#but fuck sometimes I just feel like I’m being torn apart and I don’t know how to fix that

[miniwheat77]

I’m feeling mean ghost lately 😫

!CW! NSFW, Smut, non-con, dub-con, unprotected p in v sex, innocent!reader, blood, violence (you’ve been warned. Sorry if I missed any.)

Mean!Ghost with innocent medic!reader. Convincing you that he needs to fuck you to feel better. He’s sick when his balls are full, he needs to empty them so he can feel better. Squishing you with his massive body, thrusting his big cock into you, hearing you whimper and whine beneath him. Cheeks flushed and you looked fucked out. But he’s almost there, and you can take it, can’t you?

Mean!Ghost who’s possessive over you. When new recruits talk to you, you think there’s nothing wrong. You don’t know that he’s staring them down, watching their every move. And that one recruit that groped you, when Price almost had to make Ghost resign because of how badly he’d hurt him. His knuckles bloody and bruised. Simon made sure he’d never ever touch another girl, especially not his. You noticed later that same night as he bullied your cunt that his knuckles were torn apart. Asking through whines what happened. He only fucked you harder, and told you not to worry about it.

Mean!Ghost with hyperfem!reader. He bullies you constantly about your pink socks that peek over your boots sometimes, how everything your family sends you is pink or pastel colored. Your pink duvet and sweet voice. How you’re always so nice to everyone on base, it makes him sick. His favorite thing ever is the squeals and whines you let out when he’s lapping at your cunt, teasing you about your pink panties. Tonguing your clit and curling two of his thick fingers into your spongy spot. You’re teasing him with all of your girly stuff, he just needs to show you who’s boss.

Mean!Ghost with a reader who back talks him at first, firing back when he starts in. Who doesn’t realize how serious he is until he’s got you pressed up against the shower wall, hand over your mouth. His stomach presses into your back, his cock forcing its way into your gummy walls, hearing your cry. “I’ll make you think twice before you fucking talk back.” He growls, you’re tight around him. He’s rough, his thrusts are brutal and forceful. He’d snuck into the showers while you were there, you didn’t even hear him coming, not until it was too late. Tears stream down your face and he taunts you every second that he’s inside of you, spilling his spunk inside of you and filling you full, leaving you there to clean up the mess he’d made.

Mean!Ghost who promises that he’ll be gentle with you. He swears on it. He knows he’s rough and he knows you don’t like it sometimes, he promises that he’ll be gentle. But he just can’t help himself when he’s inside of you, he has to take what’s his. The way you cry is so pretty, you’re so so pretty when you cry he can’t help it. It’s your fault really! :( his bruising thrusts and the tears that stream down your face. He’s sorry, he really is. You’re just too tight on him. Your pussy is made for him, you milk him so good. He’s a man with needs and you’re made for him, made to please him. You’re his good girl, you can handle it.

Mean!Ghost who hides behind his mask. Nobody understands why you get so nervous when he’s around. Body going rigid, tears pricking your eyes. He’s so kind to you, why are you so intimidated? Ghost of course would never let on what he does to you behind closed doors. It started out as something so innocent but quickly turned into an obsession. Bullying your pretty pussy until you couldn’t take it anymore. Sobbing and begging him to stop. How he’d spank your ass when you’re bad. His big hands could work the best orgasms from you, so much so that it started to hurt and you started to cry. But he didn’t care. He liked it. You dreaded being on watch with him. He’d make you sit on his cock. Cockwarming him the entire time. He could take it, until he couldn’t and got tired of it. Fucking up into you. By the time your shift was over, your pussy was full and abused by him. His balls were empty and he was so relieved.

Mean!Ghost who fucks you hard when Price isn’t on base. He wants everyone to know who you belong to. He makes you cry out and moan so loud. Leaving marks on you, fingerprint bruises on your hips, handprints on your ass. Marks around your throat and hickeys all over you. Your neck, chest, tits, thighs. Anywhere he could mark you, he would. He could see that loving look in your eyes when you looked at him, how you could love him didn’t make sense to him. But as long as you spread those pretty legs for him, he didn’t care. You were his, all his. Everyone knew it, and that’s what he wanted.

[grippingbeskar]

i wanna be yours

frank castle x fem!reader

warnings: explicit content minors dni! 18+ (mxf, lil splash of dirty talk, first time together?) swearing, mentions of canon typical violence

a/n: based on this request from the lovely @lemon-world1 you know i’d write whatever you give me okay <3

“Frank.” You breathe out at the sight of him. He’s the last person you would have thought would be on your doorstep. You thought… you could have sworn on your life that yesterday would have been the last time you’d ever see him.

It broke something in you, but it was for the best.

Your work was over. Whatever you did or didn’t have with him, all the late night stake outs and crammed car rides, it had to end when your business did. You both knew that. You didn’t live lives that were compatible with indulging the warmth he gave you every time he looked at you like he did.

Like he was right now.

He’s panting like he ran here, cropped hair sticking to the side of his face. Rain drips off his nose, slips over the healed cut on his cheek. You remember how he got it, how his blood splattered across your face and how you screamed his name. It was the first time you realised you needed him, that little scare.

“What are you doing here?” You manage to speak, but he’s not said a word. He’s just breathing hard, both hands gripping the edge of your doorframe, eyes boring into you. He’s so tall, he always looks down on you. Usually it doesn’t bother you, but right now you feel small. Like prey, waiting to be hunted down and torn apart. That’s how intense he is sometimes, and it’s impossible not to be sucked into it.

He steps into your apartment, and you step back to give him the room. Your eyes flutter, confusion and temptation swirling in a sudden battle in your stomach. This was not smart. You were a lone wolf— you worked alone. That’s how you survive.

You should tell him to leave.

Now.

His hand slips over yours, gently, to where your holding the door open. He takes over, and shuts it behind him. Your hand follows it, and when the lock clicks your fate shut, his hand doesn’t let yours go.

“Frank.” You say again, weaker this time. He lets his hand wander higher on your arm.

“I thought about it.” He says, his voiced dry and strained.

“Thought about what?”

“You. I’m always fuckin’ thinking about you.” He shakes his head, like he’s mad at himself for it.

You understand. You can’t get him out of your head, either.

“I’m not lettin’ you leave.” Frank says as he steps closer to you, and meets no resistance when you let him tug your hips closer to his. Despite the rain, he’s warm on your body, lighting up all the pieces of you that he’s made his own. “Don’t go.”

“I have to— our job is done here. This—“ You gesture between the both of you, where your chests nearly touch “— this has to be done, too. We put everyone in danger if I stay.”

“I don’t give a fuck.” He nearly growls it out. You bite your lip to stop a smile, his hands moving up to dance along your ribcage. He drops your eyes and scans your body, drawing along the line where the two of you meet. “I can’t let you go.”

“I don’t want to let you go, either. But what about—“

“I’ll figure it out. Just tell me you’ll stay with me.” His eyebrows furrow on his hardened face, and you want to smooth the lines of him. To take the tension out of his face like you know you can.

His words pull your heartstrings. You know you sacrifice everything, put everyone in danger if the two of you risk being seen together. But… the feeling of his hands along your body, the way his head dips and leaves a trail of zapping warmth along your jaw as he softly drags his mouth along your skin, tasting you. You couldn’t say no to him. You wouldn’t dream of it.

“Stay with me.” He calls to you again, and you’re already nodding when he claims your mouth and kisses you deep.

It moves quickly. It’s hard and fast, the way he scoops you up and wraps your legs around his hips. He spins you around, your apartment suddenly foreign to you as you get lost in the tangle of his tongue on yours. Things clatter and smash as he shoves you onto the nearest table, pressing your back to the wall. He groans when your hips roll against him, nipping your bottom lip with his teeth.

He grabs at your hips, your sides, your face— any part of you close enough to hold and pull closer is covered by his claiming hands. You drag your fingers through his wet hair, dragging the tips of your nails over his scalp. He groans again, muffling the sound against you as he starts to bruise your neck with his wandering mouth. You let your head fall back, feeling him suck at the skin under your jaw.

You want him to do it harder. More noticeable. You want people to know— you were his. Fuck everyone else, fuck safety. This was worth burning the world to the ground. His teeth nip at the sensitive skin, smoothing an apology with a warm kiss, and you moan his name.

“Frank.” The room echos it back to you, and you move again. Frank lifts you, attaching his mouth back to yours and encouraging the slow roll of your hips in his hands. He’s cupped your ass completely, gripping the flesh and slipping his hands under your shorts so he can touch more of you.

He was greedy like this. Always wanting more, wanting you to bare nothing to him. It was impossible to be insecure with him— he bathed every inch of your skin in adoration, whether it be with his mouth, his fingers or the rest of him. He was obsessive— hungry for it, and most of all he was fucking insatiable.

He lets your ass hit the cool marble of the kitchen counter, tugging the shorts down your bare legs as he kisses you deeper. He throws the scraps of material as far away as he can, like the further he throws it the longer you’ll be like this in front of him. Naked from the waist down, spread and warm in front of him. Just for him.

“Fuck, you’re gorgeous.” He mumbles against you, then one of his hands pushes your chest back. You catch yourself with your forearms, giving you a perfect view of Frank dropping to his knees and burying himself between your legs.

The moan you let out at the indulgent lick of his mouth through your folds is drowned out by his own. He hooks his arms around your body, letting your legs lock him in, and you feel the soft brush of his hair against your inner thighs as he drops lower, then comes back up.

He leaves no part of you without the pleasure of his mouth, messily fucking you open with his tongue like he’d fade away without the taste of you committed to memory. His lips wrap around your clit, and you feel the satisfied grin he gets when you cry out and shudder. He grips your thighs harder to keep you right where he wants you, and your eyes roll back into your head just as he looks up at you.

It’s too much— the skilled movements of his tongue and mouth against you. He knows you too well, knows exactly how to get you off in either the quickest or longest way. If he wants to give it to you, he can do it in record time. If he wants to tease you, he’d know how to keep you in bed for hours. Days, if he wanted. But right now, he only wants one thing, and it’s the reason why he’s being so giving. So, so generous.

He wants you to stay.

You tug hard on his hair, feeling the vibrations of his groan rush through to your chest. Your heart beats faster and faster, the pounding in your ears blurring everything to a dull white. When you cum, he just gets faster, wanting to taste more of you, feel the way your legs shake and your fingers wrap through his short hair and your hips ride his face through the high.

His head moves with you, side to side, up and down, the sounds so pornographic you think your neighbours will most definitely call the cops, but you can’t think enough to care. You scream his name, your body giving out and your back pressing flat against the countertop. Frank starts moving again when your breathing slows, the heat of his mouth kissing up your hip bones, leaving the mixed wetness of you and him along your skin and up your stomach.

“Baby… stay with me. Stay with me.” He tugs you closer, your legs dangling off the side. He’s now got you face to face, nose pressing against yours. In your post-bliss haze, time slows a little. You let your eyes drift over his face, fingers slip like the raindrops down his cheeks, soft and gentle. “I want you. Stay.”

“I’ll stay. I’ll stay.” You nod quickly, and kiss him hard. Your nose squishes his, and it only presses you closer when he wraps both his arms around your waist. You shuffle further on to the edge of the counter, and then your hands slip down further. “Here. Now.”

You had done a lot with Frank, but you hadn’t broken this barrier. You hadn’t crossed this final line, and you couldn’t think of a better time than now. To prove to him that you were his, that you wanted this as badly as he did. You didn’t know how to say it, but you could show him.

You undo his belt, and he just rests his hands on your hips and watches. Your deft fingers struggle just for a moment with the button, the watchful eye he gives you making you nervous. Your hands shake, and when you finally get them undone, he covers yours with his own.

“You tell me what you want. You call the shots.” He notices your nerves, and puts the gun in your hand. Hands over control. You shove his boxers down just enough, mouth almost watering at the sight.

“I want you. I want…” Your hand trails over his length, hot and heavy in your hand, and he groans, head falling to your shoulder. “I want this.”

His hands fall away, resting on your hips again, thumbs tracing circles along the skin. You spread your legs wider, accommodating his massive frame, and you both gasp into each others mouths when the length of him presses against your wet heat.

He looks up at you, and leans closer, pressing his forehead against yours. He kisses you, an attempt to distract, and it works so quickly you almost forget the pain of him sliding into you. You cry out softly, but it’s lost in the taste of his mouth, and you can feel him holding himself back, too. His grip on your hips is tight, and he can’t concentrate on kissing you when he bottoms out, instead pulling away and cursing.

“Oh, fuck.” He growls, then dives back to your mouth. He doesn’t move just yet, letting you get used to the stretch, but it doesn’t take long until your wriggling on the counter top, wanting nothing more for him to move.

The pain dissipates, and when he rolls his hips back into you again, it disappears completely. Instead it’s replaced by a foreign bloom of pleasure, one that no one else has made you feel. Maybe it’s because none of them have held your heart in their hands like he does. This feels different, because it is different. It’s terrifying and consuming you form the inside out, but it feels too good to stop, and you get lost in it before you can make sense of it.

“More, Frank. God— I want more.” You moan into his ear, and he bites gently on your shoulder as he speeds the snap of his hips. He hits you deeper like this, your legs wrapped around his back so he can’t get too far. Whatever you ask, he gives it to you ten-fold, so when you say you want more, he fucking delivers.

He drives into you, making you see stars with the approach of another rush of pleasure. One of your hands claws at his back, raking lines against the skin you’ve dipped under his shirt to find. His muscles flex under your harsh touch, and he fucks you faster when he feels your nails scratch along him. You know he loves the marks as much as you do— he’s yours as much as you are his, and he doesn’t care if people know, either.

“You feel so f—uhh-fucking good, baby. Fuck, I can’t last.” His voice is more broken than you’ve ever heard it, a scratchy sort of low growl as he buries his head into the crook of your neck. You can’t find words beside the strangled moans he fucks from you, and you just lock your legs behind him in a silent plea.

Your arms dig into him as you cum again, and he only manages two more strong drives of his hips against yours before he’s cumming with you, the feeling of you tightening around him pushing him over the edge with you. He keeps his head buried against you as he cums, singing a broken chorus of your name.

He stays buried inside of you when he picks you up again, your head not fully clear as your arms wrap around his neck and keep him close. You don’t know where he’s carrying you, and you think you don’t care until your body hits the bed— and then you sigh in relief.

Any tension that he didn’t fuck out of you is gone when he keeps you on top of him, letting your head flop and body relax against him and the fuzzy comforter you’ve chosen for the coldest nights in New York. His fingers push the fabric of your shirt up, and then dance along the line of your spine. The light sensation gives you goosebumps, and brings you back to reality, one that is almost as blissful as the dreams you’ve had.

“You’ll stay.” He says after a while, and you manage a nod. Just one, but it’s enough, a hum of satisfaction vibrating through his chest. When he wraps his arms around you, you drift into sleep, knowing you’d do whatever he asked.

But for now, you’ll stay.

[sourcherryandsprinkles]

pls could you maybe do something about chad being the readers brother and finding out they are dating Ethan ? 💗

Let’s ignore the age issue (reader can’t be younger bc she won’t be at college, but let’s pretend) because a lot of things don’t make sense in horror movies and that's just the way they are

my taglists are here + you can send requests here at any time

—

Falling for your brother’s roommate happened slowly and unexpectedly. It started with shy smiles across the couch on movie nights, then casual lunch dates because you both had a two hours lunch gap on Tuesdays and one evening, Chad was tired so he went to bed before the movie finished, but you stayed with Ethan and one thing led to another.

Now, you and Ethan were in a secret relationship because of the delicate situation. You knew your brother and you knew he would react strongly to you and Ethan. They were close friends, but you were his sister first and Chad was very protective.

You thought you were careful, but one morning Chad was heading to class and he saw you and Ethan together on campus. Your light pink backpack on your shoulder was hard to miss in a crowded place. He didn’t think much of it…until he saw Ethan grabbing your face and kissing you.

That’s when Chad’s jaw clenched and his eyes flashed with fury. Forgetting about class, he strided over and your lips were ripped from Ethan's, forcing you apart.

‘’What the—’’ A shocked gasp left your lips, cutting you off mid-word, as you saw your brother grabbing Ethan by the collar of his shirt and roughly shoving him against the nearest surface.

‘’What the fuck are you doing with my sister, man?’’ Ethan stammered, searching for the right words to explain the situation, but Chad’s angry face had him stunned. ‘’We’ve talked about this. We had an agreement! No messing with my sister, no thinking about my sister.’’ His grip on Ethan's collar tightened as he glared at him, his anger blazing.

Seeing the genuine fear in Ethan’s eyes, you placed a hand on your brother’s shoulder. ‘’Chad! Stop!’’

Chad looked between you and Ethan, torn between his protective instincts and your request.

‘’Let him go,’’ you asked, holding your brother’s gaze with seriousness. ‘’Please.’’

Taken aback by your plea, the seriousness in your voice made Chad pause for a moment. Reluctantly, he released his grip on Ethan and took a step back. His breathing was heavy, and his face was covered with anger. He turned to face you, his expression a mix of betrayal and disappointment.

‘’We had an agreement, and he broke it. He knew how I felt about him making a move on you, and yet he went behind my back.’’

You get his protective big brother side, but he couldn’t control who was allowed or not to date you. That’s just too far.

‘’Don’t make him sound like the bad guy. If anyone did something wrong here, it’s you,’’ you pointed at Chad, pointing a finger at his chest. ‘’You had no right to tell Ethan he wasn’t allowed to like me. You can’t control people’s feelings like that.’’

Ethan, who had been silent until now, spoke up. ‘’Chad, I’m really sorry. I never meant to disrespect our agreement. It wasn't planned, and I understand if you're angry—’’

‘’You, shut up!’’ Chad snapped, but you were quick to bite back.

‘’No, you shut up!’’ Your loud voice made a few heads turn, but you quickly composed yourself again. ‘’I’m not a little kid anymore. I date guys and kiss them…and sometimes they happen to be your roommate. I know this is difficult for you. You’re scared I’m gonna get my heart hurt, but it’s part of life. Ethan and I may be a hard pill to swallow, but take a big gulp of water because he is my boyfriend and I’m not gonna let you come between us.’’

—

Scream taglist: @misfityanii @beautybyfire @iluvscream191 @mariposa555 @bella7866 @o638 @lulubelle14 @luvvtxinityy @frasersgf  @Eddiefrickenmunson @jasperr-the-friendly-ghost @ghostf4cee @thesebitcheslovesosadotcom @wandaswigglywoos @xjennyx2 @jennasslut @thatonesblog  @mikaelsonsstuff @icarly23 @tcddszn  @bt.oliana  @skyesthebomb @a1mzcruml3y @red1culous @iluurmom @popeheywardssecretgf @michaelangdonsslut @byhrxb @kamthecoolest @kattybug @ravenstrueluv @landryslxys @die4niyahhh  @sl4sh3rfuck3r @radiant-whore  @Meadzy21

All and more taglist: @spiokybirdstarfish @kenqki @liidiaaag @hawkegfs  @gillybear17  @areaderinlove @acornacreacure @black-rose-29 @fudge13 @cece05 @rosie-cameron @Caxddce @laylasbunbunny @gemofthenight @beautyb1ade  @hi-bored-as-fcuk-rn  @lovelyy-moonlight @mellabella101 @vxnity713  @marzipaanz  @bisexualgirlsblog @queenofslytherin889 @thatbxtchesblog @softb-tterfly @ethanlandrycanbreakmyheart  @xyzstar  @graceberman3  @Heartsforneteyamsully

[supertrxshwrites]

Bruises Part II

Pairing: Deadpool x Reader

TW//mentions and descriptions of blood, exposed entrails, knife through body parts, a bullet through the body part. open cavity. body gore.

He’s dug bullets out of his body before sometimes they’re healed over and other times they reject falling to the ground with a hollow chime. Not as cool as Wolverine, But this was just uncomfortable. He could feel the steel of the knife weigh in his gut.

After leaving Y/N’s place he peeled his suit off in the bathroom and went in with a much larger knife and some kitchen tongs.

he sat on the toilet, one leg propped up on the tub and the other stretched across the tile. He was sticky covered in blood that started to dry from seeping through his suit, old fluorescents lit up the bathroom with a green hue.

He took a few deep breaths before plunging the hunting knife into his stomach breaking the flesh revealing his entrails, blood painted the tile, pouring out of him like a faucet as he shoves the tongs in. There’s a loud squelch as he fishes for the knife, the pulsing of his heart louder a squish with each pump. For a minute he struggles its slippery it’s hard to look directly into your open body as it starts to heal so he’s really just digging around the cavity when he finally grasps it. He almost has it but it slips.

“Fuck!” He fumed as he kept healing he repeatedly had to gut himself like a fish after being caught.

he pulls his bloody glove off with his teeth the crimson smearing the side of his cheek and reaches in and rips it out throwing it into the sink with a loud clatter.

“Shit!” He huffs out of breath as he stands up and looks into the sink, his stomach healing closed.

The things we do for love.

He rinses off her knife and everything else he used and then he takes sometime to clean his blood from the floor,sink and counter. After a while he showers and collapses into his bed.

***

He finds himself at your door again.

He can’t stay away from you, all roads lead him there even when he’s on a job he’s thinking of you. His stupid idiot brain is being eaten by a parasite and it’s you. Every corner of his mind is being flooded and ravaged, torn apart and pieced together and destroyed again, and even when he’s had bullets go through his skull, or knives plunged through his heart and for a split second fear scurries through him and he thinks maybe this will kill me. He’s still thinking of you, your hair, your scent, the details of your face-

He takes a brief break from these rushing thoughts to knock on your door. Shortly after there you are in a T-shirt and baggy shorts with a trash bag in hand.

“Wade.” You say as you turn around waving him in as you go back to picking up broken glass from the floor.

He walks in and takes in the state of your living room. The fight from the previous night did a lot of damage. We did a lot of damage.

“Y/n-“ you cut him off before he can truly get a word in.

“Wade, what’s going on here? With us? Okay because we have one night stands, we have bloody fights, I go on dates with other people and we fight again and then…then you kiss me.” You drop the trash bag, the glass in its contents clinking together.

“You really kiss me and it’s confusing and I’m lost and angry and I can’t keep up and I can’t keep doing this” You speak a mile a minute as if the words were flying out of you. Wade stares at you from behind the mask and for once he’s silent.

The low hum of your AC breaking up the silence between you, he shifts a bit and you can hear glass crunch under his boots. 

“Y/N.” He strides over to you and you can hear his breath rattle and shake in his chest. He grabs your hand putting your knife in it. 

“I’m so serious right now that I don’t know what we have and I don’t know what this is, but all I know is that when I’m at the bottom of rock bottom and I think there’s nothing left you’re there and when I’m really at the end of my rope I mean really free fallin’ you’re there and when I see you on dates and making your way back home only for me to be waiting for you to fight because I’m an idiot who can’t express how he feels. You’re still my favorite mouse to chase and you’re there.”

(Stay tuned for part 3 I didn’t wanna make a super long post so yeah ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

Tags: @marsyay78

[armandfucker]

I started this fic the other day but can’t remember where I was going with it other than angsty character study. Any thoughts on where to go next would be appreciated!!!

“It wasn’t a secret, Armand. Just because I didn’t tell you about something doesn’t mean it’s a secret.”

“You bought a house and never mentioned it to me, that’s a big lie of omission.”

“You’re making it sound worse on purpose! I bought a house to rent out as an investment.”

“Then why are there no tenants?”

“I’ve been pretty busy for the past five years. It’s not like I’ve had a chance to go to Norway to vet tenants.”

“We were in Norway two years ago.”

“We were on holiday! I didn’t want to ruin it by doing business.”

“I don’t understand you, Daniel. I tell you everything.”

“Don’t lie to us both to make yourself feel superior. It’s not like you tell me every single thought that passes through your head. Sometimes we’re apart for weeks and you’re not constantly FaceTiming me your stream of consciousness!”

Armand purses his lips. He goes quiet and looks away, stares out of the window at the dusk.

“So, great honest one, what are you thinking right this second?”

“I don’t know what I’m thinking. I can’t think. I need some air.”

“Oh sure, run away again. That always goes well.”

Daniel turns and slams out of their living room. Armand’s eyes well with tears as he puts on his coat and leaves.

*

Daniel has always been the sort of guy who worries.

As a mortal he always thought it was a result of all the drugs he did in his youth. But now with his half regained memories of this twenties and early thirties he thinks maybe it was a response to the pure terror of having his memories torn apart and pasted back together.

He’d been taking daily Zoloft from the age of thirty five until he became a vampire.

Although the anxiety disorder hadn’t come with him into immortality, his attitude towards his life hadn’t changed.

In both of his marriages he’d made sure to have exit strategies for the worst case scenario.

He’d signed two pre nups, saved scrupulously to make sure there was always a small amount added to the girls trust funds. He was a saver. He never wanted to be poor again and he never wanted his daughters to have to deal with the stress that came with being kicked out, kicked out and alone.

He knew it was mostly his own fault that he’d been kicked out. Modesto wasn’t a big enough city to get lost in. It was almost the end of his senior year when his family got wind of his sneaking out and going to parties with the wrong sort of people. The Molloys don’t associate with faggots and junkies, his dad told him as he barred the front door. He shoved a trash bag of clothes at him and told him not to come back.

Daniel snuck back home while his dad was at work. He sobbed into his Mom’s chest as she cried in his hair. She called him a stupid boy as she held him.

It was no wonder he was such a fuck up of a parent. He’d been so focused on not repeating his parents mistakes of over coddling and his own stupid rebellion that he was a distant parent, worried more about the future than the present. It made him a shit father.

It made him a shit husband, too. Armand was beginning to realise that now.

How would he explain to Armand that he needed a backup plan, an escape route just to feel safe?

[unhinged-summer-fun]

common grounds (oshamir) - chapter 9

Pairing: Osha Aniseya x Qimir "The Stranger"

A/N: dividers by @cafekitsune

series masterlist

chapter 9: baseline

Sol’s apartment was too big. In recent years, he had repeatedly tried for something approaching minimalism. Every time the empty beige walls would echo harshly at any disruption in the silence, his sentimentality would creep back in. Like kudzu, functionality and aesthetic would become choked by nostalgia. News clippings, photographs, pressed flowers, and sometimes even torn pages from books.

Sol’s house was also too quiet. All that space made the silence seem like another being was in the room, unspeaking but observing. It unnerved Osha at first. After the accident, she wasn’t released from the hospital for a week. Mae had already been living with Sol, and by the time Osha got there, it felt like there had been no room left for her to exist.

Just Sol, Mae, and the silence.

It was the opposite of her stranger’s apartment.

Right now, she wished she was there and not here.

A dark raincloud hung over the dinner table. It was full of everything that had happened over the last week: the issues with her job, her access to gym classes, not to mention the entirely new person in her life. The drama with the junior trainer job seemed like a goddamn lifetime ago. It made the buildup of this family dinner feel fraught with tension: any topic could be on the table, and with how long it had been, Osha wasn’t confident which secrets were off the table or not. 

She was thinking about her first training session with the stranger that evening—good motivation to survive the meal. She had been looking forward to it all day, resting just like he’d told her to. She even admitted she felt relaxed for the first time, and then—

“Are we not going to talk about it?”

Osha stabbed her food a bit violently in response to Sol’s question.

Mae said nothing.

“Why aren’t we talking about it?” he tried again.

“Because we don’t want to talk about it,” Osha said with forced lightness.

“Oshie, come on…”

“Whaaat?” Osha groaned. “I’m fucking over it. Take the job, I don’t care anymore.”

“That’s not what we’re talking about,” Sol said. He set down his utensils, abandoning any pretense that this was to be their usual scripted dinner conversation. 

She sighed and did the same. “If you want to do an intervention, you’re a few days late. I’ve already gone cold turkey from the gym.”

“So you did quit?” Mae said softly.

“It was more that I was quit on. For fucking boxing classes.”

“Vernestra’s request wasn’t unreasonable, Osha,” Sol sighed. 

Very well. They were talking about it.

“Vernestra didn’t request shit from me. Is that what she told you? She restricted my membership to the fuckin Groupon level for no reason! No upper-level classes, no more than twice a week? Those classes literally happen during my shifts. I’d have to come in on my three remaining days off to take any classes. Why, what did she fuckin’ tell you, Sol? What did the fuckin’ group chats tell you, Mae?”

“Language, please,” he said in a pained voice, rubbing at his eyes. “You were obviously upset in my class the last time I saw you. Is training at the Temple really somewhere you want to be four days a week if you are so upset?”

“Have you asked yourself why I was upset yesterday? I was upset when I walked in. Ask Mae about it.”

Osha got up from the table despite protests from her sister and her dad. She ignored them and went to the bathroom in the hall, frustrated to all hell. Her phone was back in her bag, so she couldn’t just waste time until she could leave. Still, she managed to fuck around doing nothing for all of ten minutes before Mae came knocking.

“I have to talk to you.”

“Mae, just go away—”

“It’s about—well. You know who.”

Osha opened the door and came out quietly. “Where’s Sol?” she murmured, crossing her arms and leaning on the doorframe.

“He said he had to get something in his car. I think he needs a second to himself.”

“You mean he’s avoiding an uncomfortable situation.”

I didn’t hear from Vernestra or any of the other trainers at the Temple once.

Part of Osha wanted to feel bad for snapping at her dad like that, but the louder part said that she was hurt more. She spoke the truth to her stranger yesterday; she was tired of this shit. Besides, it wasn’t her job to suppress her emotions just for a grown man to feel better about himself.

“What do you want, Mae?”

“I need to ask you if all this, all the lashing out, was done on purpose because you wanted to train with Qimir.”

Huh. What?

“…who the fuck is Qimir?”

Mae looked like Osha had grown another head. “The guy I trained with for two years?” she said slowly.

Qimir.

When Mae said the name, dripping with disdain, it didn’t suit him. Osha’s mind completely rejected it. If it truly was his name, it only suited part of him—a mistranslation of who he actually was. The new information slid off Osha’s impression of the stranger like water on glass.

No, that suited him better—the stranger.

“What about him?” Osha asked, trying to control the shake in her voice.

Mae crossed her arms, matching Osha and leaning on the wall opposite her. Osha didn’t meet her eyes; instead, she looked at the frames behind her shoulder and above her head. Mae’s frustration mounted, and after Osha’s deliberate obtuseness, she huffed, “Did you quit the Temple to train with him?”

Osha’s eye twitched. What right did Mae have to her personal life when she’d been so prohibitive about her own? She matched her sister’s pose but still refused to look at her. “Weren’t you listening? I didn’t quit, I was quit on.”

“You don’t think Vernestra has a point?”

“No.”

Mae stuttered a bit, clearly meaning it as a rhetorical question but getting an honest answer anyway. “I mean, you’re not—” Mae shifted from foot to foot. “It’s been a long time since you, uh.”

“You don’t think I can fight competitively either?” Osha said, finally meeting her eyes with a glare. “What did I do to you to make you lose your faith in me?”

Mae flinched a little, hurt but unable to refute Osha’s claim. “Listen, that’s not what I’m talking about. So are you—”

“It’s what I’m talking about. I’m not telling you anything for a while, Mae. If I want to tell you something, I’ll tell you. And like I told you yesterday, when I ask you something, I want honesty. I don’t think you’ll give me that, so that’s why I haven’t asked you anything at all.”

“Well, if you are training with him—”

“I don’t want your advice about this, Mae. Can you just drop it? For, like, maybe an actual week? You had two years to tell me all about him. Give me a while to process it without being supervised.”

“You know what? Fine. Have it your way, Osha. I just wanted to remedy things and warn you about who you’re getting involved with.”

He hasn’t lied to me yet, she didn’t say. Mae walked away, and Osha watched her for a few seconds before rubbing at her chest and pacing the hallway.

She approached the room they used to share. Sol had converted it into a guest room after they’d moved to their new apartment downstairs, but he never had overnight guests. His social circle was the same as the ‘old guard’ trainers: they kept things within the Temple and didn’t make friends from other gyms on principle.

Still, the baseless hope of having someone stay remained.

Osha sat on the end of the bed, with pretty memories of the past warring against the fucked-up present. The light purple walls of childhood, adorned with ribbons and proud accomplishments, had been replaced by model-home greige and even more photographs. Two beds, now one. Pictures of strangers where there used to be pictures of friends.

It hurt to hold onto the nostalgia for too long. Osha abandoned the bed and looked at the pictures hanging on what was once her side of the room.

Sol had no rhyme or reason for the wall decor in his guest room. His more impressive memories and keepsakes were in the living room—the things here were most likely moments that didn’t fit in, but he couldn’t throw them away for whatever reason. Photos of a younger Sol on his college boxing team sat above another photo of Osha at high school graduation, and next to that one was—

There were many children she didn’t recognize in that photograph. As if in a trance, she approached the small frame. She recognized the Temple, of course, but the marked youth of each person she recognized told her it was from a long time ago. Sol was in the back, beside Vernestra, Kelnacca, Indara, and Torbin—who hadn’t yet lost his eye. The five children standing before the coaches smiled with varying enthusiasm, but her eyes remained focused on the grinning little boy in glasses standing before Vernestra.

He looked older than the other children but seemed the most excited of them all. His eyes almost disappeared under the force of his goofy grin, toothy and familiar—he’d grown up since then. This little boy suited the name Mae had told her. Qimir.

Like the frame at the Temple, she popped open the back. She moved carefully as she removed the newspaper clipping from behind the glass, and held it gently as she unfolded the rest of the article.

TEMPLE GYM OUTREACH PROGRAM SETS CHARITABLE STANDARD

Vernestra Rwoh, 36, has owned and managed Temple Gym for ten years. She has started the Padawan Training Program in collaboration with the Federal District Orphanage to provide community support to the underprivileged. “For most children, their first mentors are their parents. For children without parents, finding that kind of personal guidance to navigate the world is much harder,” Rwoh said in an interview. “Though the initial scope of our program is quite small, the biggest changes start with the smallest of actions. We hope to expand to provide more opportunities to underprivileged children in the city.”

The rest of the article felt sterile and self-congratulatory, providing little information about the program.  Osha gathered that it was an outreach program training orphaned children to box. She looked back at the photograph. Beneath it, she found his name listed after Torbin’s in the smallest font.

Qimir Loharne (13)

When I was thirteen, the rods were removed, and the doctors at the spine clinic said I should join this… outreach program that was starting at the Temple.

He was thirteen. Imagining the abuse he went through over the next four years made her stomach turn. Osha refolded the news clipping and carefully tucked it under her shirt, against her skin. Her hands shook with barely repressed anger.

Hastily, she covered up where the article had been with a framed photo of herself winning third at the science fair. Looking around the rest of the room, she wondered if he was hiding—being hidden—in any other frames, but she couldn’t find anything.

She didn’t know why she was disappointed.

He was waiting for her when she came down from her apartment a few hours later. Night had fallen in the city, but city nights were never as dark as she wanted. The crescent moon that had walked her and the stranger home the night before had grown into almost a waxing quarter moon—she’d started keeping track of the moon phases as a brand-new member of Unknown Planet.

His car idled as he leaned on the passenger-side door casually. He looked like a cool, dangerous love interest in a romance movie: dressed all in black, with his hair somewhat falling into his eyes above his glasses, arms crossed, one leg bent slightly in front of the other. Osha couldn’t look that cool if she tried. All that remained of the small cut on his face was a small red line on his cheekbone. His attention was on a little device in his hands she couldn’t see, so engrossed in it that he didn’t look up when she stopped at the sidewalk. 

“Hello,” she greeted him. 

He looked up, watching her approach. “Hello.”

Osha felt rooted in place under his gaze, the weight of his name sitting heavily on her mind. “Hi,” she said, cringing inwardly. Would she ever interact with him where she didn’t act like a fool within the first ten minutes?

“Hi…” His head tilted to the side, his eyes flitting over her frozen state. He pocketed the device and approached. “Are you alright?”

The incident at Sol’s had thoroughly fucked up whatever measure of calm she’d gained from the day’s rest and recovery. Her mind was all over the place, unable to focus on one thing for long. The folded-up newspaper weighed heavily against her heart from inside her jacket. She nodded tightly in response to his question.

His smile faded a little. “Are you having second thoughts?”

“No! No.” Osha sighed and pressed her cold hands to her face. “I’m so scatterbrained today; it’s not you.” Some of it’s you.

“You wanna talk about it?” he asked, his voice dropping into that soothing tone he used when she was in pain the other day.

“Maybe,” she said. “Can we get out of the cold first?”

“Of course.”

Before she could protest, he’d taken her gym bag off her shoulder and walked back to his car to open the door for her. She followed him like he had her on a damn leash. Wait, did she like that? She really was a goddamn mess tonight.

Once he loaded her bag into the backseat, he paused before getting in. He reached into his pocket to retrieve the device he’d been playing with, only then getting inside.

“Is that an iPod mini?” Osha guffawed.

“If it ain’t broke…” he said with a grin. “I prefer more analog things, if you couldn’t tell.”

“You use a flip phone and drive a car that could survive a nuclear apocalypse. I don’t know why I’m surprised you have an actual iPod. You probably also have a pocket watch and a VHS collection.”

“I resent that,” he huffed. “I have two pocket watches.”

Their banter set her at ease for the rest of the drive to Unknown Planet. The music on his iPod wasn’t what she usually listened to, but she enjoyed it enough not to speak over it. They passed the bar’s street entrance, and he drove down a side street to a private parking lot. He parked but didn’t move to get out just yet.

It’s your call, the silence said. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.

Osha got out of the car.

Her stranger held the door for her as she walked in and followed behind as she took the stairs. This was the path they’d taken after she watched him fight for the first time, the stairs leading up to the third-floor dressing rooms. He unlocked the black door and ushered her inside with a hand on her lower back.

As they removed their winter jackets and shoes, he told her the plan for the evening: “I need to establish a baseline. I told you I’ve seen you fight, but it was only recorded footage and obviously nothing from after your injury. Seeing you move in person will give me a better idea of where to focus first.”

“How much of tonight involves jumping or running?” she asked, eyeing the rolls of tape in her bag.

“None,” he said, digging through his backpack for a pair of shorts. He tossed his glasses on top of the bag before entering the bathroom to change. Osha scrambled to do the same while he’d given her some measure of privacy, peeling off her jeans and t-shirt.

“There are plenty of ways to do cardio without exacerbating injuries,” he continued. This felt a little like their second meeting: when she changed her shirt behind a wall, and he mopped up at the cafe. “Repetitive exercises like jump rope, running, and machine workouts risk worsening your condition the more you rely on them.”

That was promising.

“Then what are we doing for cardio?” she asked, shimmying into her tank top.

“For now, swimming. Eventually, sparring. Can you swim?”

“Yeah. I didn’t know there’s a pool here.”

“There isn’t. You don’t have to worry about that until tomorrow, but we’ll be using the one at home.”

His wording had her hands nearly slipping on her shorts as she pulled them up her thighs. She corrected the fumble, snapping the waistband around her hips and folding it like usual.

“Swimming is easier on injuries,” he continued. “It uses every muscle group, and adding resistance to workouts is much safer.” He emerged from the bathroom without a shirt, going through his bag while he spoke—as if she wasn’t poleaxed seeing him like this from such a short distance. He had nothing on but low-slung basketball shorts and his socks.

“Cool,” Osha said, mind a million miles away. “Cool.”

He pulled a shirt on, followed by his glasses and a black baseball cap that kept his hair out of his eyes. “Let’s get you ready for me, hm?” He gestured to the chair when she didn’t move in response to him.

“Cool!” She wanted to slap herself. She needed to get it the fuck together. “I’ve got tape in my bag—”

“Have you used KT tape before?” He opened a drawer at the small desk beside her, revealing several thick rolls in various colors.

“Kinesiotherapy tape?”

“What’s with the face?”

Osha tried to quit scowling, but she’d already been called out for it. “Well, isn’t it… not as good as athletic tape?”

He placed several rolls beside him in a neat line, along with scissors. “Each has their benefit,” he said. “Neither is wholly better than the other. I’m guessing you haven’t used it before, then?”

“No.”

“Tell me how you wrap your ankle.”

As she explained her usual methods, she couldn’t help peeking at the colorful tapes he had brought out. Some even had little designs on them—shooting stars, rainbow stripes, and the feral river otter mascot of the college he worked at.

It was definitely much cuter than the standard white athletic tape and flesh tone pre-wrap.

He nodded. “Would you mind trying something new? Just to see if you like it.”

Osha was growing familiar with the urge to perform well for him, and it didn’t irritate her as much as it probably should have. She nodded, and he gave her a brilliant smile. Her heart fluttered in her chest like a bird taking flight.

He talked her through what he was doing, first measuring out pieces of tape, then cutting them up and applying them to her foot, ankle, knee, and thigh in bands of red and black. Aside from the aesthetic advantage, she appreciated that she didn’t have to loosen up her sneakers the way she did after layers of pre-wrap and athletic tape.

She also appreciated how his hands felt on her bare skin.

“There. Walk around a bit. If you want it off, the adhesive won’t fully set for another fifteen minutes or so.”

The method she’d been taught to use before had been good for reducing swelling and preventing sprains and strains, but sometimes, it felt like her ankle was just being squished, not supported. The KT tape felt like how she wanted her ankle to feel. With so much more freedom of movement, she almost felt like a newborn deer, amazed she could stand and walk like this. Holy fuck.

“That good?”

Shit, she’d said that out loud. He was still on the floor, putting away the rest of the tape and tugging on his shoes.

“Yeah,” she laughed. “This is crazy.” She bounced on her feet a little. She must have looked silly as hell doing lunges around the dressing room, but he only regarded her with a look of fond amusement she was growing accustomed to. He asked for a hand up.

When he got to his feet, they ended up inches apart, their height difference made glaringly obvious. Osha was surprised to find she liked it. His height, his arms, his broad fucking shoulders—they didn’t intimidate her like they probably had done for Mae. She took a breath, settling into a comfortable, calm mindset.

“Let’s go,” he murmured, touching her waist and spinning her toward the door.

The gym above Unknown Planet looked completely different from the last time she saw it. The cage had been dismantled and replaced by a large sparring mat, where pairs of people faced off—wearing anything from singlets to gis to clothes similar to what Osha was wearing. While a few individuals were locked in at the punching bags or machines, many were clustered in small groups, working together or encouraging one another. They were laughing and having fun.

Osha could count on one hand the number of times she heard laughter at the Temple. She’d need no hands to count the number of times she’d had fun in the last six years.

He led them to an empty area. Her nerves were going wild, and the prospect of disappointing him felt terrible and inevitable. But he trucked ahead. “For our warmups, we’re going to…” He showed her a series of stretches and light calisthenics to get her loose and warm. He never spoke down to her or overexplained his choices. When they were finished warming up, he checked in.

Honesty came easier with him.

“I feel like my ankle’s a little weaker. It’s not weak like failing, but not as strong as I thought. The tape helps a lot.”

He nodded, looking her over. “Can you go up on just your right foot? Flat.” He knelt before her to see better, then put her hand on his shoulder so she’d be balanced. “Up on your toes. Flat. Good. Again.”

Osha was going just a little fucking mad. Just a little, though. He seemed to like flustering her. He tended to get himself into situations where she was above him, and he was on her knees beneath her. She followed his instructions, doing a few calf raise holds on her good leg, then her injured one. Her body obeyed his instruction on autopilot, but her mind was elsewhere. Her mind was honed in on two precise places: where his thumb rubbed back and forth against her ankle, and where her hand lay flat against the shifting muscles in his shoulder.

“I see what you mean,” he said, letting go. He adjusted his glasses and tugged down his sock. “There are a few muscle groups attached to the Achilles tendon…”

He explained exactly what she was feeling, even having her put her hand on the back of his calf while he repeated the same moves she had just done. For once, the uncontrollably horny part of her brain remained silent, instead fascinated by his intelligent explanations. It was a mystery how he could even pretend to be a bumbling idiot.

She asked him so many questions, and he patiently answered each one to her satisfaction. Osha had never felt so respected and cared for in a training setting and wondered when that would change.

The rest of their session passed just like that. They hadn’t done much training overall, but by the end of things, she knew more about her ankle and knee. The formless pain now had names, faces, and weaknesses that could be exploited for her benefit—maybe even defeated.

By the time he brought her back to his dressing room, midnight had already passed. She was more worn out than she expected after so uneventful a training session.

“On the mat, Osha.”

Oh, there was her horny brain—back with a vengeance.

She tried her best to look graceful and attractive as she lowered herself to the mat, but her ankle had finally had enough of her, and it ended up being more like a slow-motion ragdoll collapse. She supposed that was what she deserved, trying to be cool in front of him. Shit, she was more tired than she thought.

But still, the yoga mat felt nice. Being flat felt nice. Her body, for once, felt nice. She groaned happily. “Yeah, mat. Great idea.”

He laughed softly and knelt beside her. His hand went to the back of her right calf, pressing his thumbs into her muscles with light pressure at first, then deeper when she didn’t flinch away in pain.

“What are you doing?” she asked, turning her head.

“You might be two and a half years out of practice, but most call this a massage.”

She kicked blindly at him with her other foot. His hand caught her quickly, avoiding any of her injured areas. She calmed down, and he continued his massage.

“Unlike athletic tapes, the KT tape can be worn for up to five days. It’s waterproof, too, so when we go to the pool tomorrow, you’ll still have the same support correcting your ankle and knee to the right tension. You can take it off at any time with a bit of oil, and if you need me, I’m never too busy to help you.”

It was harder to pay attention to him when he had his hands on her, and between the relief he gave her and the soothing tones of his voice saying such lovely things, she almost fell asleep right there. When he finally finished, she felt like her bones had gone al dente. He gave her time to change in the bathroom, and she was surprised to see the silly smile adorning her face.

You are sooo fucked, she mouthed at her reflection.

She only smiled back.

It was a little after one in the morning when they returned to the apartment complex. He parked in front of her building, idling in one of the covered spots he didn’t own. Neither of them spoke, and she didn’t move to get out. Something in the air felt taut with tension, obvious but unacknowledged. He inhaled like he would break the silence, but her anxious mouth got there first.

“I found another picture of you.” She unzipped her jacket to the inside breast pocket, where she’d carefully tucked the news clipping from Sol’s place. She gave it to him, and his jaw flexed as he looked it over.

She expected all manner of responses from him—So now you know my name. Do you believe my story now? What a long time ago—but instead, he asked her, “Why do you give me these?”

She’d been asking herself that same question. Looking at the little boy in the picture, she said, “You told me, before you took me to the bar the first time, that there was a time that you had no evidence you existed besides your pain. You shouldn’t have been—it’s just—” She exhaled harshly, staring out the windshield and fidgeting with her hands. “You do exist beyond what happened to you. And you deserve to have proof of that.”

After her halting explanation, her mind felt clearer. The nervous buzzing of her thoughts had ceased—at least temporarily. When he—when Qimir—no—when her stranger didn’t say anything for a while, she turned to look at him and was immediately caught in the snare of his gaze.

He’d leaned in toward her, lips slightly parted and eyes a little unfocused as they flitted about—eye to eye, then down to her mouth. Osha couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. She could only endure the wildfire he ignited in her body, heat licking through every inch of her. His teeth slowly sunk into his lower lip, and he moved forward another inch—

“Osha,” he whispered, soft as a prayer and most likely unintentional. The sound of her name on his tongue made her shudder, and her eyes fell shut. He inhaled quickly, reality and reason coming back to him all at once.

She opened her eyes when she felt him sit back in his seat and found him straight-backed and controlled. “Thank you,” he managed to say after some silent seconds. His voice sounded rougher, full of an emotion she couldn’t place. She hoped it was desire and not regret.

“You’re welcome,” she whispered. “I can, um. I can stop pushing them on you if it makes you—”

“No.”

She blinked. “No?”

“I appreciate you bringing them to me. They… you’re right. They’re signs of a life I had taken from me. It’s more than I had of myself yesterday.”

Osha smiled helplessly, leaning back against the headrest to look at him. For the first time in a long while, she felt proud of herself.

CHAPTER TEN

[morfitties]

Sometimes I get fixated on movies and watch them multiple times.

The first time I watched Dead Poet Society was with my best friend- I knew nothing about it, only that she loved it, it was one of the few movies I had never seen spoilers for and I’m so thankful for that. The first time you watch something and you make assumptions about what will happen; I thought Keating would replace Nelson and maybe Todd would grow up to be an english teacher and Neil an actor, maybe Meeks and Pitts would actually be the creators of the drone or something, I thought that maybe Charlie wouldn’t have to keep protecting them, that he could live with comfort, that Cameron would grow and learn and that Knox would lose his stupidity but not his dramatics.

I didnt expect a story about 7 boys and a very special teacher, about finding something you love that you’ve not truly seen before, of being unashamed of what you love, of not being enough to save someone, of feeling like you have no choice, of being left behind.

I’ve rewatched it a lot since then- me and my best friend actuallt watched it jjst the other day and talked about the movie all through the movie.

There’s a weird sense of comfort knowing that the ending is sad, knowing that if nothing else it is realistic and that it isn’t lying to you. Watching the lead up to Niel’s death, seeing him lie to Keating and when he finally acts in front of his friends, the amount of pride the people who loved him had for him, up until the argument that acts as the trigger to what ends Neil’s life.

The movie spends roughly twenty minutes exploring the people that are left behind.

The scene with Meeks, Pitts, Knox and Cameron in the doorway while Charlie tells Todd is heartbreaking because you can SEE the tears and the grief, you can see Charlie, despite being the humorous one, being the way to tell Todd that the person who helped him see what he was missing was dead. The fact that we only see Todd getting told, that we only see the last person to find out, it feels final and that hurts.

The scene in the snow is the nail in the coffin for me emotionally. Todd finally yawps but his yawp is for his dead best friend, the group themselves are torn apart after everything. In the church when everyone is crying but singing apart from Charlie, who just stares at his book. When Cameron and Charlie fight and Charlie gets kicked out and sent to military school and everything about this movie makes me sick to my stomach with emotion.

I basically just needed to rant about this movie, quite honestly. It feels so tenderly bittersweet, like looking back to when you were younger and wondering who else you could’ve been if certain things never happened. The boys feelings at the ending feel like that to me because none of them quite want to believe it. In a weirdly dramatic way it fully encapsulates what it’s like to have friends be torn apart- albeit most don’t have quite such drastic reasoning. But the wondering, if you possibly knew it was the last time that you would see them, would you change everything you did or said?

I fucking love this movie.

[steddieunderdogfics]

Our first writer's spotlight feature is: @anthotneystark! With seven works on Ao3 in the Stranger Things fandom (for ao3 users only), they've written five works with the Steddie ship tag!

Nominated by @thefreakandthehair, they recommend the following works by mywarisalreadywon:

Fools in love (Is there any other kind of pain?)

But when it's your brother (Sometimes you look the other way)

I will stay one night beside you, never go back to the sea (I will stay and be thy husband though it be the death of me)

My wounds cry for the grave (My soul cries for deliverance)

Sold your soul (Built the higher wall)

Kat is an absolute treasure and such a wonderful writer! Her ideas are always so fresh and so interesting, and I've never read anything from her that doesn't just hit. All of her works are so well-crafted and well-written, characterization is always on point, and I can't say enough about how much I genuinely enjoy every single thing she posts! - @thefreakandthehair

Below the cut, @anthotneystark answered some questions about their writing process and some of their recommended work!

Why do you write Steddie?

I just find them so compelling, and there’s so many ways to shift the story around a bit or put them in different universes, like the options are just endless in a way a lot of the ships I’ve loved can’t be.

What’s your favorite trope to READ?

I’m such a sucker for hurt/comfort, but I feel like that’s such a broad range, right? More specific would be the trop of one or both having insecurities and getting that “I love you and I will choose to keep loving you” moment.

What’s your favorite trope to WRITE?

Probably the breakdown moment of finally finding a safe harbor, or realizing that people love you, and it just hits you like a freight train and you can’t do anything but fall apart, and that can go hand in hand with found family, but that’s my specific gut-punch feeling that I want to put in every fic.

What’s your favorite Steddie fic?

Oh this is so hard! I have so many that I go back and read time and time again, so many that I absolutely adore! God, just picking one is so nerve wracking, I’m too indecisive, so I’ll say my top three (in no particular order): Sanctuary by SpicedSage, I’ve seen your face before, my friend,but I don’t know if you know who I am by HMSLusitania, and The One in Which a Time Loop is Fucking Exhausting by badpancake

Is there a trope you’re excited to explore in a future work but haven’t yet?

Oh for sure! I’ve had a rom-com idea bouncing around in my head for a while, I just have to figure out a good starting place for it!

What is your writing process like?

The majority of the time, I start writing out my stories on paper. I scratch it down at least enough to get me started and use that kind of as a springboard. When I can get to a point of typing it up, having that and editing as I go helps me to really build momentum and then I can just let it flow, but that initial momentum is the hard part between getting the story out of my head and onto a page. If I’m stopping and starting, I reread and edit what I’ve typed up as my springboard, so by the time I’m finished, I’ve reread it all enough times that I’m sure I’ve got everything in the order I want.

Do you have any writing quirks?

I’m very sure that I do! I start a lot of sentences with conjunctions and I try to write, at least in some parts, so it reads like a stream of consciousness without entering first person. For me it’s almost like I type how I talk and sometimes I get a little too far into that and have to reel it back.

Do you prefer posting when you’ve finished writing or on a schedule?

 Oh definitely when it’s finished. I lose motivation for periods of time and have to rotate between projects, so I feel much better about stuff when it’s all just done and I don’t have to worry about being stalled for too long.

Which fic are you most proud of?

I’m kinda torn on this one! Like I’m super proud of all the heart and the emotion I felt and tried to express in But when it's your brother (Sometimes you look the other way), but My wounds cry for the grave (My soul cries for deliverance) was huge for me because that’s my biggest single chapter fic that I’ve ever written. If pressed, I think I’d have to go with the former just because that one in particular was so heavy for me on a more personal level.

How did you get the idea for But when it's your brother (Sometimes you look the other way)?

This fic is honestly so full of my own personal feelings that I get a little choked up thinking about it too much. I’m a younger sister, so I’m constantly in this cycle of making fun of my older sister and calling her names but having this deep love for her. My family isn’t one that really talks much about feelings, but there’s so much love there and I’m finding myself constantly thinking back on my own life about so many moments where neither of us was prepared for what we had to do, but I looked at her and thought she was invincible and I feel like that’s the core of Dustin and Steve. The “that’s my brother, he’s so tough and grown up and he’s always okay” and then the sort of devastation of realizing that this person you’ve always seen like that has a lot of moments where they’re scared and hurt and struggling but not showing it. There’s just a lot of me in that fic.

When writing I will stay one night beside you, never go back to the sea (I will stay and be thy husband though it be the death of me), what was something you didn’t expect?

I don’t know that there was anything I didn’t expect, because I try not to really push expectations onto my work, I try to just let it flow and figure it out from there. But something that felt right that I hadn’t initially planned for was the moment between Steve and Joyce. We haven’t seen them interact really, and I’ve seen a few different takes on them and how they’d see each other, but I honestly loved the thought of him having this moment of trying to hold it all together because there’s so much weight on his shoulders and the moment he sees someone who’s safe, someone who has been judged so much and wouldn’t be judgemental of him, he breaks.

What inspired Fools in love (Is there any other kind of pain)?

This one actually started as a “haha what if Steve was born on a holiday” and then I made it a little angsty. Because I do like the born on a holiday and your birthday gets overlooked vibe, but then it was just a moment of thinking about what if it gets overlooked not because it’s a big holiday, but because people just don’t believe him and how much that would hurt year after year.

What was your favorite part to write from I will stay one night beside you, never go back to the sea (I will stay and be thy husband though it be the death of me)?

Definitely the bit about Steve begging for Eddie to keep him, with that warring feeling of not wanting to be restrained but wanting to be chosen. Feelings are so often multidimensional and that was something that just really spoke to me.

How do/did you feel writing But when it's your brother (Sometimes you look the other way)?

I cried so much. Like I said, there’s so much personal feeling in there, so much of the way that I am with my siblings is there, and we didn’t have any life or death situations, but that sort of love, it just sticks with you forever. In equal moments I’m Steve and I’m Dustin in there, being a middle child and all I’ve got both experiences, so I definitely had a few moments where I needed to step back and let my own feelings settle again.

What was the most difficult part of writing Fools in love (Is there any other kind of pain)?

This was actually my first fic written and published in over three years. So the hard part for me was actually just working up the courage to post it. I’ve been dealing a lot with depression and anxiety and burnout for years now and just the general dissatisfaction with my own writing, so the love I got after posting that was really just so special to me and I can’t fully express how much it means and how encouraging it was knowing people liked it.

Do you have a favorite scene and/or line from any of your fics?

My favorite line is either this one from My wounds cry for the grave: “But right now, he just leans over, laughing with his favorite person ever, his heart soaring and matching hers, beat for beat.” Or this moment: “He drops right there, like a puppet with its strings cut, like a stone in water. Like Atlas being crushed by the weight of the world. Dustin is the only one close enough to make sure his head doesn’t hit the ground; he’ll be grateful for that later. In that moment though, surrounded by people who love him, sprawled on a cold tile floor, willing Eddie to be alive with his whole being, Steve Harrington’s heart stops once more.” Both of these were things I had rotating in my head for so long that I go back to those parts over and over just to feel them again.

Do you have any upcoming projects or fics you’d like to share/promote?

Oh I have so many things that are half done, but none that are near finished enough to try and hype them up yet. I literally have a running list of ideas I’m adding to here and there and I just follow the inspiration!

Outside of these questions, Is there anything YOU would like to add?

The only thing I can think to add is that I’m just absolutely so flattered and tickled about someone liking my work enough to nominate me for this! I’ve always tended to be more of a lurker in just about every fandom I’ve been in so this is such a surprise and it means the world that my writing touched someone enough for them to think of me. 

Thank you to our author, @anthotneystarkm and our nominator, @thefreakandthehair! See more of @anthotneystark's work featured on our page throughout the day!

Writer's Spotlight is every Wednesday! Want to nominate an author? You can nominate them here!

[kiyolovesart23]

Hi everyone !! I’m so sorry I haven’t written anything in a while🥲🙏 I honestly forgot about it😭 so I’ve come back w some short cyno and haitham smut I hope y’all enjoy 🤭

Cyno and al haitham x Fem! Reader pt 1

Minors don’t interact!! 18+ or do idc ik y’all read stuff like this 🥲

Yn is in a poly relationship with the both of them there’s no cheating🥲🙏

Ah alas having the general mahamantra as your lover also has its own problems don’t they?🥲

Cyno is really hard to read like really really really hard to read. Cyno rarely shows emotions and even if he does it’s confusing. You sometimes try to figure out what exactly the general is thinking about but alas you really can’t figure out what goes on in that head of his

One day nilou invites all of you to a dance party in a club nearby and since you were excited you decided to go. Cyno decided to go too to keep you safe. The reason why you were going was not because you wanted to dance but because you wanted to make your lover jealous like really jealous and you knew just the person to make him jealous with

Alhaitham

Alhaitham and you were in a relationship as well

It was a poly relationship with you being a very lucky girl 🥹

However their rivalry still knew no bounds you thought it would bring them closer but it made them more torn apart

As soon as the party began you rushed to al haithams side leaving cyno irritated

“ Haitham!!!! It’s so good to see you you look really nice today ☺️”

“Why thank you y/n you look quite stunning as well”

Anger boiled towards cyno as he views you from afar

Noticing his expression you couldn’t help but add more fire to the wound

“Cyno!! Come dance with me or should I ask haitham instead heh😌”

You knew this would file your lover up

“Oh you know how to make a man jealous don’t you my darling?well I’ll do more than just dance with you I’ll make you scream my name until you can’t think straight”

With that he took you to the bathroom swiftly

“Cyno! Wait not here!! M sorry I won’t do that again!”

“Too late amore”

He gracefully removed your minidress and underwear and left you completely naked. The cold air made your nipples harden as cyno looked at you with lust

“Now you don’t get to see such beauty everyday”

He inserted one of his fingers in your cunt.

“Such a slut you are already this wet for my finger?my my yn if anyone saw you like this they’d be shocked”

You tried to stifle your moans

“Mm cyno not here please stop I”

“You say no darling but your cunt here says more.what did I tell you? I’ll make you scream until you can’t scream anymore”

He inserted another finger in your cunt and attached his mouth to your nipples sucking them wildly. You tried to hide your moans but it just felt so so good.

“Cmon darling I wanna hear you sing”

“Cyno…please don’t stop!”

Your eyes rolled back as you came to your climax and came on his fingers leaving a loud moan

“My my I sure hope someone doesn’t hear that”

But someone did..

Alhaithams pov :

I was with yn not long ago and now her and that stupid general both have disappeared.

It doesn’t take a genius to realise what they’re up to and hearing a moan from the bathroom confirmed it.

I burst into the bathroom only to see yn panting while cyno fucking her like a wild animal.

“Tch leave us alone you good for nothing scholar”

I smirked as I saw yn my cock hardening

“ I think it’s my turn to have her now she looks miserable”

“HOW DARE YOU” cyno screamed

“Cyno… let him I wanna feel him too” yn murmured her eyes filled with lust

It was obvious this general had fucked her dumb and she couldn’t comprehend what was going on

“Tch fine…you can take her for the night”

I smiles as I took my lover from him and covered her up

“Let’s continue this at my place” I smiled as she nodded eagerly this was gonna be fun.

.

.

.

.

To be continued

NOTE:

Part two will consist of al haitham and yn so stay tuned 🤭

[shipsgaysfordays]

Searching Once More--Attachment/Feelings/Fondness

Just a memory jog for you guys: Remus just ran out and left Lily, James, and Sirius in the shack. Sirius is left wondering what to do, the title of this chapter may indicate zer decision, idk *shrugs*

Warning, a lot of this chapter is dialogue, a LOT of dialogue, if feels like it's more than usual, idk. Be ready for the dropping of bombs, much drama, it's exciting.

I did use some microfic words: attachment, feelings, and fondness @wolfstarmicrofic

Though I do find it a bit iconic to call this a “microfic” by this point

Links to other chapters here

Reminder that Remus’ pronouns for this fic are they/them, Sirius’ are ze/zis/zer/zhe/zeir/zey. Also fuck JKR and the rhetoric that she spouts that’s transphobic, homophobic, racist, antisemetic, and if I’m forgetting anything else then I’m deeply sorry. And: don’t buy the game, you guys know what I’m referring to, don’t buy it.

Okay onto the fic after that whole sh-peel

Zeir eyes couldn’t leave that torn apart moldy wooden door, zeir thoughts couldn’t leave the person who just ran out of it. 

“I ruined things, again,” Sirius thought the sound was only in zis mind, zer voice and mouth moving was barely noticeable anymore, nothing could distract zer from that door and those thoughts about zer love. My love?…are–is that my–is Moony my love?

“Padfoot,” James put a hand on zis shoulder, “you better not be blaming yourself for this.”

“But I–”

“You did your best, Mary did her best, and…sometimes even our best still can’t work. It takes some time, Moony’s trying, I think they really are, just because they are having a hard time it doesn’t mean that you’ve ruined things.” 

Lily paced around, “If anyone’s to blame–”

“No,” James said, firmly, “if we’re blaming someone then it’s Dumbledore, that’s all. He’s the one who took away our whole lives.”

“We can go on our blaming spree later, but–do we go after Remus now?” Sirius turned around to ask. 

“It will take a while to catch up to them,” Lily responded.

“We have time.”

“We have a son,” Lily took a breath, “and a scared woman trying to babysit my boy.”

“I have time, you can go if you need to,” Sirius retorted. 

“Remus is still my friend–are they yours?” Lily slapped a hand to her mouth after the words came out. Are they? Merlin, are they? Why does this bitch have to point that out? It’s not like things are any better for her.

Before Sirius could say something zey would regret, James entered the conversation again with a stern look towards his wife, “Look, it’s still the night, Harry’s probably asleep, we still have some time to look for Remus. If we need to, we can go back home, all of us.” 

Lily sighed, the bags under her eyes clearer than ever, “Let’s go find Moony.”

….

Questions circled around zer head, as they walked, grass and sticks crunching in unison. The three of them walked like that for a while, Sirius leading the way since ze could track scent. Silence for a long time, until James asked that stupid question that he always needed to ask, “How are you feeling?”

“...I don’t know anymore,” Sirius responded. 

Lily held onto zer hand, “and that’s okay, emotions take time sometimes.”

James held zer other hand, swinging it around some. 

“Are you guys treating me like your son?” Sirius had to ask. 

“Maybe…” James responded, “gotta say you prepared me well for being a dad.”

“You’ve been a dad since the day you were born,” Sirius laughed. 

“No, that’s when Fleamont became a dad, I think you have your terminology mixed up buddy,” Lily joked.

Sirius laughed for a moment, but Remus was still there in zis brain. Still yelling, still staring, still threatening, still a young kid, still a 20 year old with crazed eyes, still in love with Sirius, still passionately hating Sirius. Everything all at once. Their whole timeline, pulled apart and stitched, memories piled onto each other like a game of jenga. 

Sirius coughed, “I just…I don’t know if I can love them anymore, I mean Moony tried to–that–that shouldn’t be forgiven, right?” 

Lily and James’ eyes met, some untold conversation between wife and husband.

“Then why are we looking for them?” James asked, again as though he was speaking to his son rather than his best friend.

“I need to know they’re okay, I need to make this better.”

“You can still love them…even if it’s complicated, even if it feels wrong to. Feelings aren’t logical very often,” Lily said.

“I want them back, but I’m scared I don’t want them as they are…I’m scared that we’re both too broken to fit together again. I don’t know if I can choose them again.”

“None of you guys are broken,” Lily looks to James as she continues her little speech, “none of you are smashed in pieces, you’re still you, we’ve just had things happen. Even if there are problems, we can be repaired. Fundamentally, none of you are broken…do I even make sense anymore? What time is it?”

“No idea,” James laughed. 

“You’d think you guys would be more prepared for lack of sleep given…the existence of Harry,” Sirius said.

“He’s 5 years old, he has a good sleep schedule now!”

“He gets up at the crack of dawn like his father,” Lily mutters.

Sirius pats her on the back, “Now you can experience the torture of James’ quidditch mates without the heights, flying, and exercise drills.”

“It wasn’t THAT bad,” James bit his lip, “plus at least there was the glory of victory!”

“At least when you were in quidditch there was a CONCEIVABLE END to your torment, I may have to deal with this torture for forever,” Lily groaned.

“You’d think by now you learned to live with it dear–”

“You’re the deer!” Sirius and Lily shouted in unison, like teenage manics in 20 something year old bodies.

“I really just strided into that one, didn’t I?”

“Yep,” Sirius grinned, enjoying this weird sense of nostalgia that was there, being with zis best friends again. Zey turned to Lily for a moment, “Prongs is right though, it’s been years by this point, what’s happened with you guys for all that time?”

Lily and James looked at each other and then immediately away, eyes staring at the trees they passed as though they were the most encapsulating sight that could ever be beheld. 

Lily coughed, “Not…not so much, raising a kid, trying to waste all this time we had.”

James let go of Sirius’ hand and went beside his wife, nudging her. 

“No,” Lily insisted on a random topic which Sirius now needs to know about.

“I’ll say if you say,” James whispers as though Sirius isn’t right. There.

“It feels as though there’s something you’re not saying, don’t know where I got that idea but it’s just creeping into my mind,” Sirius’ voice dripped with sarcasm, like a huge hole in the roof on a rainy night.

Lily took a deep breath, “Okay…a while ago, when Harry was like 3, we had been quite used to each other. It was just James, the baby, and I: all the time.”

James picked up from there, “And when you’re alone so often, you have the time to reflect…to think through your thoughts and feelings and realize certain things about yourself.”

“Don’t tell me you’re a tory,” Sirius gasped.

“Furthest thing from it,” James spoke quickly. 

“A communist?!?”

“Just let us get on with the conversation, Sirius, I thought you wanted to know,” Lily’s words shut Sirius up, immediately.

“One day I told Lily that we needed to talk about something.”

“And I told James we need to talk about something.”

“Both of us seemed to expect that the other had just discovered whatever the other was going through, some sort of marital mind reading or something, so we didn’t expect for us to say two very different things at the same time…are you ready Lily?” James looked at his wife, she nodded. 

“I’m aromantic.” 

“I’m a lesbian.”

The couple spoke in unison. 

Sirius’ eyebrows shot to the moon, eyes as wide as the moon, zey have a bit of an obsession with moon comparisons for some reason. Ze tried to speak, but…what do I say to that? What do I…I mean it’s always been Jily forever, what do I say to THAT? 

Sirius stared at zer friends, and put zer arms around them, “Thank you for telling me, for trusting me with that, do you want to talk about it more?”

“I mean…there’s not much to say on my part, do you wanna talk about her?” James teased Lily.

Like a dog hearing the word treat, Sirius started barking, “Who’s this her? Who is she?!? Merlin, Lily has a cruuuuuuush.”

Lily hid her blushing face in her hands, “You’re no better than how you were when we were in school.”

“If you really don’t want to talk about it…”Sirius started. 

“Mary,” Lily whispered. 

“What?”

“My wife said Mary,” James smiled. 

“Okay, okay…we’ll open that can of worms in one moment, but are you guys going to stay married? I mean you call each other husband and wife still–and Harry–HARRY!” Sirius’ eyes went wide. 

“I mean, we’ve still got to work some things out. At least it’s not some angry divorce drama, my wife’s a lesbian and I couldn’t be happier.”

“And, I mean, Harry seems to be a happy kid. If we get divorced he’ll still see us both and both of us will still be a big part of his life, we’ll still have the holidays together and love him and everything,” Lily said.

“Okay, now back to Mary, you like her?” Sirius asked.

“I…” Lily took a moment, contemplating what to say, “..if she asked to get back together, I would say yes. You’ve been around her the most recently: do you think she would ask?”

“Do you love her?”

“Do you love them?”

“There’s just this…attachment I have to them, these threads of feelings tied and knotted together and I can never let go even if it’s better for me to, because I can’t cut Moony off, even with all that’s happened and all that we both did, I need them too much. I love them too much.”

Lily nodded, “I have similar feelings of…..fondness for Mary.”

They let the leaves crunch for a little bit, the wind passing by. 

…

James took a deep breath, “Do you think things will ever get back to some sort of normal?”

“It never was normal, it was always crazy and pranks and jokes and wonder and pain and love, maybe things can get better, maybe they can’t. I won’t ever be the same, they won’t ever be the same,” Sirius looked to Lily, “Mary won’t be the same either, though she hides it much better.”

The three continued to walk, a silence overcoming them, maybe they’re just tired from the walk and the hours of sleep they’re not getting, maybe it’s the conversation. 

Eventually Sirius’ head perked up again, sniffing, zer lips curled for a moment. No matter how tired ze felt, zey couldn’t ignore this, zhe couldn’t just walk. Feet became paws. Nose became snout. Only one thought, Moony.

(Behind zem a deer is there now, with a woman riding the deer like a horse, Padfoot doesn’t notice this but I need this to be known as the author.)

[baobaoxiexie]

I don’t know how I can express how much I want to move abroad. I don’t even know if that would help anything anymore. I’ve lost interest in most of my hobbies and feel so empty and tired. I have such deep regrets for not pushing against my parents more in want to study abroad for my university years and now I am regretting it. I got a taste of it over a summer and it was the best time of my life. I hated my home university. I even have a good paying job now. Right out of college and everything. I worked fucking hard for it so it wasn’t just luck and it sure as all heck wasn’t due to any prestige of my school because my university is…. Nope. Like… 99% acceptance rate. 35% grad rate. People either drop out or transfer out. I fucking wish I transferred, but anxiety! People pleasing!!! Ive been crying myself to sleep every night over this pain and depression of this cruel thing called life!! Sometimes I wish my birth parents left me to die instead of leaving me for an orphanage!…. Anyways..I wonder how many times I can repeat over and over just how much I hated my university? I went because it was affordable and I wouldn’t end up in debt. I’m happy not to be in debt, sure. But my life? I’m not happy with. And just because I got a good job I should be thankful to my university huh? No, not anymore, I’m not going to keep being that way and letting people tell me how I should feel. I hate where I am and I have no joy anymore. I hate full time work but hey, that’s being an adult right? Well I hate it. Boo hoo. So sad. End me why don’t you, because nothing is ever going to change. I’m not excited to move anywhere because it isn’t where I want to be. But I have to move out eventually. Life doesn’t excite me and it really hasn’t ever. I feel like getting rid of all my stuff and I’m not really sure why. Nowhere feels like home. Nowhere is comfortable. I feel like I’ll always be in flight or fight mode and ready to go. It hurts. I don’t know how to make those dreams of working/living abroad become real. I’m too anxious over losing my financial and job stability. I’m so grateful for that part. It feels like it’s over and I should just give up on my dreams. I don’t know what goals or such that I have to live for anymore. I really feel like my heart is being tossed and torn. I don’t think I can handle being a teacher but that is the easiest way to go work and live elsewhere. I want to go to SK, but hey guess what there’s been so many stories of Asian English teachers being treated badly because they don’t look “foreign” enough. Sure I don’t look Korean, but heck I’m still Chinese and I did know another Chinese girl who taught English in SK and was heavily discriminated against because of this. Now I’ve talked about wanting to live abroad too much my parents are getting fed up and saying I don’t appreciate anything anymore and I should be more grateful and enjoy life as it is because they had it so much worse when they were younger. Why should I care anymore? No one cares about my feelings about this and it’s ripping me apart. So now I’m just crying every night for hours because of this deep rooted pain. It sounds privileged as all heck and I’m so sorry. But I just, atp would rather not exist than be stuck in the same spot the rest of my life. I’m so done and I’m only 22.

[spiralemoji]

You don’t realize how much of a workaholic you are and how difficult of a time you have relaxing until you go on vacation

Like goddamn, i have mental issues

I can’t just sleep in like a normal person, there is literally 3 people awake on this island right now and two of them are people who are having to set up shop and work- and the other is an old guy taking a brisk walk on the beach.

But yeah, i wake up at 5am and shoot of bed, walk around the island with nothing to do, and there is literally no one awake. It felt good for 15 minutes but then i lost interest, mainly due to loneliness? And so i just started hanging up my clothes and trying not to have circular thoughts that will make me worse (as if i have any control at this point)

Ruminating about the future, ruminating about my own happiness, ruminating about things i don’t like about myself and my uncertainties and insecurities

You’d think goddamn just take a Xanax or Ativan or whatever the fuck and chill out and shut up right but nothing makes my head truly go silent

I wanted to say good bye to my obsessions but i said good bye to my obsessions 80 times in my head, 180 times maybe, maybe 900 times, i couldn’t stop saying it to myself because i want to say good bye to my obsessions

But i can’t stop, as it feels intangible out of reach something to do just for the sake of doing it, I’m always seeking, despite trying my best to fill myself up with gratitude and contentment and blah blah blah

It just never ceases, hypo manic energy almost overtakes me, and no one else seems to understand why i seem so un calm

I can’t stop, so i do things that no one else does. And pride myself on, the external validation of my own perfectionism and productivity like it’s a drug i get high off of or need to survive

Meanwhile in the background there is this burning self hatred and pointlessness, and feelings of isolation, and being trapped

Like a wounded child, and a wild animal in a cage biting to get out and scream, and tear into the flesh of those who deserve to be torn apart

Simply because i felt like it, and want to destroy and control whats inside of me but i can’t, so i lose myself to these waves of mentally ill thoughts and manic rage lashing out at everyone

While i psychotically hang my clothes perfectly in a row, everything is perfectly fine, all the time….

In my little world, all alone…. Nothing could cure this kind of emptiness and discontent

It’s the loudest when i go to places like this, because i really have no one and nothing else around to blame but myself, or the things greater than me which i don’t understand and could be figments of someone else’s imagination for all i know

What do i know, i know nothing, i rely on feeling and reaction, and trust none of it, as I flim and flam about no where to the next no where for no real reason

It all gets so boring sometimes, i can hardly come up with something i care to entertain, saving the world or watching it burn neither is satisfying,

I simply, don’t care, and i think oh, maybe if someone else cares maybe if someone else loves me maybe if i belong to something …. But i don’t connect. Despite claiming its all i want, i run from that the most of anything

I am tied up inside endless conundrums and unsolvable riddles that make no sense, lose ends that never meet, a maze you can never escape

The only hope I have is feeling of catharsis and relief, whether its from, losing consciousness, a shameful amount of sleep- drug induced, or overdosing

I had the best intentions but there is so much pain i carry around, and shame, and insecurity, its hard to let go of it all so easily…. And not care what other people think,

So i turn to poetry and music for release, and a few other things not as satisfying- my dopamine deprived brain, broken from the inside, i want a perfect body

They judge me, and say how could she be so selfish

I hate it too. I hate it too, but i can’t make it stop, i can’t fix myself, i need help.

Most people tell me to shut up and everything will be fine. It never really is though, i don’t know when it ever will be so i gave up waiting for the feeling and accepted the brutal fact of my experience here in life

Unfortunately isn’t the happiest experience, despite having everything you could of ever wanted.

And everybody hates me because I’m Gay. Narcissist…. Deluded, insane, psychotic, obsessive, neurotic,…. I have no character, no backbone, no work ethic, no cares. I am amoral, depraved, baseless, empty inside.

Drowning in a river of my very own device….. happiness is my own self destruction and demise

So at least it’s the path of least resistance, with least collateral damage, remove myself from the equation, quietly, slowly,

Floating down the river, giving up, suicide.

The only other choice i have is to hold onto hoping, despite all odds not being the best, bravely facing death, a martyr to what, my own ignorance

I can’t get past my own self, much less, ascend beyond that,

I wish i could, as if that would, fantastically heal the raw reality and aching wounds, festering with maggots that rot in my very core, my soul, and my most vulnerable, private places,

You, put them there, i blame you and take out fire on you with branded steel steering on your skin

Hating all men

I should know better than this, but its hard to pretend you can always control all your emotions

Wipe them out like they aren’t there, take a pill and pretend to be happy like everyone else, smile for the cameras

Don’t be such, a drag, get up and light someone else’s path, get off your knees

Feed the begging man, ask god for forgiveness as he strikes you down and plagues you, a leper with decaying skin, painful diseases, and sicknesses

Leaving you to rot like filth on the scum soaked sidewalks like the vermin you are

Worthless beguiled rotten …. You turned all of gods golden light inside your innocent baby body

And made a mockery of him. So he strikes me down, again, and again, and again. Flogging us senseless.

And i still hope for redemption. Purity, forgiveness. As if i can ever quit. My mind a dirty dumpster dive of imperfection and sin.

I’ll never be good enough for him……

[keefwho]

July 16 - 2023 Sunday

9:40 AM

I’m having the thought that today won’t be a good day. I have this thought every weekend but I accept it as truth. I forget that it’s an assumption of what today COULD be, not something that is bound to happen. I have lots of thoughts like that and I’m trying to make it a habit to put them into concise words and recognize them as only that. They may or may not be true so I shouldn’t assume they are. 

There are things I need to talk about but only when I know I’m evaluated myself better. It sucks because it’s always on my mind and I’m afraid of the answer. Im also afraid I’m not acting from a genuine place but thats why I want to give myself time. I know my heart will let me know what it needs, and that I’ll have to listen to it and accept it. 

12:04 PM

I have so much going on in my head and all I feel like I ever need to do it talk about it but it’s not a good thing to let anyone listen to ALL of it day by day. I do wish I had that person though, someone I could a lot of time with. I feel in my heart thats what I need. Of course I am aware of being too involved or dependent but all I want is more time to interact with and explore each other. I don’t want to think that’s too much to expect from someone because that is what I give. I am extremely devoted and I know it hurts me when I don’t get back what I put in. It shouldn’t but it down. I know this is something I have to figure out inside of myself. I have to balance knowing and working for what I need, and controlling myself when I’m going too far or putting myself in something harmful. 

2:12 PM

I’m losing focus, I can’t forget my main goal right now is just to get perspective on myself. Who am I, where have I been, what have I done, and so on. Im just trying to get a grip on who I am again. That should provide me with the direction I need to go forward. 

My biggest fear is not being able to relate or connect to people. I used to be able to I think, but as friend after friend exited my life, I felt a diminishing capacity to let people in. Even my closest friends I feel myself being shut off towards. I’m trying to cling onto it because I don’t want to shut everyone out. I don’t know whats causing me to keep getting worse. Maybe its been my inability to trust. Even when someone I love tells me they are there for me, as much as I want to believe it, sometimes I can’t. I have all the love I need if only I could accept it.

Watching the Amphibia finale taught me that I am deathly afraid of change and always have been. It makes sense. My family was torn apart at age 5. I went through things at that age that I don’t even remember. I moved house after house, left school after school and friend after friend. All I ever wanted was stability. Then when I got it I didn’t know what to do with it other than cling on. I never wanted anything to change. But they do and they have. I’ve been coping by doing the same thing I have been since high school. Staying on the computer, drawing, and trying to make friends online. Those were cozy times I never wanted to let go. I’ve been living only trying to cling on to what I had and in the process all I do is lose things because I haven’t been able to accept new things. I lack the ability to accept loss and adapt. I live in the past.  

I cry almost every day now. I feel like I’m going crazy.

I’m having the thought that nothing I do matters.

I’m having the thought that I am a lost cause. 

I’m having the thought that I will end up alone. 

I’m having the thought that I am not good enough to improve. 

2:39 PM

I’m REALLY trying to accept that I am not cared about like I want to be. It’s for a good reason, look at me. I get it. But it still hurts. It hurts so much. I’m trying to pry myself off. 

Im having the thought that I’m fucking stupid for thinking I could ever find what I’m looking for. I’m 27 and more alone than I’ve ever been. All because I completely lost who I am and have nothing to offer anyone. I’m a shell.

2:55 PM

I keep doing the same fucking thing over and over and over. I know I am. I know I am being harmful. Maybe the best action I can take is inaction, at least for awhile. I just want to stop messing everything up because of my feelings. 

Im having the thought that no one would miss me if I was the guy that was last online 7 years ago. 

Im having the thought that my whole life is meant to be a tragedy. 

5:55 PM

My self opinion is lower than ever. I’m having the thoughts that my life is falling apart and that I won’t be able to recover. Im afraid to lose Daisy. She’s become such a wonderful person in my life. I’m afraid that I won’t be able to rekindle old friendships. I’m afraid I won’t be able to make new ones. I feel like I’m near the end. I want to recover. 

6:14 PM

I don’t even know how to escape. I have nothing to distract me. Nothing that satisfies me.

7:28 PM

I was distressed enough to call a hotline. I didn’t expect too much but the lady really helped me out. I got a lot out about what’s been bothering me and leading up to this point. I got a little perspective on myself that I need. In general I got a clearer head and I very much appreciate her time. Helen I think her name was. Bless her. She also knew what VRchat was which was funny but no surprising. 

[worldofroma]

April 6 2023, Thursday - 9:02am

I think there may be someone living in my house without anyone knowing. Either that, or theres a ghost. Other people may assume that my latest encounter with this person was a dream, but I disagree. I was woken up in the middle of the night after hearing something in my room and glanced over to the door, watching someone leave my room. It was only a quick second as my door blocks the vision of the doorway from where my bed is, but I saw the back of someone, a man, as they left my room. On top of that, I’ve had many occurrences where I’ve heard someone walking around downstairs while I’m home alone or even heard russling of a plastic bag that immediately stopped when I approached the room I heard it coming from. Of course, I didn’t open the door. I was too afraid. The room it was is a storage room with the basement, the trapped door basement. It’s not even a real basement either, it’s all muddy and torn apart. It looks straight out of the house from the Blair Witch Project. I don’t know who they are, I don’t know why they’d want to be in my house, but I really don’t like it and every day I feel more afraid to be in my own house.

On a more common topic, I find now that I really only have one friend. Kaitlyn is really the only person I talk to outside of school, nobody else. I have the odd conversation with Hannah or Kyra sometimes, but not very often. And a lot of people may find that sad, but honestly, I love it. I can barely care for myself and pay attention to my needs, let alone 2 or 3 or 7 other peoples. When I was in the friend group of 4, it was so tiring. I always felt as if one of them was mad at me, one of them was judging me, and the other was leaving me out simply because the other two felt like it. It was exhausting and draining. Not only that, but it felt like the only way I could have a real conversation with them was when I was high. They’re all in a relationship with shitty people, or they’re the shitty one, and it seems to be the only thing they can talk about. I mean, I get it, he didn’t answer your phone call or he hot boxed a car with his friends without telling you, but at a point I really don’t give a fuck. Hannah has been in a relationship with her boyfriend for over a year now and they’re both so toxic to each other. Everytime I hung out with her while they were together (they still are, I just haven’t spent time with her in a long time), she was either on the phone arguing with him or complaining about an argument they had the night before. And every single time I heard about these arguments they started, they were so fucking stupid. Both of them are manipulative and problematic, constantly holding each other back, but honestly, they deserve each other. Kyra has been having a lot of issues with guys. Her first boyfriend, only a few months ago, slept with her and cheated on her with one of her friends from their new friend group of snobby horse girls. Yes, in my area, being a horse girl is popular. Someone save me. After that, Kyra went on to “hoe around” with a few guys, being called out of a slut from multiple people from our school, and is now dating some NPC guy from our school I had never even seen until they started dating. Odd. Kaily, well, I think Kaily is the least aggressive when it comes to talking about her boyfriend. I’ve met him, I had to at Christmas because of our family, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before but we’re technically step sisters in a confusing way. But he’s a nice guy, younger than her, but nice. I haven’t hung out with Kaily one on one in a really long time, so I haven’t experienced her rants on her boyfriend, but I can only imagine. One thing I do know though is that they spend almost every night together, even during the week. I can thank Mya for giving me almost all of this information. But a few weeks ago, it was Kaily’s birthday. She had a party at her house with a few girls including Hannah and Kyra, and she invited me. It seemed genuine, but I declined. I told her that I’d rather not attend a party with people I don’t get along with, knowing there was a possibility that I could cause something between them with how petty I can be, but after the party had already happened, I felt awful. I put the fact that I didn’t want to be around people I didn’t like above the feelings of someone I used to be close with. I should’ve went, it was her birthday, but I didn’t. Afterwards, Mya told me that Kyra got extremely drunk, went on a rant, and blacked out before 8 o’clock. I honestly feel bad for her. Kyra and I never talk anymore, but her and I used to be the closest in that friend group. Almost everyday for the past few months, she’s shown up to school high or smoked at breaks. But at the same time, I don’t feel bad for her.

Kyra is now friends with a girl we’ll call Izzy. Izzy used to be really close with Kaitlyn and her family until they got to high school. They were best friends, and Kyra and I were best friends, so after they came to high school (Izzy and Kyra are both one year younger than us) we brought us all together to become a friend group of 4. But Izzy is a shitty person. She’s a massive pick me, she’s annoying as fuck and constantly talks with a toddler accent, and she talks shit about everyone she knows. But for some reason, Kyra found her much more interesting than I. Izzy began asking to hang out with only Kyra instead of Kaitlyn and I joining, and instead of brushing it off, I took that to heart. That was the first time ever that Kyra had went along with someone else to ignore me. And after that, I became really depressed. I started to get high all the time, I became friends with two guys that most definitely just wanted in my pants, and I started going to parties that a rapist hosted all the time. I lost myself from that. I unfriended Kaitlyn with the argument that I felt as if I couldn’t help her through her issues and I didn’t want the responsibility for it. I couldn’t even take care of myself. I tried to become closer to Kyra, Hannah, and Kaily again, but it was only becoming more and more toxic after that. Everyone was constantly slipping little insults to each other within every sentence we spoke and it was draining to be around them. Kyra only ever wanted to hang out with me when we got high together and started ignoring me at school when she met up with her horse friends. I was at the lowest point in my life. Luckily, I had a class with Kaitlyn right near the end of that year, grade 10 year, and after at least 6 months of not talking, we became friends again. But only after that summer. Kyra and Izzy are now best friends, on and off from time to time, but it seems that they only have each other now.

I’m not sure if I mentioned this yet, but I’m fully convinced I wasted my year of being 16. During the entire thing was when this depressive state took place, I found myself doing nothing in my spare time but staring at my phone endlessly. For my 16th birthday, I knew that I had to plan something fun to do in order to keep up my “positive mind” appearance. So I planned a trip for Hannah, Kyra, Kaily, and I to go to Toronto, stay in a hotel, and go shopping. It was fun at first, but the tension only grew as time passed. Kaily’s mom and my mom came along which was great because they’re best friends too, but Kaily and her mom have serious beef. Her mom’s not abusive or anything, but they are always both in the wrong. Kaily’s anger issues don’t help. By the end of the first day of the trip, Kaily’s mom had stormed into our hotel room and screamed at Kaily for disrespecting her the entire day, Kaily had even gone as far as to kick her mom with a Dr Marten boot on. It left a pretty colourful bruise. The next day was extremely awkward. Kaily never said it straight up, but because her mom came with us, she helped pay for the hotel with her rich boyfriend and due to that, it was obvious that Kaily expected that trip to be partially hers too. And I could understand why she thought that because her birthday wasn’t too far from when we went on this trip, all of our birthdays were in January, February, and March, but it was my birthday. My birthday, and I felt like the entire time I was letting everyone else choose what we do. We went out for dinner the first day and got all dressed up for it. I was fully expecting to find a beautiful dress that compliments me great, but they made the choice for me that we all wear black dresses. Ugly black dresses, in my opinion. And if you’ve picked up anything from what I’ve wrote so far, I’m a huge people pleaser to a certain point. Including when it comes to what I wear, because I would rather match with others than stand out knowing they’re judging me for it. So, I went along with it. I haven’t seen that dress since and I hope I never have to see it again.

[louisloulouie]

Just getting stuff off my chest, don’t mind me ☠️

As someone who’s entire life has been family oriented, I feel like my family life is in shambles.

I used to go to my home country at least once a year to see all of my family. Ever since I was 9 years old, I would go for EVERY Christmas, and sometimes I’d go in the summer too. I’d see all my aunts and uncles and grandparents and my 50+ cousins.

Over the past few years, they’ve all left the country because it’s so dangerous, and now they’re spread over dozens of countries all over the world and we no longer celebrate holidays together. Everyone used to live in the same neighborhood, they were all literally a one minute walk away, and now they don’t even all live in the same hemisphere. Now it’s feuds upon feuds, and relationships torn to shreds, and drama surfacing, and betrayals, and arguments about property and inheritance in our home country.

After that, I would go just to visit my grandma because she was the only family I had left there. Stupid fucking covid made me not see her for Christmas 2020 or 2021. I went two years without seeing her for the first time in my life since I was a child. Last year she passed away and going to her funeral is probably the last time I will ever visit my home country again. After January 2020, the only time I saw her was on her death bed and she didn’t even know I was there. And all her death led to was more arguments and inheritance fights. A death has never affected me the way hers has, and I have thought about her every. Single. Day. I have never cried over someone’s death so much or for so many days, or have it still make me cry over a year later. And it’s so hard to think about never seeing her again.

My brother and his family moving in with me and my parents has been the MOST stressful part of my life, but now they’re planning to move across the country to the west coast and I feel like I’ll never see my little nieces again. Which I know is irrational, but I have seen these girls every single day of their lives since they were born, and thinking about spending months away from them is awful. I can’t bare the thought of missing them grow up, of missing milestones, of playing and reading with them. I dreamed about being the aunt that would drop them off and pick them up from school every day while their parents worked. Of taking them to movies and concerts and anything that their parents might not have time to do with them.

I just wanted them to move to a different house or another New England state, but now they’re going to the complete opposite coast and I’m going to have to take a plane and vacation time to see them, instead of just having them a car ride away.

My parents have been discussing retiring in two years and moving back to our home country. And despite my grandma’s death making me think I’d never visit the country again, sure I could do it now to visit my parents. But I’ve lived with them my whole life and unfortunately I’ve been incredibles babied by them. I spend more time with them than my friends. I plan AROUND the weekends for friends because that’s the time my dad and I can hang out. And the thought of living alone is so terrifying.

Anyways it doesn’t help that I just found out two weeks ago that the one brother who might stay in New England with me is actually my half brother. It doesn’t change anything and I don’t feel any different, but it’s still weird to think about. Just another thing to add to my family life.

Idk, it just feels like every single aspect of my family is falling apart when we all used to be so tight-knit.

[saulweissberg]

saul spent over twenty-five years in courtrooms and office meeting rooms, arguing his case and fighting for his client. it had been easier than breathing, and he could probably cross examine in his fucking sleep. so, typically when it came to his personal life, the wind was usually out of his sails. fighting outside of his career exhausted him, though he often got roped into them anyway due to whichever ex-wife had been pissed off at him, whether he disappointed micah somehow, or the general petty squabbling of white-collar new yorkers. the point being: in his personal life, he just wanted to relax and maybe have a little fun. case in point: the joint in his hand, slowly burning, the red end of it glittering in the night. deacon was the intruder here, ruining saul’s high before it even began.

again, he didn’t understand the need for such hostility. even fucking thalia had moved on with her florist shop and teaching yoga classes. deacon was holding onto a grudge that saul and thalia had dropped, coming to a tentative peace after a run-in at a local baseball game and then a charity gala in chicago last month. they weren’t exactly friends, but they weren’t enemies. deacon had every right to be protective of his younger sister, but thalia was a grown woman. she didn’t need protection to this degree. she didn’t need deacon to defend her honor and stare after her ex-husband like some broken heart’s vigilante.

“no.” he responded simply, but his thoughts elaborated: you don’t deserve my fucking lecture, you puritan. then a crack about his weight! saul fixed deacon with an indignant stare. “deacon, i am in no way out of shape and you know that.” he was too vain to let himself go, as deacon was implying. he preferred to use his peloton bike a few times a week, and play a few rounds of golf (somehow, he found it within himself to ignore how it was deacon’s chosen sport any time he played) or tennis a few times a month. beyond that, he admittedly didn’t do as much as he probably should’ve. he just had never been a gym hound, so he did what he could and didn’t worry about it often. the lines on his face and the gray in his hair was more worrying than his body, anyway.

he was inhaling another hit off of his joint when deacon informed him of his sobriety. damn, saul was just cracking a joke about how they both weren’t young anymore. their days of clubbing were far behind them, that’s all he had meant. he nodded, lips rolling together as smoke evaporated out of his nose. “oh. good for you, man.” because what else was he supposed to say? haha, you quitter, or, i wish i could get through the week without some sort of substance? there was no other response that wouldn’t give deacon leeway to paint him further as some sort of machiavellian villain. just like everyone else in his life, he always said the wrong thing. always misconstrued. sometimes, it was easier to play the villain when that was what everyone had expected out of him. this time, however, he was tired already and didn’t feel like having every word he said torn apart for some hidden, acrimonious meaning.

you just gonna stand there or what?

the fuck kind of question was that? his face screwed up, brows furrowing. “this isn’t west side story. i’m not going to challenge you to a rumble or some shit.” he took another hit off of the joint, just to occupy himself. “you’re welcome to keep moving on, deacon. despite what you may think, this town is big enough for the two of us.” the three, if thalia was to be counted.

All memories of his, as far as Saul Weissberg is concerned, is ancient history. Whatever nights they’ve shared in New York City—now, thankfully, none of the carnal kind for which Saul is notorious at least in-between marriages, just your standard cocaine-laden nights in dank bathrooms and bodegas variety—feels so displaced to unravel here in Blue Harbor. It doesn’t make sense for him to be here, especially after the divorce. It doesn’t make sense that he ought to be in the running for Mr. Blue Harbor when he’s got no real ties to speak of, save for a boutique firm he claims to have established from the ground-up but in truth just feels like another extension of the Weissbergs’ many legal careers, and, well, his broken marriage. 

Part of Deacon, of course, can’t help that the rift in their marriage is partly his own undoing. He hasn’t exactly made it easy, over the years, for Thalia to say no to him and to their shared family as a consequence. After all, it had been at his behest that Thalia should move back to Blue Harbor, all those years ago, when he’d been fresh off another attempt at sobriety and their mother had begun bearing the worst of her illness. What happened thereafter, however, was entirely Saul’s—and, sure, partly, slightly, teensy, Thalia’s—undoing. And as juvenile as it sounds to take sides in the termination of a relationship, both parties of which he holds close to his chest, ultimately the defense had been stronger for Thalia. That is his sister, after all. They may not be bound in blood, but they are bound by commitment, and that is precisely what makes all the difference. . 

“You gonna lecture me on vanity now or somethin’, Saul?” Deacon says, rolling back the sleeves of his jacket and crossing his arms. Part of him thinks that they should just jostle in the middle of the street to reconcile the assortment of their differences, petty slights that have managed to accumulate over the years, but it wouldn’t be a fair fight. Saul may cut an imposing figure in the legal offices or in the courthouse or in any other establishment in New York City, but here, smack-dab in the middle of his hometown, he’s 6’0 and nothing. Even Micah, his ex-step-nephew, cuts a better silhouette, what with his youth and reckless confidence though he wonders if either one would appreciate the comparison. “Nothing wrong with wanting to be in top physical condition. You can do with a little exercise yourself.” Frankly, it takes a lot of fun out of the fight and—well—the murder scenario from five minutes ago. In all fairness, why should he desecrate his sacred weapon—his beautiful golf clubs—when he could very well just snap Saul Weissberg like the overgrown twig he is? 

Anyway, he’s forgetting himself. Being in the proximity of The Labyrinth is unnerving to him, and he walks a little further down the street, wondering whether Saul might follow. “Druggie days are over?” The chuckle that escapes his lips is grating against the air. A bit like disbelief, a bit like mirth, even a bit like regret. Yet another reason why he can’t deal with Saul’s presence in town. “Yeah, dude. I’m sober now and everything,” Deacon replies, echoing his former in-law’s own gesture and lifting his shoulders, attempting to derail the weight of the confession with a half-shrug. It still feels intimate to disclose, and admittedly, he doesn’t really know what he expects as Saul’s response. Doesn’t really know whether there’s a right one that he’d feel unconcerned with coming out of Saul’s mouth. Notwithstanding Deacon’s own strange hangup: that pride in his sobriety feels like the worst part.

 “You just gonna stand there or what?” And, he supposes, therein lay Deacon’s own hypocrisy. However hard he tries to convince himself that Saul is a horrible, horrible person, he might also be one of the few people that he knows longest, a strange revelation in and of itself.