to be carrying at this point, even though I thought I felt fine. I think I just need to sit down for a little bit. Thank you.”

They spend the rest of the night doing each other’s nails and makeup and gossiping, and Alya notices Marinette’s attempts at steering the conversation away from Adrien, and takes the hint. Maybe the life and death experience has made her realize something she’s not ready to share, and she needs to move on. She’s not pushing it. Not this soon, maybe not ever unless Marinette is truly willing to talk about it.

All she can do is be here to support Marinette, to be there for her.

*****

Wang Fu has made countless mistakes in his life. The most recent of which, which is also the last mistake he’ll ever make, was pissing off the Kwami of Creation. He will die soon, but Tikki made sure to give him enough time to dwell on his mistakes, which is exactly what he’s doing.

Now that he’s forced to think about it, he has to admit, at least to himself, that he doesn’t really know what he was thinking. He can’t recall why he made the decisions he did. What prompted him. What drove him.

He knew Adrien wasn’t a true destruction soul. He knew. He even performed a spell on Adrien that he found in the grimoire before he gave him the miraculous.

It was a spell to unleash the spirit of destruction from whomever it was cast upon. It was used on true destruction souls to help solidify their bond with Plagg, to help them come into their full potential sooner in times of dire need.

He hadn’t known it was only to be used on true destruction souls. He didn’t know what it would do to a soul that wasn’t one of true destruction. He hadn’t realized, hadn’t stopped to think for even a moment about the power of the miraculous. The power behind it. The power of destruction. A cataclysm. What it could do to a person, to their soul.

He didn’t realize it until now, lying on the floor of his shop, body bruised and broken at the hands of the boy he once trusted with the power of destruction. He saw the look in Adrien’s eyes. He knew something wasn’t right.

He didn’t realize it until it was too late. Too late for him, at least.

Before he passes out from the pain he has one fleeting thought. He’s grateful. He’s grateful that Tikki saw what was happening, saw what he couldn’t, what he wouldn’t. Tikki took the actions needed. He will die, but Marinette is alive. She will be a good guardian. The greatest.

He has to die for her to live, to thrive. He has made too many mistakes, and although he won’t make any more, he would never have acknowledged them if it weren’t for this. He was too selfish, too stubborn, and Tikki knew that. This is the only way.

He’s just sorry it took this long.

*****

tags (there are some names that it wouldn’t let me tag, I don’t know why but I did my best to get everyone so sorry if you’re one of the ones that didn’t get tagged!): @smolplantmum @vixen-uchiha @lavenderchaitea @tired-butterfly @marinettepotterandplagg @interobanginyourmom @saphiraazure2708 @starwindmaden @valeks-princess @scribblinggraveyard @justanothersepticeyefan @gray-of-the-fallen @alissasmith21 @corabeth11 @northernbluetongue @cravethosecrazysquares @elmokingkong @emeraldpuffguide @hauntedwintersweets @legendaryneckjudgestudent @nanakeid @akalovelymaybe @the-potato-beeper @trainflavor @seraphichana @gwennex @jinxthe1 @thequeenofpotatoeunicornss @demigodgirl20031 @silvergold-swirl @random-posts-and-stuff @literalfantrash @miss-chaos-2710 @elliecake5 @themamaravenclaw @echpr @risingmoonyue @jeminiikrystal @athena452 @reyna-avila-ramirez-alreanaldo @hufflejournals @ladybug-182 @im-a-useless-and-shitty-blob @silviastudentmoon @marinahrasauce @adrianarfox @dorianelle @maya-custodios-dionach @sarcastic-jenny @purefandomsalt

[badatusernames]

CHOJI, SHIKAMARU, LEE, GAARA & HINATA!! ITS A LOT IM SORRY

THANK U FOR THIS...admittedly some answers may be a lil short just so i can like. Get to them all.

EDIT: IDK WHY IT LOOKS LIKE THIS. IM SO TIRED. IM SORRY ITS JUST A LONGASS NARUTO POST ON YOUR DASH I TRIED MY FUCKIN BEST YALL

SEND ME A CHARACTER AND I’LL DO THIS;

Chouji (man i’ve seen it spelled both ways and i’m just used to typing Chouji at this point sorry)

Sexuality Headcanon: Pansexual!!  Gender Headcanon: Cis male A ship I have with said character: SHIKAMARU. SHIKAMARU. SHIKAMARU. SHIKAMARUUUU, my god...just, everything about their dynamic makes my heart melt, the way they’re both people who are easily dismissed by others and how they have such UNFALTERING FAITH in each other. chouji knows how much of a genius shikamaru is, knows very well the fact that despite his laziness, once he commits to something he’s in it for the LONG HAUL, the way shikamaru just believes so steadfastly in chouji, considering him stronger than NEJI FOR FUCKS SAKE...they like. get one another, the kind of relationship where you can be yakking away one minute and then just sitting in contented silence the next. they can just laze around. maybe play video games and snack. and sometimes...kiss. and it’s so chill even with that latent tenderness their later relationship develops and they both just feel so safe and KNOWN and familiar like. love your best friend. anyway everyone slept on shikacho and y’all should be ashamed the naruto fandom is enormous and finding pretty much ANY content for it is almost impossible aside from the small (if lovely and amazing) tag and i’m pretty hyperfixated on it if you couldn’t tell holy SHIT.  A BROTP I have with said character: i’m really not a fan of ino taking potshots at him for his weight and outright shaming him, but once she grows out of that i absolutely love their friendship. listen, you know that post thats like--hold on

thats just them, thanks. A NOTP I have with said character: i have nothing against karui but canon is fucking dead to me and my opinions on p much all the “endgame” ships range from utterly neutral to absolute loathing. their relationship is on neither end of the spectrum, but. eh. definitely not into it. A random headcanon: he keeps nursing injured animals back to health because he’s just that fucking sweet and bringing them back to his house to keep them warm and safe while they recover and his team knows vaguely about this and ino and shikamaru like to poke fun at him for it but since they don’t tend to encounter said animals, it’s not really a huge deal.

of course they stop by his house one day bc he hadn’t shown up for training which is annoying and frankly a little concerning and finding the house mostly empty ino just bursts on into chouji’s room only to immediately have the opossum he’s been caring for latch its little paws on her face and cling.

it’s a bad morning. General Opinion over said character: literally one of my absolute favorites of all time and it really breaks my heart how overlooked he is in the fandom (seriously y’all...). i think kishimoto is kind of a stupid hack and the Fat Jokes are really grating and it sucks to see that so intrinsically tied to his character (like. just let him be fat. jesus christ) but his kindness and overall relaxed, loyal and lovable nature has me just melting. i adore him. 

Shikamaru

Sexuality Headcanon: He’s gay, scoob. (I could also talk a lot about how his earlier misogyny is both a product of being a whiny tween and also some internalized frustration of like WHATS SO GREAT ABOUT GIRLS. UGH. I DONT. STOP TELLING ME IM GONNA FALL IN LOVE WITH ONE ONE DAY DAD JESUS. and let’s be real, thats frustrating, even if it aint an excuse)  Gender Headcanon: he uses he/him pronouns because it’s just what he’s used to and comfortable with but man gender is such a drag... A ship I have with said character: SEE ABOVE SHIKACHO RANT A BROTP I have with said character: naruto! he and naruto have a really adorable friendship and i love love LOVE that he and chouji were shown to be kind and accepting of him even when most people were shunning him. also he’s so fucking dumb i love seeing shikamaru meticulously plan out something only to have naruto shriek into battle and ruin all of it. love those guys. stupid bros.  A NOTP I have with said character: ok. im sorry i just. loathe sh*katema i really do. i haaaate the way kishimoto writes this whole “ew a GIRL” “ew a MAN” vibe with the like OOOH BUT THEYRE GONNA LIKE EACH OTHER vibe like. 

don’t get me wrong i adore them as friends, i think they’re fantastic scathing and witty pals who bitch about anything and everything including each other

but they’re also both gay and kishimoto can suck my nuts byeeee A random headcanon: sometimes pakkun just fucking Shows up and chills with him. shikamaru wants absolutely no part of this but is way too lazy to like. do anything about it so it’s just this guy and a dog sitting in a field chillin and occasionally him piping up like ‘hey kid. remember when i bit your hand? yeah? haha, man time sure does fly.” while shikamaru is just. go aWAY.   General Opinion over said character: if you told 9 year old me watching naruto for the first time my favs were gonna be a three way tie of lee, shikamaru and chouji i never would have fucking believed you but here we are. i love him. i absolutely love him. he’s such a whiny bastard and a really good depiction of burnout genius who doesnt want to do ANYTHING, but his intellect is an absolute DELIGHT to watch. i love him very much. 

Lee

Sexuality Headcanon: he’s pan!! this is a boy that crushes easily and crushes hard on just about anyone!!!! Gender Headcanon: cis male A ship I have with said character: ok i ship him a lot with neji actually? what with how neji grows during the course of the series to regard lee with the respect he deserves is really sweet and there’s just something so infinitely adorable about him going around being the hammiest, most ridiculously earnest, kind and enthusiastic person and neji, now that he isn’t constantly bitter and angry at the world can finally really see that? lee is always happily dropkicking his way into his life, like he wouldn’t have it any other way, and i think that’s just...so sweet A BROTP I have with said character: SAKURAAAAA. oh my GOD do i adore their relationship. ever since lee saved her and basically just gave her a glimpse of his...lee-ness, the fact her negative opinion of him IMMEDIATELY flipped and gave her such a strong admiration and fondness for him kills me DEAD. she always treats him with so much respect and the fact she’s quick to rag on anyone making fun of him melts my HEART!! and on lee’s side, his little crush on her is adorable of course, but the sheer strength of the friendship that comes from it is more than infatuation could ever offer him. i want them to hang out together and talk about their troubles...i want them to make each other laugh and be so very kind to each other...i want sakura to storm over and throw him over her shoulder to TAKE A BREAK ALREADY when he’s been training too hard for too long. god. A NOTP I have with said character: honestly i’m pretty happy with a lot of lee ships! the only ones i view with obvious disdain are the ones with creepy age gaps honestly. A random headcanon: out of everyone in the leaf genin, he’s probably the closest anyone’s ever come to someone who EVERYONE is at least distantly friendly towards. like god have you SEEN how warm and inviting and concerned he is the SECOND he sees that naruto is feeling down? i get the sense he’s immediately inclined to provide that kind of support to any of his comrades, even the ones that Resist it.

you think sasuke is the most popular among the leaf genin? puh-LEASE. everyone looks on rock lee with at least a LITTLE bit of warmth. thats just fact. General Opinion over said character: since my first viewing of naruto he has been my Absolute fav, and while chouji and shikamaru are veeery close to stealing that spot, one look at him and i feel he’s gonna be on top forever. probably the best written character kishimoto’s ever produced that’s remained in  the main cast (tho i dont speak for shipudden onwards who fucking knows, but the truth of it is is i adore rock lee)

Gaara

Sexuality Headcanon: Panromantic Asexual Gender Headcanon: kind of like shikamaru, i feel like he uses he/him pronouns but also doesn’t particularly....Care? A ship I have with said character: ok so it wasnt until my naruto rewatch that i really started falling into this but i think him and naruto are super cute? while i loathe kishimoto for ruining so much abt this show he really is good at creating good foils to naruto, and gaara is no exception--and the way naruto changes his life by just kicking his ass (and proving he’s not just a Simp or smth) and then just, extending genuine empathy and a REAL sense of truly relating to where he’s coming from re:his upbringing? the EFFECT it has on him, bro!!!! my god!!! i feel like they’re that opposites attract ship that don’t clash constantly but instead fall into this adorable synergy and understanding? and i think thats so sweet A BROTP I have with said character: ...is it cheating to just put temari and kankuro here? bc they are literally his siblings but my GOD do i love their relationship. there’s something so deeply sad about their initial situation??? like having siblings that either are deeply fucking afraid of you or clearly don’t care for your well being whatsoever, it’s such a tragic scenario, and the times where they really do show legitimate care for gaara just breaks my heart...but the GROWTH. THE DEVELOPMENT. THE HEALING. i love the sand siblings so much, i am a STRONG advocate of seeing the development from estranged family to loving, occasionally bickering siblings who absolutely Love Each Other A NOTP I have with said character: uhhhh same with lee in that i don’t really mind most of the ships i’ve seen him in? while i don’t particularly ship gaalee i think its also Very Cute, and really it all just seems pretty valid as long as people aren’t being creepy? A random headcanon: i’ve been wracking my brain for one for a good 20 minutes and i just don’t have one he’s such a mystery to me/????? i love him but he is an enigma?? General Opinion over said character: oh my god he’s such an edgelord in the beginning. i’ve been doing a lot of this naruto rewatch with my friend @drashseed (a simply phenomenal fella 10/10 follow him) and every single time he talked the only valid response just became “ok gaara”

but his backstory? utterly HEARTWRENCHING. and his growth is just. absolutely divine, i adore him. thank you mister sandman for doing so much for us all.

Hinata

Sexuality Headcanon: Bisexual Gender Headcanon: cis woman A ship I have with said character: listen. i think kibahina is........Really Really cute. he cares about her so MUCH??? and there’s a certain tenderness to his interactions with her that’s just really evident whenever you see em together? i really love that you get the sense hinata is COMFORTABLE around him!!! like! i feel like hinata really deserves to have a partner who sees her when she ISN’T blushing and stammering? when she’s like? legitimately comfortable and being HERSELF? (dgmw the blushing is adorable i fucking love her but its one of the gripes i have with naruhina that so much of it is just naruto being oblivious and her having a small panic attack) the comfort she and kiba have make for a chill, adorable relationship i just cry over constantly A BROTP I have with said character: so i was GONNA put naruto here, but technically i already put him there for shikamaru’s so i’m gonna say neji!!! uhhh OBVIOUSLY they got off to a. very rough start but the way their dynamic changed (or perhaps in a way reverted back to the times they interacted before neji’s father died and temporarily killed his Human Decency) into this respect and fondness that’s just...such a delight to watch? i’m a SUCKER for slow and mutual reconciliation and there are just so many sweet moments between them. they are FAMILY, BRO!!! THEY CARE FOR EACH OTHER, BRO!!!!!!!!!! A NOTP I have with said character: ...at the risk of sounding like a broken record, i think a lot of hinata ships are quite cute? i guess i’m gonna have to say sasuke. because like.

has. he ever even looked at her. please. jesus christ. she deserves so much better. A random headcanon: she is a LOT physically stronger than she looks!! a lot of her combat techniques rely on taijustu after all so it’d make sense that she puts a lot of effort into physical training alongside chakra control.

i’m trying to say she’s strong. not as strong as sakura but. she can lift her bf up over her head (he’s dying hes dying he’s dYING he lOVES HER SO MUCH). it’s pretty fuckign badass

General Opinion over said character: i LOVE her??? honest to god i really really do--honestly while i dislike the direction they went in canon with her, i really loved seeing her be motivated to grow and change the parts of herself she hated to become a stronger person.

that and she’s so fucking cute and sweet and i just??????? bless her honestly.

[phoebehalliwell]

What does Wyatt Halliwell act like in his teenagers age? and what is his personality? Is he bad boy type and ladies man/player/womanizer? Wyatt is more like his daddy boy. Chris Halliwell is more like his mama’s boy, like he is responsible and serious about school and other things. Can you do it like headcanons? Also, what is their interest in women like wild they date/fell in love with a female demon?

okay so this ask made me remember that wyatt is not actually gay in canon but for all intents and purposes every time i write about know that i am writing him as a gay man. But, for this ask, i will write for a wyatt that is attracted to women.

for starters, the wyatt that we did see in canon is this really open and earnest guy who very clearly believes in good and sort of an intrinsic plan for everything and definitely holds this belief that if you keep an open mind and an open heart, everything will fall right into place. so i think he’s totally a hopeless romantic. i also think he’d be really self conscious because he really is this all powered embodiment of good magic meaning that within magic circles and receives A Lot of attention all the time, so he feels the need to be like especially likable (especially because the elders were so scared he’s turn evil that they tries to kill him so uhh better prove that you’re so very super Not Evil). so like, translating over into mortal circles, he can’t necessarily shed this really need to be an insanely likable, good person. and bc of this whole being a good, likable person, who’s also like tall and blond but still has this edge of mystery bc like wtf why does he mysteriously vanish for long periods of time w no explanation what’s up with that i feel like the type of girl that is really attracted to wyatt are the one’s who read romance novels. and i think the attraction goes both ways because they both sort of share this honest belief in true love and all that passion for these tales of finding great love and keeping it against all odds. that being said i think all of his relationships end pretty poorly because there’s always this jump then fall intense dramatic passion that almost always devolves into wither one of them getting to clingy or someone getting too intense or serious. i think wyatt genuinely falls in love with almost everyone he dates, and has both broken several hearts and gotten his heart broken several times. i feel like he would never be on like really bad terms with any of his exs but i don’t think that he would really be friends or like on speaking terms with any of them bc it’s just too awkward to try to be casual and small talk with anyone who you have shared such an almost like overdramatic relationship with. voted most likely to write a song on acoustic guitar for his girlfriend.

chris i think is really the opposite of wyatt like again if your brother is like this adored figure who is very much a people person and liked by everyone you can either be a try hard and try to worm your way into his circles in an cringy desperate manner or you can be aloof and act like you really don’t care and specifically build your social circles around those your brother isn’t involved in (there is, of course, the third option of just being like yourself as a normal person and not letting your familial relationships dictate who you become friends with but uhh chris didn’t think of that one) so he definitely hangs out with the misfits and only really dates those in his circle. and i say “date” but it is like the loosest meaning of the word. while wyatt goes all in and falls in love every time, chris tends to keep his armor up. he just,, he doesn’t want to go through all the effort of revealing his true self and being honest and open and all that, especially if there’s no guarantee it’ll yield anything good. i mean, that’s what wyatt does and he’s seen his brother’s heart break countless times. and on top of that he’s really become wrapped up in sort of this brand of skinny tall brunet with daddy issues because a lot of people really find that attractive. but no, he is not willing to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.

as far as a demon love interest: i think chris would be most likely to have a relationship with a demon as again his idea of relationship is really guarded it’s not rooted in trust its very surface level so like they would both go into this relationship knowing it’s a horrible idea and will never last, but at least it’ll be fun. wyatt on the other hand i don’t think would ever knowingly date a demon because whoa! bad idea! but i think that if he were to be conned it would very much be a phoebe situation because once again he loves with his whole heart he’s very open and vulnerable. that being said, i think wyatt prizes his family above all else so if it was a cole situation he would definitely vanquish his love to save his family. but if it was more of a accidentally falling in love with a demon after a coffee shop meet cute where she doesn’t know he’s charmed and he doesn’t know she’s a demon that could have slightly more potential. if i were to do a plotline like this tho, i would actually make her a warlock and not a demon, because i think warlocks can defect to good and become witches, as it’s shown it can go the other way as well. demon is just too permanent. that being said, i still don’t think a wyatt demon relationship would prosper because it’s just too dangerous. again, he’s more of a hopeless romantic, the element of danger and the potential of betrayal isn’t a thrill ride it’s an encroaching fear. and especially with his family breathing down his neck bc they have seen how bad a demon witch relationship can turn, i don’t see him going through with that. even if he loved her, i think he would still break up with her (now if you then wanna pull a two households both alike in dignity situation it could be done but as previously stated i think demons are really difficult to redeem in the charmed universe)